Freedom of information not so freely accessible
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 12:45 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleThe federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, the single most important tool available to Americans seeking access to government documents, marks its 40th anniversary today. It's fitting that this law took effect on Independence Day. FOIA is a powerful force for open government, which is essential to maintaining the free society envisioned by the Founders.
But FOIA, itself, is in need of maintenance on this Fourth.
The law generally has been viewed as an obstacle by a number of high-ranking government officials in recent years. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, the Justice Department reversed a long-standing policy that encouraged federal agencies to err on the side of public access in resolving FOIA requests. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered agencies not to release information when there was any uncertainty as to whether FOIA exemptions apply.
That policy reversal is compounded by the government's failure to respond to FOIA requests within 20 days, as the law mandates. Former President Jimmy Carter noted in an oped for Monday's Washington Post that government now may take years to answer FOIA requests. Carter cited a National Security Archives 2003 report, which found that median response times may be as long as 905 working days at the Department of Agriculture and 1,113 working days at the Environmental Protection Agency.
We can be reasonably sure the long delays on FOIA requests have nothing to do with guarding legitimate state secrets, since FOIA allows for national security exemptions. They most likely stem from a government-wide determination that transparency will take a back seat to expediency.
In any event, excessive secrecy isn't key to making the nation safer. Indeed, it can have just the opposite effect. Members of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks noted that excessive government secrecy was undermining efforts to combat terrorism. Commissioners reported that good intelligence often has been lost in the great volume of secrets created since Sept. 11, 2001.
A number of changes in FOIA have been proposed over the past year to counter this post-9/11 drift toward more government secrecy. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to establish penalties for noncompliance with the law's 20-day deadline for responding to a FOIA request for documents, to make it easier to recover legal fees when a person or organization is forced to go to court to gain access to government documents and to create an ombudsman to see that the law is administered fairly.
These are sensible changes that could help ensure the government transparency that citizens must have in order to make informed choices.
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