{"id":910,"date":"2026-07-10T19:07:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=910"},"modified":"2026-07-10T19:07:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:07:39","slug":"the-freedom-of-information-act-is-in-serious-trouble-under-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=910","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom of Information Act Is in Serious Trouble Under Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Read more Bipartisan Housing Bill Could Speed Up New Construction After Major Disasters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, the landmark government transparency law that has helped reveal and publicize critical information about everything from the Vietnam War to FBI surveillance to CIA torture. For decades, FOIA has played a crucial role in uncovering and rectifying government wrongdoing. Today, however, advocates say that the government\u2019s resistance to fulfilling FOIA requests has grown, forcing applicants to file expensive lawsuits to obtain records, while records that are released often take years to receive and are filled with so many redactions as to render them essentially \u201ca waste of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gotten extremely bad in this last year and a half under Trump, but this has been going on for decades,\u201d says Ian Head, who manages the Open Records Project at the Center for Constitutional Rights. These bureaucratic delay and deferral tactics are extremely concerning, he adds, threatening accountability, transparency and democratic processes. \u201cWe need to be able to file federal FOIA requests so we can see what this government is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN:<\/strong> This is Democracy Now!<\/em>, democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez.<\/p>\n

Sixty years ago, on July 4th, 1966, President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, into law. The law was a critical step towards government transparency, even though Johnson decided not to hold a public event for the signing and instead issued a signing statement focused on exemptions for national security. FOIA only got stronger after the Watergate scandal in 1974, when Congress amended the law to make it one of the most powerful tools available for journalists, researchers, advocates and everyday people to hold the government accountable and reveal severe wrongdoing by the U.S. government, both at home and overseas.<\/p>\n

Well, now FOIA seems to be in serious trouble. A Washington Post<\/em> investigation from earlier this year found the massive purge at federal agencies last year has had a significant impact on the number of workers responding to FOIA requests. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FOIA in April of last year, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin described the reduction in numbers of FOIA officers in an attempt to foil FOIA.<\/p>\n

Our next guest has a new piece in The New Republic<\/em>. It\u2019s headlined \u201cMy Front-Row Seat to the Slow Death of the Freedom of Information Act.\u201d In it, he writes, \u201cI file FOIA requests for a living, and the landmark law \u2014 which turns 60 this week \u2014 is near a breaking point.\u201d Ian Head is open records manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights, joining us from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Ian, thanks so much for being there. Why don\u2019t you hold forth on what\u2019s happened to FOIA, why it began, and what kind of access people have to documents today to using the Freedom of Information Act?<\/p>\n

IAN HEAD:<\/strong> Thanks so much for having me.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big question. I\u2019ll try to address it as best as possible. I think, you know, FOIA has been a really, as you said, amazing tool to let \u2014 and I really want to key in on the different groups of people that you mentioned, especially ordinary people, to access government information and records, not just lawyers or journalists. Anyone can file a FOIA. And so, I think it\u2019s been a really powerful tool. And in my 15-plus years at the Center for Constitutional Rights, I\u2019ve kind of watched it work in amazing ways, and especially with the different social justice organizations and organizers and lawyers that we work with.<\/p>\n

All that being said, I think it\u2019s \u2014 I\u2019ve also witnessed this kind of increased level of delay and kind of tactics to kind of block and dissuade people from filing or following through on their FOIA requests. And that\u2019s been really troubling and has really, I think, as you said, increased under this administration.<\/p>\n

Read more Johnson, Trump, Still \u201cLooking at All Angles\u201d to End Birthright Citizenship<\/a><\/p>\n

JUAN GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong> And, Ian, I\u2019d like to stress that point, because as a journalist, I\u2019ve been filing FOIA requests for more than 50 years now, and I\u2019ve been stunned at, as you mentioned, the longer delays now in responding by government agencies, even though they\u2019re usually required, either at the federal or state level, to respond within five days or seven work or business days. They now drag stuff out for months, sometimes years. Also, the number of exceptions have grown dramatically, especially when it comes to government contracts or private companies. And unless you word your request precisely, the agencies often claim that it\u2019s too broad for them to answer. So, this is not just under Trump. This has been constantly happening now for decades, hasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

IAN HEAD:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think that\u2019s really a key point I\u2019m trying to make here, is it\u2019s gotten extremely bad in this last year and a half under Trump, but this has been going on for decades. And when I talk to folks such as yourself or others who have been filing FOIA requests, you know, I know people who filed FOIA requests in the \u2014 say, in the 1970s and \u201980s, didn\u2019t have to go to court, were able to get pretty important material from the FBI, even the CIA, without having to litigate those requests. And now it is literally, especially with the large law enforcement agencies, so hard. They barely \u2014 they might not even respond ever, and, like you said, months down the road. It\u2019s really \u2014 you know, I talked to a journalist the other day who said she doesn\u2019t even file federal FOIA requests at this point, because there just is \u2014 it\u2019s kind of a waste of time. She\u2019d rather file state-level requests. But, I mean, we need to be able to file federal FOIA requests so we can see what this government is doing.<\/p>\n

JUAN GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong> And the Trump administration is trying to reclassify finished documents to avoid release? How could that affect the entire FOIA framework?<\/p>\n

IAN HEAD:<\/strong> When you say \u201cfinished documents\u201d?<\/p>\n

JUAN GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong> In other words, the documents that were already completed, but then they\u2019re reclassifying them afterwards.<\/p>\n

IAN HEAD:<\/strong> Oh yeah. I mean, they\u2019re trying, in my experience, to kind of reclassify all kinds of material. And also just, you know, when we do get these documents, they\u2019re so heavily redacted that it becomes a kind of ongoing back-and-forth conversation, whether it\u2019s with the agency or the government lawyers, if we\u2019re in court, just trying to squeeze a little bit of material out of the redactions. I mean, it\u2019s \u2014 I think they have a lot of, a lot of new strategies to kind of drag these things on, to the point where it\u2019s been, say, a year and a half, two years since you filed your FOIA request, and the reason for doing so may have come and gone. You know, the policies that you were originally asking for may no longer be in effect or in effect the same way. And so, by kind of creating these different administrative rules and kind of dragging things out, it really makes FOIA a less efficient and less helpful tool when it comes to actually getting records.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN:<\/strong> Ian Head, we want to thank you for being with us, open records manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights. His most recent piece for The New Republic<\/em>, we\u2019ll link to at democracynow.org, \u201cMy Front-Row Seat to the Slow Death of the Freedom of Information Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

That does it for our show. Our condolences to our audio engineer, to Miguel Nogueira, and his sister Ana and the whole family on the death of their mom. What a wonderful woman!<\/p>\n

That does it for the show. We\u2019ll be in Kansas City for the screening of Steal This Story, Please!<\/em>, July 17th and 18th, and Martha\u2019s Vineyard on July 31st. Check our website. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez.<\/p>\n

Read more New Medicaid Work Requirements May Strip Farmworkers of Health Insurance<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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