OGIS Fiscal Year 2017 Report Now Available

OGIS’ Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Annual Report was released. This year’s report chronicles the first full year since the passage of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which highlighted OGIS’s crucial role in improving compliance with the statute, and OGIS’ improved ability to share observations about methods to improve the FOIA process. Read more… […]

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OGIS Embraces Transparency

Conventional wisdom holds that one strategy for improving the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process is to routinely publish agency records that might be of interest to the public. The term of art FOIA enthusiasts use for publishing agency information before anyone makes a FOIA request is proactive disclosure.

We at OGIS make it a priority to help the public better understand our work by making certain types of information available. Continue…

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OGIS Releases Assessment of Secret Service FOIA Program

Today we are releasing a report on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program at the United States Secret Service (USSS), the fifth in our series of assessments of FOIA programs at components of the Department of Homeland Security. Like other OGIS reports on agency FOIA program assessments, the report includes findings and recommendations about the USSS FOIA Program.

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Help us show the power of FOIA!

As some of you might know, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) turned 50 this year! Over these past 50 years FOIA has played an incredibly important role in improving the public's understanding of the government's actions. For one recent example, the photographs of Vice President Cheney on 9/11 that were released as a result of Associated Press's FOIA request add a new dimension to our understanding of that event. Continue…

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Agencies Should Cooperate with Freedom of Information Ombudsman, Administrative Conference Says

Federal agencies should do more to cooperate with the government's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ombudsman, according to recommendations approved June 5 by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). The recommendations also called for the ombudsman, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), to continue efforts to assist people who make FOIA requests. The recommendation is a positive step for helping people access public information under FOIA.

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FOIA ombudsman not yet at full force, report finds

From Center for Effective Government:  A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) doesn't have a plan for conducting comprehensive reviews of federal agencies' Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) policies or their compliance with the law.

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OGIS helps to resolve three-year old FOIA request

From Matt Ehling, Public Record Media, via Twin Cities Daily Planet:  In keeping with our mission, PRM aspires to be a comprehensive requester of public records. We not only submit a wide variety of data requests to government agencies, but we also pursue each through to its resolution, in order to ensure the integrity of Freedom of Information (FOI) processes at both the state and federal level.

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OGIS to focus on FOIA fees, immigration records, says Nisbet

From Fierce Government:

Freedom of Information Act fees and fee waivers are a persistent problem for agency FOIA offices and for requesters, according to Miriam Nisbet, director of the Office of Government Information Services at the National Archives and Records Administration.

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Privacy group says DHS stonewalling on ‘electronic frisk’ technology records

From Government Security News:

A privacy group that opposes a new form of electronic screening technology has asked the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to investigate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) practices at the Department of Homeland Security, after the agency refused its request for information on new terahertz scanning  technology.

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