FOIA

Justice Department Pulls Proposal Allowing Government To Lie About FOIA Requests

Ryan J. Reilly | November 3, 2011, 3:50PM

Updated: Nov. 3, 4:05PM

The Justice Department is withdrawing a proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act which would have allowed federal agencies to say that certain law-enforcement and national security documents didn't exist, even when they do.

"If the proposed regulations can be improved [in terms of transparency], we will work to improve them," the Justice Department explained in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). "We believe that Section 16.6(f)(2) of the proposed regulations fall short by those measures, and we will not include that provision when the Department issues final regulations."

The regulation in question would have instructed agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist." Agencies will still continue using the phrase "there exist no records responsive to your FOIA request" when records in question are exempt from FOIA, as spelled out in a 1987 memo issued by Attorney General Ed Meese.

"When a citizen makes a request pursuant to the FOIA, either implicit or explicit in the request is that it seeks records that are subject to the FOIA; where the only records that exist are not subject to the FOIA, the statement that 'there exist no records responsive to your FOIA request' is wholly accurate," the letter said.

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Topics: Chuck Grassley, FOIA, Justice Department