NY Times Opinion Article on FOIA
This article ran in Sunday's NY Times. It's another good description of how reporters and others use the material they get in response to FOIA requests.
This article ran in Sunday's NY Times. It's another good description of how reporters and others use the material they get in response to FOIA requests.
I've probably beaten this to death, but it seems that there's some interest in it. Here's a detailed interview with Tisha Thompson about her quest for FBI records and why she got interested in the subject in the first place.
My latest LLRX.com article is up. In it, I propose some reporting requirements that should be required concerning FOIA litigation. While this isn't necessarily in some requester's best interests (chaos may be some requester's best friend), it would improve, in my opinion, FOIA performance government-wide.
The National Credit Union Administration Board has proposed these changes to its FOIA/Privacy Act regulations. According to the notice, the FOIA changes relate to recent amendments to the FOIA addressing procedural issues such as fee practices, time limits for complying with requests, and new reporting requirements. The changes to the Privacy Act provisions reflect the agency's efforts to clarify the procedures whereby individuals may obtain notification of whether an NCUA system of records contains information about the individual and access or amend a record. Comments about the changes must be received on or before June 24, 2008.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has published its update Fee Schedule. The fees are what the agency can charge for various activities it performs in response to FOIA requests.
Here's a little more to the story on FOX news which aired last night concerning FBI records.
Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel of the National Security Archive showed a letter from the FBI saying that the FBI had no records concerning Al Qaeda. When asked about this, the FBI, through David Hardy, said that the letter was simply a mistake, that an unknown employee pushed the wrong button and sent out the letter.
According to Fuchs, the National Security Archive administratively appealed the original no records response to the Department of Justice. To the Department of Justice's credit, they remanded the request back to the FBI for a new search. And then the FBI, in response to the new search, sent the National Security Archive another no records response!
Reach your own conclusion about whether or not it was just a simple mistake.
The DC Fox piece on FBI records can be found here. I'm featured on part 2 of the mismanaged secrets clip. By the way, my last name is actually pronounced Ho-des, in case you were wondering.
For those of you in the DC area, I'm interviewed tonight on the Fox5 10:00 news. If you don't see it, or aren't in the DC area, you'll be able to see it on Tuesday at myfoxdc.com. It's the story about the FBI.
Here is a report from Jefferson Morley in the Washington Independent in which the CIA refused in district court to either turn over documents concerning George Joannides or to explain their actions. Jefferson Morley is seeking the documents via the FOIA from the CIA. Joannides is a deceased CIA agent and according to some, is allegedly related to the JFK assassination.
Morley previously defeated the CIA on its initial processing of the records and the case is back in the district court for further proceedings.
You may have noticed a new look to the blog as of this post. I'm playing around with different looks--please feel free to let me know if the one I have currently is better than the last one (black background, white printing). Plus, as this is blog dedicated to the FOIA, what can be better than a city scape (purportedly) of Washington, D.C.
According to this article in the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Courier, changes to the Iowa Public Records law have failed for the 2008 legislative session. The changes were close to being passed before being pulled last weekend. Opposition came from local governments and republicans who were worried about a flood of requests. Requests that, I would think, would be to inform the citizens about what the governments were doing with the requesters tax dollars. Ironic.
