Saving the Freedom of Information Act

Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.

Author: Margaret B. Kwoka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 09/17/2021
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.57d
ISBN: 9781108710893

About the Author
Kwoka, Margaret B.: - Margaret B. Kwoka is the Lawrence Herman Professor in Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Her research on FOIA has been published in the Yale Law Journal and Duke Law Journal, featured in The New York Times, and has received the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Prize for Empirical Scholarship from the Law and Society Association. She has served on the federal FOIA Advisory Committee, testified before Congress in FOIA oversight hearings, and litigated FOIA cases, including a recent victory before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.