Obama administration sets FOIA records.

• Position: FOIA - Freedom of Information Act

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US. federal government searchers said they could not find a single page of information in response to nearly 130,000 Freedom of Information Act requests for information (about 17%) in the 2015 fiscal year--a record number, according to a new Associated Press (AP) analysis of government data.

The AP's annual review covered all requests to 100 federal agencies during fiscal 2015. In 39% of cases--or 5,168 times--the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn't find any records. The Environmental Protection Agency regional office that oversees New York and New Jersey came up empty handed 58% of the time, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection couldn't find anything in 34% of cases.

The review had no way to determine whether more requests last year involved non-existent files or whether searches for records were not thorough enough. The Obama administration told the AP that it completed a record 769,903 requests, a 19% increase over the previous year, despite hiring only 283 new full-time workers for the issue, an increase of about 7%. The number of times the government said it couldn't find records increased 35% over the same period.

The AP noted that in some high-profile cases involving federal lawsuits, the Obama administration found tens of thousands of pages after it previously said it couldn't find any. The website Gawker sued the State Department last year after it said it couldn't find any e-mails that Philippe Reines...