By: Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Excessive government secrecy takes many forms, including denying or ignoring FOIA
requests and deleting data from websites.These tactics prevent the public from meaningfully participating in self-government in
every area secrecy touches, from domestic policy discussions on climate change, to foreign
policy debates around international aid.Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the public’s right to know, reminds us that the
federal Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public to request the release of
government information, is our best tool to counter this excessive secrecy and hold officials
accountable.But FOIA is in trouble, and we need congressional help to fix it.
Request backlogs continue to grow, and it often takes years to receive documents — if
you get them at all. Delays are compounded by the fact that many FOIA offices often don’t have
the resources they need to perform their jobs efficiently. To make matters worse, President
Donald Trump’s administration has ordered agencies to plan for “large scale reductions in force,”
which could further hobble FOIA offices, if not halt their work entirely.
The challenges are steep. But we must continue our work to protect and strengthen FOIA,
because when it works, it’s powerful. Here are just a few examples:
● FOIA makes us ask tough questions about what the government does in our name.
The New Yorker’s investigative podcast, In the Dark, used FOIA to obtain key records on
the 2005 massacre of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, at the hands of U.S. Marines.
The releases included photos of the carnage that the military tried to bury, and helped
journalists build a database of 781 possible war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq and
Afghanistan since 2001. These revelations prompted Senators Elizabeth Warren and
Chris Van Hollen to ask the Defense Department inspector general if the agency was
following the rules for addressing war crimes.
● When SCOTUS closes a door, FOIA opens a window. Bloomberg reporter Jason
Leopold’s FOIA lawsuit for FBI records about its investigation into Trump’s classified
documents case got an unexpected boost from the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity
ruling. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell recently ruled that the SCOTUS decision, as
well as Trump’s firing of the FBI officials working on the case, undercut the bureau’s
arguments that the documents must stay secret. Howell said the FBI’s arguments
“crumble with no more weight than dust and just as little persuasiveness,” and that the
presidential immunity could “open doors” for FOIA requests.
● FOIA can help us make decisions about what we eat. I always like to tell the story
about the Food and Drug Administration FOIA release that showed a popular blended
Parmesan cheese contained absolutely no Parmesan — but it did contain wood chips. I
usually tell this story as a joke, but as federal food regulations are poised to undergo
massive changes, it’s clear that FOIA’s ability to provide access to food safety
information is no laughing matter.
I’d argue it’s likely that the current administration knows how impactful FOIA can be,
and that’s exactly why the Department of Government Efficiency is trying to hide its records
from FOIA, and why FOIA staff at key agencies have been fired en masse.
In spite of these challenges, the public will continue to file FOIA requests, appeals, and
lawsuits to win the release of important information.
But we need more help to fix FOIA’s systemic problems, especially under an
administration hostile to its implementation.
We must ask members of Congress, whose own access to government information may
be compromised, what it’s doing to ensure we all have the tools we need to scrutinize the
government?
Answers to this question could look like Congress passing new FOIA amendments that
require agencies to post more kinds of records proactively, passing a law that makes DOGE
explicitly subject to FOIA, or holding regular hearings demanding to know why the Justice
Department is not ensuring agencies are complying with the law, and what steps it will take to
ensure compliance.
Securing access to information requires the public to be persistent, and to demand the
same level of consistent attention from our elected officials. And it demands our attention yearround, and year-after-year.
Lauren Harper is the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy with Freedom of the
Press Foundation. She can be reached at lauren@freedom.press.
