As we head into the July 4th weekend, it is a great time to think about the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. But July 4 th is more than a day that we celebrate our country’s birth – this year, it is also FOIA’s 45th birthday! On July 4, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson … Continue reading Happy Birthday, FOIA!
On Tuesday June 21, OGIS presented another round of dispute resolution skills training to FOIA professionals and requesters, this time at the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) Training Series conference. While no two training sessions are exactly alike, Tuesday’s session was particularly notable for the interesting discussion about what FOIA professionals actually do. The … Continue reading FOIA Public Liaisons: Managing the Process
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!”
As regular readers of this blog already know, OGIS was created when the 2007 OPEN Government Act amended the FOIA. However, the Act didn’t stop there -- it also formalized the role of the FOIA Public Liaison (FPL). Specifically it says: FOIA Public Liaisons shall report to the agency Chief FOIA Officer and shall serve … Continue reading What’s a FOIA Public Liaison?
News that the Faster FOIA Act passed the Senate last week has all of us at OGIS thinking about changes we’d like to see made to make FOIA work better. Though the future of Faster FOIA is uncertain -- it is headed to the House for consideration -- it has contributed to the already considerable … Continue reading Thinking about the future of FOIA: Proactive Disclosure
Though an ombudsman has many roles, one of the most important is to serve as a listening ear for a larger organization. As the FOIA ombuds office, OGIS listens to complaints regarding the federal FOIA process; however, as a new entity, we are still figuring out how to best gather feedback from the requester community … Continue reading Talking Back to FOIA
Of the many issues that confuse FOIA requesters and agency staff, we have observed that fees may be the most confusing. Determining what fees a requester must pay requires a high level of disclosure from the requester (who are you and what do you plan to do with these records?) and a judgment call from … Continue reading Shedding Light on a Tricky Issue: FOIA Fees and Waivers
Among OGIS’s recent cases are several from customers advised that their FOIA requests have been referred to other agencies for processing. In accordance with agency FOIA regulations, that’s usually no problem. But in the OGIS cases, the agencies making the referrals did not identify the name of the agencies to which they referred the requests, … Continue reading OGIStance: What’s up with referrals these days?
As difficult as it sometimes can be to navigate our Freedom of Information Act in the U.S., the Act contributes to press freedom– a freedom that only one in six of the world’s inhabitants has, according to statistics released this week during World Press Freedom Day. Free expression advocates from around the world gathered in … Continue reading Freedom of Information Contributes to a Free Press
On April 26, the OGIS staff (along with our friend Jean Whyte from NARA’s Alternative Dispute Resolution program) presented a daylong training session entitled “Dispute Resolution Skills Training for FOIA Professionals” to representatives from agencies across the Government. As with previous offerings of this training over the past year, the Justice Department’s Office of Information … Continue reading Introducing: The FOIA Dispute Resolution Process
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