DESCRIPTION OF DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
EFFORTS TO ENCOURAGE AGENCY
COMPLIANCE WITH THE ACT
During 2003, the Department of Justice, primarily through its
Office of Information and Privacy (OIP), engaged in a wide range of
activities in meeting the Department's responsibility to encourage
agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5
U.S.C. § 552 (2000), amended by 5 U.S.C.A. § 552(a)(3)(A), (E) (West
Supp. 2003), throughout the executive branch. A summary description
of these activities, which is required by subsection (e)(5) of the
Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(e)(5), is set forth below.
(a) Counseling and Consultations
One of the primary means by which the Department of Justice
encouraged agency compliance with the FOIA during 2003 was through
OIP's counseling activities, which were conducted largely over the
telephone by experienced OIP attorneys known to FOIA personnel
throughout the executive branch as "FOIA Counselors." Through this
FOIA Counselor service, OIP provided information, advice, and policy
guidance to FOIA personnel at all federal departments and agencies,
as well as to other persons with questions regarding the proper
interpretation or implementation of the Act. OIP has established a
special telephone line to facilitate its FOIA Counselor service --
(202) 514-3642 (514-FOIA) -- which it publicizes widely. (OIP also
receives telefaxed FOIA Counselor inquiries, at (202) 514-1009, and
it maintains a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) telephone
line -- (202) 616-5498 -- which gives it the capability of receiving
TDD calls from speech- or hearing-impaired persons.) While most of
this counseling was conducted by telephone, other options were made
available as well. In summary, the counseling services provided by
OIP during the year consisted of the following:
(1) OIP continued to provide basic FOIA Counselor guidance on
a broad range of FOIA-related subjects, including emerging issues
pertaining to information of homeland security sensitivity. Most of
the FOIA Counselor calls received by OIP involve issues that are
raised in connection with proposed agency responses to initial FOIA
requests or administrative appeals, but many are more general anticipatory
inquiries regarding agency responsibilities and administrative
practices under the Act. (The Department of Justice specifies that
all agencies intending to deny FOIA requests raising novel issues
should consult with OIP to the extent practicable -- see 28 C.F.R. §
0.23a(b) (2003) -- and it has been found that such consultations are
very valuable in encouraging agency compliance with the Act.) More
than 3000 requests for assistance were received by OIP and handled in
this way during 2003, a continued large volume of such inquiries in
comparison to those received in previous years.
(2) Frequently, a FOIA Counselor inquiry is of such complexity
or arises at such a level that it warrants the direct involvement of
OIP's supervisory personnel, often one or both of its co-directors or
its deputy director. Approximately 350 inquiries of this nature were
handled in 2003.
(3) Sometimes a determination is made that a FOIA Counselor
inquiry requires more extensive discussion and analysis by OIP attorneys,
including supervisory attorneys, on the basis of the information that is
presented by the agency. Such a consultation involves a
meeting or teleconference between agency representatives and senior
OIP attorneys at which all factual, legal, and policy issues related
to the matter presented are thoroughly discussed and resolved. There
were sixty-one such more formal consultations in 2003, including
nineteen with the general counsel or deputy general counsel of the
agency involved. In addition, OIP provided consultation assistance
to the Chairman of the National Security Council's Coordinating
Committee on Records Access and Information Security, the Director of
the Terrorist Screening Center, the Acting Director of the Foreign
Terrorism Tracking Task Force, both the Chief Privacy Officer and the
Chief Information Officer of the Department of Homeland Security, the
Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community
Service, the Special Master for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund,
the Director of the Department of Energy's Blackout
Task Force, the Director of the Information Security Oversight
Office, the Chairman of the President's Information Security
Classification Appeals Panel, a Deputy Independent Counsel, and the
Deputy Corporation Counsel for the District of Columbia during the
year.
(4) An additional counseling service provided by OIP pertains
to FOIA matters in litigation, where advice and guidance are provided
at the request of and in close coordination with the Department of
Justice's litigating divisions. This service involves OIP reviewing
issues and proposed litigation positions in a case from both legal
and policy standpoints, and then recommending positions that promote
uniform and proper agency compliance with the Act. In many such
instances, OIP is asked to consult on litigation strategy and in the
drafting of briefs or petitions to be filed at the district court or
appellate court levels. Further, OIP is consulted in all instances
in which the Department of Justice must decide whether to pursue a
FOIA or FOIA-related issue on appeal. OIP also is regularly consulted
in all FOIA cases, and regarding all FOIA-related issues, that are
handled by the Office of the Solicitor General before the United
States Supreme Court. Most often, these litigation consultations are
provided by one or both of OIP's co-directors. There were
approximately 125 such litigation consultations in 2003, including
thirty-nine that involved recommendations as to the advisability of
initial or further appellate court review and eight that involved the
question of whether to seek or oppose certiorari review in the
Supreme Court. In two cases that were accepted by the Supreme Court
for review, OIP provided extensive assistance to the Office of the
Solicitor General in the development, briefing, and presentation of
the Department's positions on the merits of the FOIA issues involved.
(b) Policy Guidance
During 2003, the Department of Justice issued policy and advisory
discussions of FOIA issues for the guidance of all federal agencies,
using its FOIA Post online publication as its primary means of
policy dissemination. The major policy issued during the year was a
guidance memorandum transmitted by the Department to federal law
enforcement agencies and agency components on the highly sensitive
subject of the protection of Federal Witness Security Program
information under the FOIA. OIP worked with the United States
Marshals Service to develop regulations implementing new information-protection
provisions of the Witness Security Reform Act, see 28
C.F.R. § 0.111b(b), and in 2003 it took pains to ensure that all
relevant law enforcement agencies properly understand and apply these
special statutory and regulatory nondisclosure provisions in their
administration of the FOIA. This guidance memorandum specifically
addressed several different types of FOIA requests that can implicate
witness-security concerns, either directly or indirectly, and it
provided detailed instructions on the proper handling of all such
requests that might be received, including through use of a
"Glomarization" (i.e., "neither confirm nor deny") response where
warranted.
A second major policy area addressed in 2003 was the preparation
of annual FOIA reports by federal agencies in accordance with
the requirements of the Electronic FOIA amendments. In the wake of
the massive governmentwide reorganization conducted under the Homeland
Security Act of 2002, which affected nearly two dozen federal
departments and agencies, OIP issued special guidance designed for
the use of those departments and agencies in the preparation of their
annual FOIA reports. In order to preserve governmentwide uniformity
in agency-by-agency reporting under these extraordinary
circumstances, OIP advised all affected agency components to report
all of their statistical data for the entire year to the department
or agency of which they were a part as of the end of the fiscal year
in which the reorganization took place. And in order to avoid confusion
on the part of any annual report reader, OIP also provided a
standard explanatory footnote on reorganization-related matters to be
used by agencies in their reports wherever applicable. See FOIA
Post, "Annual Report Guidance
for DHS-Related Agencies" (posted
8/8/03). Additionally, OIP addressed several other questions of more
general applicability on this subject during the year. It issued
guidance on such annual reporting topics as the use of total employee
benefits in the calculation of annual FOIA costs; the deduction of
any employee time and costs allocable to nonaccess matters handled
under the Privacy Act of 1974; the proper reporting of FOIA
administrative appeal dispositions; the proper handling of errors and
statistical discrepancies; and the use of multiple-components charts
by large, decentralized agencies. See FOIA Post,
"FOIA Counselor
Q&A: Annual FOIA Reports" (posted 12/19/03). This guidance also was
coordinated with OIP's support of a General Accounting Office (GAO)
study of agency annual FOIA reporting that was conducted during the
year.
A third major policy area, one that also was addressed at a
FOIA Officers Conference conducted by OIP in June 2003, was the
safeguarding and protection of homeland security-related information.
OIP advised all agencies of the new "Exemption 3 statute" protection
for the new category of "critical infrastructure information" that
was enacted as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, both discussing
its substantive scope and at the same time providing timely
governmentwide notice of the exact timetable adopted by the executive
branch for different stages of the Homeland Security Act's
reorganization implementation. See FOIA Post,
"Homeland Security Law
Contains New Exemption 3 Statute" (posted 1/27/03). This guidance
also addressed the growing legal basis for application of the
constitutional doctrine of preemption for the protection of federal
information that otherwise would be subject to disclosure under state
open records laws. See id. (citing Freedom of Information Act Guide
& Privacy Act Overview (May 2002), at 563-64). Later in the year,
after conducting a governmentwide gathering of FOIA officers to
discuss such issues, OIP issued further guidance that surveyed the
landscape of both current and prospective FOIA-related matters
pertaining to homeland security and national security -- covering recent
litigation activity, legislative developments, and matters of current
policy significance. See FOIA Post,
"FOIA Officers Conference Held
on Homeland Security" (posted 7/3/03).
Ancillary to this, OIP also provided specialized guidance to
the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the development of
its FOIA regulations upon its establishment in 2003. Due to the
extraordinary timetable involved, and the resource limitations under
which DHS operated at the outset of its existence as a newly formed
department, OIP provided extensive drafting assistance in
this process and ready use was made of the Justice Department's own FOIA
regulations as a model for DHS to follow. Similarly, OIP provided
exceptional policy support to DHS in the development of its "critical
infrastructure information" regulations in implementation of section
214 of the Homeland Security Act during the year.
Additionally, during 2003, OIP provided policy guidance to
agencies also on such subjects as the development and proper use of
the exceptional "survivor privacy" principle of privacy protection
under Exemptions 6 and 7(C) of the FOIA, see FOIA Post,
"Supreme
Court Decides to Hear 'Survivor Privacy' Case" (posted 5/13/03); the
development and proper handling of new statutory nondisclosure
provisions under Exemption 3 of the FOIA, see FOIA Post,
"Agencies
Rely on Wide Range of Exemption 3 Statutes" (posted 12/16/03); and
several distinct aspects of agencies' compliance with their "reading
room" obligations under subsection (a)(2)(D) of the Act, see FOIA
Post, "FOIA Counselor
Q&A: 'Frequently Requested' Records" (posted
7/25/03).
(c) FOIA Post
In 2003, the Department of Justice completed its second full
year of publishing FOIA Post, its more high-tech and cost-efficient
replacement for its longtime FOIA Update newsletter.
The Department's FOIA Update newsletter was
published from 1979 to 2000 in a
paper format that became increasingly antiquated with the passage of
time, so the Department instituted FOIA Post as a novel and more
effective means of disseminating FOIA information to federal agencies
and other interested parties through use of the Department's FOIA Web
site. FOIA Post now serves as the primary means of FOIA
policy dissemination and as a highly efficient vehicle for communicating with
agency FOIA personnel and others who are interested in the Act's
administration. It includes the same types of FOIA guidance and
information features that were disseminated in paper form through
FOIA Update, as well as additional FOIA-related features, and it does
so in a more efficient electronic form that also makes very effective
use of electronic links to referenced documents and other sources of
information in a Web-based format. This evolution to Web-based
information dissemination for the FOIA not only takes advantage of
the cost-efficiencies of electronic communication, it also is in
keeping with the Act's growing emphasis on the disclosure of agency
information to the public electronically, through use of the World
Wide Web, under the provisions of the Electronic FOIA amendments.
Just as individual agency FOIA Web sites have become a vital means by
which the FOIA is administered at all federal agencies, all agencies
now look to the Justice Department's FOIA Web site for the most
recent postings of information on matters of governmentwide FOIA
administration. The Department emphasizes this point in all of its
training programs as well as at its FOIA Officers Conferences, and it
recommends that this part of its FOIA Web site
(www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/mainpage.htm)
be electronically
bookmarked by all agency FOIA personnel and others interested in the Act
for this purpose. The response to readily accessing FOIA Post in
this fashion has been very positive, from both government and
nongovernment users alike.
During 2003, OIP disseminated a variety of different items for
the guidance of federal agencies through FOIA Post. In addition to
several substantive policy guidance memoranda discussed above, OIP
used this electronic publication portal to distribute, on a quarterly
basis throughout the year, newly prepared summaries of all current
FOIA decisions received by OIP. See, e.g., FOIA Post,
"New FOIA
Decisions, January-March 2003" (posted 4/2/03). Further, OIP prepared
and published such summaries for FOIA decisions that were
handed down during past years as well, in compilations covering
six-month periods at a time, see, e.g.,
FOIA Post, "Compiled FOIA
Decisions (Received January-June 1995)" (posted 1/16/03), as part of
a multi-year reference project that was begun soon after the
inauguration of FOIA Post. During 2003, OIP accelerated its work on
this project and published a total of thirteen additional such retrospective
compilations to cover a fifteen-year period, from 1989
through 2003. See FOIA Post,
"Compilations of FOIA Decisions Now
Cover Past Fifteen Years" (posted 12/31/03).
Another major guidance tool disseminated through FOIA Post during
2003 was OIP's summary compilation of the information contained in the
annual FOIA reports that are prepared by all federal departments and
agencies in accordance with the amended annual reporting requirements
of the Act. Although the Electronic FOIA amendments do not require
that it do so, OIP initiated the practice of compiling aggregate
summaries of all agencies' annual FOIA report data as soon as those
reports are filed by all agencies each year. In 2003, OIP prepared
summaries of agency reports covering Fiscal Year 2002 (the filing
deadline for which was February 1, 2003) and in conjunction with this
also emphasized the importance of all agencies heeding the Act's
requirements for the completion of their annual FOIA reports in a
timely fashion. See FOIA Post,
"Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for
Fiscal Year 2002" (posted 9/03/03).
Through FOIA Post, OIP also provided governmentwide notification
of FOIA training opportunities during the year; it provided similar
notice of a governmentwide FOIA Officers Conference; it presented a
survey discussion of agency use of "Exemption 3 statutes"
governmentwide; it promoted full and proper implementation of the
Electronic FOIA amendments by all federal agencies; it provided updates
on FOIA-related GAO activity; it advised agencies on corrective steps
to be taken upon the discovery of any incorrect past reliance on
statutory authority; and it disseminated descriptive analyses of all
FOIA-related activity in the United States Supreme Court. Also published
in FOIA Post during 2003 was an analytical discussion of the
amendment of the executive order that governs national security
classification (and is incorporated into Exemption 1 of the FOIA),
Executive Order 12,958, amended by Executive Order 13,292, 68 Fed. Reg.
15,315 (Mar. 28, 2003), which additionally traced the history of such
executive orders over the past half-century. See FOIA Post,
"Executive
Order on National Security Classification Amended" (posted 4/11/03).
Lastly, during 2003, OIP greatly expanded its use of a newly developed FOIA
Post feature through which it regularly disseminates descriptions of
Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act-related positions that are available
at federal agencies, in an effort to facilitate the hiring of highly qualified
attorneys and access professionals to work in the FOIA and Privacy Act areas
throughout the federal government. See, e.g., FOIA Post, "FOIA/Privacy
Act Positions Available at Federal Agencies" (posted 12/12/03). A total
of twenty-one such FOIA-related employment openings were publicized through
thirteen such postings during the year.
(d) Additional FOIA Reference Materials
In 2003, OIP made arrangements with the Government Printing Office
(GPO) for the next revision of its major reference volume, entitled the
Freedom of Information Act Guide &
Privacy Act Overview, which contains
the "Justice Department Guide to the Freedom of Information Act." It
arranged for this next edition of the Guide & Overview to be published
by GPO in May 2004, at which time it is expected that GPO will be able
to facilitate the printing and governmentwide distribution of this
reference volume on a more efficient timetable than in the past.
During 2003, OIP also began editorial preparations for the completion
of the Guide & Overview's new edition.
OIP took a number of other steps to further the availability of
reference tools for purposes of FOIA administration during the year.
In recognition of the continued importance of full governmentwide
implementation of the Electronic FOIA amendments (E-FOIA), it created a
special Web-based compendium of information resources to guide agencies
in their continuing E-FOIA implementation activities; most significantly,
this new consolidated E-FOIA guidance site took full advantage
of the electronic linkage capability of FOIA Post by providing direct
links to all cited items, thereby allowing immediate reference to them.
See FOIA Post, "Electronic
Compilation of E-FOIA Implementation
Guidance" (posted 2/28/03). It also conducted a special governmentwide
review of all agencies' Web sites during the year to ensure that their
"main home pages" contained direct links to their FOIA home pages in
all cases, as is necessary for proper FOIA administration. And it
announced plans for the consolidation of its fifteen years of FOIA case
summaries for the years 1989 through 2003 into a single case
compilation, to be both alphabetized in the aggregate and divided
according to type of court, and for the development of a specialized
search engine permitting keyword searches throughout this new research
compilation. See FOIA Post, "Compilations
of FOIA Decisions Now Cover
Past Fifteen Years" (posted 12/31/03).
For additional reference purposes, during 2003, all issues of FOIA
Update for the years 1979-2000 were made available on the Justice
Department's FOIA Web site, where they were fully accessible
electronically -- and keyword searchable -- as an aid to ready
research. Additionally, guidance items from FOIA Update (and now also
from FOIA Post) were used in all Justice Department FOIA-training
programs and were made available through such programs offered by the
Graduate School of the United States Department of Agriculture and by
the American Society of Access Professionals nationwide. Similarly,
OIP made copies of the Freedom of Information Act Guide & Privacy Act
Overview available to governmentwide training participants without cost
through the Justice Department's FOIA-training programs. And at the
end of 2003, OIP also announced plans for the development of an overall
search engine for FOIA Post that will permit it to be used as a
comprehensive research tool just as its predecessor publication FOIA
Update is now used.
Also made available on the Department's FOIA Web site during 2003
was the "Department of Justice Freedom of
Information Act Reference
Guide," which was developed in accordance with the Electronic FOIA
amendments and is a model for the counterpart reference guides that are
prepared by other federal agencies. This reference tool for potential
FOIA requesters describes the procedural aspects of making a FOIA
request, specifies the different types of records that are maintained
by the Department of Justice's many components, and describes the types
of records and information that are available to the public from the
Department without the necessity of making a FOIA request. It consists
of fourteen pages, plus five detailed attachments, and it contains much
information that is readily adaptable for use by all other federal
agencies in their own FOIA reference guides. An updated edition of
this publication was issued by OIP in November 2003; further, its
earlier edition was supplemented electronically during the year with
additional information pertaining to the Justice Department's "major
information systems," in accordance with a provision of the Electronic
FOIA amendments, 5 U.S.C. § 552(g)(1). It also was used by the nations
of Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom in their work on the
implementation of their new Freedom of Information Act-like statutes
during the year.
In accordance with another provision of the Electronic FOIA
amendments, 5 U.S.C. § 552(e)(3), the Justice Department in 2003
maintained "a single electronic access point" for the consolidated
availability of the annual FOIA reports of all federal agencies. In
furtherance of this (though not in all respects required by the Act),
OIP receives a copy of each agency's annual FOIA report each year,
reviews it for correctness and completeness, and then makes all such
reports promptly available at its central electronic site. These
annual FOIA reports, beginning with those for Fiscal Year 1998, are
organized by the Justice Department and made readily accessible to the
public on the Department's FOIA Web site, at
www.usdoj.gov/oip/04_6.html. In close
coordination with GAO, OIP in
2003 further enhanced its practice of reviewing all agencies' annual
reports as they are sent to it for this electronic availability purpose,
and then contacting individual agencies to discuss and resolve
any identified question or discrepancy with them. It did so in accordance
with a 2002 GAO report entitled
"Update
on the Implementation of
the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments," which
encouraged such discretionary OIP review activities and found that they
"have resulted in improvements to both the quality of agencies' annual
reports and on-line availability of information." Id. at 62. A
follow-up GAO study conducted during 2003 (but not completed in
published form until 2004) likewise found improvements in agencies'
annual reporting due to OIP's governmentwide review efforts.
(e) Training and Public Presentations
During 2003, OIP furnished speakers and workshop instructors for a
variety of seminars, conferences, public broadcasts, individual agency
training sessions, and similar programs designed to promote the proper
administration of the FOIA within the executive branch and/or a greater
understanding of the Act's administration outside the executive branch,
including internationally. Seventeen professional staff members of OIP
gave a total of 122 training presentations during the year, including
at several training sessions designed to meet the specific FOIA-training needs
of individual agencies. Such individualized training
sessions were conducted for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
the National Archives and Records Administration, the
Defense Legal Agency, the Forest Service, and the Social Security
Administration; for the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Labor,
State, Homeland Security, and the Air Force; and for several individual
components of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. OIP training presentations also were made at the
Annual Convention of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, at
the annual Business Information Training Day program of the American
Society of Access Professionals, at the Sweet & Maxwell's Privacy
Conference, at a United States Attorney's Client Agency Conference, and at
the Eighteenth Annual Federal Dispute Resolution Conference.
Additionally, the co-directors of OIP gave a total of 117
presentations at a variety of FOIA-training programs and other forums for the
discussion of government information policies and practices, including
those held by the Brookings Institution, George Mason University, the
Graduate School of Public Administration at American University, the
College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, the Freedom Forum,
the National Press Club, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism,
the Foreign Press Center, the American Society of Access Professionals,
and the Army Judge Advocate General's School. They made key presentations
at the Department of Labor Annual FOIA Conference, NASA's Annual
FOIA Conference, the Transportation Security Administration Annual FOIA
Conference, the Annual Symposium of the American Society of Access
Professionals, the U.S./Canada/Mexico Commission on Environmental
Cooperation's Transboundary Law Enforcement Workshop, the Department of
Homeland Security's First Annual FOIA Conference, the American Society
of Newspaper Editors' "Freedom of Information Summit," and the Freedom
Forum's "Annual Freedom of Information Day Celebration." They also
made appearances on C-SPAN, international video conference broadcasts,
foreign television network programs ("TV Azteca," broadcast in Mexico),
and the Federal News Radio program "FEDtalk" in publicly discussing the
Department's FOIA administration, most particularly regarding post-9/11
secrecy concerns, and gave related interviews to print media in coordination
with the Department's Office of Public Affairs. During the
year, one of OIP's co-directors also gave an interview for a major
segment of a documentary on international openness in government
produced by KBS (the Korean Broadcast System) for broadcast in Seoul,
Korea.
In conjunction with the Justice Department's National Advocacy
Center, OIP conducted a wide range of FOIA-training programs in 2003,
ranging from half-day introductory sessions for non-FOIA personnel to
advanced programs for highly experienced FOIA personnel. OIP's basic
two-day training course, entitled "The Freedom of Information Act for
Attorneys and Access Professionals," was conducted several times during
2003 in Columbia, South Carolina (the base location of the National
Advocacy Center), and in Washington, D.C. as well. OIP also conducted
two sessions in 2003 of its "Freedom of Information Act Administrative
Forum," a training program devoted almost entirely to administrative
matters arising under the Act -- such matters as record-retrieval practices,
multitrack queue usage, backlog management, affirmative disclosure, and
automated record processing. Designed to serve also as a
forum for the governmentwide exchange of ideas and information on all
matters of FOIA administration, this training program regularly brings
together veteran FOIA processors from throughout the government and
encourages them to share their experience in administering the Act on a
daily basis. Also conducted twice in 2003 was OIP's "Advanced Freedom
of Information Act Seminar," which featured presentations by the
Director of the Freedom of Information Service Center of the Reporters
Committee for Freedom of the Press and by the Freedom of Information
Act Coordinator of the National Security Archive on the administration
of the FOIA from the perspective of a FOIA requesters. These programs
also contained a special segment covering the electronic availability
and annual FOIA reporting requirements of the Electronic FOIA
amendments as addressed by the GAO reports discussed above.
Lastly, as is referenced above, OIP also held a FOIA Officers
Conference for the principal FOIA officers of all federal agencies as a
major training activity on the subject of homeland security during the
year. It reviewed and discussed the wide range of FOIA-related issues,
policies, and legal authorities on homeland security and overall
matters of government secrecy that have arisen since September 11,
2001. In so doing, it placed special focus on the role of the new
Department of Homeland Security, and its potential interrelations with
other federal agencies, in activities that pertain either directly or
indirectly to the administration of the FOIA. This conference was
attended by representatives of nearly all federal agencies and it was
conducted by the co-directors of OIP together with a senior director of
the National Security Council. See FOIA Post,
"FOIA Officers Conference
Held on Homeland Security" (posted 7/3/03).
(f) Briefings and Interagency Coordination Activities
OIP conducted a number of general or specific FOIA briefings
during 2003 for persons interested in the operation of the Act, such as
representatives of foreign governments concerned with the implementation
or potential adoption of their own government information
access laws. OIP provided briefings and FOIA materials in seventeen
such sessions to representatives of the nations of Japan, Peru, Canada,
Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Korea, Thailand,
Poland, Israel, China, and Australia. It also provided such briefings
to the Comptroller of the Mexican Senate, Members of the Parliament of
Uganda, Members of the Parliament of Indonesia, and a Mexican
Transparency Commissioner. And at the request of the China Law Center
of Yale Law School, and in coordination with the Department of State,
OIP's deputy director traveled to Shanghai, China in order to engage in
several days of discussions of openness-in-government principles with
both national and provincial officials, including the substantive
review of draft legislation, in preparation of the "open government
information" law scheduled to be adopted there in mid-2004.
Additionally, in 2003 OIP conducted briefings on FOIA policy for
the Department of Energy in connection with its investigation of the
August 2003 power blackout; it briefed a special review team from
another cabinet department on measures to improve that department's
FOIA operations; it briefed officials of yet another cabinet department
on improvements that could be made in its FOIA administrative appeals
function; it briefed representatives of a new cabinet department on the
establishment of a consolidated FOIA function; it continued to provide
briefing and consultation assistance to the District of Columbia
Government in connection with administrative reform of the operation of
its statutory counterpart to the Freedom of Information Act; it
conducted a final review session on an executive order at the request
of the National Security Council; it conducted an editorial review of a
homeland security publication for the American Bar Association's
Section of Administrative Law; it conducted a luncheon debate for a
government and public audience on the topic of homeland security
secrecy; it participated in the Annenberg Public Policy Center's Media
Dialogue Group; it participated in the DHS Critical Infrastructure
Information Working Group; it participated in an international program
on government transparency held in London; it provided briefings on the
mechanics of transparency implementation to representatives of the
British Department for Constitutional Affairs (formerly the Lord
Chancellor's Office) both in the United States and in the U.K.; it was
interviewed for a doctoral dissertation on FOIA administration; it
attended several interagency meetings on information policy issues in
support of the Office of Homeland Security, Homeland Security
Transition Planning Office, and the new Department of Homeland Security;
it provided briefings both within the Department and to other
agencies on matters pertaining to proposed legislation; and it
conducted multiple briefing sessions, and provided other forms of assistance,
in support of GAO's FOIA-related activities throughout the year. And
in 2003 one of OIP's co-directors served on the Governance Board of the
Business Gateway Initiative, a governmentwide "E-Government" program
conducted under the auspices of OMB.
During 2003, OIP also engaged in other interagency coordination
activities in FOIA-related areas. As an outgrowth of the FOIA Officers
Conference that it conducted on the subject of homeland security in
mid-2003, and to serve the need for continuing governmentwide
coordination in this area of growing importance, OIP formed an
interagency working group on homeland security-related FOIA issues.
This newly created FOIA Officers Homeland Security Information Group
(FOHSIG) is comprised of representatives of a dozen agencies who now
gather regularly at meetings hosted by OIP to exchange information and
discuss upcoming matters pertaining to homeland security-related
information policies and practices. The FOHSIG met three times
beginning in the second half of 2003 and plans to continue to meet
approximately every two months in the future.
Another new interagency coordination activity commenced by OIP in 2003 was
its efforts to coordinate governmentwide record-review activities by federal
agencies under section 586 of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and
Related Programs Appropriations Act, Pub. L. No. 108-7, 117 Stat. 11, 215-16
(2003), concerning the murders of American churchwomen and other American citizens
in El Salvador and Guatemala since December 1999. This new law called upon all
federal agencies to identify relevant classified records pertaining to the murders
and to review them for possible declassification, consistent with existing nondisclosure
standards, for release to the victims' families. Upon a delegation of authority
from the President, and in turn on behalf of the Attorney General, OIP conducted
several interagency meetings, provided administrative and procedural guidance,
and served as the principal coordination authority for the implementation of
this statutory scheme throughout the executive branch.
(g) Congressional and Public Inquiries
In 2003, OIP responded to fifteen congressional inquiries
pertaining to FOIA-related matters and, in its "FOIA Ombudsman" capacity, see
FOIA Update, Vol. XIV, No. 3, at 8, it responded to nine
complaints received from members of the public who were concerned that an agency had
failed to comply with the requirements of the Act. In all such
instances involving a concern of agency noncompliance, the matter was
discussed with the agency and, wherever appropriate, a recommendation
was made regarding the steps needed to be taken by the agency in order
to bring it into proper compliance. Additionally, OIP responded to
nearly one hundred written inquiries from members of the public seeking
information regarding the basic operation of the Act or related matters
during the year, as well as to innumerable such inquiries received by
telephone.
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