NEWS 409 Lecture 24: Freedom of Information Overview notes
26 Feb 2019
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Freedom of Information Overview
Intro:
In our democratic system governed by the rule of law, government must be accountable to the
citizenry for its policies and actions.
Under our constitutional system of checks and balances, Congress can impose a direct check on
executive action by oversight and legislation.
But citizens can do so indirectly, either by voting the president out of office or by invoking the
powers of the courts to review executive action.
The 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is arguably the most important tool Americans
have to oversee the workings of their government.
FOIA was designed to bring an end to the idea that government could operate behind closed
doors.
FOIA establishes a presumption that all government info is available to the public, subject only
to be a few, narrowly circumscribed exemptions.
Some information- agency rules and final orders and decisions- must be published and
disseminated by the agency, and under newly added provisions of POIA, agencies must take this
information available over the internet.
But the heart of FOIA is its requirement that agencies, upon request, disclose any record in the
agency’s possession to anyone.
Two parts:
he first part provides a brief overview of FOIA and how it operates to open government files to
public inspection.
As will become clear, FOIA is a general statute that sweeps with a broad brush, resolving the
basic policy question in favor of openness and against secrecy.
But FOIA leaves open many questions about how its exemptions should be interpreted.
The second part describes how those questions have been answered by the courts, with a
special emphasis on decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court implementing FOIA.
The Act
