FOIA celebrates 45 years; backlogs persist.

• Position: FOIA

Open government advocates may celebrate the fact that 2011 marks the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA) 45th birthday, but they likely are not proud of the fact the single oldest records request is now 20 years old, according to the National Security Archive (NSA) at George Washington University.

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Eight federal agencies now have FOIA requests a decade old, according to the NSA's 2011 Knight Open Government survey. FOIA requires agencies to process and respond to a request within 20 business days and allows a 10-day extension under "unusual circumstances."

The day after his January 2009 inauguration, President Barack Obama reversed the Bush-era policy of defending any legal reason to withhold information and ordered agencies to release records unless doing so was barred by law or would cause harm. But two Knight Open Government surveys conducted during the Obama administration have shown that, despite the president's order, government agencies have been slow to improve their FOIA processes.

The 2010 Knight survey, "Sunshine and Shadows," revealed that only 13 of 90 agencies had implemented concrete changes in response to Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder's early memoranda calling for FOIA reforms. The 2011 Knight survey, "Glass Half Full," showed some improvement--49 of 90 agencies had followed specific tasks mandated by the White House to improve their FOIA performance.

For the survey, the NSA requested copies of the 10 oldest records requests from the top-35 agencies. According to the NSA, none of the requests should have required years to fulfill; most were for identifiable materials that should have been easy to locate. The NSA said several of the requests related to social-interest subjects, including whistleblowers, consumer protection, and business. But six months after the NSA requested the information, nine agencies still had not responded.

The Knight survey found that 14 of the agencies analyzed have actually lost ground; their current oldest request is older than it was one year ago.

The archive determined the main reason for the...