MuckRock is launching a national database of FOIA exemptions by Joseph Licterman.
From the post:
In the 2015 fiscal year, the U.S. federal government processed 769,903 Freedom of Information requests. The government fully fulfilled only 22.6 percent of those requests; 44.9 percent of federal FOIA requests were either partially or fully denied. Even though the government denied at least part of more than 345,000 requests, it only received 14,639 administrative appeals.
In an attempt to make the FOIA appeals process easier and help reporters and others understand how and why their requests are being denied, MuckRock is on Thursday launching a project to catalog and explain the exceptions both the federal and state governments are using to deny requests.
MuckRock is a nonprofit site that helps its users file FOIA requests, and cofounder Michael Morisy said that the site is planning to create a “Google for FOIA rejections” which will help users understand why their requests were denied and learn what they can do to appeal the case.
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If your FOIA request is rejected, who knows about it? You and maybe a few colleagues?
If you contribute your rejected FOIA requests to this MuckRock project, your rejected requests will join thousands of others to create a database on which the government can be held accountable for its FOIA behavior.
Don’t let your rejected FOIA request languish in filing cabinets and boxes, contribute them along with support to MuckRock!
The government isn’t the only party that can take names and keep records.