Category Archives: About FOIA

FOIA Improvement: Updating FOIA Regulations

Posted on September 14, 2016 by

Note: This entry is another in our series of occasional blog posts updating our efforts to implement new provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) signed into law by President Obama on June 30, 2016. The FOIA Improvement Act … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, About OGIS, Regulations | Leave a comment

Introducing FOIA to a New Generation of Requesters

Posted on July 20, 2016 by

In October 2015, the White House released the Third U.S. Government National Action Plan. While NAP 3.0 includes a number of useful commitments from the National Archives, we are particularly excited about OGIS’s commitment to develop curriculum tools to introduce … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, Open Government | 2 Comments

FOIA Improvement: Making It Easier to Help FOIA Requesters

Posted on July 13, 2016 by

Note: This entry is another in our series of occasional blog posts providing updates on our efforts to implement new provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) signed into law by President Obama on June 30, 2016. As we … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, About OGIS, Best practices | Leave a comment

FOIA Improvement: Informing Requesters of OGIS Services

Posted on July 6, 2016 by

Note: Last week President Obama signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, locking many of the Administration’s openness policies and initiatives into the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), including advancing open government and highlighting the importance of OGIS … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, About OGIS, Alternative dispute resolution, Best practices | 1 Comment

More Chances to Wish FOIA A Happy Birthday!

Posted on June 8, 2016 by

If you missed seeing the original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) signed by President Lyndon Johnson that was on display during our Sunshine Week Event, the National Archives is giving you another opportunity to wish the law a happy 50th … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA | Leave a comment

Game of Thrones FOIA Requesters Face “Stark” Reality

Posted on April 20, 2016 by

It looks like FOIA requesters won’t be able to use their favorite access law to find out what really happened to Jon Snow. Last week the #FOIA Twittersphere was buzzing with news that an enterprising reporter had filed an unexpected … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, FOIA in the news | Leave a comment

New Year’s Message from the FOIA Ombudsman

Posted on January 6, 2016 by

“Change” was 2015’s word of the year for the FOIA Ombudsman. In a year of great change for OGIS, I may have been the most obvious one: I took over as the office’s second Director in August 2015. When I … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, About OGIS, Message from the Director, Ombudsman | Leave a comment

The Appeal of the Appeal Letter

Posted on December 18, 2015 by

While the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires agencies to notify requesters of the legal reasoning for upholding either all or part of an initial denial, the statute gives agencies very little—well, actually, no—additional guidance about what should be in … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, Best practices, Customer service | Leave a comment

Smart Solutions to FOIA Problems

Posted on December 4, 2015 by

We have learned through both our mediation services and agency assessment programs that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to administering a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program. Agencies process different kinds of requests for vastly different records, and each agency … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, Best practices, Customer service, National Archives and Records Administration, Review | 1 Comment

Compliance Review of Coast Guard FOIA Program Now Available

Posted on September 25, 2015 by

Our assessment of the FOIA program at the United States Coast Guard is now available. The Coast Guard’s FOIA process is decentralized, meaning that requests received in the nine districts and more than 1,200 units are processed by those districts … Continue reading →

Posted in About FOIA, Best practices, Review | 1 Comment