Final report of 2018-20 FOIA advisory committee now available
I had the honor of serving on the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) FOIA advisory Committee for the 2018-2020 term. Administered by the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), which serves as the chair of the Committee, the FOIA advisory committee brings together 9 members from within the Federal government and 11 non-governmental members […]
Justice Dept annual FOIA summary report miscalculates FOIA release rate
Unredacted, the National Security Archive’s blog, analyzed the latest annual agency FOIA report from the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP), and found that the report over calculated and misrepresented the government’s release rate of FOIA requests. The FY2019 summary report said that agencies had achieved a government-wide release rate of 94.4% (up […]
HIGH-INCOME NONFILERS OWING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS…
The Treasury Inspector General recently released an audit that the IRS isn’t doing an adequate job of making sure that the highest earners are paying their fair share. Surveys consistently report that most citizens believe that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. Party affiliation doesn’t affect their opinion. “Only 6% of Americans think […]
Threshold Concepts for Government Information
There’s an interesting thread on the govdoc-l listserv regarding “threshold concepts” for government information — core concepts which, once understood, “transform perception of a given subject, phenomenon, or experience” or as someone on govdoc-l stated “concepts that are so foundational that people immersed in a discipline take them for granted.” We think some of the […]
CDC Activities and Initiatives Supporting the COVID-19 Response and the President’s Plan for Opening America U p Again
Journalists reported in May that CDC had created a 60 page + document on reopening for public distribution but that some administration appointees had blocked its release and issued instead a 17 page document of information they already published. A librarian searched CDC’s website and couldn’t find and therefore initiated a FOIA request. The 17 […]