As part of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress calls upon either the next President or Congress to return the foreseeable harm standard to FOIA processing. This standard was introduced in October 2003 by then Attorney General Janet Reno and was subsequently abolished by her predecessor John Ashcroft.
Specifically, Podesta states "The next president should direct the attorney general to revoke the Ashcroft memorandum and restore the presumption in favor of disclosure when there is no foreseeable harm to an interest protected by the exemption. If the president fails to take this step, Congress should amend FOIA to codify the presumption."
Congress attempted to codify the presumption during debates on the 2007 FOIA amendments, but it was taken out of the legislation before the amendments were passed and signed into law.
The full Podesta testimony can be found here.
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