LIVE, from DC: the U.S. Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee

Good morning from DC! Today's public meeting of the 2022-2024 term of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee has just begun. The draft recommendations we will vote on, several of which I helped draft, are online.

The livestream is up on YouTube, and video will be archived there if you want to watch it later.

The Director of the Office of Government Information Services at the U.S, National Archives just introduced us, noting that I've been re-appointed by the Archivist of the United States to serve out the term of a member who has departed for public service.

I'll have much more to say about the Freedom of Information Act and open government in future newsletters. For now, I'll recommend a great new series at the Open Government Partnership focused on emerging challenges in open government, with an excellent first piece by Joe Foti exploring how machine learning and artificial intelligence could affect the Freedom of Information Act that takes note of many promising developments in the United States.

Unfortunately, none this relates directly to the current U.S. National Action Plan for Open Government that was released in December 2022, which – despite the best efforts of many good folks to encourage this White House and the Justice Department to co-create commitments related to FOIA – dismissed civil society priorities and undermined the global multi-stakeholder initiative the United States co-founded in 2011.

I will keep asking the Biden administration to add new commitments this year, holding out hope that this Presidency will do more to prioritize good governance investments as a bulwark against authoritarianism at the scale, velocity, and human capacity required in 2024 to meet the considerable challenges ahead in 2025.

For now, I wanted to share an opportunity for folks interested in FOIA to nerd out a bit and improve the technology our government uses to administrate the nation's canonical public records law by filing a public comment on proposed business standards for the Freedom of Information Act. (While it's unfortunate that the Justice Department didn't release the standards for comment during its Sunshine Week celebration in Washington, here we are.)

The Office of Information Policy's press release is below:

“The Office of Information Policy (OIP) is seeking public comments on proposed FOIA business standards developed for federal agency FOIA case management systems.  We are seeking input from requesters, commercial vendors, and other interested parties, on the understandability and usefulness of the draft standards, along with any suggested changes.  The goal of the FOIA business standards is to drive efficiency and consistency in FOIA administration. 

The intended audience for this Request for Comment consists primarily of commercial vendors offering FOIA case management solutions, agencies procuring new solutions, and FOIA requesters, especially organizations that regularly submit FOIA requests to federal government agencies, although others are also welcome to comment.

As part of the United States Fifth Open Government National Action Plan, the Department committed to leading a Chief FOIA Officer Council working group in collaboration with the Office of Government Information Services at the National Archives and Records Administration, the Office of Shared Services & Performance Improvement at the Government Services Administration, and the Business Standards Council to develop shared FOIA business standards.  The standards are being developed in line with the Federal Integrated Business Framework  The shared business standards will make it easier for agencies to acquire FOIA technology and, in turn, improve efficiency and consistency in processing requests across the Federal government.

To provide comments, please visit Regulations.gov, Document BSC-FOI-2024-0001-0001.  For additional information, and instructions on submitting comments by mail, please see the Federal Register notice from March 18, 2024.  Comments must be submitted by May 17, 2024."

On a technical note, the Justice Department published the draft FOIA business standards as a .XLSX on regulations.gov, but did not directly link them from their blog post or social media. I posted the Excel file on Google Drive and as a Google Sheet in hopes of making it easier for FOIA nerds & curious folks to browse the drafts & file comments.

On a meta note, it is good to see the DoJ publishing spreadsheets for comment instead of PDFs in 2024! More of that, please.