FOIA News: Professor argues for a privately-funded FOIA Commission

A business professor from California State Polytechnic University has proposed the creation of n independent FOIA commission led by “FOIA Fellows—professionals from the private sector, such as technologists, lawyers, organizational managers, and journalists, who rotate into short-term government fellowships.” FOIA Fellows would be be funded “by wealthy private parties that have an interest in preserving and protecting democracy and transparency, such as individuals like Elon Musk or organizations like George Soros’ Open Society.”

See Jack Wroldsen, FOIA Fellows as Freedom Fighters: An Independent and Privately Funded FOIA Commission of Rotating Professionals (Oct. 31, 2024). 108 Marquette L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5043146 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5043146.

FOIA News: MuckRock asks federal agencies about their efforts to use AI in FOIA

We asked federal agencies about their efforts to use AI in FOIA

By Dillon Bergin, MuckRock, Jan. 8, 2025

We want to know more about how federal agencies are using AI initiatives in the FOIA process, described in their yearly Chief FOIA Officer Reports. We’re asking them for the docs.

We’ve filed requests to several agencies for documents related to AI testing in their FOIA offices, including contracts with third party vendors and assessments or audits of the programs so far. To follow along as agencies respond, you can check out our AI in FOIA page, home to all the requests, articles and updates.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Here come the FY 2024 Annual Reports

At least twenty-one agencies, including one cabinet department, have published their fiscal year 2024 annual FOIA reports online (see below). Agencies were required to submit their annual reports to DOJ’s Office of Information Policy by November 12, 2024, and the final reports must be published online no later than March 1, 2025. FOIA Advisor will summarize the reports of the most active FOIA agencies—e.g., DHS, DOJ, DOD, NARA, etc.— as they become available. Quarterly FY 2024 data can be found on FOIA.gov.

FY 2024 annual FOIA reports

CFTC

Court Serv. & Offender Supv.

Dep’t of Commerce: 4048 requests received; 3410 processed; 1410 backlogged requests (vs. 1083 FY 23).

Export-Import Bank

Fed. Reserve Sys.

Fed. Trade Comm’n

NASA

Nat’l Indian Gaming Comm’n

Nat’l Mediation Bd.

Office of Gov’t Ethics

Peace Corps

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Bd.

Railroad Retirement Bd.

Selective Serv. Sys.

Surface Transportation Bd.

Udall Found.

USAID:

U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n

U.S. Postal Serv.: 4429 requests received; 4203 processed; 201 backlogged requests (vs. 136 FY 2023).

U.S. Trade Rep.

FOIA News: FOIA’s worldwide influence

How FOIA Gave Rise to Government Transparency Laws Around the World

Flawed as it may be, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act became a model in transparency for other countries to follow.

By Matthew Petti, Reason, Jan. 2025

It's well-known that the government heavily censors documents before declassifying them—something humorously captured by The Onion in 2005 with the headline, "CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years." But from a glass-half-full perspective, it's incredible that the U.S. government shares information with the public at all. The original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966—the law under which many of those redacted documents are obtained—was the "product of years of slow campaigning by a network of journalists, scientists, and politicians seeking to make the government more transparent," the historian Sam Lebovic writes in State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America's Secrecy Regime. FOIA was later strengthened in the wake of the Watergate scandals in the 1970s.

Read more here.

FOIA News: How to fix FOIA from the ivory tower

Needed: A Transparency Guardian

Our FOIA system was once the world’s gold standard. Here’s how it became sclerotic—and what we need to do to fix it.

By Margaret Kwoka, Democracy, Winter 2025

* * *

When the Freedom of Information Act was enacted in 1966, it was revolutionary. Its basic premise—that ordinary citizens have a right to know what the government knows—radically reimagined the relationship between the public and the federal government. . . . But more than a half-century after Congress passed this landmark legislation, it is clear that FOIA largely has not—and cannot—live up to its mission.

The core problem is this: There is no arm of the U.S. government that champions transparency. No government agency embodies a transparency mission; no court possesses transparency expertise. FOIA provides a core right for the public to access government records, but it lacks a locus for implementation and enforcement. . . .

Read more here.