U.S. govt. launches FOIA.gov.

• Position: FOIA

As critics blasted the Obama administration for not living up to promises to make government more transparent, the Justice Department launched FOIA.gov, a website that provides information about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

For example, the website reveals that the government received 597,415 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2010 (October 2009 through September 2010), with three departments accounting for nearly half of those requests.

Data from the website show that the Department of Homeland Security received one-fifth of all FOIA requests in 2010, with more than 130,000 requests. These included inquiries into past FOIA case logs, complaints filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, and a classified evaluation of airport screening checkpoint effectiveness, according to the website.

Below are the 10 federal departments and agencies that received the most FOIA requests in fiscal year 2010:

Department/Agency Requests Received (FY10) Department of Homeland Security 130,098 Department of Defense 73,573 Department of Health and Human Services 63,839 Department of Justice 63,682 Social Security Administration 32,997 Department of State 30,206 Department of Veterans Affairs 29,127 Department of Agriculture 20,368...