Week 3: Assignment and Student Response

ThursdayMay 17 at 3:36pm

Manage Discussion Entry

After reading the required material for this post a brief explanation of the Freedom of Information Act is that the act provides anyone the right to request access to federal records. “The federal FOIA provides access to all records of all federal agencies in the executive branch, unless those records fall within one of nine categories of exempt information that agencies are permitted (but generally not required) to withhold” (Federal Open Government, p. 4) This means that US citizens are allowed to request this information. You do not need to government officials. You do not need to be a journalist to gain this information. I feel that not many citizens know that they have this type of “power”.

Upon looking up requests for this discussion, I found that some requests have very little information. While others have more information that you can see. Depending on the topic, the request is usually approved and then released, but there are some that are not approved because of disclosure policies. This got me wondering, if you get denied, can you submit a request for the same information again? I saw many people resubmit requests on the website FOIAonline. I tried to look up the topic of police brutality, just a random topic, and saw people resubmit requests when they got denied. This showed me that when a person wants information, they will keep trying to get that information from the government.

Heather Chavz

FOIAonline (nd) Search Database. Retrieved from https://foiaonline.regulations.gov/foia/action/public/search/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Federal Open Government Guide. (nd) How FOIA Works. Retrieved from http://www.rcfp.org/federal-open-government-guide (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.