Real time. Real $.
Jul 3rd, 2007 by JamieB
Yesterday we reported on a story about a man who is suing Allegheny County for charging him $1,000 to provide him public information that he said should take less than an hour of work to produce.
Today we are pleased to report that at the longest outstanding request to a federal agency under the nation’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is 20 years.
Fittingly, FOIA was passed on Independence Day – July 4, 1967. As Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University, noted, “The law is 40 years old, and we’re seeing 20 years of delay.” 16 other requesters have been waiting 15 years or more.
Let’s see, 20 years at $1,000 an hour. That can add up to real money, even for the government. It also adds up to a lot of wasted time. And real costs to our country.
As The New York Times reported:
“The public interest in some aging government documents was vividly illustrated last week, when the Central Intelligence Agency released the so-called family jewels, papers that described illegal wiretaps, assassination plots and other agency misdeeds from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The documents were the subject of front-page newspaper reports and extensive television coverage.
“The papers were first requested by the National Security Archive in 1992, and a cover letter accompanying the C.I.A. release identified that request as the intelligence agency’s oldest still pending.”