Three federal agencies didn’t bother to submit mandatory reports to the Department of Justice on their compliance with the federal Freedom of Information Act in 2014.
The Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Treasury each earned “F” grades on Cause of Action’s FOIA Report Card as a result of their failure to comply with the law’s reporting requirement. The reports were due Dec. 15, 2014, and have been required on an annual basis since 2008.
Cause of Action is a Washington-based nonprofit that focuses on litigation on behalf of greater transparency and accountability in government. The group’s FOIA report card was made public Monday as part of Sunshine Week, an annual series of events and projects hosted by news groups and nonprofit organizations dedicated to promoting open government.
Overall, 11 of the 15 cabinet-level agencies received “C,” “D,” or “F” grades. While federal departments and agencies are required by law to acknowledge receiving most FOIA requests within 20 days and are allowed to take 30 for “complex” ones, most of them delay the bulk of their responses far beyond the deadlines.
Running out the clock — delaying responses in hopes the requester will give up — is a common tactic used by federal officials to avoid the law’s requirement that public documents be released on request unless exempted by one of nine statutory exemptions such as privacy or national security.
Among agencies that submitted their reports, the State Department was at the bottom of the barrel in the Cause of Action compilation. Its “D” grade was matched only by the Departments of Justice and Energy, although they answered records requests more than twice as quickly as the State Department.
The Departments of Interior and Veteran Affairs earned “A” grades on Cause of Action’s report card, with Interior leading the group in terms of following the law most closely.
“Based on our findings over the past three years, Cause of Action has no reason to believe that agency performance under FOIA has improved, which is simply unacceptable to taxpayers who deserve a government that operates in the open,” said Dan Epstein, the group’s president.
Similar studies from the past three years have documented a steady decline in FOIA compliance at the State Department, as well as a consistently poor performance from the Treasury Department.
This year’s Sunshine Week comes during congressional consideration of proposed FOIA reforms that are pending in the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as public outrage over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and her failure to turn over all emails in which she conducted official government business.
Clinton created the private account using a server located in her New York residence. She also provided several of her closest aides with private accounts that may have been used to conduct official business. Clinton has refused to allow independent parties to examine the server.
Several organizations, including Veterans for a Strong America, Judicial Watch, the Associated Press and Gawker Media have already or expect to soon file lawsuits against the State Department for violating FOIA requirements and withholding Clinton’s emails.
Go here to read the full “Grading the Government” report card.
