The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee will meet on Tuesday, October 21, 2014. The meeting, which is open to the public, will discuss the FOIA issues on which the Committee has agreed to focus: FOIA oversight and accountability, proactive disclosures, and FOIA fees. Speakers will include David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Miriam Nisbet, FOIA Advisory Committee Chair and Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) Director; and FOIA Advisory Committee Members.
Doors open at 9:30 a.m. for the meeting, which runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 105 (the Archivist’s Reception Room) of the National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C.
Although this meeting is open to the public, space limitations and access procedures require that individuals planning to attend register for the event via Eventbrite. Eventbrite registration for this event will go live on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 10 a.m.
The committee—comprised of 10 government members and 10 non-governmental members with considerable FOIA expertise—is mandated in the second Open Government National Action Plan (NAP) with studying FOIA across the government and advising on ways to improve it.
For questions about accessibility or to request accommodations, please contact Christa Lemelin at 202-741-5773 or foia-advisory-committee@nara.gov.
Learn more about the Committee at https://ogis.archives.gov/foia-advisory-committee.htm. Learn more about submitting questions and comments to the Committee at: https://ogis.archives.gov/foia-advisory-committee/contact-us-submit-comments.htm
Gee, I wouldn’t want a government for a free people to be excessively efficient, but I do get some sense (accurate?) that a big part of FOIA problems is that Information within organizations like the massive DoJ gets dis-located and about as fragmented and isolated as the price objects of a children’s Easter Egg hunt??? I’m puzzled that so much FOIA centralization seems to be imposed upon the FBI field offices and resident offices. I get the sense the field offices could handle FOIA Requests better if they were given more latitude??
I’m not sure how relevant it be to note that
on our campuses, professors at the graduate level make scant mention, if any at all, of the FOIA as a practical means of getting information. (An exception reportedly exists in the journalism program, but elsewhere FOIA is not formally presented at any point in most graduate training. ???