Hi, BMG! I haven’t been posting much here recently, as my new blogging project has taken up the time I have to devote to the blogosphere.
Those of you who have your own blogs might be interested in my recent FOIA experience. I submitted a FOIA request to the State Department to obtain records for a post I planned to write on a treaty within what I call the Official Letters Blogatory Scope of Coverage. When you submit a FOIA request, you have to indicate which category you fall into: commercial, academic, press, etc. This is relevant to the fees you have to pay to obtain the records you want.
I said, “what the heck,” and I indicated that I was a “representative of the news media.” I provided an explanation of the blog, the post I wanted to write, and so forth. And guess what? The State Department agreed. Apparently this is not really a settled question. Here is what the EFF has to say about it:
The question of whether or when a blogger would qualify as a journalist for FOIA purposes based solely on his or her blog work has not yet been addressed. However, the FOIA makes it clear that alternative media and freelance journalists can qualify as representatives of the news media for fee purposes. If you plan to publish information on your blog based on the records you are seeking, you should note as much in your FOIA request and ask for a fee waiver/reduction. You may or may not succeed, but there’s no harm in trying. If you are denied, you may file suit in federal court to challenge the denial.
So I suppose this is a chink in the armor of the old media. Bloggers, go forth!
TedF
Heck why fees at all, except for maybe the very nominal cost of printing or photocopying? If these are public documents they should simply be available, and even a private citizen should be able to obtain them without having to justify what his/her interest is.
I think the concept of fees is fine, because a request costs nothing to make but can impose a very significant burden on the agency. The agencies also do a pretty good job of making records available for free or at very low cost to appropriate categories of requesters. The State Department, for example, requires commercial requesters to pay the costs of search, review, and duplication, but requires academics or reporters to pay only the costs of duplication, and then, only after the first 100 documents. An average person who doesn’t fall into one of the special classes has to pay the costs of search and duplication, but not review, but only aftert the first 100 documents and the first 2 hours of search time.
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p>The real issue is not the fees or the categories, but who gets to go into which category.
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p>TedF