Future of FOIA?

[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.

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.

My agency has pulled previously published information off the website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Exactly. And for that reason, like others have mentioned - sometimes it's just easier to make a phone call or leave a post-it note saying "I submitted the climate change memo" rather than emailing.

[Anonymous]

Worked at a federal agency until a month ago. I'd say 80% of the FOIA request we received were from private citizens and NGOs with a decisively right wing viewpoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worked at a federal agency until a month ago. I'd say 80% of the FOIA request we received were from private citizens and NGOs with a decisively right wing viewpoint.

The whole point is to keep staff and agency dollars tied up with garbage FOIA requests. Then once the agency is backlogged, they sue. And then they claim the agency isn't completing its mission and should be gutted.

It's deliberate destruction of government and wasting of money just so they can say "the government wastes money and doesn't complete its mission!" They are total f#cking nihilists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worked at a federal agency until a month ago. I'd say 80% of the FOIA request we received were from private citizens and NGOs with a decisively right wing viewpoint.

The whole point is to keep staff and agency dollars tied up with garbage FOIA requests. Then once the agency is backlogged, they sue. And then they claim the agency isn't completing its mission and should be gutted.

It's deliberate destruction of government and wasting of money just so they can say "the government wastes money and doesn't complete its mission!" They are total f#cking nihilists.

I've worked on thousands of FOIA requests. The majority are from reporters and environmental NGOs and non profits. Maybe other agencies have more conservative leaning requesters, but the two agencies I've worked at haven't.

[Anonymous]

It's very important for federal agencies in employees to capture the time they spend responding to FOIA requests. Keeping track of hours spent on various tasks can seem like a waste of time, but tracking time spent on FOIA is important to see if changes are needed in the way FOIA is handled. At my agency, we specify the hours for each request, but I doubt that most people are singling out foia activities in their biweekly time allocation reports, which would really show how many FTEs are allocating a large chunk of their time to these requests.

[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.

I want as many people processing those request as is needed to be transparent in your service to the American people.
Perhaps the issue isn't FOIA requests, but a hiring freeze or complete lack of trust in the government.

[Anonymous]

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

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.

I want as many people processing those request as is needed to be transparent in your service to the American people.
Perhaps the issue isn't FOIA requests, but a hiring freeze or complete lack of trust in the government.

Also, keeping information secret that used to be public, like White House visitor logs or the EPA administator's schedule or the president's tax returns.

[Anonymous]

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

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.

I want as many people processing those request as is needed to be transparent in your service to the American people.
Perhaps the issue isn't FOIA requests, but a hiring freeze or complete lack of trust in the government.

Maybe you are thinking too narrowly on what these FOIA requests are. Do taxpayers really believe they should see every single email that gets written in the government? Is it worth their taxpayer dollars? I truly believe in a transparent government and I do not believe my agency has anything to hide. Thousands of emails are sent and received from every agency every day.

Frequent FOIA requests we receive:
-emails that other coworkers send that reference their name
-FOIAs about who got a new job and their qualifications
-FOIAs about every email sent regarding a program (even though the majority of responsive documents are already online as proactive disclosures)
-Companies requesting other companies' contracts so they can challenge the bids or make their own bids better

[Anonymous]

What exactly are employers looking for when they request emails with their names? I have never seen request like this one, so I am genuinely curious.

Also, what is subject to retraction? My understanding is that opinions are retractable. So if I wrote, I think Joe Blow is a jerk, everything after I think would be retractable .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What exactly are employers looking for when they request emails with their names? I have never seen request like this one, so I am genuinely curious.

Also, what is subject to retraction? My understanding is that opinions are retractable. So if I wrote, I think Joe Blow is a jerk, everything after I think would be retractable .

Employees are FOIAing another employees emails.

And you mean redaction. Opinions are not generally redacted in my agency. We have to show harm before we can redact and opinions don't always meet that threshold. If you say someone is a jerk or even if you say something racist, I can't redact that. I can't use redaction to save you from embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I do mean retract. This is what I was told by a FOIA staff person at my agency, so different agencies obviously interpret the law differently.

If employees at an agency are routinely requesting others' emails, sounds like the agency has.a toxic culture.

[Anonymous]

Oh Judicial Watch might need a new schtick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

I agree-- just make all emails public after scrubbed of PII and national security details. Will it make people think twice both sending an email? Maybe, but too bad. You don't have to work for the federal govt.

[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.

It will, because it will prevent the need to filter the information being requested specific to the FOIA. And once it becomes standard practice, more automation tools will be developed making it even faster.