Open Government

Chapter 30. Freedom of Information Acts: Promises and Realities

Brant Houston

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is fraught with paradoxes.

It’s good in theory, but difficult in practice. It has produced the disclosure of illuminating, shocking, and invaluable information, but requests under the act can entail months or years of waiting. And though writing a request letter for public records under the act is relatively simple to do, relatively few citizens do so.

In fact, after the act’s nearly half-century of existence, surveys have shown that corporations and paid researchers are among the heaviest users. In 2005, the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government said it analyzed 6,439 FOIA requests to 11 Cabinet-level departments and six large agencies. The report, which echoed previous surveys, said the following:

The review found that more than 60 percent of the requests came from commercial interests, with one-fourth of those filed by professional data brokers working on behalf of clients who wanted such information as the asbestos level on old Navy ships, cockpit recordings from crashed airliners and background data on prospective employees.

The second-largest group of requesters—categorized as “other” and consisting mostly of private citizens—comprised a third of the total. These were individuals from a wide swath of society: a movie producer doing research for The Road to Guantanamo, a divorcee searching for hidden assets and UFO enthusiasts seeking evidence of other ...