It turns out that you can find something other than great cat videos on YouTube: videos of all of the past meetings of the FOIA Advisory Committee! You can find all of the videos, including footage of the latest meeting on October 25, on a playlist on the National Archives’ YouTube account. Check out Part … Continue reading Check out the FOIA Advisory Committee’s Meetings on YouTube
OGIS’s Compliance Team follows up with FOIA programs we assess 120 days after we publish our report to learn what improvements, if any, have been made to the program. Once this process is complete, we contact the agency to let them know that we have evaluated their responses and “closed” recommendations that have been addressed. … Continue reading Updates to Agency Compliance Report Pages
Archivist of the United States Davis S. Ferriero has announced the appointment of Alina M. Semo as Director of the Office of Government Information Services. Ms. Semo joins OGIS from the National Archives’ Office of General Counsel, where she has served as Director of Litigation in the Office of General Counsel since March, 2014. In … Continue reading OGIS Welcomes a New Director
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been working to strengthen its FOIA program and improve the agency’s compliance with the law (Read the response here: fema-ogis-response-11-16-web. FEMA recently contacted OGIS in response to the recommendations in our compliance assessment of the FEMA FOIA program. According to FEMA, agency leadership is focusing on staffing, training … Continue reading FEMA Improves FOIA Compliance
The FOIA process can be confusing for requesters, especially those who are filing their first FOIA requests or who do not know much about how a particular agency functions. Unfortunately, figuring out who you should contact within an agency to clear up that confusion and assist with a request can be equally baffling. FOIA Requester … Continue reading Who Ya Gonna Call?
Earlier this year, the National Archives committed in both the Third U.S. Open Government National Action Plan and its Fourth Agency Open Government Plan to develop tools to help teach the next generation about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The tools will draw upon real-world examples that foster democracy and explain how the public … Continue reading Teaching the Next Generation about the Power of FOIA
At its October 25, 2016 meeting, the FOIA Advisory Committee made some important decisions—identifying the issues its members will address during its two-year term. By the end of the meeting, the Committee formed three subcommittees: Search; Efficiencies and Resources; and Proactive Disclosure and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. OGIS Acting Director Nikki Gramian kicked … Continue reading FOIA Advisory Committee Sets 2016-2018 Agenda
Today we are publishing our FOIA compliance assessment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The report shows how ICE’s investments in its FOIA program enabled the agency to virtually eliminate its FOIA backlog in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. In FY 2012, ICE’s backlog spiked to 2,443 … Continue reading OGIS Releases Immigration and Customs Enforcement FOIA Compliance Assessment
In March, we released our assessment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program at Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Our report explained how support from CBP’s leadership and the effort of the FOIA staff improved the agency’s FOIA performance. As our report documents, CBP’s decisions to put in place management controls, to invest in … Continue reading CBP Takes Additional Steps to Improve its FOIA Program
Registration is now open for the October 25, 2016, meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee! The meeting will be from 10 am to 1 pm at the National Archives in Washington, DC. During this meeting, the Committee members will form subcommittees and determine the FOIA issues they want to tackle over the next two years. … Continue reading Reserve Your Seat for the October 25 FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting
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