As part of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) agency assessment program, we reach out to requesters to ask them to let us know about their FOIA experiences with the agency. As you might remember, earlier this year we asked you all to share your experiences with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). We are happy to announce that we are putting the finishing touches on our CFPB assessment and are now turning our attention to the FOIA program at the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Like the other agencies that have participated in our agency assessment program, USPS volunteered to go through the process as part of their ongoing efforts to strengthen their FOIA program.
As you might be aware, OGIS agency assessments are a critical component of effort to review and make recommendations to improve agency compliance with FOIA. As part of an agency assessment, our Compliance Team analyzes several sources of information about the FOIA program, including any agency FOIA policies or Standard Operating Procedures, interviews with agency FOIA professionals, several years worth of annual FOIA reports to the Attorney General, FOIA litigation against the agency, and our mediation cases involving the agency to get a thorough understanding of the FOIA programs operations. Our Compliance Team then uses our knowledge of best practices and exposure to a wide range of agency practices to highlight any practices that are working well for the FOIA program and suggest how the FOIA program might address particular compliance challenges.
We hope you can help us improve our understanding of the USPS FOIA program by sharing your experiences. As the Federal FOIA Ombudsman, we have always believed good customer service is a critical component of a successful FOIA program, and there is no better way to understand the kind of customer service a FOIA program provides than hearing from the agency’s customers. Please send us your comments to ogis@nara.gov.
I would live to be involved in assisting agency assessment. I’m currently seeking mediation services via OGIS against the NSA and believe I could be of great help. The matter at hand involves sensitive material and be a great insight for the Compliance Team to report procedures taken involving mediation cases.
Fnd me on Facebook and “friend” me at Facebook.com/jovan0990. My name is Jonathan Garza and love communicating through Messenger and open to video calls daily.
Hope to hear from you.
Best,
Jonathan Garza