Thread by @weareoversight

Today is the first day of #SunshineWeek, a week that celebrates & promotes access to information and open government nationwide.

To kick things off, we’ll explain exactly what the Freedom of Information Act is and why it’s such a powerful tool.

The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law by President Johnson in 1966, giving anyone the right to request federal records from executive branch agencies.

Yes, anyone can file a FOIA request! Journalists, scholars, and watchdog organizations use FOIA requests to find out what goes on behind the scenes in government. You can request records like emails, text messages, paper documents, videos, and more.

After the request is submitted, the agency searches for records responsive to the FOIA request. If responsive records are found, the records are reviewed and portions of the records are very often redacted.

These redactions are based on 9 exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act:
1. Information classified to protect national security
2. Info about an agency’s internal rules and practices
3. Info that another federal law bans from disclosure

4. Trade secrets or confidential commercial or financial information
5. Privileged communications within or between agencies
6. Private personal information

7. Law enforcement information
8. Info about the supervision of financial institutions
9. Geological information on wells (yes, really!)

Sometimes, an agency will decide the entirety of a set of records should be withheld because the agency believes it falls into one or more of these exemptions.

Once the agency has completed its search and reviewed records for redactions, it responds, telling you whether it found records and sending them to you if they aren’t being withheld.

This is how FOIA *should* work. In reality, there often are problems with the process.

For example, while the use of Exemption 5 has decreased since the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, it is still regularly overused to withhold documents.
pogo.org/analysis/2020/…

The 2021 Supreme Court decision U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club strengthened the ability for the government to withhold information based on exemption 5.
news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/hi…

FOIA also requires “prompt” production of records, but many agencies continue to underfund their FOIA operations and as a result develop significant backlogs that lead to delays.

An agency may redact too much information and/or not conduct a correct search. We might then appeal the FOIA response and the agency will review its response. Nonetheless, over-redacting and bad searches limit FOIA’s effectiveness.

Sometimes, we’re forced to go to court if an agency fails to comply with FOIA’s requirements. For example, if an agency fails to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days, or if an agency withholds or redacts information that should be released.

This is one more reason #SunshineWeek is valuable: It’s an opportunity to call attention to the importance of transparency tools like #FOIA — and to urge government agencies to do everything in their power to ensure that the people can hold our leaders accountable.

Stay tuned all week for #SunshineWeek content about FOIA, government transparency, and accountability.