class tom sussman. tom is a champion of a freedom of information act and he's going to explain some of the strength between the 1974 freedom of information amendment. strategic advisor for global programs and government affairs, welcome tom. >> we're getting ready for this, he wanted me to go through six options. a little walk down memory lane which i look forward to sharing with you. before i get into the 74 amendment's history i want to provide a little history because i have a confession to make. i'm a freedom of informationact junkie . i arrived in washington 1968. i've never heard of the public information or anything having to do with it. but i went to work in the justice department and obviously legal counsel assistant to frank, atty. gen. and as some of you, well some of you will remember in 1968 the justice department prepared the atty. gen.'s memorandum on the information sections, public information section of the administrative procedure act . keep in mind it wasn't called the freedom ofinfo

of course as tom sussman pointed out when members were asked does it apply to me, lyndon baines johnson would never have signed the foia law if it applied to him. that's perfectly clear i think. so the key ingredients are anybody can request it. victor kramer who used to run foia activities in georgetown said the shah of iran, you may have heard was a big guy in the mid-1970s, if the shah of iran made a request he would get it so today i would say vladimir putin would make a foia information about himself and they would have to answer that question and deny it. states have different foia rules. virginia in a case that went to the supreme court had a law that saidonly citizens of virginia or companies for residents , can request access and the supreme court upheld unanimously. that's okay, it's their records, it's kind of silly and claims to violate the privilege of immunity clause, doesn't matter. you've got to look at these states but they are not all the same. the first thing is anybody can request a record. the second is there have to be a specific exemptions for the presumption of r

consistent with all of these intents that tom sussman described. i don't want my cynicism to overshadow my support for what was intended by the amendment because in many ways it was extraordinarily visionary, but i think we need a fundamental reset. i had a client who is a journalist and author and he said to me, you know, it's just broken. i can't get anything in time. unfortunately i share that view. i think that foia is broken so we need a fundamental reset in the courts, and the agency and through legislation, because i think if we don't have that the statute will never live up to its promise as a primary tool in preserving our democracy, and i think the threats that are coming to that democracy properly have never been greater and as i said earlier i think the need for this tool has never been more acute, so we really need to fight for its survival. i think we need a strong and vigorous freedom of information act if we are going to survive. so i think it's well and good to honor the achievements of the 74 amendments but i think it's the status