Getting to Know the FOIA Advisory Committee: Scott Hodes
Today we present an interview with Scott Hodes, Associate Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and a member of the 2024-2026 FOIA Advisory Committee. This is part of a series of posts on the Committee, whose members are FOIA experts from inside and outside of government and who are appointed by the Archivist of the United States.
Why did you wish to serve on the FOIA Advisory Committee?
I believe my three decades of FOIA experience can assist the Committee in making recommendations that help all (requesters and government) working in the FOIA community to make the act more effective.
How do you think this experience will help you in your work?
Hearing about other’s experiences with FOIA helps me in my day-to-day FOIA activities as I learn about solutions to problems we may be having at my agency and/or ways to work constructively with requesters.
What is FOIA’s biggest challenge?
Technology. That won’t be a popular answer but with improvements in technology come issues that no one is prepared to deal with. For instance, the changeover to electronic records and the way they can be easily searched for has increased the volume of records found and responsive to FOIA requests. Upgrades in technology that can help process FOIA requests increase costs for agencies—costs that need to be funded to keep up with the rising amount of documents and requests that need to be processed. Technology that makes it easier to make a request also increases the number of requests that need to be processed. Technology, while great at times, is also FOIA’s biggest challenge.
Tell us about your favorite FOIA moment.
I’ve had so many it is hard to pick just one. One that does stick out was my assisting author Steve Gillon on his book, America’s Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. Mr. Gillon was having a tough time getting Secret Service records on the subject of his book because the agency thought the records would all be covered by the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act; however, these records had nothing to do with the assassination and were not already publicly available. Through my actions, thousands of pages were released which were helpful to the book and I’m happy to be acknowledged in print—that doesn’t often happen in the FOIA world.
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