Last week our mediation team facilitator, Christa Lemelin, gave a five minute lightning talk at the Department of Commerce Sunshine Week celebration about common mistakes agencies make that could increase the likelihood of a FOIA requester filing a lawsuit against the agency. Here is a brief summary of the three mistakes she shared with the … Continue reading Tips for Avoiding FOIA Lawsuits
OGIS and the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the Department of Justice are happy to announce that the next meeting of the Chief FOIA Officers Council will be held on Thursday, July 27th from 10 am to noon. You can register to join the audience in the William G. McGowan Theater beginning on July … Continue reading Chief FOIA Officers Council Meeting Scheduled for July 27
We are happy to announce that registration is now open for the October 18 session of our popular Dispute Resolution Skills for FOIA Professionals training. The free day-long session will be at the National Archives in downtown Washington, DC, location. During our training sessions, we help FOIA professionals develop a working knowledge of Alternative Dispute … Continue reading Reserve a Seat for Dispute Resolutions Skills Training Session
Do you find yourself locked in disputes with FOIA requesters (or agency colleagues)? Would you like to learn constructive ways to resolve or avoid disputes in the future? OGIS will present a training session designed to help FOIA professionals develop dispute resolution skills on Wednesday, April 13, 2016, at the Archives building on Constitution Ave … Continue reading Dispute Resolution Skills for FOIA Professionals Training Session: April 13, 2016
How about we start off by asking you to tell us a little about yourself? Most importantly, I’m a family man. I have three kids and a wonderful wife. I’m originally from California and lived a number of places during my thirteen years as a part of the Air Force, including Florida, England, the Azores … Continue reading Meet OGIS’s New Director, James Holzer
Just days after FOIA celebrated its 49th birthday on July 4, the Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy (OIP) announced a pilot project aimed at improving government transparency by making almost all records released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) available to anyone online. FOIA offices in seven agencies, including the Office of General … Continue reading FOIA Gets an Online Makeover for its 49th Birthday!
Here at OGIS, we love good record keeping practices. Not only are we housed within the National Records and Archives Administration (NARA), which has responsibility for setting the federal government’s record keeping policies, we also know that strong agency record keeping is the backbone of a good Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office. If an … Continue reading Record Keeping for FOIA Requesters 101
Our last post offers some practical tips for FOIA professionals wishing to incorporate alternative dispute resolution into the FOIA process. We picked up more good ideas later in the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) 7th Annual National Training Conference during a session titled “Customer Service—It’s the Law!” The session, which included FOIA professionals Jay … Continue reading Customer Service: it’s a Smart Practice—and it’s the Law!
This week’s guest blogger is Gery Huelseman, Principal Technical Advisor to the Air Force’s Knowledge Ops Branch, National Air & Space Intelligence Center and key member of the OGIS-facilitated FOIA Information Technology Working Group. IT Working Group members will occasionally use the FOIA Ombudsman to share their thoughts on technology solutions. Do you need to … Continue reading OGIS Information Technology Solutions: Technology can make a difference
FOIA’s Exemption 4 protects from disclosure commercial and financial information provided to the government by individuals and a wide range of entities – from corporations and banks to Native American tribes. The idea is to safeguard certain private business records in government files. About two dozen representatives of the agency and requester communities participated in … Continue reading Tips on Getting Down to Business
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