Future of FOIA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we now advocating for a secret government with no citizen oversight or general accountability?

The new Just Trust Me government!

Yay for the JTM party

It's a slippery slope. Many FOIA requests are too broad. For example, the EPA may get a request for all emails related to "climate change." Ok, so then the FOIA office at the EPA needs to review all documents and emails with that phrase. It needs to redact any confidentialncy /national security information not for the public, personal information, and non-related subject matters. It's a massive expansion of government and requires armies of lawyers, paralegals, and assistants to review the documentation. It requires a ton of $$$ to fulfill the requests.

Many times, the FOIA requests are fishing expeditions.

Congress has the powers to subpoena any and all emails and documents, if they want to investigate an issue. That's where requests should come from. Likewise, the Office of Inspector General of each agency has the authority to investigate, if they suspect law breaking or abuse of agency resources.

Fox watching the hen house. Fox has sharp teeth. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

OMB also oversees agencies.

The other fox.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we now advocating for a secret government with no citizen oversight or general accountability?

The new Just Trust Me government!

Yay for the JTM party

It's a slippery slope. Many FOIA requests are too broad. For example, the EPA may get a request for all emails related to "climate change." Ok, so then the FOIA office at the EPA needs to review all documents and emails with that phrase. It needs to redact any confidentialncy /national security information not for the public, personal information, and non-related subject matters. It's a massive expansion of government and requires armies of lawyers, paralegals, and assistants to review the documentation. It requires a ton of $$$ to fulfill the requests.

Many times, the FOIA requests are fishing expeditions.

Congress has the powers to subpoena any and all emails and documents, if they want to investigate an issue. That's where requests should come from. Likewise, the Office of Inspector General of each agency has the authority to investigate, if they suspect law breaking or abuse of agency resources.

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

Do the reporters need to pay a filing fee for FOIA requests? Do they pay by the page?

Reporters do not pay at all. They are only charged for duplication costs, but since we send everything electronically there are no duplication costs. We have absolutely nothing to deter frivolous requests. It's a HUGE waste of tax payer resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we now advocating for a secret government with no citizen oversight or general accountability?

The new Just Trust Me government!

Yay for the JTM party

It's a slippery slope. Many FOIA requests are too broad. For example, the EPA may get a request for all emails related to "climate change." Ok, so then the FOIA office at the EPA needs to review all documents and emails with that phrase. It needs to redact any confidentialncy /national security information not for the public, personal information, and non-related subject matters. It's a massive expansion of government and requires armies of lawyers, paralegals, and assistants to review the documentation. It requires a ton of $$$ to fulfill the requests.

Many times, the FOIA requests are fishing expeditions.

Congress has the powers to subpoena any and all emails and documents, if they want to investigate an issue. That's where requests should come from. Likewise, the Office of Inspector General of each agency has the authority to investigate, if they suspect law breaking or abuse of agency resources.

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

So government is now exempt fro reporters reporting on it.

Trump loves you.

Not at all. There just needs to be a better way to manage the FOIA process. Personally, I recommend that FOIA requests from reporters be extremely detailed in order for the agency to consider the request. No fishing expeditions.

Otherwise, I'd actually prefer it if all agencies just publicly published ALL emails and final documents one year after their creation (stripping out any PII and national security details). That would be way less burdensome than dealing with a deluge of FOIA, since FOIA requests are extremely manually intensive. The agencies could easily set up automated processes for publishing such info and consistently budget for it. But of course, that would mean FOIA wouldn't be a useful tool for clogging up the agency from conducting its mission. #DeconstructionoftheAdministrativeState

[Anonymous]

Why wait a year?

Lobby Congress. FOIA was created well before the advent of searchable electronic databases, so just change it a bit.

But remember, the same processing will need to be done. Just to everything. Not just requested information. So it’s unlikely to save resources.

[Anonymous]

We also have the issue of coworkers FOIAing their coworker's email accounts without their knowledge. Fun times.

Also, nearly every hiring decision gets FOIAed by disgruntled people who didn't get the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why wait a year?

Lobby Congress. FOIA was created well before the advent of searchable electronic databases, so just change it a bit.

But remember, the same processing will need to be done. Just to everything. Not just requested information. So it’s unlikely to save resources.

OP here. Yes. This is the issue. I would love it if people FOIAed the official files on programs/decisions/regulations. No, they want any and all emails that mention climate change. I really don't even think reporters have the ability to get through 90k pages of documents. It's really defeating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wait a year?

Lobby Congress. FOIA was created well before the advent of searchable electronic databases, so just change it a bit.

But remember, the same processing will need to be done. Just to everything. Not just requested information. So it’s unlikely to save resources.

OP here. Yes. This is the issue. I would love it if people FOIAed the official files on programs/decisions/regulations. No, they want any and all emails that mention climate change. I really don't even think reporters have the ability to get through 90k pages of documents. It's really defeating.

Put the emails on too. That’s where the dirt is and where you find how the agency hasn’t done it’s job on the up and up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wait a year?

Lobby Congress. FOIA was created well before the advent of searchable electronic databases, so just change it a bit.

But remember, the same processing will need to be done. Just to everything. Not just requested information. So it’s unlikely to save resources.

OP here. Yes. This is the issue. I would love it if people FOIAed the official files on programs/decisions/regulations. No, they want any and all emails that mention climate change. I really don't even think reporters have the ability to get through 90k pages of documents. It's really defeating.

Put the emails on too. That’s where the dirt is and where you find how the agency hasn’t done it’s job on the up and up.

My agency basically operates using post it notes now and phone calls to avoid FOIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

What's stopping you from contacting the reporter to work on a narrower request that would be beneficial to both the reporter and the agency that would otherwise have to respond to an overly broad request? I've done that, both as a fed responding to FOIA requests and as a requester requesting documents under a state public records law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

What's stopping you from contacting the reporter to work on a narrower request that would be beneficial to both the reporter and the agency that would otherwise have to respond to an overly broad request? I've done that, both as a fed responding to FOIA requests and as a requester requesting documents under a state public records law.

Np but they aren't interested in reducing scope. And we do get sued for not doing it in 20 days. You can't win

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

What's stopping you from contacting the reporter to work on a narrower request that would be beneficial to both the reporter and the agency that would otherwise have to respond to an overly broad request? I've done that, both as a fed responding to FOIA requests and as a requester requesting documents under a state public records law.

Np but they aren't interested in reducing scope. And we do get sued for not doing it in 20 days. You can't win

How do you know if you don't ask?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we now advocating for a secret government with no citizen oversight or general accountability?

The new Just Trust Me government!

Yay for the JTM party

OP here. Not at all. It's just how many people do you want processing and reading FOIA requests versus the people doing the mission work? 10 years ago we had maybe 1/10th the emails that are produced today.

FOIA is mission work. It's being transparent about your mission.

It's important, if tedious, stuff. But necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wait a year?

Lobby Congress. FOIA was created well before the advent of searchable electronic databases, so just change it a bit.

But remember, the same processing will need to be done. Just to everything. Not just requested information. So it’s unlikely to save resources.

OP here. Yes. This is the issue. I would love it if people FOIAed the official files on programs/decisions/regulations. No, they want any and all emails that mention climate change. I really don't even think reporters have the ability to get through 90k pages of documents. It's really defeating.

Proactive disclosures would solve a lot of this. But agencies, while much better than years ago, still don't like to do it (be it political reasons or other reasons). They don't like to open their decisions to scrutiny. Thus the need for FOIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. And most agencies are doing really well with proactive disclosures on their websites. But the fishing expeditions are real.

I just had a request for every email mentioned in my agency on a specific program. It's a program that hundreds worked on for over a year. Tens of thousands of pages of emails. The cost to our agency in manpower hours is huge and this was just because the reporter was interested in the topic.

What's stopping you from contacting the reporter to work on a narrower request that would be beneficial to both the reporter and the agency that would otherwise have to respond to an overly broad request? I've done that, both as a fed responding to FOIA requests and as a requester requesting documents under a state public records law.

Np but they aren't interested in reducing scope. And we do get sued for not doing it in 20 days. You can't win

How do you know if you don't ask?

Of course we ask. You can see from the above posters that they think the dirt is within the emails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else here work on FOIA? My agency is drowning in FOIA requests. We're still under a hiring freeze and just don't have much staff. Every time it's brought up in Congress, FOIA is actually broadened. Seems most agencies have received an increase under the new administration, mostly from reporters and NGOs.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/foia-explosion-at-epa-over-60-per-day/article/2634672 For instance the EPA got hit with a FOIA that wants all emails that mention climate change.

I don't work on FOIA, but I know my agency is experiencing an onslaught. It's exactly like you say: majority reporters (or self styled citizen journalists) & NGOs. I completely support FOIA, but at the rate we receive requests relative to the number of staff to handle them, I don't know how we'll ever get out from under.