Category: US Department of Justice

Source: United States Department of Justice

This week, representatives from the United States Government and the Department of Justice are joining 1,500 participants from governments and civil society organizations around the globe to participate in the 2015 Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit. Founded in 2011, the Partnership has grown from eight to sixty-six participating countries committed to working both domestically and internationally to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and transform the way the governments serve and engage with the public. Each participating member of the OGP is required to work with civil society to develop an Open Government National Action Plan (NAP), and today the Department is excited to highlight the issuance of the United States’ third National Action Plan.

Each country’s NAP covers a two year period and includes specific and measurable commitments that advance transparency, accountability, participation and/or technological innovation. The United States’ third NAP released yesterday represents its most ambitious and extensive plan consisting of forty-five commitments on a wide range of actions the Administration will take over coming months to strengthen, deepen and expand upon our open government efforts. As with the prior two NAPs, the Department of Justice is proud to be working on a number of initiatives, which promote the principals of open government and together will improve public services, access to information, government integrity and the administration of justice.These commitments include:

Open Government to Improve Public Services

• Making it easier for individuals to access their own information. DOJ will assist an interagency team led by OPM, GSA, and the Department of Commerce to develop new authentication tools to protect individual privacy and ensure that personal records only go to the intended recipients.

Access to Information

• Modernizing the implementation of the FOIA. Building on its efforts to improve the government-wide administration of the FOIA, the Department will expand the services offered on FOIA.gov, conduct a proactive disclosure pilot for posting FOIA-released records online, and improve agency FOIA websites.
   
• Strengthening and improving transparency of privacy safeguards. The Administration will revise and reconstitute guidance to agencies on the collection and protection of individuals’ personally identifiable information.
   
• Enhancing transparency of Federal use of investigative technologies. As law enforcement and homeland security have employed new technologies, such as unmanned aircraft systems, the Administration has recognized that these must be used in a manner that protects the privacy and civil liberties of the public. Agencies are encouraged to develop and make public a privacy analysis for advanced technologies.

Government Integrity

• Increasing transparency of foreign intelligence surveillance activities. The Administration will increase efforts to make information regarding foreign intelligence surveillance activities more publicly available, while continuing to protect such information when disclosure could harm national security. 
   
• Strengthening whistleblower protection for government employees. The Department of Justice will propose revisions to its regulations providing whistleblower protection procedures for employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), including proposing to expand the list of officials to whom protected disclosures may be made. Additionally, the Department will continue to evaluate and update its mandatory training program to ensure all employees understand their rights and responsibilities under whistleblower protection laws.

Justice and Law Enforcement

• Expand Access to Justice to promote Federal programs. The White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, co-led by the White House Domestic Policy Council and the Department of Justice, works to raise awareness about the profound impact that legal aid programs can have in advancing efforts to promote access to health and housing, education and employment, family stability, and public safety. On September 24, 2015, President Obama issued a memorandum intended to institutionalize this Roundtable, expand the participating agencies, and include consideration of equal access to justice for low-income people in both the civil and criminal justice systems. The Roundtable will seek input from civil society, and will annually report on the progress of this work.

Since the signing of both his FOIA and Transparency and Open Government memoranda on his first full day in office, President Obama has committed to “creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.” The U.S. published its first NAP in 2011, with twenty-six commitments that have increased public integrity, enhanced public access to information, improved management of public resources, and given the public a more active voice in the U.S. Government’s policymaking process. In 2013, the U.S. released its second NAP, which included twenty-three commitments. In 2014, the Administration added three additional commitments to the second NAP and further expanded one existing commitment, bringing the total for that plan to twenty-six.  

The forty-five commitments in the third NAP issued yesterday build on the commitments fulfilled in the prior two plans. In putting together the third NAP, the U.S. engaged in unprecedented consultations inside and outside of government, including with a broad range of U.S. departments and agencies and subnational governments as well as the general public, civil society groups, foundations, academia, and the private sector. The Department is proud to have worked with the Administration and civil society on the formulation of the plan issued yesterday and looks forward to working on the commitments noted above. 

Source: United States Department of Justice

September is the final month of Fiscal Year 2015 and agency FOIA professionals are hard at work processing FOIA requests and administrative appeals in order to close out the year strongly. All the work done by agencies to administer the FOIA each year is captured in their Annual FOIA Reports and Chief FOIA Officer Reports. In addition, during the course of the year four key FOIA statistics are reported every three months in agency Quarterly FOIA Reports. These reports all serve an important role in documenting the efforts of  agencies to respond to the ever-increasing numbers of FOIA requests received each year. They also provide valuable information about the many ways agencies are working to find greater efficiencies, increase proactive disclosures and utilize technology to improve FOIA administration.

In order to satisfy their reporting obligations this year, agencies should mark the following deadlines in their calendars:

Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Report

December 4, 2015 – Agencies are required to submit their Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Reports to OIP for review.

For guidance on the requirements for completing the Annual FOIA Report, please see the Department’s Annual FOIA Report Handbook.

Fiscal Year 2016 Quarterly FOIA Reports

January 29, 2016 – Quarter 1 data is required to be posted.
April 29, 2016 – Quarter 2 data is required to be posted.
July 29, 2016 – Quarter 3 data is required to be posted.
October 28, 2016 – Quarter 4 data is required to be posted.

For guidance on the requirements for completing the FY 2016 Quarterly Reports, please see OIP’s guidance on quarterly reporting.

2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports

January 15, 2016 – The twenty-nine high-volume agencies noted in the 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines are required to submit their 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports to OIP for review.

February 5, 2016 – All other agencies are required to submit their 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports to OIP for review

March 14, 2016 – Agencies are required to post their 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports online.

For guidance on the requirements for completing the 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report, see OIP’s 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines.

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To help assist and prepare agencies for these reporting obligations, OIP will be hosting a refresher training on the Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Report and 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report. The details for this training are:

If you are interested in attending this refresher training seminar, please email your name to OIP’s Acting Training Coordinator at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov with the subject line “Annual Report and Chief FOIA Officer Report Refresher Training.” Please note that registration is required to attend and that you will need a picture ID to enter the building. If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact OIP’s Acting Training Coordinator at (202) 514-3642.

If you have any questions regarding any of the deadlines noted above, or the requirements for completing any of the reports, please contact OIP’s FOIA Compliance Team at (202) 514-3642.

You can also find all of these reporting deadlines on the Reports page of OIP’s website.

Source: United States Department of Justice

The Attorney General’s 2009 FOIA Guidelines directed agency Chief FOIA Officers to “review all aspects of their agencies’ FOIA administration” and to report annually to the Department of Justice on the efforts undertaken “to improve FOIA operations and facilitate information disclosure at their agencies.” In accordance with the 2009 FOIA Guidelines, OIP provides specific guidance each year to agencies on the content and timing of these reports and today we have issued the guidelines for agency 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Since 2010, OIP’s guidelines for agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports have required agencies to examine the five key areas addressed in the 2009 FOIA Guidelines:

1. Applying the Presumption of Openness,
2. Ensuring that there are Effective Systems for Responding to Requests,
3. Increasing Proactive Disclosures,
4. Increasing the Utilization of Technology, and
5. Improving Timeliness and Reducing any Backlogs.

Each year’s reporting guidelines build off the efforts and initiatives reported in the prior years. Our goal is to capture more advanced steps taken by agencies as their implementation of the FOIA Guidelines has matured. This year’s guidelines also continue to focus on certain areas where further improvements can be made.

The 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines maintain the streamlined reporting requirements introduced last year for agencies that receive a lower volume of FOIA requests, i.e. less than 1,000 incoming requests each year. For those agencies with more than 1,000 requests received annually, the guidelines remain quite comprehensive.

As in previous years, OIP has included new questions in the 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines, covering such topics as:

• Plans for ensuring that a high percentage of agency FOIA professionals receive substantive FOIA training,
• Steps to strengthen Requester Service Centers, FOIA Public Liaisons, and dispute resolution services,
• Proper procedures for “still-interested” inquiries,
• The role of FOIA professionals in posting records online, and
• Training conducted for processing tools, such as new case management systems or eDiscovery tools.

OIP has once again identified the twenty-nine agencies that received more than 1,000 requests during the most recent fiscal year of available data and has listed them in this year’s guidelines as “high-volume” agencies. These agencies must submit their draft 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports to OIP for review by no later than January 15, 2016.

The remaining agencies must submit their draft reports to OIP for review by no later than February 5, 2016. To assist agencies in the completion of their reports, OIP has created separate templates for large- and small-agencies containing their specific questions from this year’s guidelines.

Additional details on the review and submission process are included in the Guidelines. OIP will once again host a refresher training seminar on the preparation of both the 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports and the Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Reports. The details for this training will be announced here on FOIA Post.

You can view the 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines, as well as all other guidance issued by OIP, on the Guidance page of our site.

Source: United States Department of Justice

As Fiscal Year 2015 is quickly drawing to an end, agencies are hard at work processing more and more requests to close out the year strongly.  OIP encourages agencies to focus these last weeks of the fiscal year on their FOIA administration to help reduce any backlogs.  One of the main tools agencies use for tracking the efficiency of their FOIA workflows and ensuring the accuracy of their Annual FOIA Report is their case management system.       

A key component of President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum is the direction to “use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government.”  Over the past several years agencies have reported in their Chief FOIA Officer Reports widespread use of technology in receiving and tracking FOIA requests and preparing agency Annual FOIA Reports. 

Agencies currently use various case management systems for tracking and processing their FOIA requests, and each agency should ensure that they are using the system that best serves their particular FOIA needs.  As outlined in DOJ’s Annual FOIA Report Handbook, agencies are ultimately responsible for the quality of their Annual FOIA Report data.  They should exercise due diligence in testing their systems to ensure accuracy for the benefit of both their year-end reports as well as workflow reports that they rely on during the year to manage their FOIA administration. 

At the Department of Justice, our components use a number of different methods and tools to track their FOIA requests tailored to their unique needs.  OIP has been working with EPA to develop enhancements to FOIAonline, the EPA’s multi-agency FOIA tracking system, that meet our specific needs, and we are pleased to announce that beginning in early 2016, OIP will be using FOIAonline as our case management system.  In addition to tracking the requests it processes and the Department’s administrative FOIA appeals, OIP will be using FOIAonline to prepare and validate the Department’s Annual FOIA Report. 

OIP’s use of FOIAonline builds on the great work between OIP, EPA, and the partner agencies that has existed from the very beginning of FOIAonline.  OIP has worked closely with EPA and the FOIAonline partners from the start to ensure the system produces an accurate Annual FOIA Report, as well as to make sure that any enhancements function appropriately in compliance with the FOIA statute and DOJ guidance. 

OIP is excited to be working with EPA on the development of additional enhancements to FOIAonline and the future possibilities for how FOIAonline can assist agencies with their FOIA case management needs. 

Source: United States Department of Justice

OIP offers a number of FOIA training opportunities throughout the year as a part of our responsibility to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA. For Fiscal Year 2016, the dates and topics for our regularly scheduled training sessions are:

This year, OIP is offering two new courses – a FOIA Processing Workshop and a program entitled Continuing FOIA Education. The FOIA Processing Workshop is a half-day program designed to take attendees through the steps of processing a FOIA request one-on-one in a small class setting. The Continuing FOIA Education course is designed as a program for experienced FOIA professionals with lectures on new or recent developments in FOIA administration as well as an update on recent FOIA court decisions. The dates for these new course offerings are:

All of these seminars will be held in Washington DC, and are open to all federal government employees. Information about registration, general topics covered, and class sizes for each course are available on the Training page of our site. The Training page also includes descriptions of each course, general topics covered, and the intended audience.

In addition to these scheduled training programs, OIP also offers various other training programs and workshops throughout the year such as our Best Practices Workshop series and our refresher training on the preparation of Agency Annual FOIA and Chief FOIA Officer Reports. Details on all of our training opportunities will always be announced here on FOIA Post and through OIP’s Twitter account, @FOIAPost.

To register for any of the training seminars listed above, please email your name to OIP’s Training Staff at DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov. In the subject line of your email, please specify the name of the course and the date you wish to attend the training. If registering multiple individuals, please include email addresses for each individual in the registration message. Once you are registered, you will be sent a confirmation email with the location of the training. Any questions regarding these training opportunities may also be directed to OIP’s Training Staff at (202) 514-FOIA (3642).