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Bureau seeks to restrict obligations under FOIA
WASHINGTON - Public access to FBI records could be diminished if the bureau wins a court fight to limit the extent of searches required for documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act, a principal law to ensure openness in government.
In court, the FBI is defending a recent automated search that missed some documents released years earlier in a separate case under the act, known by its initials, FOIA.
Representing the FBI, the Justice Department asked a federal judge this month to dismiss the lawsuit and said its request should not be undermined “by an unsuccessful search for a document as long as the search was adequate.”
Justice Department guidelines say the law requires a search “reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.”
Legal and academic critics say the search in this case did not meet that standard. They said they suspected that the transfer of records from paper to electronic files had become an excuse for doing cursory searches that the government knew would not retrieve all relevant documents.
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