FOIA News: How to tackle FOIA backlogs

To Address Growing FOIA Backlogs, Government Agencies Need to Govern More

By Doug Austin, JDSupra, Sept. 23, 2021

That’s all we need, right, for our government agencies to govern MORE?

Let me explain. We tend to think about government agencies differently from other entities that may have discovery needs and they are different – to a degree. One of the most noticeable differences for Federal government entities from other organizations is their responsibility to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. But even though many government agencies have fully digitized the data being sourced to respond to FOIA requests these days, backlogs for FOIA requests for many of them are growing, not shrinking.

However, some of the best practices for addressing FOIA backlogs come from standard best practices that you can apply to any organization, not just government entities.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ releases assessment of Chief FOIA Officer reports

SUMMARY AND ASSESSMENT OF AGENCY 2021 CFO REPORTS ISSUED

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Sept. 21, 2021

Today the Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to release its summary and assessment of agencies’ 2021 Chief FOIA Officer (CFO) Reports.  As in prior years, OIP’s summary and assessment focuses on steps agencies have taken to improve FOIA administration in five key areas addressed in the Department's FOIA Guidelines:

• Applying a Presumption of Openness,

• Ensuring Agencies Have Effective Systems for Responding to Requests,

• Increasing Proactive Disclosures,

• Greater Utilization of Technology in FOIA Administration, and

• Improving Timeliness and Reducing Backlogs.

This past March marked the twelfth year that agency CFOs submitted these reports to the Department of Justice.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA workshop on Sept. 30, 2021

Beryl Lipton, an investigative journalist, will be leading an online FOIA workshop free of charge on September 20, 2021, at noon. The magazine Jewish Currents is organizing the training, entitled “Using FOIA: A Workshop for Activism, Scholarship, and Publication,” which is co-sponsored by The Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Register here.

FOIA News, ICYMI, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack thanks FOIA personnel

Secretary Tom Vilsack hailed the “outstanding” FOIA work of USDA in a department-wide letter sent on September 10, 2021.

USDA: Thank you FOIA professionals and information aggregators

Colleagues, 

I would like to highlight the outstanding work of USDA’s Freedom of Information Act professionals. Since 1967, the FOIA has provided the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government. At USDA, we are committed to ensuring transparency and trust with the public. Although the USDA community has a number of full-time FOIA professionals, there are also many staff members performing FOIA functions across the country in addition to other assigned duties. This is testament to the shared responsibility and dedication towards this priority. I applaud the teams’ hard work and diligent effort to respond promptly to FOIA requests, to adapt a presumption in favor of disclosure, and to provide exemplary customer service for the tens of thousands of requesters seeking records annually.  

Read more here.

FOIA News: The FOIA Project expands its brief bank

The FOIA Project Expands its Brief Bank with Hundreds of Immigration-Related Court Documents

By Kristen Matteucci, Jenkins Law, Sept. 14, 2021

Did you know that the FOIA Project (FOIAproject.org) has a Brief Bank that collects “substantive briefs, motions, and testimony related to FOIA cases”?

The FOIA Project aims to “provide the public with timely and complete information about every instance in which the federal government grants or withholds records” requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To that end, the project houses court dockets, complaints, opinions, and orders issued in FOIA lawsuits and FOIA appeals - brought in the U.S. district courts and the U.S. circuit courts, respectively - which challenge government withholding of requested information.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FBI deactivates records feed on Twitter

FOIA News: Record collections of the 9/11 attacks

FBI

9/11 Commission

Fed. Aviation Admin.

Natl. Inst. of Standards & Tech.

George W. Bush Pres. Library

Library of Congress

9/11 Memorial & Museum

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee meeting on Sept. 9, 2021

The FOIA Advisory Committee will meet on Thursday, September 9, 2021, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The meeting agenda, live stream link, and presentation material are available here.

FOIA News: Cloud can help speed FOIA response

Cloud can help speed FOIA response

By Stephanie Kanowitz, GCN, Sept. 7, 2021

The backlog of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has grown during the pandemic. The Justice Department reports that the number of backlogged requests across federal agencies in fiscal 2020 was 141,762, compared to about 120,000 the year before. The disparate systems that shaped agencies’ quick shift from office to remote work is largely to blame, one expert says.

“In many cases the data that they’re receiving, generating [and] creating is remaining local to the employees instead of on an enterprise system,” said Bill Tolson, vice president of compliance and e-discovery at Archive 360. That makes it difficult for an agency to respond to a FOIA request that involves numerous agency employees with disparate data repositories. “We’ve found instances where many of the employees were storing agency material up in their personal cloud accounts because they had nowhere else to put it.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: OIP updates FOIA Guide

On August 20, 2021, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy posted an updated version of the Procedural Requirements section of the Guide to the Freedom of Information Act.