80% of Federal Agencies Flunk E-FOIA Test

by Jay Savage on March 12, 2007 at 07:00 PM



According a report published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, only one in five government agencies complies with the 1997 law that requires them to make much public information available on the web and clearly post procedures for obtaining information and making so-called "sunshine requests" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Some highlights include:
  • Only one in five federal agencies (21 percent) posts on the Web all four categories of records that the law specifically requires;
  • Only one in 16 agencies (6 percent) posts all ten elements of essential FOIA guidance;
  • Only 36 percent of agencies provide the required indexes of records;
  • Only 26 percent of agencies provide online forms for submitting FOIA requests;
  • Many agency Web links are missing or just wrong - one FOIA fax number checked in the Knight Survey actually rang in the maternity ward of a military base hospital.
The Departments of Defense, the Interior, and Veterans' Affairs, Homeland Security, and the CIA, among others, were particularly low-scorers. No shocks there. Bright spots, on the other hand, included "E-Stars" such as NASA, the FTC, and, surprisingly enough, the Department of Justice.

Anyone whose ever tried to get information from a government website probably won't be surprised by the results. The best results come from agencies who are either small or see their missions as serving the public interest. The worst results are from agencies who thrive on secrecies and/or bloated bureaucracies, which , unfortunately includes most of them.

Tags: foia, freedom of information, FreedomOfInformation, legal, national security archive, NationalSecurityArchive, news, us government, UsGovernment