FOIA News: Archivists issue statement re: NIH controversy

SAA Urges Adherence to FOIA and FRA Rules by NIH

Press Release, Society of American Archivists, June 24, 2024

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) notes with concern the correspondence released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic from Dr. David Morens and other officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) referencing the use of private email accounts for the specific purpose of avoiding disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). SAA leadership is particularly concerned by the implication from a subset of the released correspondence that dedicated records staff within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may be providing guidance for avoiding FOIA requests. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS annual meeting on 7/24/24

The Office of Government Information Services will hold its annual meeting on July 24, 2024, per a notice published today in the Federal Register. The purpose of the meeting is “to discuss OGIS's reviews and reports, and allow interested people to appear and present oral or written statements.” The 90-minute, virtual meeting will begin at 10am EDT. Registration is required.

FOIA News: Upcoming private sector FOIA/PA training

The American Society of Access Professionals is offering a three-day, in-person FOIA-Privacy Act workshop in Pittsburgh starting September 4, 2024.

Graduate School USA has three-day, virtual FOIA/PA training starting July 16, 2024, August 5, 2024, and September 30, 2024.

Management Concepts offers a virtual, three-day FOIA/PA course beginning September 23, 2024.

FOIA News: Deadline approaching to comment on Stars & Stripes regulations

Military paper moves to defend its 1st Amendment rights

By Liam Scott, Voice of America, June 21, 2024

Supporters of the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes are using a public consultation period on the outlet’s regulations to try to roll back what they say are restrictive rules.

Funded in part by the Department of Defense but editorially independent by order of Congress, the Stripes has operated under the same Federal Register regulations since 1993.

But with updates to those rules open to public comment until Monday, journalists and media analysts are drawing attention to three longstanding articles they believe should be relaxed or scrapped entirely.

These include vague wording that doesn’t explicitly authorize reporters to ask questions of Defense Department officials, as well as regulations that block the paper’s staff from filing Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, requests or from publishing classified information that was legally obtained.

Read more here.

See proposed regulations here.

FOIA News: How to keep busy while waiting for a FOIA response

What Can You Do While Waiting for a FOIA Response?

It often takes almost a year or more to get public records from the federal government. Here are some things you can do while you wait.

Matthew Petti, Reason, July 2024 issue

The government is slow, especially at answering questions about itself. In theory, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lets Americans ask any federal agency for any public record and get a response back within 20 days. All 50 states have similar records laws. After all, government documents are the property of the taxpayer.

* * *

Using data from the public records site MuckRock, Reason calculated the average response times for several agencies. It turns out that you can do a lot of fun (and not so fun) things while waiting for bureaucrats to give you the documents that your taxes paid for.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Private emails at NIH trigger another op-ed

For citizens to avoid the Faucian bargain, FOIA reform is needed 

By Curtis Schube & Gary Lawkowski, The Hill, June 14, 2024

Just before Memorial Day, a bombshell report was published that implicated Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. David Morens, one of his senior advisors, for using private emails and phones to avoid public oversight and scrutiny of official activities. Morens even discussed how he would delete messages in order to avoid the discovery of emails.  

There may be no better time than now to talk about reforming how the government collects and provides records.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Peace Corps amends FOIA regs again

The Peace Corps has re-revised its FOIA regulations, per a final rule issued in the Federal Register on June 14, 2024. The agency initially amended its regulations on April 11, 2024. The latest changes remove the gender pronoun “he” when referring to the General Counsel or designee, among other things.

FOIA News: Software company opposes gov't-built request portal

The Government is Not a Software Company: Lessons Learned from the Sunsetting of FOIAOnline

OPEXUS, June 12, 2024

A proposal to revive FOIAOnline, a government-sponsored software solution for handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, has sparked interest and debate within the FOIA community. While the concept of a centralized system to address the specific needs of the public sector seems promising, past experiences have revealed significant challenges and complexities. 

FOIAOnline, which was previously sponsored by the EPA, was decommissioned in 2023 after encountering numerous obstacles during its operation. One of the primary issues was its inability to effectively accommodate the diverse and ever-changing requirements of federal agencies while requiring ever-increasing IT resources to support it.  

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ's "deepfake" argument is problematic, opines R Street on Hur-Biden audio

Potential for AI Deepfakes Tomorrow Does Not Justify Government Secrecy Today

By Chris McIsaac, R Street Inst., June 13, 2024

Amid an ongoing legal dispute over the public’s right to hear audio recordings of an interview federal investigators conducted with President Joe Biden last year, the administration is pushing a novel theory to support their position that the tapes should be kept secret: fears the recordings could be used to create an artificial intelligence (AI) deepfake. The Department of Justice (DOJ) made this argument as part of a May court filing, and while it does not represent the only rationale for withholding the audio, this line of thinking raises serious concerns around future efforts to shield government records from public disclosure in the age of AI.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee approves final report & recommendations

The FOIA Advisory Committee unanimously approved—by an 18-0 vote—its final report and sixteen recommendations in its last meeting of the 2022-2024 term held on June 13, 2024. The U.S. Department of Justice, which typically abstains in votes on individual recommendations, voted in favor of the final report. The Committee’s final report, meeting minutes, and meeting transcript will be made available on the OGIS website here.