Congress Passes FOIA Reform
On Tuesday, the House approved an overhaul to the Freedom of Information Act, joining the Senate in passing legislation that would encourage faster compliance with FOIA requests, publicly track how long it takes the government to respond to requests, and require additional information to be made public, the Washington Post reported.
Although the White House has objected to some provisions, proponents of the measure expect the White House will not prevent the measure from becoming law.
By law, agencies must respond within 20 days, but in practice the process can take months or years. Delays lengthened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as agencies began to favor nondisclosure in the name of national security.
Under the measure, requests would be assigned public tracking numbers. Agencies that exceed the 20-day deadline for responses would be denied the right to charge requesters for research or copying costs.
The bill would strengthen the ability of people who sue over their FOIA requests to collect attorneys' fees and would establish an office at the National Archives to accept citizen complaints about unfulfilled FOIA requests, issue opinions and foster best practices.
Written By:George On December 23, 2007 6:18 PM
This is great news for America and will end government agencies ability to hide from the public. At the Thomas Jackson Centers we have our fingers crossed that the President will sign this bill into law under his own signature. His name on the law would be an open endorsement that Open Government is good government. Without his name, the bill will ride out the congressional recess and become law absent the Presidents signature. The new law will also go a long way in answering the question “Are bloggers journalist?” Good question and here is my answer. I am one of three bloggers (correspondents, writers, etc.) on the three blogs of the Thomas Jackson Center. If you visit our site, you’ll see that ClustrMaps has tracked visitors from all over the world who read our blogs. The government may not like to call us journalist even though bloggers have broken some of the biggest stories in recent history. But and the Big But is - that blogs often have more readers than small town newspapers.