Today’s Good News: FOIA Bulks Up
AP reports that on December 18, Congress quietly passed legislation to toughen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and increase penalties on agencies that don’t comply.
The bill is the first makeover of the FOIA in a decade. It brings government contractors government contractors under the law, and aims to reverse former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s post-9/11 order to “lean against releasing information” when there was “uncertainty” about how doing so would affect national security.  However, language explicitly reversing the order was stripped out before passage.
“No matter who is the next president, he will have to run a government that is more open than in the past,” if the bill becomes law, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, said on the Senate floor.
Last year, the government received 21.4 million requests for information under the 40-year-old law, according to statistics provided by the Justice Department. Agencies processed nearly the same number of requests, which was almost 1.5 million more than processed during the previous fiscal year, according to the department.The bill restores a presumption of disclosure standard committing government agencies to releasing requested information unless there is a finding that such disclosure could do harm.
Agencies would be required to meet a 20-day deadline for responding to FOIA requests. Their FOIA offices would have to forward requests for information to the appropriate agency office within 10 days of receiving them.
It they fail to meet the 20-day deadline, agencies would have to refund search and duplication fees for noncommercial requesters. They also would have to explain any redaction by citing the specific exemption under which the blacked-out information qualifies.
The legislation also creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their FOIA requests. It establishes a hotline service for all federal agencies to deal with problems and an ombudsman to provide an alternative to litigation in disclosure disputes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been working with the Justice Department on the legislation and has said he expects the president to sign it.
Under the Constitution, legislation passed by a Congress technically in session that is not signed by the president within 10 days automatically becomes law.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., held such brief “pro forma” sessions — often only seconds long — once every four business days over the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent Bush from making recess appointments not subject to Senate confirmation.
Read the full article here.
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