Interested in an assessment of your agency’s FOIA program conducted by a team of FOIA subject-matter experts? Wonder how your agency can be added to the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) assessment calendar? Let us help with some sample language for the Agency officials or Chief FOIA Officer at your agency to use in … Continue reading Let Us Help You: Seeking an OGIS Assessment
In advance of next week’s Sunshine Week celebration, we are pleased to announce the release of our assessment of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compliance at Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As our report shows, CBP made a number of changes to its FOIA program during the last three years that have improved the agency’s … Continue reading Celebrate Sunshine Week Early with OGIS Assessment of CBP and Our Annual Report
Thank you to FOIA professionals who have already participated in our recently launched Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compliance self-assessment pilot program. Employees of more than half of the 61 agencies we contacted to announce the program have already taken the self-assessment survey. The survey closes on March 11, 2016, meaning agencies still have a … Continue reading Agencies Participating in New FOIA Compliance Self-Assessment Pilot Program
In September 2015, OGIS issued a compliance assessment of the United States Coast Guard’s FOIA program. As part of our assessment, we recommended several improvements to the program’s management, use of technology and communications with its requesters. One hundred and twenty days after we issue an assessment report, we follow up with the agency to … Continue reading Improvements to Coast Guard’s FOIA Program
Is your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program in need of a check-up? Starting January 27, Federal agencies can participate in OGIS’s new FOIA self-assessment program. OGIS is required to review agency compliance with FOIA under the statute. To help meet that mandate, we developed a robust agency assessment program in which our Compliance Team … Continue reading OGIS Releases FOIA Compliance Self-Assessment Program
We are pleased to announce the release of our compliance assessment of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program. TSA is one of the six components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that OGIS is reviewing. Similar to our assessments of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United States Coast … Continue reading OGIS Releases Compliance Review of TSA FOIA Program
A few months ago, we announced that the OGIS Compliance Team is reviewing agencies’ use of “still interested” letters to manage—and sometimes administratively close—backlogged Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. While our work on this topic is not yet complete, we remain very “interested” in this topic. A coalition of open government groups first raised the … Continue reading An Update: Our Work on the Use of “Still Interested” Letters
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 faces its own challenges. For this reason, a practice that works for a small independent … Continue reading Smart Solutions to FOIA Problems
Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 has been an exciting one for OGIS! We launched our agency compliance program, hosted four meetings of the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee, and welcomed Dr. James Holzer as our Director, not to mention assisted agencies and FOIA requesters in resolving disputes in more than 1,200 instances. As … Continue reading OGIS Release New Year’s Calendar
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 and units, generally as a collateral duty. Final memorandums on maritime disasters and records pertaining … Continue reading Compliance Review of Coast Guard FOIA Program Now Available
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