make a foia request. a lot of people are unfamiliar with all of the basics of the foia law. it's not necessarily a basic law, it can be comprehensive. we would like to better inform the public and the house offices that are handling foia requests with constituent services so that they are better served and they're getting access to the data they need. so in closing i'll mention one thing that we're working with the minority on, which is a gao foia per expectus. gao is going to be looking in agency foia compliance. one of the aims of that is to see how well agencies are enacting eric holder's memo on government openness and transparency. we also asked them to look into compliance with e-foia and pro active disclosure and we also asked them to look at the accuracy and usefulness of data c contained on foia.gov, it's a new web site on foia where can you go and get reporting information from past requests. that's something what we should have the results of this summer and we will be following up with agencies

one is our foia scorecard on government agencies. last year we requested foia logs from every government agency. most of them i'm glad to say were very responsive. they produced the records that we requested, and the logs had the information that we were looking for. the logs were -- they were graded based on five things. they were graced based on the name of the requester, the subject matter, the status of the request, the final disposition, and -- sorry. i'm blanking on the last one. >> the format. >> yes, the stormate. because a lot of them were unable to produce electronic copies. sometimes we got hard copies only. sometimes we got heavily redacted pdf formats that were not searchable. so many agencies were not tracking key information. some of them were missing tracking information. the tracking number that's legally required to be put on foia requests that are open more than ten days. some agencies did very well. some departments did very well. the treasury department, we were impressed that they were actually using consistent formats across all of t

there were somewhere around half a million foia requests filed across the government last year. i can tell you with absolute certainty that not every one of those requests received helpful and friendly customer service. this is not by any means to impugn the folks who have to do this day to day, but i think that the fact is that in not all cases the customer service message is getting out. that's despite the 2007 amendments where congress clearly indicated that they wanted an increased emphasis on customer service. so i see ogis as a sheepdog. in a sense, that congress is driving the herd and has said we want to go here. and ogis is the sheepdog that has to go and catch the straggler and bring it back to the crowd. the stubborn sheep that doesn't want to move, ogis has to convince it to move and the idea is to bring everybody along and keep us moving and pick up the pace to go in the direction that congress has said we need to go. so at a macro level i think that's very important. at an individual level, it is -- i don't think this is too strong a word, infuriating to not know wh

so why is the fcc all of a sudden have more secrets than the cia when with foia requests? >> well, i'm not familiar with d them before. we'd be happy to look at them together with you and try to understand the trend. certainly we recognize our obligations under foia and we have a team of professionals to handle foia requests and understand their obligations to comply and meet their obligations under law. >> and, again, the reason -- that's why i wanted to mention that first, the reason i was taken that back is precisely because of the relationship i've had with you and my staff has had and we've been able to get information. but seems outside of me and congress and members of congress, it seems it might be different. if you look at those denied for not reasonably described, 16.4% for the fcc, the cia 0.7%. the nsa 0.5%. homeland security, 0.2%. there seems to be a problem there. and that's a huge increase. because just previously to that was about 3%. it was still higher than these other agencies. i'm sure there's a reason for it but there seems to be a huge increase of den

they could have a sense about what is possible and what is correct. >> best practices foia requesters? >> how does agency respond, how do we as a requester get the information, right? >> yes. >> yeah. >> and so you know what to expect and, you know, that being forewarned is very helpful. >> gentleman on this audience looks semi-forewarned at least. >> jim snyder. my question has to do with conflict of interest guidance for foia officers. there's lots of discussions about how to get foia officers to comply with the law, but it's not generally thought that they may have blatant conflicts of interest in actually serving their role. many officers don't just do foia. they're lawyers for an agency and they have many other roles. for example, i have been researching a particular agency and the foia officer also does all the vetting for the federal advisory committee. this agency it happens to be i'm interested in investigating how that agency does the vetting office. there's no public disclosure that the person i'm asking is actually -- i'm actually checking on the foia officer as it turns o

according to that website, the fcc is denying more foia requests under this new fcc and in the bastard as a matter fact, significantly, greater percentage of denials compared to other government agencies. for example, in 2010 the fcc denied 48% of freedom of information act requests, while the rest of the government denied only 7.3%. that's pretty darn huge difference. let me also been to put it in perspective, some of that data in that website indicates the sec has started denying an unusually large percentage of freedom of information request because of this thing called not reasonably prescribed. under your watch, the fcc denied about 16.4% of foia requests based on records that were not quote reasonably described. but again not only is that a huge increase from previous fcc years, only 3% denial based on that, but much higher than even the cia. which i thought was a big deal. the cia denies 0.7% denial rate of the same year on that same issue. so why is the fcc all of a sudden have more secrets than the cia, when you're dealing with foia requests? >> i'm not familiar with those num

west somewhere, i want to say it was in iowa or something where a local government had filed a foia request to the post office about the closing of of the post office. they got a letter back that said we have estimated that this request will cost $462,124.38. and we'll begin processing your request. and trust us, that we came up with a good number basically. agency also do that but they'll also do something a little bit more insidious, i think, where they will do something along the lines of, the cia just did this in one of the c cases, where we filed a foia request for records which would indicate which ten requesters submitted the most requests in a couple fiscal years. we gave several options. we said you can give us just those ten, depending on how you can short your database, you can give us a daybase listing of the foia log from those ten. you can give us, if you can't sort by that, you can give us your foia log and we'll go through and figure out which ten there are. the problem with that is the cia every time you ask them for a foia log they give you the foia log that doesn't list t

seen over and over again in my work, a delay is merely priorization and attempts to fulfill that foia request while continuing to attempt to do the work that the agency is otherwise required to do. i do think that's a point that needs to be recognized. >> that's a good point. i added to my list two other factors for agency delays, records management issues because even if they know where -- sometimes they don't know where they are, they have trouble finding them, and the expansive requests are just very large. you've been very patient. yes, ma'am? >> hi, i'm a student and i have one forward looking question for each of you, if you want and that is, what is the most important foia matter that will be brought before congress through the rest of this year? and how likely do you think it that is foia will abmebe amende >> great question to wrap up on, thank you. starting on the far end, krysta? do you want to take a little time? no, you can handle this one. this is -- by the way, i should say, this is such a simple question for staff, for anyone in washington, for my dog in fact to answer about w

one concern was that we did not want to dissuade people from making foia requests because that information might be available. i think a lot of the logs are already available online. i know the government attic did an identical request to ours and posted the logs they received online, which i actually think is very useful because as a citizen and not congress the logs should be properly exempted. all the privacy concerns should have been taken care of before they were released. but i think that that's something we're still considering given that many of the agencies have a lot of very private information in those and we don't want to compromise that. >> i think it would be actually -- it's somewhat difficult to even find out what fields of information they track. and so in fact having -- and maybe that was in the report. a more detailed description of the contents of logs and, you know, what a field means because we have in fact had some difficulty in obtaining just descriptive information. >> that's something that we have gone into in the report. there's very wide discrepancy between what

lebeau, after he had done a foia request and the fbi said they had no response of records. it was fairly apparent that the reason that they were saying that was that they had relied on an exclusion, and so in the administrative appeal, and in the lawsuit, we asserted that the fbi was relying on this exemption, and that it was improperly relying on the exemption, because c1 requires th unaware of the investigation. he was quite aware of it. i showed him the transcript from the deposition. so he knew thatatn was ongoing, so we challenged the investigation on that ground. the fbi said, well, to do is submit a secret brief to the court, in which we say whether or not there is actually material redacted under, or not redacted but information that they can't even acknowledge under c1, and asked the court to issue an opinion which says if exemption c1 was relied on, then it was proper. if it was not relied on, then there are no documents, and you have no way of really reviewing that, so we run into some of the same problems, that avalon had. what's a little bit different in this c

foia denial. after the vaughn v. rosen case. whereas, more than 20 years ago, she founded the transactional records clearing house with david bernham which has requests and litigation made available to the public detailed information on federal enforcement, staffing and spending. whereas, in so doing, she has uniquely influenced the development of the foia during its formative years and beyond. therefore, susan long is deserving of this recognition as recipient of the 2012 robert vaughn foia award. there is one more thing. as befits the type of legal document the government has to file in court in freedom of information act cases, the final sentence. it is here by declared with 1746 that the foregoing is true and correct. i give you professor long. [ applause ] >> thank you, dan and thank you, alan, for all those kind words. you know, when dan called me to let me know that we were all going to award me this very significant honor and it had the word legend in it, i immediately thought, that means i'm really old to be a legend. at least i'm still a living legend and not a dead legend. sometimes if you live long enough, you, too, could become a legend.

agency should take to give notice to a submitter of business records, when the agency receives a foia request for those records. i agreed. dan drafted it. president reagan signed executive order 12600. in 1989 the government prevailed on the reporter's committee case in the supreme court. dan suggested that we draft and publish a policy piece explaining all of its nuances. i agreed. in 1991, recognizing a need unfilled by the office of management and budget, dan suggested we publish along with the department of justice's freedom of information act guide an overview of the privacy act of 1974. i agreed. in 1992, dan suggested that he write and we publish an article on the automatic disclosure provisions of a1 and a2 of the foia, mistakingly believing this would be one of the most exciting topics ever to be addressed in foia update, i agreed. in 1993, dan suggested that he draft a new discretionary disclosure mem row for attorney general reno. i agreed but there was a bit of a delay, because attorney general reno's draft memo was shortened a bit when president clinton lifted some of dan's text

can i ask, raise your hand if you've ever filed a foia request. >> and you're willing to self-identify. youaise your hand if used ojis's requestor services. okay. a few. raise your hand if you are a foia professional. also a good bit. raise your hand if you've been on the other end of ojis's requestor services. okay. so a good number of folks with some firsthand experience here. for the rest of you, i think it's important to recognize that the requestor services have a real value at both macro level. there were somewhere around half a million fioa requests filed across the government last year, and i can tell you with absolute certainty that not every one

y. >> raise your hand if you have used foia request your services. raise your hand if you are a foia professional. raise your hand if you have been on the other end of ogis' request for services. for the rest of you, it is important to recognize that a value at the individual and the macro level. there were 500,000 requests filed last year. not everyone of those requests received helpful customer service. this is not to impugn the folks who do it day to day. not in all cases is the customer service message getting out. there was an amendment where congress clearly indicated they wanted an increase emphasis on customer service. i see ogis as a sheep dog in a sense. congress is dragging the curb say, i want to go here. ogis is the dog that has to bring it back. the sheep that does not want to move, ogis has to convince it to move. we need to go in the direction that congress says we need to go. at the macro level, that is important. at the individual level, it is infuriating to not know what is going on with your foia request. you know it is an odd game

but not, no involvement in the decision itself which i think even the organization that made the foia request noted in its preample if you will. thanks very much. >> nas the white house press secretary jay carney taking questions from cbs's peter mayer. you can find the full white house briefing and all the events at the c-span network covers on our website, c-span.org. back in a minute with more "washington today." >> on march 26th, 27th and 28th the u.s. supreme court will hear oral arguments and challenges to the health care law. you'll hear an argument cited in several of the pending health care cases saturday on c-span radio's historic supreme court oral argument. from 1997, county sheriffs jay prince and richard mack, petitioners versus the united states, respondent. >> in the federal state context, this court has upheld laws passed under the spending power, the commerce power including the power to preempt state legislation and the article 6 duty of state judges to hear federal causes of action. the interim provisions the of the brady acts is not an exercise of any of those powers. the

one concern was that we did not want to dissuade people from making foia requests, because that information might be available. i think a lot of the logs are already available online. i know the government attic did an identical request to ours in posted the logs that they received online, which i actually think is very useful. because as a citizen and not congress, their logs should be properly exempted, all the privacy concerns should have been taken care of before they were released. but i think that's something that we're still considering, given that many of the agencies have a lot of very private information in those and we don't want to compromise that. >> i think he would be, actually it's somewhat difficult to even find out what the fields of information they track. and so, in fact, having, and maybe that was in the report, a more detailed description of the contents of logs and what a field means. because we have, in fact, had some difficulty in obtaining just descriptive information. >> that's something that we have gone into in the report. there's very wide discrepancy between w

republicans today with regard to allegations that the political employees perfectly denied or denied the foia requestsit never withheld anything it was required to disclose. >> bret: thank you. the vice president says republicans do not understand the middle class. but it was where he said it that qualifies for tonight's grapevine. and the u.s. angle on the most popular online video ever. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter job on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ for the spender who needs a little help saving. for adding "& sons." for the dreamer, planning an early escape. for the mother of the bride. for whoever you are, for whatever you're trying to achieve, pnc has technology, guidance, and over 150 years of experience to help

is already publishing on its website logs for tracking and responding to and managing foia requests, so it's a little confusing combiven what chairman issa -- given what chairman issa and the grades that he issued relative to the f.c.c. and foia requests and the issues that i raised, and i think that perhaps the amendment may be redundant or simply not needed at all. so those are my observations and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlelady from california yields back. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from oregon. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment is agreed to. it is now in order to consider amendment number 7 printed in house report 112-422. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? mr. owens: i rise in support of my amendment to h.r. 3309. the chair: the gentleman will suspend. does the gentleman have an amendment at the desk? mr. owens: yes. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 7 printed in house

we think the standardization of this government wide would go a long way with making foia easy not only for requesters, but for agencies. >> are you suggesting that if you had full contact information that makes foia a truly contact sport? >> no. i'm suggesting there's greater communication. maybe not full contact, but better communication. we at ogis goes a long way to preventing disputes. finally, the last bit is training. i know you all know that attorney general holder in his march 2009 memo suggested that foia is everybody's responsibility. what we would like to see is regular training to ensure that all agency employees including those in the senior executive service and political appointees are up to date on the basics of foia. one thing we'd love to see is day one training. every person who becomes a federal employee goes through an orientation service during their first day or so. we'd love to see 10, 15 minutes spent on foia. because it is everybody's responsibility. whether you are a foia professional or not, it's your responsibility. and we would really love to see that because so many gov

now the ap has, through a foia request, come up with emails that contradicts that. do you know where the disconnect was? >> yes, the disconnect is in the reporting by the associated press, which is inaccurate. the emails confirm what we said at the time, which is that the white house had no involvement in the decision made regarding ms. sherrod's employment or her firing, but were made aware of the decision that had been made by the department of agriculture. >> so the white house -- >> there's nothing in those emails -- >> -- not in touch with the counsel at the agriculture department at the time? >> the issue is, was the white house involved in the decision made, and they were not. the white house was not. i was not in this position then, but we made clear at the time that there was discussion about the decision after it had been made, but not -- no involvement in the decision itself, which i think even the organization that made the foia request noted in its preamble, if you will. if you will.

the "new york times" would have foia requests. why did they make it public?ou hardly even hear anything about this story. on the story about the open mike what's interesting is you saw the contrast in terms of the coverage relative to president bush. the placement of this story, and also the context of the story. the context of the story is republicans jump on president obama's comments. so it's a process story about republicans playing politics as opposed to the substance what the president said which is pretty striking. megyn: why is it this way? because we have a left-leaning mainstream media? >> it's hard to explain if you expect fairness and you grow up in a family that demanded fairness. but one of the great things i learned from president bush, as a conservative, as a republican you have to try so much harder and you have to expect that the stories are -- it's not going to be fair. do you remember when president bush was in china and he tried to go out of the room and the door was locked? the next day on the front page of the "new york times" there wer

justice department officials pointed to the progress they have made, catching up on the backlog of foia requestsmuch of the system so that requests can be made and tracked online. but there are skeptics on both sides of the aisle. they're citing reports from republican congressman darrell issa and the house oversight committee. they say the administration and its appointees have actively blocked certain requests, something republican senator chuck grassley finds in conflict with the president's promises for transparency. >> i find it difficult if i measure what he said he wanted to do with what has actually materialized as either he didn't mean it or -- and be i think he did mean it -- and, number two, the people below him aren't carrying out his policies. >> reporter: some of the most emotional testimony this morning came from a retired marine who talk talked about the death of his young daughter from leukemia while he was serving at camp lejeune. he said that he's been blocked at every turn in his search to try to get some answers. jenna? jenna: what a story. shannon, thank you. jon: well, rig

sense we are celebrating foia day today, i made a resolution, i have to find at least foia requested day. unfortunately, i have a client who i need to have him sign some papers before i can file the request, so it would be deemed to be filed today, although it actually won't be filed today. deemed is -- [inaudible] >> deemed is my favorite word i tell students. it's a meaning of let's pretend, as if it didn't happen but we will pretend it did happen. so when you see deemed in all these opinions you know it's not true but they're pretending it is for other reasons. there's an old saying that i'm from the irs and i'm here to help you. well, today we'll turn that around a little bit saying today is imfc long and i'm here to help the irs, the japan of justice and fbi and the dea and just about everybody else in the government. she's really here to help them. they have a quite figure that out yet, and she's really there to help them. but we all know that she is. of course, she's really there to help the american people understand what their government is all about, which is after all the

since we are celebrating foia day today, i made a resolution on filing at least one foia request to make it a perfect day. unfortunately i have a client who i need to have him sign some papers before he can file a request so it will be deemed to be filed today although it actually won't be filed today. dean is my favorite word i tell the students. it's the meaning of let's pretend as it didn't really happen but we will pretend that it did happen so when you see dean's and all of these opinions you know it's really not true but they are pretending it is for other reasons. there is an old saying that i am from the irs and i'm here to help you. today we are going to turn that around a little bit. say today is i am sue long sue long and i'm here to help the irs, and the department of justice, and the fbi and the dea and just about everybody else in the government. she is merely here to help them. they haven't quite figured that out yet, that she is really there to help them but we all know that she is. of course, she is really there to help the american people understand what their governmen

agency should take to give notice to a submitter of business records when the agency receives a foia request for those records. i agreed. dan drafted it. president reagan signed executive order 16200. in 1989, the government prevailed on the reporters committee case in the supreme court. dan suggested that we draft and publish a policy piece explaning all of its nuances. i agreed. in 1991, recognizing a need unfulfilled by the office of management and budget, dan suggested we publish along with the department of justices freedom of information act guide an overview of the privacy act of 1974. i agreed. in 1992, dan suggested that he write, and we establish an article on the automatic disclosure provisions of a1 and a2 of the foia. mistakenningly believing this would be one of the most exciting topics ever to be addressed in foia update, i agreed. in 1993, dan suggested he draft a new discretionary memo for general renaud, and i agree, but there was a delay because it was shortened when president clinton lifted some of dan's text verbatim placing them into the first ever presidential memo on

agency should take you give notice to a submitter of business records when the agency receives a foia requestfor those records. i agreed. dan drafted a. president reagan signed executive order 12600. in 1989, the government prevailed on the reporters committee case in the supreme court. dan suggested we draft and publish a policy piece explaining all of its nuances. i agreed. in 1991, recognizing a need unfilled by the office of management and budget, dan suggested we published along with the department of justice's freedom of information act guide and overview of the privacy act of 1974. i agreed. in 1992, dan suggested that the right and we publish an article on the automatic disclosure provisions of a1 and a2 of the foia. mistakenly believing that this would be one of the most exciting topics ever to be addressed in foia update. i agreed. in 1993, dan suggested that we draft a new discretionary disclosure memo for attorney general reno. i agreed. but there was a bit of a delay because of attorney general reno's draft memo was shortened a bit when president clinton lifted some of dan's text

overridden president ford's veto of the -- of the 1974 foia amendments, i certainly wouldn't have had -- the fbi wouldn't have had the thousands of requests it got per year, and the deputy attorney general's, of which oipa was a part of, would not have had the hundreds of administrative appeals it had per year. so i thiank the congress in tha respect for overriding the veto. now dan, on the other hand, came to the department of justice. he had been there. he had served two clerkships before he got there as an attorney. he then served a judicial clerkship with judge oliver gesh, and then he came to the department i believe it was just shortly after i got there, somewhere in that general area. >> '77. >> and dan -- dan worked in the civil division specializing in foia litigation. now, in -- as he said, in 1982, the office of information and privacy was -- was formally created, and it brought together the prior appeals office and the prior policy office, and dan and i served as the -- as the two co-directors. he suggested my primary responsibility should be administrative appeals and budget, and his would be foia policy and litigation, and i