OGIS will celebrate Sunshine Week along with the National Archives, our parent agency, with two back-to-back events at the National Archives on Monday, March 11, 2013: A display of the original FOIA with remarks by Archivist of the United States David Ferriero and OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet A demonstration of FOIAonline, the multi-agency FOIA portal … Continue reading Mark Your Calendar for Sunshine Week!
It’s common wisdom in the library and information science community that if you have something and you can’t find it, you don’t have it. This principle is as true for agencies’ records as it is in university libraries, and it directly affects the efficiency and effectiveness of agency FOIA programs. We’ve written before about President … Continue reading Records Management Directive Shifts Into Gear
Note: This year’s International Right to Know Day is September 28, 2012. OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet marks the day with the following post about a recent meeting with right-to-know advocates from around the globe. Last month, I had the opportunity to participate in several events Down Under, where the talk was all about access to … Continue reading Talking FOIA in a Land Down Under
By the end of the decade, Federal agencies must digitize management of electronic records—including the millions of emails sent and received each year—according to a new records directive introduced last week. With a focus on a digital transition, the Managing Government Records Directive issued jointly by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the … Continue reading Government-wide Records Directive Addresses Electronic Records
Documents declassified by the government’s highest classification authority will soon be posted online in a new government declassification portal, a Federal declassification expert said at a July 25, 2012 FOIA Requester Roundtable. William C. Carpenter of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) at the National Archives provided tips on a variety of declassification issues and … Continue reading More on Declassification
For the past two years, the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA’s) Open Government Plan has provided our parent agency with a roadmap to increased transparency, participation and collaboration. Since that time, NARA’s leadership and staff have completed almost 70 tasks spelled out in that document. Never an agency to rest on its laurels, NARA … Continue reading Archives Releases Updated Open Gov Plan
Consider this: a multi-agency FOIA portal that automates FOIA processing and reporting, stores FOIA requests and responses in a repository and keeps records electronically. Not to mention allows requesters to submit requests to fewer government websites, track the status of requests and find, view and download FOIA requests and agency responses, all in a secure … Continue reading FOIA Portal Moving from Idea to Reality
Since OGIS opened in 2009, we’ve noticed that some FOIA Public Liaisons (FPLs) are not entirely clear about their role. The job title, created by Executive Order 13392 in December 2005, was codified in the OPEN Government Act of 2007, (5 U.S.C. § 552 (a)(6)(B)(ii) and (l)). One provision says that FPL’s are responsible for … Continue reading That’s Not My Job… or Is It?
Government-speak -- with its acronyms, abbreviations and general jargon -- can make anyone’s head spin. Can the DoD IDA get trained on FOIA with CBT? Will the EPA FPL share an MOU with OGIS? OMG, it’s ridiculous enough to make you LOL (or SMH)! Some of us in the Federal world get a little entrenched … Continue reading Hold the alphabet soup, please.
How often have you heard that statement? When you heard it, did you believe it? In the OPEN Government Act of 2007 Congress baked customer service into FOIA by creating OGIS to help the FOIA community resolve disputes and to recommend improvements to the administration of FOIA. Congress also codified the role of FOIA Public … Continue reading OGIStance: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help!”
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