Exemption 10

Seven cabinet departments late filing FOIA reports

By: Wendell Cochran

Posted: Feb. 13, 2012 | Tags: FOIA, Freedom of Information, Justice Department

Well, it’s time to see how federal agencies are doing in terms of filing their annual Freedom of Information Act reports. The reports, covering activity for the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30, are supposed to be finished by Feb. 1.

Agencies apparently treat that deadline as seriously as they treat other FOIA deadlines, which is to say, not very. By yesterday afternoon, only eight of 15 Cabinet-level agencies had posted their reports online.

The reports show such things as how many requests the agency received, how many it processed, how the backlog changed, how many requests were granted, how many were denied and which exemptions the agencies use to withhold information.

The departments that had filed: Defense Department, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Labor, State and Transportation. That leaves Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.

The Justice Department, which oversees all FOIA activity, makes the annual reports available here.




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