FOIA

FOIA, or the Freedom of Information Act, is a U.S. law that grants the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. It mandates that government agencies disclose information upon request, unless it falls under one of nine specific exemptions.

Why it’s in the news: It is in the news due to multiple lawsuits alleging that federal agencies are improperly delaying or denying FOIA requests, particularly concerning data-sharing and collaborations with political entities.

Latest on FOIA

• Lawsuit says HUD, DHS are ducking FOIA requests on their data-sharing
• FOIA Docs Show Brendan Carr Intimately Collaborated With White House, Right-Wing Propaganda Orgs
• TSA labor union sues agency regarding FOIA delay, Gold+ initiative
• Homeland Security plans to add more AI to FOIA processing
• Legal Ethics Roundup: ABA Opines Gov Lawyers Must Report Unlawful Conduct, Toronto Lawyer Suspended Over AI, Senate Bills On Judges’ Finances/FOIA & More
• Automation also bakes in whatever bias existed in the original training data, which in government records means historical patterns of redaction get repeated at scale
• Homeland Security is planning to deploy automation tools to process Freedom of Information Act requests more efficiently

Connections

5 entities linked to FOIA across the news graph.