- WASHINGTON (UPI) - Despite
a legal requirement that agencies respond to most requests for government
documents made under the Freedom of Information Act within 20 days, tens
of thousands of requests are sitting unfilled - some for years - throughout
the federal government.
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- Although federal law does not force agencies to disclose
the age of their oldest unfilled FOIA requests, most of the more than 40,000
requests collecting dust at cabinet-level agencies are well over 200 days
old, government data shows.
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- "The fact that some agencies aren't coming close
to meeting the time requirements in the law is completely unacceptable
and obviously contributes to the public's lack of faith in the management
of their government," Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., told United Press
International.
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- Thompson chairs the Senate committee charged with overseeing
agencies' compliance with FOIA laws.
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- "Agencies have a responsibility to fill FOIA requests,
and in many cases have clearly chosen not to make them a priority,"
Thompson said.
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- "We are very aware of the voluminous materials being
handled by the agencies, yet we are concerned about indications that the
law is not being implemented as envisioned by Congress," said Russell
George, staff director and chief counsel for the House subcommittee on
Government Management, Information and Technology. "The subcommittee
will be holding hearings to review this situation shortly."
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- The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966, was intended
by lawmakers to open the inner workings of the government to the American
people, allowing for the first time public scrutiny of thousands of pages
of communications and documents that officials use to make and relay decisions.
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- An analysis of government FOIA compliance data, however,
shows that most requests are mired in red tape and bureaucratic delays,
leading experts and lawmakers to suggest that filling them simply isn't
a priority for most agencies. Acknowledging that the volume and complexity
of requests was increasing -- one expert says by about 15,000 a year in
the late 1980s and early 1990s -- Congress increased in 1996 the time agencies
had to fill requests from 10 to 20 days.
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- Although experts say that the backlog at some agencies
has become better since the law was amended, most are still far from meeting
the law. For example, most of the 5,349 unfilled FOIA requests sitting
unfilled at the State Department at the end of 1998 were more than a year
old.
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- Although experts say the priority agencies attached to
filling FOIA requests is probably the most important element in meeting
the 20-day processing deadline, there are other factors. One is the volume
of requests an agency receives. The Department of Veterans Affairs received
210,371 requests in 1998, while the Department of Education received just
1,721.
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- Though most agencies completely or partially deny only
about one-third of the FOIA requests they receive, willingness to disclose
information varies widely between agencies. For example, the Department
of Labor partially or completely denied 68 percent of the FOIA requests
it received, compared to a 5 percent full/partial denial rate at the Department
of Agriculture.
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- FOIA law allows requestors initially denied information
to appeal an agency's decision. The appeal is usually handled within the
agency making the original denial, and from there can be taken to federal
court. Most of the time, agency decisions are upheld by the appeals panel,
though there are notable exceptions: the Department of Labor was reversed
69 percent of the time -- a government-wide high. Other cabinet-level agencies
that were reversed over 60 percent of the time include the Department of
the Interior, the Department of Commerce and the State Department.
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- When the FOIA law was passed more than 30 years ago,
the group expected to benefit most was the media. Today, however, experts
say most of the requests come from high-paid corporate attorneys seeking
to avoid government regulation or win government contracts.
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- "The press (was) clearly the primary mover back
in the 1950s and 1960s when the (FOIA) Act passed," says Harry Hammit,
who publishes a newsletter on FOIA issues. "They were the foot soldiers.
Now, they've pretty much abandoned it. Groups like the Society of Professional
Journalists give it lip service, but rarely use it."
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- Of the journalists that use the act, Hammit says, many
become frustrated by the complex and lengthy procedure required to get
a document through the Freedom of Information Act, knowing that it could
take years for a response. Hammit, a one-time government disclosure officer,
estimates that 70 percent of FOIA requests are made on behalf of corporations,
15 percent by prisoners, and 5 percent each from journalists, public interest
groups and members of the general public.
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- The lack of requests from the media has not gone unnoticed
by federal agencies. Citing the dearth of requests from the groups originally
intended to benefit from the FOIA law -- public interest groups and the
media -- the Justice Department has repeatedly won judicial leniency for
agencies that fail to fill FOIA requests on time.
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- In an article written while he was still a law professor,
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia supported that position. He called
the FOIA "the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences,
the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit analysis ignored."
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- "We must, alas, set some priorities -- and unless
the world is mad the usual Freedom of Information Act request should not
be high on the list," Scalia wrote.
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- Most agencies seem to have followed Scalia's advice.
Although most blame their FOIA backlogs on insufficient staffing caused
by low funding, comparing data between agencies suggests that filling or
not filling FOIA requests is simply a matter of priorities.
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- For example, the average State Department FOIA officer
processed just 19 requests all year -- a government-wide low. To process
its backlog, which rose to more than 500 in 1999, according to a draft
report obtained exclusively by UPI, the Department would need to hire an
additional 286 equally productive people.
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- By comparison, in 1998 the average FOIA officer at the
top-secret CIA and the FBI filled respectively 60 and 38 requests. Along
with all other federal agencies, FOIA officials at the State Department
are in the midst of declassifying as many pre-1975 documents as possible.
Because of the sensitive nature of many diplomatic communications, officials
say they have little time left to devote to FOIA requests.
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- "We are doing the best we can, but I'm the first
to admit we aren't doing well by the numbers," said one State Department
official, who requested anonymity.
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- One FOIA expert concludes that filling the requests is
simply a matter of priorities.
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- "When you compare the response of all the national
security agencies, you find such incredible variation that (the) only reasonable
conclusion is that filling the requests is purely a matter of will and
leadership in the agency," said Tom Blanton, Executive Director of
the independent National Security Archive. _____
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- Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights
reserved.
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