The FOIA Ombudsman

FOIA requests for third-party information present a difficult balancing act for Federal agencies. On Tuesday January 24, OGIS and the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) hosted a Requester Roundtable to discuss issues that arise from third-party requests. If you couldn’t make it, we’re here to share some tips. When a requester asks [...]

Throughout 2011, OGIS observed a recurring concept: Federal agencies are succeeding through internal collaboration. This “team approach” to government operations promotes efficiency, reduces redundancy, and helps an agency successfully meet its statutory mandate. One area where teamwork is particularly important is records management; we’ve observed that many agencies are getting wise to this fact. President [...]

Records requests pertaining to third-party individuals are the next order of business for the FOIA Requester Roundtable series co-hosted by OGIS and the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy. The roundtable will be from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesday January 24 at the National Archives, 7th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington DC, near [...]

Consider this: a multi-agency FOIA portal that automates FOIA processing and reporting, stores FOIA requests and responses in a repository and keeps records electronically. Not to mention allows requesters to submit requests to fewer government websites, track the status of requests and find, view and download FOIA requests and agency responses, all in a secure [...]

As regular readers of this blog know, OGIS moved from College Park, MD, to Washington, D.C., one month ago. Our mailing address, email addresses and toll-free number remain the same, but our local telephone and fax numbers have changed. (For anyone concerned that our mail stills goes to College Park, MD, rest assured that there [...]