NYT/AP: Study: Feds Slow in Getting Records on Web: Fail to follow Electronic FOIA

[DeepModem Mom]

Study: Feds Slow in Getting Records on Web
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 12, 2007

Federal agencies have dragged their feet on implementing 10-year-old law that requires them to use the Internet to make government documents easily available, a new study says.

The result is the public is blocked from easier access to information, the report says, and the cost of answering information requests is driven up.

The study by the National Security Archive, for official release on Monday, found widespread failure among federal agencies to follow the Electronic Freedom of Information Act amendments that took effect in 1997. The changes constituted some of the most significant modernizations of the original 40-year-old law that first guaranteed citizens the right to government information.

''Federal agencies are flunking the online test and keeping us in the dark,'' said Thomas Blanton, director of the independent, non-governmental Washington-based research institute. The study was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which focuses on journalism....

***

The study singled out as particularly egregious offenders the Department of Veterans Affairs, one of the departments that gets the most requests for information; the Department of Defense, particularly the Air Force; the Interior Department; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and the Small Business Administration....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Sunshine-Week-Electronic-Records.html

[kestrel91316]

1. They're into secrecy in a major way, aren't they?

Once more we see that laws are for The Little People.