The FOIA Ombudsman

We at OGIS talk a lot about the importance of teamwork. Though we mostly think about teamwork improving everyday agency processes (such as FOIA) so that they run more smoothly, we recently heard about a cross-agency team recognizing a small opportunity and turning it into a big reward. Between 1946 and 1995, the Immigration and [...]

It’s back-to-school time—you can practically hear the rumbling of school buses and smell the new No. 2 pencils. As students across the country turn their focus from the swimming pool and summer camp toward reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, what better time for us to revisit some FOIA requester basics? FOIA requesters frequently contact OGIS for [...]

When OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet opened the office in September 2009, three requests for OGIS assistance awaited her attention, yet she had no process in place for dealing with cases or any staff members to work on them. Since its inception, one of the great challenges OGIS has faced is figuring out how to do [...]

This is an excerpt from an actual FOIA appeal response letter: Dear [name redacted], Reference is made to your letter to the [agency]…regarding the above referenced file. Through your letter you appeal the determination made…that certain records responsive to your request (or portions thereof) are exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). [...]

FOIA and Mandatory Declassification Reviews (MDRs) have some things in common — for instance, both provide access to information — but in practical terms they are very different. If you would like to learn more about both, please join OGIS, the Information Security Oversight Office and the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy for the next FOIA [...]

FOIA has the most patriotic of birthdays — July 4, 1966. Last year we commemorated FOIA’s birthday by looking back at the unusual circumstances of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the law and noted that despite a shaky start, FOIA has become part of the foundation of our democracy. We toast FOIA’s 46th birthday [...]

  The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, establishes how an agency must administer its FOIA program. While the law contains a lot of useful information—from time limits to fee categories to redactions and more—it doesn’t provide the whole picture. If a FOIA requester needs practical, detailed information about how an agency’s [...]

For the past two years, the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA’s) Open Government Plan has provided our parent agency with a roadmap to increased transparency, participation and collaboration. Since that time, NARA’s leadership and staff have completed almost 70 tasks spelled out in that document. Never an agency to rest on its laurels, NARA [...]

We receive a number of requests for assistance from FOIA requesters seeking an estimated completion date for their delayed FOIA requests. When we contact agencies for the estimated completion date, we sometimes get some pretty strong pushback. That’s understandable, since nobody wants to go on record making a promise when lots of variables beyond his/her [...]

Immigration records offer a wealth of valuable information for immigrants, genealogists, journalists, academic researchers and others. However, several agencies maintain immigration records, so finding them can challenge even the savviest FOIA requester. Join agency representatives and requesters for an OGIS Forum on immigration records on Wednesday, May 23, from 10:00 a.m. to noon. This event, [...]