The Department of Justice Celebrates Sunshine Week
DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Mar. 14, 2024
The Office of Information Policy (OIP) celebrated its annual kick-off to Sunshine Week at the Department of Justice and via livestream on March 11, 2024. The event featured remarks from Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer and OIP Director Bobak Talebian, as well as the presentation of the 2024 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards.
Read more here.
Modernize FOIA to increase its Sunshine effect
COMMENTARY | A modern-day FOIA needs to adopt changes that are uniform and consistent across all the covered agencies, writes a former FOIA officer.
By Dena Kozanas, Gov’t Exec., Mar. 13, 2024
Visit the newly minted FOIA.gov website, and you’ll see various statistics on FOIA requests and processing times. For 2023, the average processing time for simple requests for all agencies ranged from the low of one day to the high of 636 days.
That this information is readily available is a good thing and is thanks to the 2016 FOIA Improvement Act and the new online consolidated portal for FOIA requests it created. The fact that we know that it took almost 30 times the statutory requirement to complete a FOIA request means it’s obvious that more improvements must be made. With the annual observance of Sunshine Week, which brings awareness to the public’s right to access government records, now is the time to discuss modernizing FOIA.
Read more here.
On March 13, 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released an 80-page report entitled Freedom of Information Act: Additional Guidance and Reliable Data Can Help Address Agency Backlogs.
Key findings include:
The government-wide backlog of requests continues to grow, and more than doubled between 2013 and 2022.
Agencies reported that several interrelated challenges contribute to backlogs, including the increasing complexity of requests, staffing issues, coordination challenges, and the demands of FOIA lawsuits.
Agencies have used various methods to address their backlogs, analyzing data to identify problem areas, negotiating with requesters to narrow requests, and creating teams focused on reducing backlogs.
Improving agency backlog reduction plans and the accuracy of data on the time it takes to process requests could help ensure agencies are better positioned to make progress on their backlogs.
Focus groups comprised of government officials and nongovernmental FOIA practitioners participated in the study (including the author of this post), but there was little consensus on specific recommendations to resolve backlogs.
GAO also released a one-pager of the report’s highlights.
As FOIA Advisor previously reported, the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy (OIP) has released its 2023 Litigation and Compliance Report. Yesterday, OIP published a blog post addressing the publication of the report.
* * *
2023 FOIA Litigation and Compliance Report Now Available
Dep’t of Justice Office of Info. Pol’y, FOIA Post Blog (Mar. 12, 2024)
Earlier this month, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) posted the Department’s 2023 FOIA Litigation and Compliance Report. In accordance with the FOIA, each year the Department of Justice submits to Congress and the President a report detailing OIP’s efforts to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA. The report highlights the many ways that OIP works to provide guidance, trainings, and counseling to agencies to assist them in their FOIA administration and to promote agency accountability. The report also contains a list of all FOIA litigation cases received and decided in the prior calendar year.
This year's report highlights new policy guidance issued by OIP such as guidance on applying a presumption of openness and the foreseeable harm standard, guidance on standard operating procedures for FOIA offices, and guidance on appropriate content for the Chief FOIA Officer reports. As detailed in the 2023 Report, OIP fielded 800 direct one-on-one counseling calls via OIP’s FOIA Counselor Line, which is an increase of more than 100 counseling calls compared to last year. OIP also hosted and facilitated numerous training programs and briefings on the FOIA and offered training to over 7,000 registered attendees. The Report also summarizes the recently updated chapters to the DOJ Guide to the FOIA, searchable summaries of court decisions, and information about FOIA news and events published in the FOIA Post blog.
The 2023 Report also details OIP’s work in continuing to maintain and enhance the National FOIA Portal on FOIA.gov that allows the public to submit a request to any Federal agency from a single site. In 2023, OIP launched a new FOIA Search Tool on FOIA.gov that utilizes machine learning to help members of the public quickly and accurately locate commonly requested records. This is the beginning of what will be a multi-phase project. As use of the search tool increases, OIP will refine the tool to best serve the public.
Along with the narrative portion of the report, every year OIP compiles charts listing the FOIA litigation cases received and decided during the reporting year. As in previous years, OIP again provides these charts in both PDF and open (CSV) formats.
OIP invites both agencies and the public to review its 2023 Litigation and Compliance Report to learn more about all our efforts to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA. OIP looks forward to building on these efforts as we continue to work with agencies and the public to improve the overall administration of the FOIA in the years ahead.
* * *
Read the original post here.
Sunshine Week Highlights FOIA Access
By Shaw Bransford & Roth P.C., FEDManager, Mar. 12, 2024
This week marks Sunshine Week, the annual celebration that “shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.”
It is held the week of President James Madison’s birthday (March 16), in honor of Madison’s commitment to freedom and transparency. March 16 is also known as “National Freedom of Information Day.”
Sunshine Week and National Freedom of Information Day are a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in journalism, civics, education, government, and the private sector. The goal is to educate the public on the importance of having open public records and an open government.
Read more here.
Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer Delivers Remarks at 14th Annual Sunshine Week Event
Dep’t of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Mar. 11, 2024
* * *
Welcome to the Justice Department’s 14th Annual Sunshine Week event. I am so pleased to kick off this important week for those of us who believe that our democracy functions best when the public knows what its government is doing. Sunshine Week is an opportunity to honor the public servants — like so many of you here — who work tirelessly to administer FOIA. But it is also an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the broader principles of openness, transparency, and accountability that FOIA serves.
For more than 50 years, FOIA has been a vital tool for advancing these core democratic principles. Two years ago, the Attorney General reaffirmed the government’s commitment to those principles by issuing comprehensive new FOIA guidelines. The 2022 guidelines direct the heads of all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness in administering FOIA: “In case of doubt,” the guidelines instruct, “openness should prevail.” The guidelines make clear that the Justice Department will not defend nondisclosure decisions that fail to apply such a presumption. And, finally, the guidelines emphasize the importance of making proactive disclosures, removing barriers to accessing government information, and reducing FOIA processing backlogs.
Read more here.
The Foilies 2024
Muckrock, Mar. 10. 2024
* * *
The Foilies are our attempt to call out . . .violations each year during Sunshine Week, an annual event (March 10-16 this year) when advocacy groups, news organizations and citizen watchdogs combine efforts to highlight the importance of government transparency laws. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock, in partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, compile the year’s worst and most ridiculous responses to public records requests and other attempts to thwart public access to information, including through increasing attempts to gut the laws guaranteeing this access—and we issue these agencies and officials tongue-in-cheek “awards” for their failures.
Read more here.
With FOIA backlogs on the rise, do agencies need direct-hire authority?
By Justin Doubleday, Federal News Network, Mar. 7, 2024
With Freedom of Information Act backlogs continuing to rise, a federal advisory committee is advancing some potential solutions to the FOIA staffing challenges that have plagued many agencies.
The FOIA Advisory Committee, during a March 5 meeting, discussed a draft report on “staffing/personnel” from the resources subcommittee.
Read more here.
On March 4, 2024, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy released its 2023 Litigation and Compliance Report. Among other things, DOJ reported that requesters filed 834 FOIA lawsuits in 2023. a four percent increase from 797 claims in 2022 .