Opinion: Even on ‘Sunshine Week,’ federal departments continue to stonewall access to government records
that “demand for Freedom of Information Act requests reached a record high in FY 2022 with 928,353 incoming requests.” DOJ further boasted government departments and agencies had “processed a record high of 878,420 requests.” But what about the other 50,000 requests? Were they not processed? Denied on some basis? Lost?
For example, why is it that more than six years after Congress mandated departments make their records available on the federal online FOIA portal, multiple agencies and departmentsthat a department or agency’s FOIA practices are illegal.
Yet despite reminding both career civil servants and political agency/department heads of the 2016 FOIA statutory update’s requirement on adhering to the “foreseeable harm” standard, atwe continue to receive FOIA responses in which records are withheld in part or in full for no truly legitimate reason. This is even after filing appeals citing Garland’s memo.
Given the recent and ongoing concerns over attempts by Russia and China to influence the American political process, I thought it would be interesting to write a piece about how even American allies attempt to do exactly the same thing. But at least half of the five-page memo remained redacted, something that would make it more difficult to tell the full story.
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