[NYTr] FOIA Advocates Score Victory in Senate over Secrecy

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

National Security Archive Update - August 4, 2007
http://www.nsarchive.org


FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL PASSES SENATE 

Open Government Advocates Overcome Secret Hold

Key Reforms Fix Delay Problems Identified by Archive Audits;

Better Tracking, Reporting, Processing Fees and Ombuds Office

For More Information Contact:
Thomas Blanton/Kristin Adair: 202/994-7000

Washington DC, August 4, 2007 - The United States Senate yesterday
joined the House in passing bipartisan legislation that will fix
several of the most glaring problems with the U.S. Freedom of
Information Act that were identified in six government-wide audits
of FOIA practice carried out by the National Security Archive. The
legislation, authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. John
Cornyn (R-Tx.), overcame a hold placed by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Az) on
behalf of Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. It passed late
Friday evening by unanimous consent, on the last day of the
Congressional session before the August recess.

After a conference to reconcile provisions between the House and
Senate versions, the new law will mandate tracking numbers for FOIA
requests that take longer than 10 days to process so they will no
longer fall through the cracks, require agencies to report more
accurately to Congress on their FOIA programs, create a new ombuds
office at the National Archives to mediate conflicts between agencies
and requesters, clarify the purpose of FOIA to encourage dissemination
of government information, and provide incentives to agencies to
avoid litigation and processing delays.

"These are commonsense reforms that will finally force agencies to
fix egregious backlogs and reporting problems," said Archive staff
counsel Kristin Adair. "But, remarkably, it took several congressional
terms to get these straightforward adjustments into the law, with
obstruction from the executive branch all along the way, including,
ironically, a secret hold by a Senator acting at the behest of the
Department of Justice."

Similar legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives
overwhelmingly during Sunshine Week in March 2007, but progress on
the Senate bill has been halted for months by a hold placed by Sen.
Kyl on behalf of the Justice Department. After multiple editorials,
including several in Sen. Kyl's homestate Arizona Republic, assailed
Kyl's position and nicknamed him "the Secrecy Senator," Kyl's staff
negotiated new compromise language and allowed the bill to reach
the floor today.

"This is a small step for open government, but a giant leap for the
United States Senate," said Tom Blanton, director of the National
Security Archive. "We applaud Congress' action to fulfill the intent
of the Freedom of Information Act. This legislation will correct
many of the deficiencies in FOIA that the Archive's audits have
revealed."

The most recent audit by the Archive, the Knight Open Government
Survey released in July 2007, found that the oldest still-pending
FOIA requests had languished in federal agencies for as long as 20
years.

The previous Knight Open Government Survey, released in March 2007,
found that only one out of five federal agencies had complied fully
with the last FOIA reform legislation, the Electronic FOIA Amendments
passed in 1996, intended to post so much government information on
the Web that many FOIA requests would become unnecessary.

The Archive's audits of federal government FOIA practice are supported
by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Archive partners in
the efforts to reform the FOIA include the OpenTheGovernment.org
coalition, the Sunshine in Government Initiative, the Coalition of
Journalists for Open Government, the Reporters Committee for Freedom
of the Press, Public Citizen and Public Citizen Litigation Group,
and dozens of other groups that signed on to support the House and
Senate bills this year.

The full text of the Senate legislation and the Kyl amendment were
posted today on the Archive's Web site:

http://www.nsarchive.org

________________________________________________________

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental
research institute and library located at The George Washington
University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes
declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no
U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication
royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.