By Scott Gordon
When the news broke in May that the National Security Agency had created a huge database of Americans’ phone records, incensed portions of the blogosphere cranked up their message machines, demanding that something be done.
But what?
Daily Kos blogger Da Buddy had an idea. In an “ACTION ITEM” posted on Kos, Da Buddy urged readers to “bombard” the NSA with Freedom of Information Act requests asking for records involving their own phone numbers. “And they HAVE to respond within 20 days, by law!” Da Buddy assured confidently.
Not a bad idea, but a rather unknowing one. Da Buddy’s mob could indeed expect a response within 20 days – most likely a letter from the NSA explaining why the agency would need more than 20 days to respond to their requests.
The Freedom of Information Act is a jewel of democracy, but an imperfect one. The NSA’s own FOIA policy (pdf), for example, states that “In the event the Director of Policy cannot respond within 20 working days due to unusual circumstances, the chief of the FOIA office shall advise the requester of the reason for the delay and negotiate a completion date with the requester.”
So good luck with that.
Freedom geeks are not only celebrating Independence Day this week, but the the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. That makes it a particularly good time to consider FOIA’s many loopholes as well as the opportunity presented by the growing swarm of bloggers and citizen journalists to press for fixes both federally and, perhaps more importantly, in state FOIA counterparts. Because one thing we’ve clearly learned in the last 40 years is that the use of the Freedom of Information Act is neither free nor always informative.
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Posted on July 2, 2006
