Friday, July 01, 2016

President Obama Signs FOIA Improvement Act - So What?



Posted by CotoBlogzz

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA -  Yesterday, President Obama signed into law the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Improvement Act of 2016. Too little, too late.

Since its enactment in 1966, the FOIA has been amended on a number of occasions to adapt to the times and changing priorities.  The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 contains several alleged substantive and procedural amendments to the FOIA, as well as new reporting requirements for agencies.  

In order to assist agencies in understanding all of the new changes to the FOIA, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) has added two new resources to its website. First, agencies and the public can find a detailed summary of all of the changes to the law on the "FOIA Resources" pages of the site. Additionally, OIP is making available a redline version of the FOIA which outlines each of the changes within the law. 
In the upcoming months, OIP will be issuing guidance to agencies on the implementation of the various new provisions of the law.  
Announcements will be made on FOIA Post as new guidance is released. Agencies are encouraged to contact OIP's FOIA Counselor Service with any questions they may have on implementation of these new statutory provisions.  
So what?  The damage has been done.  Arguably, the culture this administration has created is one of obfuscation going after whistleblowers and the press. We conclude that the alleged substantive changes to the policy would do nothing, nada, zilch, were these to be administer by an administration such as the current one.

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