Government Slow in Processing FOIA Requests

This year's Independence Day also marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The act allowed citizens to submit requests for government documents and required federal agencies to provide at least an initial response within 20 days and pertinent documents in a "timely manner." Now, a survey shows that at least 16 FOIA requests have gone unanswered for at least 15 years old. Some highlights from the survey:

[The survey] found that the State Department accounted for most of the oldest unanswered requests, with 10 requests filed in 1991 or earlier still awaiting responses.

The survey found that 10 federal agencies had misrepresented their backlog of FOIA requests in annual reports to Congress, misstating the age of their oldest pending request....

A bipartisan bill to force agencies to respond more quickly and completely to FOIA requests, sponsored by Senators John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Patrick M. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in April. But another Republican, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, has put a hold on the bill, in response, in part, to concerns from the Justice Department that the bill might force the disclosure of national security information.

In the meantime, the authors of the survey, itself conducted using FOIA requests sent in January, cannot be certain they have found the oldest pending requests. Some 26 of the 87 agencies surveyed never responded at all, according to the National Security Archive.

Read the full article here.