Book contents
- Saving the Freedom of Information Act
- Saving the Freedom of Information Act
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I FOIA And Democracy
- Part II Who Makes a Million FOIA Requests
- 3 It Is Not the News Media
- 4 Immigration
- 5 Other First-Person Requesting
- 6 FOIA, Inc.
- 7 Information Resellers
- 8 Idiosyncratic Requesters
- Part III Let Oversight Reign
- Appendices
- Index
3 - It Is Not the News Media
from Part II - Who Makes a Million FOIA Requests
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2021
- Saving the Freedom of Information Act
- Saving the Freedom of Information Act
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I FOIA And Democracy
- Part II Who Makes a Million FOIA Requests
- 3 It Is Not the News Media
- 4 Immigration
- 5 Other First-Person Requesting
- 6 FOIA, Inc.
- 7 Information Resellers
- 8 Idiosyncratic Requesters
- Part III Let Oversight Reign
- Appendices
- Index
Summary
This chapter is the most complete accounting of who uses FOIA ever compiled. It provides the most comprehensive available statistics and paints a picture across federal government agencies. This account reveals a striking reality: Mostly, FOIA is used for purposes that have nothing to do with government oversight. Below is a necessarily imperfect yet revealing attempt to quantify what percentage, government-wide, of FOIA requesters are journalists. By contrast, it details similar estimations for other, much more dominant groups of FOIA requesters including individuals requesting their own records, whom I call “first-person” requesters, and commercial requesters. It further explains the wide variation of requester populations between agencies. While subsequent chapters in this part delve into who these other requesters are and what they are seeking, this Chapter provides the bird’s-eye view of our million FOIA requesters.
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- Saving the Freedom of Information Act , pp. 59 - 79Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021