to give workers more power. this has been a wonderful hour. thank you.

professor what is the freedom of information act? with a little pressure against the presidential office congress felt there needs to be more transparency and openness along with the news media and others that came along and felt more transparency was needed into ant guarantees everyone's rights not just journalists to see what the government is up to. >> was it being pushed by the

media at this point? >> the journalists were a little upset about the cold war secrecy which had gotten pretty bad. it was in world war ii and that made since everyone understood why it's needed secrecy. he was the one who championed and it took ten, 15 years before it could get past the. there's reasons we can have certain information's a. remember they needed to give

support, lyndon baines johnson ticket that passed. there'there is a variety of exes and for this one you are entitled to see what the government are up to a. why do we need strategies. every state has its own state public records law that entitles the state and local records like the town hall and school

district. research i've done shows for example on average three quarters of the time they will deny you that information three quarters of the time the police break the law. this is pervasive throughout the country. they have no enforcement provisions or very little, no teeth. so it's stacked against a citizen and the only recourse is to hire an attorney and take them to court and who has the time or the money to do that. so i wrote with my co-author to help maneuver to the system to figure out how to get the information they are entitled to and unfortunately to no city and a little gumption and

psychological human tactics. >> have you ever pursued? >> i was a journalist for a long time. i had to fire lots of public records requests. i requested all the claims against it so. i figured out quickly what problems the city was having and that wouldn't have come to light had not requested those records. not just for journalists but average people to figure out what is going on. the federal government, what was

the response. >> it's difficult to deal with. the delays are wrong and the redaction so i have requested foia. if they've done it once that's the last time into just a waste of time. whawhat is the strategy to get around that? it's getting around at the record so you don't have to request it officially because the timeliness is important. you have a delay of three non- us. that doesn't mean the system is

totally broken. a lot of people get these records in only 93, only 7% of the requests are submitted by journalists. universities, lawyers, you name it. there's a lot of important reasons to make this work but they don't always get the timeliness, so it can be a useful tool. >> has there been any effort to put it into the enforcement? >> in other nations they have stronger laws than we do. around the world out of the 111 countries that have the wall, we drank 57. we are now in the bottom half of countries as far as good, strong walls entitling the citizens to sue the government is up to.

mexico has the best foia law and it works. i've talked with citizens and journalists that have teeth in the law and enforcement provisions. >> what is the reluctance on the part to release information to citizens? >> when you have power you want to keep it. people don't really want a strong public record law because then they lose the power. it takes a lot to get the law strengthened. it takes some things that can't wear the people rise up and create transparency in government. we haven't had that for a while. ironically in a way we are

moving in that direction. there seems to be a little more anxiety in the country right n now. >> if the information is not already online provided by the federal government, what kind of information is not public necessarily? >> the information online that we see as the tip of the iceberg is just a little of what the government actually has. a lot of agencies do great work and they try to provide information proactively that there is information they don't put online. think about if you were the manager in charge of an agency enters information that can make you look bad to get fired would you put it online, no. would you voluntarily released arelease toa journalist or some, no. you would do what you can to hide that and that is the kind

of information these are intended to force disclosure because ultimately who is in charge, we are in charge and these help to protect that. >> director of the school of journalism here arizona you also teach journalism. it empowers them and every person in america is required to file in high school. this would be a part of civics because unless we teach our children how to engage with the government than we are in bad shape as the countr a country ai hate to say but in mexico they require every student in the schools and universities to learn how to file public records requests.

that's how you get people to work with other government and figure out what is happening. >> where do you even start? a >> that is a good question. i've asked experts that it came out with a report this week. a lot of things we can do. a lot of solutions we can integrate this into the civics curriculum in the schools. we can educate the public and to better educate the public record custodians and journalists and strengthened the law around the country. there are provisions that can do a lot of good and we just need a concerted effort. we need coordination and public support because if people don't believe in this, legislators are not going to believe in it. >> the curb into the political

requirement. >> information is huge right now. what we have seen through history is where you have the same party in charge of the executive and legislative branch there is little impetus to push for stronger foia walls. now we have a republican congress so there's not a lot of pressure to improve it at this point. we have to look to see who is in power and that is when we see change, but i think we will see a lot of change the next four years. already, we have just seen

strange changes in politics but who knows where it is going to lead. >> other than hiring an attorney and suing, you have to take average channels if you are a citizen without a big team behind you. in our book the art of access, we talk about the tactics all the journalists employ going above and shaming a public agency for breaking the law. we talk about how you can ask for records and not get copies that ask for the electronic versions that you don't have to pay for copies that are often exorbitant. i do a training session on how

you can sue on your own. it's not rocket science. we are not talking about an area of the law that cannot be figured out. there are resources for that. >> here is the book the art of access strategies fo for acquirg public records this is book tv on c-span2.