Saving the Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act is vital for democratic accountability. Understanding who uses it is key to re-centering its oversight purposes.

Margaret B. Kwoka (Author)

9781108482745, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 October 2021

280 pages
22.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'Margaret Kwoka has done a great service in illuminating how one of the world's most famous transparency laws works, and fails to work. Combining pathbreaking empirical research with insightful critique and sensible proposals for reform, Saving the Freedom of Information Act is essential reading for all who care about FOIA.' David Pozen, Columbia Law School, New York

Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.

Introduction
Part I. FOIA and Democracy: 1. Why Free Information?
2. FOIA as Oversight
Part II. Who Makes a Million FOIA Requests: 3. It Is Not the News Media
4. Immigration
5. Other First-Person Requesting
6. FOIA, Inc.
7. Information Resellers
8. Idiosyncratic Requesters
Part III. Let Oversight Reign: 9. The Problem with Repurposing FOIA
10. Affirmative Disclosure
11. Redesigning Agency Adjudications
12. Customizing Information Delivery
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Political structure & processes [JPH]