Security

Most Government Sites Fall Short of FOIA Requirements

A study (.pdf) released today by an independent research group at George Washington University shows that 79 percent of federal agencies are in violation of an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that requires agencies to post records online and help citizens make information requests via the Internet. Congress approved "E-FOIA" in 1996 to […]

A study (.pdf) released today by an independent research group at George Washington University shows that 79 percent of federal agencies are in violation of an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that requires agencies to post records online and help citizens make information requests via the Internet.

Congress approved "E-FOIA" in 1996 to expand public access to information and make it easier for the federal government to handle the high volume of FOIA requests it receives each year. The current FOIA process can be an arduous one. E-FOIA was intended to save time and money. But that hasn't happened. In a government where more secrecy, not less, has been the norm, it's not surprising that the feds fall short of the law. What is surprising is how short they fall.

With support of the Knight Foundation for journalism, the GWU study surveyed 149 agencies and found most lacking in key areas:

  • Only one in five federal agencies (21 percent) posts on the Web all four categories of records that the law specifically requires;
  • Only one in 16 agencies (6 percent) posts all ten elements of essential FOIA guidance;
  • Only 36 percent of agencies provide the required indexes of records;
  • Only 26 percent of agencies provide online forms for submitting FOIA requests;
  • Many agency Web links are missing or just wrong - one FOIA fax number checked in the Knight Survey actually rang in the maternity ward of a military base hospital.

The report's authors said federal agencies are "flunking the online test" and some government sites simply link to each other in an "endless empty loop."