foia. one thing the chairman did was work very well with the justice department in addressing concerns about a new foia reg that some of you may have heard about that dealt with dpchfoia exclusions and there was some concern over how the government would respond to those requests in particular because the requests could be seen as misleading. through the efforts of our committee and the department of justice the department of justice revisited that issue and has reversed course and is hopefully working to announce very soon a new regulation which i think will be more consistent with transparency and open government. the chairman has also been very active in calling for transparency outside of foia. he has called obviously for government to proactively the obama administration has done a lot of wonderful initiatives putting more information out online that he continues to push agencies to do even more of that. he really believes that, you know, foia is one tool but not accessing information. so he remains very active in his oversight role in terms of encouraging kind of proactive disclosures.

foia public liaison. marianne manheim is a liaison at the department of state and we'll hear from her about how that part of the vision is working. but certainly the foia public lie y liaisons are a big way of the way that the ogis works. and as i said, avoiding disputes in the first place. so that leaves our third panelists that i have not introduced yet and i'm going to turn to first. that is kirsten mitchell who is an ogis facilitator. kirsten is one of those stalwart ogis staff members who works day in and day out to make our work as broad and accessible as possible dealing with requesters and with agencies every day. to resolve disputes and also to help particularly agency professionals figure out better ways to disclose smart. so i'm going to stop there and i know we'll have some q&a at the end of this. but i'd like to turn it over to kirsten, then we'll ask marianne to speak and then gavin we'll turn to you as the third. >> good morning. so mariam talked about the culture change that we would like to see happen in the foia and i think as she said that is the future of foia. so i'm going to talk about what we mean by a cul

foia in the 21st century. i think it's going to be a very exciting hearing. marianne nesbit will testify about work foia is doing including with the epa and department of commerce, which we're very interested in, which would allow requesters to submit their requests to multiple agencies at a single portal and then also this is what is most exciting for suss that they would be able to see previously requested and released material. so that would be a source for them to see what other agencies have produced in response to other foias.wehink that's a ver tool to the public and something the agencies should be doing more of. it's a requirement under the electronic foia act of 1996. a lot of agencies are doing a good job in meeting that but some agencies, frankly, are not posting all of the records that they should be on their online reading rooms. one problem is that e-foia specifies frequently requested records must be posed but there's no definition of frequent. so some agencies comply to doj's guidance with a rule of three and others do not. there's no real consistent format. that's something we wou

, i think we need to think long term about what we need as a government and as a country to make foia work. within this statute, ogis has been tasked with making policy recommendations to the president and to congress. i'm not going to put anybody on the spot here, but on the table and the foia foyer there is a copy of an article about the recommendations that ogis has prepared and the difficulty that they have faced in publishing them. so that's unfortunate. it's something that should change. and it's one of the things that i look forward to ogis doing increasingly in the future. the mediation -- mediation is the term that the statute uses in terms of the office responsibility. i think arguably the more accurate term for what ogis currently does is facilitation. so i think that there is room for increase -- increasing move in the direction of mediation and a more active role for ogis. and in addition where mediation doesn't produce the result that ogis thinks it ought to, the statute tasks ogis with issuing advisory opinions which was -- which would essentially give it an opportunity to f

because we feel like it does embody some congressional expression of strong interest in in having foia work in a little bit different way, perhaps more collaborative. certainly for the first time in the freedom of information act congress was saying that it wanted to see alternatives dispute resolution medford mediation brought to the process as an alternative to litigation. that certainly, which is only part of the ogis mission, is i think a strong significant statement about what congress so the future of foia being, that we would be moving beyond adversarial approaches and moving to that culture change of disclosure, not with holding as sue talked about this morning. we approach that part of our mission immediating -- mediating disputes, trying to find solutions to some of the problems that arise. and perhaps even more importantly, trying to prevent or avoid disputes before they arrive as a really significant part of what we do. we see that as a part of what we believe is and can be a culture change in the foia community in terms of, again, that expectation that things will be disclosed.

foia. three years later, following over six years of on and off work by dan, congress enacted the electronic foia amendments. >> you negotiated part of that, so you're partly to blame. >> no, i negotiated -- >> i was out of town that summer, remember? >> actually dan is exactly wrong. [ laughter ] the part, the little piece i was to negotiate i failed miserably on and that part got left in. if negotiations can include unsuccessful negotiation, i did it. [ laughter ] but dan was doing all of the heavy lifting over there. so what happened with the electronic amendments was he then immediately suggested that he draft numerous policy articles for foia update, explaining the legislation, and i agreed. in 1998, congress decided to hold oversight hearings on this new legislation. dan suggested that i should be the one to testify on behalf of the department at these hearings, even though he had all of the background knowledge in the area. for the life of me, i do not remember why i agreed to that. but two years later, the house committee on government reform delivered a subpoena to the department, s

of the leader, which is a case i've 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

and we are again working together to further reinvigorate foia through establishing a commission to study some of the problems and challenges that foia still has. many of them i'm sure have been discussed in other panels today. that legislation has twice passed the senate unanimously, which is great. again, showing the bipartisan interest and support for open government. and of course we are hopeful that congress will enact that this congress. we've also been very busy as tom mentioned also with the whack-a-mole approach in terms of dealing particularly with a number of legislative exemptions to foia popping up pay couple of years ago senator leahy and senator cornyn partnered on another bill that helped shed light on these exemptions. for those of you familiar with legislative work you know that provisions get snuck into bills that have nothing to do with what the particular provision is about and sometimes it's very challenging to find out that they're had in there much less what they actually do. and that has been the case for many years with respect to new exemptions to foia. through

foia liaison. we will hear from her about how that part of the division is working. the foia public liaison is a big part of the way ogis works. we want to avoid disputes in the first place. i will turn to kirsten mitchell, who is a ogis facilitator. she is one of the star ogis staff members who works day in and day out to make our work as broad and as accessible as possible dealing with requests from the agency's everyday to resolve disputes and also to help agency professionals figure out better ways to disclose smart. i am going to stop there. a atll have fsome q and the end. i will turn it over to marianne manheim -- kirsten mitchell to speak and then we will hear from marianne manheim. >> we will talk about the culture change we would like to see happen in foia. i was wondering if we could talk a little bit about what we mean by a culture change. sue pointed to several things. we have four specific things that ogis has come out with for improving the administration of foia. these are not things that would require amending or changing foia, just things to improve

but you know, they have to work within the confines. but the head of the foia office if that head of the office wants to do it, real huge professional cost to do it. i'm not going to sign off on the letter and persist and ask questions, because not all -- a lot of requests are really pretty routine. you know, so the volume of, you know, so you can sort of attack them as how do we handle the routine matter. then there are a smaller number that are really sort of the inner secrets from a policy perspective. it's possible, i have seen it done. i have also seen foia officers that lost their job in the -- their life is made so miserable that they take early retirement or they're shovelled off to another position. what's the countermand? it was how severe the penalty within the irs and it was very clear that the dividing line between low serious/high serious was did the public find out about it? okay. i mean, that's realistic because -- so the counter, you get in trouble when you release something and your boss is unhappy with the press. okay. there's no countermand

work with releasing government records. then a panel of attorneys release high-profile foia lawsu lawsuits. >>> our system is undemocratic in a number of ways. one of the ways is closed primaries. in half of the states in the country, 40% of all the voters can't participate in the primaries. so, they have no say in who gets nominated. as a result, we get more and more extreme candidates on both ends of the spectrum. >> saturday night on "afterwards" linda killian writes the book "the swing vote." also this weekend on book tv, saturday at 8:00, david brock on "the fox effect." then sunday night at 10:00, mark levin and his thoughts on the state of politics in "ameritopia." book tv every weekend on c-span 2. >>> today, american university law school held a day-long event on the freedom of information act. they began by giving a reward to susan long. she is the director of the clearing house records division. >> good morning. happy sunshine week to you all. we see the sun trying to poke out behind the clouds here at the washington college of law on the campus of american university. i'm dan metcalfe on the collaboration of gov

. >> 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 agreed. that same year dan suggested that we update the freedom of information act short guide which was then only about 30 pages long and publish it in the foia case list. i agreed. subsequently, the department's legal education institute established a government-wide two-day training class on foia, and dan suggested that our staff should be the primary instructors. i agreed. later that year, dan suggested we include two new features in our quarterly publication foia update. the first would be foia counsellor q&as which consisted of short responses to the more routine, frequently asked foia questions. the second was a foia

foia. and in particular the delays. this has been something since tom was working on the hill in the 1970s. this issue is endemic with the agencies. you say it does vary by agencies. some agencies particularly that don't deal with national security handle things in a how much more expeditious way. i guess what i'm trying to ask you to consider a more broad issue and i know i think this commission might be a way to get at this. but what -- how do we address this problem? to me it seems a question not only of the professionals that administer these programs within the agencies but in fact a senior leadership issue. the fact that the justice department would represent that they have no records when they're actually having records as a policy issue to me says there's no way the attorney general would have approved of such a policy, that only in light of the lack of senior leadership issue on this does that kind of a policy come forward. i'd like you from your position in the legislative branch to speak to the problem of senior leadership on this. when i speak to senior leadership i'm talking ab

foia. three years later following over six years of on and off work by dan, congress enacted the electronic foia amendments. >> you negotiated part of that. you're partly to blame. >> no, i negotiated -- >> i was out of town that summer, remember? >> actually, dan is exactly wrong. the part -- [laughter] the little piece i was to negotiate, i failed miserably on, and that part was left in. if negotiation includes unsuccessful negotiation, i did it. [laughter] but dan was doing all of the heavy lifting over there. what happened with the electronic amendments was he then immediately suggested that he draft numerous policy articles for foia update explaning the legislation, and i agreed. in 1998, congress decided to hold oversight hearings on this new legislation. dan suggested that i should be the one to testify on behalf of the department at these hearings although he had all of the background knowledge in the area. for the life of me, i don't remember why i agreed to that. [laughter] two years later, the house committee on government reform delivered a subpoena to the department seeking tes

leader, which is the case that i see over and over again in my work, i delay is not -- is merely prioritization and attempts to fulfill that foia requests while continue to attempt to do the work that the agency is otherwise required to do. i do think that the point that needs to be recognized spent that's a good point. in fact, i will just added to my list, two other factors for agency delete the records management issues, because even if they know where they are, sometimes they don't know what they are. have trouble finding an. and when the expansion request is just very harsh. you have been very patient. yes, ma'am. >> i'm a student here, and i want sort of forward-looking question for each of you, if you want. and that is, what is the most important for you matter that will be brought before congress through the rest of this year? and how likely do you think it is that foia will be amended? >> great question for us to wrap up on, too. thank you. let's go down starting on the far end, krista, you want to take a little time? >> you can handle this one. by the way, i should say this is such a simple question for staff or anyon

foia. three years later following over six years of on and off work by dan, congress enacted the electronicfoia amendments. >> you negotiate a part of that so you're partly to blame. >> no, i negotiated speeds i was out of town that summer, remember. >> dan is exactly what the little piece i was to negotiate, i failed miserably on and that part got left in. if negotiation can include unsuccessful negotiation, i did it. but dan was doing all of the heavy lifting over there. what happened with the electronic amendments was he then immediately suggested that the draft numerous parlous he articles with foia updates, explaining the legislation. and i agreed. in 1988, congress decided to hold oversight hearings on this new legislation. dan suggested i should be the one to testify on behalf of the department at these hearings, even though he had all of the background knowledge in the area. for the life of me i do not remember why i agreed to that. but two years later the house committee on government reform delivered a subpoena seeking testimony in an upcoming hearing entitled felonies and favors,

foia litigation pieces to be adjudicated. so we do have a long declaration in that spirit to read with respect to professor long. it begins, where as susan b. long works with the freedom of information act for more than 40 years ago, when she was one of the first persons to realize the ask potential for shedding light on federal government operations. were asked together with her husband, philip, she utilize foia with common sense in his early decades, most particularly as an agent of change at the internal revenue service. where as she promoted kashmir also a remarkably successful foifoia litigating to the creatn of such litigation precedents as long versus irs come which the government received only a second foia denial after the rosen case by the way. whereas, more than 20 years ago she founded the transactional records clearinghouse known as trac with david byrne which has through both foia and foia litigation made copperheads elite available to the public detailed information on federal enforcement staffing and spending. where as, the last whereas, whereas in so doing she is uniquely influenced the development of the foia during its formative yea