Adam Marshall has this twitter rant on the redesign of FOIA Online. It illustrates a number of issues with the site and is a must read for those designing the system.
Further, I'm totally confused about why there are two FOIA portals - FOIA Online and the mechanism to make request at FOIA.gov. It seems to me that the intent of the recent amendments to the FOIA that mandated a FOIA portal was for one actual portal allowing requesters to make requests directly through the one portal. It would be nice for congressional hearings to get to the bottom of this but I'm guessing that won't happen until after November of 2018.
Further, it is always important to remember that FOIA portals do not assist in the processing of FOIA requests; improved processing of requests is the only way to reduce backlogs (outside of a reduction in the amount of requests made overall).
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