FOIA Matters

FOIA matters. Every day, FOIA helps countless members of the public learn about the inner workings of their Government, fostering transparency and accountability and, in turn, nurturing the nation's democracy.

As President Obama said on his first full day in office, "A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency." FOIA, he said, "is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an Open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike."

In the last fiscal year, FOIA shined a light on oil drilling, falsified military valor claims, and Government credit card misuse, among many other examples. After the April 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity analyzed data obtained under FOIA and reported in May that 97 percent of all "egregious willful" violations cited by Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors in the previous three years were found at two BP-owned refineries.¹ The Associated Press relied on FOIA to report in May that the Minerals Management Service (recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement) violated its own policy by not conducting monthly inspections on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. ² Two weeks later, The New York Times reported that Federal drilling records and well reports obtained from the Bureau under FOIA helped reveal a history of problems with a blowout preventer and casing long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion.³

A Washington, DC-area man uses FOIA daily to obtain official military medal citations from the National Archives and Records Administration's National Personnel Records Center. Vietnam veteran Doug Sterner has uncovered hundreds of cases of falsified military valor in his compilation of a database of more than 200,000 military honor citations.⁴

FOIA sometimes reveals misuse of Government resources. The Washington Times reported in May 2010 that 21 employees of the Federal Protective Service used Government credit cards to buy gold coins, flat-screen televisions, gym memberships, and clothing.⁵ Several months earlier, the Times reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated more than two dozen of its employees and contractors after they viewed pornography on their Government computers during the work day.⁶

Politico used FOIA to learn from the FBI about threats made against members of Congress.⁷ The New York City News Service, run by The City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, obtained the FBI file on the late Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, which shows that he received repeated death threats and, early in his career as a broadcaster, offered to help the FBI.⁸ And Representative John Dingell of Michigan used FOIA to obtain Federal inspection reports revealing that the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, suffered corrosion, cracked concrete, and rusted railings.⁹ Best-selling author Jon Krakauer used FOIA in reporting about Pat Tillman's journey from the National Football League to the U.S. Army in Afghanistan in Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.¹⁰ FOIA helped writer Ivan Greenberg trace the evolution of FBI spying in The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965.¹¹ And FBI files obtained under FOIA contributed to author Alex Heard's research for The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South, about a black man sentenced to death for raping a white woman in Mississippi in 1945.¹²

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