AP Analysis: Obama Administration Sets Record for Flouting Freedom of Information Act

by Marlo Lewis on March 18, 2015

in Blog

Post image for AP Analysis: Obama Administration Sets Record for Flouting Freedom of Information Act

Although President Obama describes his administration as “the most transparent in history,” a new analysis by the Associated Press (AP) finds that, “The Obama administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.”

FOIA failings identified by AP include:

  • The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.
  • It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law – but only when it was challenged.
  • Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.
  • It more than ever censored materials it turned over or fully denied access to them, in 250,581 cases or 39 percent of all requests.
  • On 215,584 other occasions, the government said it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the government determined the request to be unreasonable or improper.
  • Under the president’s instructions, the U.S. should not withhold or censor government files merely because they might be embarrassing, but federal employees last year regularly misapplied the law.
  • The government’s responsiveness under the open records law is an important measure of its transparency. . . .Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas. It cited such exceptions a record 554,969 times last year.
  • “What we discovered reaffirmed what we have seen all too frequently in recent years,” [AP chief executive Gary] Pruitt wrote in a column published this week. “The systems created to give citizens information about their government are badly broken and getting worse all the time.”

 

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: