thinking

The Challenge: How do we improve the Government’s ability to disclose information pro-actively and bring down the cost and burden of compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)?

What We’ve Heard from You: You have commented both on the need for new policy and on ways of better complying with existing policy. Help us to translate these ideas into actionable recommendations

Drafting Directions: Review the comments from the Discussion blog as well as comments made by government employees and review the submissions in From the Inbox. Incorporating earlier input, you may write your own draft, or combine and edit those of others to create a new one.

Writing policy requires translating good ideas into clear, specific directions for practical implementation. Hence a good recommendation will be no more than 4 sentences and a set of recommendations will be no more than 1 page. To be of maximum use, a recommendation should address:

- Who is being directed to do something? (e.g. "All agencies must...")
- What is the institution being directed to do?
- Why is it important that they do so?
- How will success be measured?

Note that per the terms of use, your drafts are expected to be (among other things) civil and on-topic. We are depending upon you, the community, to help maintain the quality of this process, by reporting drafts which appear to violate these terms. Once reported a sufficient number of times, drafts will be submitted for moderator review. They will then be republished in their original place, republished as an "off-topic" draft, or archived off-line if it can not be republished.

Return to Open Government Directive, Phase Three: Drafting, or to the OSTP Blog.

Who? - Who is being directed to do what?

CTO / CIO offices to develop uniform categories and common tags for federal agency data and information; prototype with an initial top 50 list. (see SEC mandate of free writing propsectus reporting via XBRL, for example). In addition, create a 'mygov' site - allowing users to store search results potentially concatenated across multiple agencies.

What? - What is the recommendation designed to achieve?

Consistent representation of inter-agency data and information; in addtion, allows user community to extend the raw data / information based upon their searches and analysis

Why? - Why is it important?

Provides interagency data / information in a common format for analysis and comparison. In addition, allows the user community to be an extension the raw data / information via their 'mygov' sites.

How? - How will success be measured?

Usage, feedback and continuous improvement
FOIA requests often contain valuable information that has already been declassified and anonymized. Public FOIA archives would make this useful information available and prevent needless duplicate requests. This promotes both transparency and efficiency in an existing system. The President should instruct government agencies to make their FOIA archives accessible on the Web in a standard way-- for example, a "FOIA" link somewhere on the agency's front page that leads directly to a listing of FOIA requests categorized by subject.

1. All Federal agencies will have a prominent link or graphical element labeled FOIA or simialr on the home Web page of the agency.

2. When accessed via the link and/or graphical element, access to FOIA requests that are germane to that department or agency that have been previously fufilled will be provided via a simple search tool.

3. The seach tool will alow users to search the FOIA requests that have previously been fufilled by the department or agency.

4. The Web page in which the tool exists will also alow users to initiate FOIA requests for that particualr department or agency.

5. The Web page in which to tool exists will also display the "most popualr" information or most frequently sought requests.

6, The Web page will provide links to a greater FOIA site that will allow users to initate FOIA requests of any department or agency.

7. The Web page will provide links to a greater FOIA site that will allow users to search all FOIA requests with advanced search criteria.

8. The search tool will allow users to extend the search to other related departments or agencies as determined by department or agency personel.

In doing so, duplicate effort can be reduced, popular topics would be reddily accessible, and access to relevant materials greatly increased.
I am not as well educated as the other writers and I feel intimidated by this, That leads me to an area of problem in access to Government Information..

Try to get real time information from Medicare! If you have access to the internet you are only one step above chaos. You can wait in "line" on line but what if you have to use the phone.you can wait an hour and then find out they do not have access to your information or a way to resolve your problem.

What if you are a part of our forgotten population that is treat deplorable medically and you do not have a computer or a phone. The least accessed people are the elderly they don't get past the mass of pages and a number to the government is beyond most people

>It needs to be simple Q&A

>Phone should have real people right at the start

>Medicare should understand medicine!

4. The Web page in which the tool exists will also alow users to initiate FOIA requests for that particualr department or agency.When accessed via the link and/or graphical element, access to FOIA requests that are germane to that department or agency that have been previously fufilled will be provided via a simple search tool.
The administration should be aware that the technology for efficiently and effectively processing FOIA request is currently available and being used by over 80 federal agencies. The problem is not identifying or developing modern technology, it is how to make it available to every federal agency so that they can integrate the new openness principles into their FOIA operations and disclose more information proactively.

AINS, a software development company has been providing technology solutions to federal agencies for over twenty years. Over 80 federal agencies have purchased FOIAXpress and the Public Access Link (PAL) from AINS. They are using this technology to achieve compliance with the FOIA law, including the Open Government Act of 2007, to automate their FOIA process so that they can do more with less.

Both FOIAXpress/PAL are existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies providing executive departments and agencies with an automated Electronic Freedom of Information Act (E-FOIA) system. FOIAXpress/PAL provide a low risk automated E-FOIA tracking and processing solution that can be easily and quickly implemented. The public web facing component allows the public to submit and track the status of FOIA requests over the Internet and includes an electronic reading room designed to meet the Executive Order requirements and openness in government, FOIAXpress/PAL

21st Century Right to Know Recommendations: Access to Government Information

Create a centralized digital system to streamline FOIA processing and connect all agencies FOIA systems. The system should allow agencies to easily find and manage requests, identify duplicate requests, and publish requests and released documents online. The default for FOIA requests going forward should be digital and publicall correspondence and processing handled electronically, and requests and released documents made publicly available in the ordinary course, possibly after a 30- or 60-day waiting period.

Ensure agencies implement E-FOIA requirements. OMB should issue new guidance on E-FOIA and requirements for agency homepages. The directive should require agencies to comply with and go beyond the basic mandates of E-FOIA, including identifying specific records and categories of records that are of the greatest interest to the public and systematically making them available online. In addition, OMB should develop new guidance directing agencies to comply with the existing mandate to publish an index of agency information holdings, records locators (schedules), and requiring standard formats and functional search capabilities for agency record indexes.

Provide agencies with adequate resources dedicated to improving FOIA processing and implementing new technologies. Agency FOIA programs are severely underfunded, which affects processing but also prevents agencies from developing technical capacities to increase transparency and information accessibility. The Open Government Directive should require a minimum percentage of agencies public affairs budget must be spent on FOIA and direct the creation of line-item budgets for FOIA.

The directive should also direct the CIO Council to develop a strategic plan for improving the technical capacity for information dissemination within the government. CIOs should be instructed to develop content management systems to permit easier identification and retrieval of agencies records electronically in response to a FOIA request. Finally, the administration should create new incentives for agencies to convert records to electronic, no fee, publicly available formats and to reduce backlogs of FOIA requests, including supplemental funding for particular agencies to help address IT challenges.