Freedom of Information

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act is a good act. It requires the government to release public records to those who ask for them unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas. 

However, it appears as though the government is not anxious to release all the records asked for. That's understandable. Of the 714,231 requests for information it received in 2014, it responded to 647,142.. Not too bad, you say. But in 250,581 of those responses, it censored or completely denied access to information. In another 215,584 cases it did not deliver information because it could not find records, the requester refused to pay for copies or the request was determined to be unreasonable or improper. 

Understandably, the time to wait for a response from the government varies.  Some took a day, some took years. The timing of the response seems to be increasing. Its backlog of unanswered requests at year's end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. Perhaps, that was because the number of employees responding decreased by 9%, representing the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.

Sometimes the government's refusal to turn over a document is challenged. The government acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.