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The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was passed by Congress in 1966 and amended in 1974 in order to create an open government. The FOIA applies only to federal agencies and does not create a right of access to records held by Congress, the courts, or by state or local government agencies. Each state has its own public access laws.

News

Bill Requires Disclosure of Product Defects 04/29/2008
In an effort to improve transparency following litigation on defective products, the House last week introduced the Sunshine in Litigation Act (H.R. 5884). Read More

New OMB Watch Report Unveils Top Five Open Government Questions for Candidates 03/19/2008
WASHINGTON, March 19, 2008—OMB Watch today released a report that names the top five open government questions that Americans would like candidates for federal office to answer before the November elections. Top Open Government Questions for Candidates, based on a survey of more than 2,000 people, was released in conjunction with Sunshine Week. Read More

Sunshine Week Arrives 03/18/2008
The week of March 17 marks the third annual national Sunshine Week, a nonpartisan campaign to promote openness in government and access to public records. Read More

Pressure Flushes CDC Report Out of Hiding 03/18/2008
In response to allegations of suppression of science, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a draft report that the agency will continue to modify due to CDC concerns that the report too closely links environmental pollution with adverse health effects in the Great Lakes region. Read More

New FOIA Law Already in Trouble 02/05/2008
Buried deep within an appendix of President Bush's $3.1 trillion budget proposal is an effort by the administration to rewrite the newly minted OPEN Government Act of 2007, which seeks to improve agency implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Despite clear language in the OPEN Government Act requiring that a new Office of Government Information be established at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Bush administration has proposed shifting the new office to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Read More

Public Interest Board Attempts to Improve Declassification 01/23/2008
On Jan. 9, the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) released a report, Improving Declassification: A Report to the President from the Public Interest Declassification Board, outlining a series of recommendations to improve the declassification of government information. Read More

SBU Gets New Letters and Maybe a Better Policy 01/23/2008
The Department of Defense (DoD) is finalizing policies to streamline categories used to restrict technically unclassified documents. The new policy to eliminate the multiple agency-specific "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU) procedures and replace them with a common set of "Controlled Unclassified Information" (CUI) standards is currently under presidential review. Read More

OPEN Government Act Signed into Law 01/08/2008
On Dec. 31, 2007, President Bush signed the OPEN Government Act (S. 2488), which includes long-sought reforms of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Though some important provisions were dropped in order to reach bipartisan agreement in Congress, the bill creates incentives to reduce agency backlogs of FOIA requests, increases reporting requirements, and increases the scope of who can make requests and what entities are covered by FOIA. Read More

Secrecy for Farm Animals 11/20/2007
The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill in late October that would create a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption for records in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Open government advocates strongly oppose the exemption and see it as a violation of the public's right to access information regarding food safety. Read More

Transparency in the Election Spotlight 10/23/2007
Popular thinking tells us that for any trend, fad or heavily pursued activity, the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way. As we approach the 2008 elections, this may well be the case for government transparency, which, after years of increasing government secrecy, appears to be getting greater attention than ever before. Read More

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