This week OGIS recognizes the 30th anniversary of e-FOIA. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966, most government records were generated via paper and ink. Requesting records meant handwriting or typing a FOIA request, mailing it to an agency, waiting for a reply, and receiving by mail a response letter and possibly a stack of records.
By the mid-1990s, federal agencies had incorporated desktop computers into daily work and agencies were struggling to keep up with the statute’s original 10-working-day response time. The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 (e-FOIA) brought FOIA into the digital age.
As agencies increasingly created and maintained records electronically, questions arose about how FOIA’s requirements applied to electronic information—including searching electronic systems, producing records in requested formats, and determining when manipulating data would amount to creating a new record. Congress responded by expressly confirming that FOIA applies to agency records regardless of format and by establishing requirements tailored to electronic records.
Throughout the early 1990s, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and a broad coalition of journalists, open-government advocates, and librarians, pushed to modernize FOIA for an increasingly electronic information environment, improve public access and address agency backlogs. On October 2, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 (P.L. 104-231) into law.
The 1996 amendments introduced several core requirements:
1. Clarifying electronic records: e-FOIA expressly confirmed that government records maintained in any format, including electronic formats such as computer tapes, digital databases, and other electronic files, are subject to FOIA.
2. Expanding electronic access and reading room requirements: e-FOIA expanded public access to reading room records in electronic form and added a new category covering records that an agency determines to have become, or are likely to become, the subject of subsequent requests. Reading room records include final administrative opinions and policy statements, and agency manuals and staff instructions.
3. Giving requesters formatting choice: e-FOIA gave requesters the right to specify the format in which they want to receive records (e.g., as a digital spreadsheet rather than a printed stack of paper), provided the record is readily reproducible by the agency in that form or format.
4. Adjusting response time: e-FOIA extended the statutory response time for agencies from 10 working days to 20 working days, while also expressly authorizing agencies to use multi-track processing queues for simple vs. complex requests.
5. Addressing electronic searches: e-FOIA required agencies to make reasonable efforts to search for records in electronic form or format, except when doing so would significantly interfere with the operation of an agency’s automated information system.
6. Providing for expedited processing: e-FOIA also established statutory standards for expedited processing of requests in cases involving a compelling need and in other circumstances established by agency regulation.
The 1996 e-FOIA amendments marked an important step in modernizing FOIA. Although agency backlogs remain a challenge, the e-FOIA amendments helped carry the fundamental principle of public access from the era of paper filing cabinets into the digital age.
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