miss grigsby, i know you spoke about the d.o.j. foia regs. sort of the most pressworthy issue there was this idea they were going to simply deny the existence of documents. but those regs aside from that, even if the doj is to back off of that position, the regs were just bad overall. they made it much more difficult for requesters to obtain fee statuses. they made it more difficult to get expedited processing and they made it more difficult for requesters to get requests in general. we haven't seen anything come out of the doj about this. i was wondering what the status of that is. whether they plan on addressing some of those other issues. >> okay. thank you. the justice department's probably the best place to answer your question. i can tell you the issues with the exclusions that come up at our hearing, we asked about that and we were told the regulation is being finalized and we would get more information from the department about that. i haven't seen the other regs. i know there were a lot of issues and concerns that many in the request

grigsby, about chairman leahy's point about press releases being about what governor does right and foia maybe being about what government doesn't do right. i think foia should be expanded to tell the public more broadly what the government does and kind of what the government thinks. and i think because many of my requests have been in the national security realm, one of the things that is enlight i don't know -- enlightening about the documents that you do receive is they show the complexities -- the very hard decisions that policy makers have to consider. in speaking with our previous questioner about china, for example. the multi- -- the various aspects of china policy, whether it's north korea or trade or otherwise. so i think it's -- we look at the very positive and the very negative but there's broad public interest but perhaps not easily quantifiable public benefit in understanding government policy more broadly and the trade-offs. i guess my second comment as a long-time requester is one more broadly focused to all of you and is to say that what i'm hearing with this panel and p

to my immediate right, lidia grigsby is certainly familiar to all of us as having been cornersto cornerstone, mainstay. i could use any number of metaphors for her unwavering, energetic commitment to open government, freedom of information, as counsel to the senate judiciary committee. she has been involved in all of the major pieces of legislation that have gone through the committee relating to freedom of information in a decade almost. just about. but rather -- in addition to her be being quarterback and really having been responsible for those freedom of information act touchdowns, she also haseen one of the great defensive linemen. that is to say, also playing an amazingly important role in trying to prevent -- it's like what i would call b-3 whack-a-mole, trying to prevent the many other committees of the congress from sneaking through amendments that would undermine the freedom of information act. to her right matt johnson. matthew is counsel to senator cornyn for the senate jewishi committee activities. and in addition to his work also in this area i would say that he finds himself i