The US administration has set the record for providing citizens with data structures that are required by the Law on freedom of information (Freedom of Information Act), it follows from the analysis for FY 2015, the Agency Associated Press. The white house could not find the documents for each of the sixth treatment, or in the amount by 129,8 thous of requests for access to government data. In his analysis of Associated Press praised the work of 100 state agencies for the 2015 fiscal year.
If you take the individual departments, the FBI are unable to provide the requested data in 39% of cases (5168 statements), the Bureau of customs and border protection — in 34% of cases. The regional office of the Agency of environmental protection in new York and new Jersey, for example, are unable to provide data in 58% of cases.
In all, citizens are unable to obtain complete information (it was not provided at all or in the transferred documents were bills and exemptions) in 77% of cases in response to 596,95 thousand applications. It is also a record — according to the results of the first year of the presidency of Barack Obama the figure was 65%. While 250 thousand cases, the authorities explained the refusal to provide the requested information by the inability to find desired documents by the applicants ‘ unwillingness to pay for their copies, inconsistency and incorrectness of petitions received.
Earlier, President Obama previously called his government the most open in history. His administration reported on the processing of 769,9 thousand applications, which is 19% more than in 2014. The staff responsible for this work, only increased during that time only 7%.
White house press Secretary Josh earnest could not comment on the figures. According to him the officials try to meet citizens in such cases. He also once again urged journalists “to put pressure on Congress to force lawmakers to follow the same standards of openness that are set for the Executive”. The law on freedom of information, which entered into force in 1966, does not apply to Congress.
According to the Law on freedom of information, U.S. citizens and foreigners may require the U.S. authorities to provide them with copies of their documents free of charge or for a nominal fee. Information subject to disclosure, if disclosure does not threaten national security, violate privacy and does not contain trade secrets or secret data.
“Very badly that people have to wait months and sometimes years to get an answer to his appeal, stating that the Agency was not able to find required information”, — commented on the results of the analysis of Adam Marshall, a lawyer investigative Committee for freedom of the press.
“It seems that they are limited to the minimum that are required to do, says Jason Leopold, special correspondent for Vice News and an expert on the law on public data. — I just don’t believe. The integrity of their work raises questions”.
The U.S. government agencies rarely provide information about what steps they predprinimatel in search of the requested public materials. “Clearly they are looking for it doesn’t matter,” says Washington lawyer Maclanahan from Kel National Security Counselors Inc., which specializes in cases involving the accountability of officials and matters of national security. Last year Maclanahan lost case of his client Sharif Mobley, who was trying to obtain documents about the reasons why since 2010 is in custody in Yemen. The court found that the FBI not required to search for documents relating to other countries. Mobley was captured in Yemen during a RAID against militants of “al-Qaeda”.
But in some cases, usually when the news Agency filed for administration in the court, the government provided supposedly not found before the documents tens of thousands of pages. Resource Gawker last year has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of state, after the foreign Ministry said that cannot submit data via electronic correspondence of the Deputy and assistant of state Hillary Clinton Philip Raines and the media. After the lawsuit was filed, the state Department found 90 thousand documents of correspondence of the Raines and of the press.
