Freedom of Information Act

Freedom of Information Act (1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category specifically exempted, such as national security, an individual's right to privacy , or internal agency management. The act provides for court review of agency refusals to furnish identifiable records. The states also have similar laws. The federal government and some states have also adopted so-called sunshine laws that require governmental bodies, as a matter of general policy, to hold open meetings, announced in advance. Presidential papers remained under the control of individual American presidents until 1981, when the Presidential Records Act —enacted by Congress in 1978—took effect. Under it, presidential papers were to be released to the public 12 years after an administration ended. In 2001, however, President George W. Bush signed an executive order that gave a former president or a sitting president the right to prevent the release of a former president's papers to the public. The G. W. Bush administration has also has generally been more reluctant to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Freedom of Information Act (1967) US law giving greater public access to government records. It permits government agencies to exercise full discretion about disclosure of information only in such areas as national defence, confidential financial information and law enforcement. The effect of the Act was weakened by agency reclassification of information under permitted exemptions.

http://fbi.gov

Freedom of Information Act (1966). The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides any person—individual or corporate, regardless of nationality—with presumptive access to identifiable unpublished federal agency records.Certain categories of information may permissibly be exempted from the rule of disclosure. Disputes over requested records may be settled in federal court. The FOIA overturned a “need‐to‐know” policy, initially asserted by federal bureaucrats after World War II and based on the discretionary authority of agency heads to regulate the public availability of the records under their jurisdiction.

The product of years of deliberation in both houses of Congress, the FOIA was reluctantly signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It became operative in July 1967, one year after its enactment. Among those prominent in the development and passage of the statute were representatives John E. Moss and Donald Rumsfeld and Senator Edward V. Long. In subsequent amendments between 1974 and 1996, Congress modified the FOIA to clarify its provisions or otherwise improve its functioning. The 1996 amendments brought electronically maintained information within the scope of the statute.

The Freedom of Information Act was not supported as legislation or welcomed as law by the executive branch. In spite of its less than vigorous implementation, however, the statute has proven to be a useful tool for journalists, historians, writers, and ordinary citizens to gain access to millions of pages of records that otherwise might never have been disclosed.

Bibliography

Harold C. Relyea , The Administration and Operation of the Freedom of Information Act: A Retrospective, Government Information Quarterly 11 (1994): 285–99.
U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight , A Citizen's Guide on Using the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974 to Request Government Records (House Report 105–37), 1997.

Harold C. Relyea