Revised FOIA Bill becomes law.

AuthorSwartz, Nikki
PositionUP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

On December 31, President Bush signed into law revised legislation designed to improve and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the United States' open records law protecting Americans' right to know what the government is doing.

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The Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act (S. 2488) was introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Ion Kyl (R-Ariz.) in December in response to findings by the National Security Archive that some FOIA requests had been pending since 1989.

The OPEN Government Act revises requirements for federal agency disclosures of information requested under FOIA. It contains provisions aimed at achieving four objectives:

  1. Strengthen FOIA and close loopholes

  2. Help FOIA requesters obtain timely responses to their requests

  3. Ensure that agencies have strong incentives to act on FOIA requests in a timely fashion

  4. Provide FOIA officials with all the tools they need to ensure that the U.S. government remains open and accessible

Specifically, the law:

* Directs the attorney general to notify the special counsel of civil actions taken for arbitrary and capricious rejections of FOIA requests and submit annual reports to Congress on such civil actions. The law also directs the special counsel to submit an annual report on investigations of agency rejections of FOIA requests.

* Requires the 20-day period during which an agency must determine whether to comply with a FOIA request to begin on the date the request is received by the appropriate component of the agency, but no later than 10 days after the request is received by any component that is designated to receive FOIA requests in the agency's FOIA regulations

* Prohibits an agency from assessing search or duplication fees if it fails to comply with time limits, provided that no unusual or exceptional circumstances apply to the processing of the request

* Requires agencies to establish a system to...

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