Congress Urged Not to Undermine FOIA

[deminks]

WASHINGTON - Nearly 40 years after it opened up government records to public scrutiny, the Freedom of Information Act needs reworking to ensure the flow of information is not blocked by reluctant bureaucrats or an overly secretive government, a House panel was told Wednesday.

Media witnesses joined lawmakers in saying that there was a growing tendency for FOIA requests to go unanswered for months or years, be rejected, or come back redacted with large areas blacked out.

Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) of California, top Democrat on the committee, also spoke of a "disturbing new trend of agencies relying on undefined new pseudo-classifications to protect information from public disclosure." He noted that the Defense Department phone book was now classified as "for official use only."

A Government Accountability Office analysis of FOIA requests showed wide disparities among federal agencies. While 90 percent of requests made in 2004 were granted, three agencies handling more complex or security-related matters — the State Department, the
CIA and the National Science Foundation — made full grants of requested records less than 20 percent of the time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050511/ap_on_go_co/congress_foia