So says the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments bill gave a ten year window for Federal agencies to meet certain standards for transparency, the majority of which are doing an rather underwhelming job of meeting.

The NSA's audit of the websites of 91 Federal agencies that have Chief FOIA officers, conducted in cooperation with The Knight Open Government Survey, produced several key findings:

• Only one in five federal agencies (21 percent) posts on the Web all four categories of records that the law specifically requires

• Only one in 16 agencies (6 percent) posts all ten elements of essential FOIA guidance

• Only 36 percent of agencies provide the required indexes of records

• Only 26 percent of agencies provide online forms for submitting FOIA requests

• Many agency Web links are missing or just wrong
  

The NSA report provides a list of agency standouts - both positive and negative. You can check out their run down of "E-Stars" and "E-Delinquents" here.

I realize FOIA news is not exactly as sexy as the latest hedge fund blowup or executive scandal, but access to public records is the lifeblood of all investigative work. Moreover, the capacity for FOIA - to review the actions and records of our government - is one of the core freedoms we have as Americans and a crucial oversight mechanism for the maintenance of our democracy.

The E-FOIA failings are simply one front in a larger conflict over the right to essential evidence. We can never expect perfect availability of information, but the last decade has brought a tenor of increasing restriction of citizen access to government documents - something we've written about repeatedly in this space.

Read more on FOIA's ignored mandate via Information Week. Or, check out the full GWU audit report, File Not Found.

-- MDT

Labels: FOIA, oversight