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Filing a FOIA request is common practice for investigative reporters, but whether a request is honored sometimes feels like chance. So in 2007 Congress created a kind of FOIA ombudsman: the director of the Office of Government Information Services. Last week Miriam Nisbet, who has worked for the Justice Department and the American Library Association, was named to the post. Nisbet explains how she hopes to improve the FOIA process.
Congress created the office in 2007, but a largely different set of lawmakers had to appropriate money for the office so a director could be hired. That didn't happen until earlier this year, and then the National Archives (where OGIS will be housed) initiated the hiring process.
So there's been a lot of work to move this process forward, and (self-promotion alert!) media associations as part of the Sunshine in Government Initiative have been promoting OGIS as much as we can.
Rick Blum
Coordinator, Sunshine in Government Initiative
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