The Archive's method for measuring the backlog of
Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") requests submitted
to the Federal Government was to file a FOIA request, by fax or
e-mail on April 22, 2005 (Note 1), to 64 federal
agencies and federal agency components that are part of the overall
National Security Archive FOIA Audit (the "Audit").
(Agencies listed in Appendix A)
The April 22, 2005 Freedom of Information Act request
asked for:
"Copies of the [Agency's] ten oldest
open or pending Freedom of Information Act requests." (Note
2)
(The "Ten Oldest FOIA Requests").
The request went to the central FOIA processing
office of each agency or agency component. For agencies with highly
decentralized FOIA programs, the Archive limited the request to
the Ten Oldest FOIA Requests pending in the Office of the Secretary,
Solicitor, or other principal processing office. The statutory
20-business day time limit for a FOIA response expired on May
23, 2005. Each of the 49 agencies with an outstanding Ten Oldest
FOIA request was contacted by telephone between May 23, 2005 and
July 31, 2005 to ask for an update on the status of the request.
Several agencies that received the request informed
us that their FOIA programs are completely decentralized and that
it is virtually impossible to amalgamate their oldest FOIA requests.
The main FOIA office refers requests to components that independently
process requests and also refer requests to their own components
that independently process FOIA requests, and so on. Army, Air
Force, Navy, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Transportation
are all extraordinarily decentralized, and would have to do a
substantial amount of work in order to locate their Ten Oldest
FOIA Requests. It was not practicable for the Archive to file
the several hundred additional FOIA requests necessary to obtain
the actual Ten Oldest FOIA Requests from these agencies. In light
of these practical problems, the Archive sent a FOIA request for
the Ten Oldest FOIA Requests to the five components at each of
these decentralized agencies that typically receive the most FOIA
requests for that agency.
One additional caveat regarding decentralization
is that some of the FOIA requests that the agencies identified
as still-pending may have been completed to the satisfaction of
the requester by a different component than the one that responded
with a copy of the FOIA request. The Archive did not track down
all of the individual requesters to determine whether they agree
that their request remains pending.
Furthermore, in the time taken to receive responses
to the FOIA requests, some agencies may have completed processing
of the oldest requests. Even though the Archive sent all 64 agencies
our request on the same date, April 22, 2005, agencies did searches
for their oldest requests on different dates, perhaps even months
apart. In addition, 11 agencies claimed they never received the
Archive's initial April 22, 2005 request, and were resent requests
later in the summer of 2005 as the Archive discovered these agencies
were not processing the April request.
Despite repeated Archive inquiries, and after more than 200 business
days, the Archive never received a complete, substantive response
from the following agencies:
- Agency for International Development;
- ARMY Criminal Investigation Command;
- ARMY Materiel Command;
- U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (DHS);
- U.S. Central Command;
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS);
- U.S. Coast Guard;
- The Department of Labor - Employment & Training Admin;
- The Department of Labor - Occupational Safety & Health
Admin;
- The Department of Labor - Employee Benefits Security Admin;
- The Department of State;
- Health and Human Services;
- Office of Personnel Management;
- The Department of Veterans Affairs.
The explanations provided by these agencies regarding their inability
to respond to the Archive's request range from Customs and Border
Patrol's claim that it does not have an electronic monitoring
or database system for tracking requests and cannot easily locate
the oldest requests without physically sorting through paper files,
to the Agency for International Development, which advised the
Archive in September 2005 that a response was one or two weeks
away, but over 5 months later has failed to respond.
Copies of agency responses to the FOIA requests for their Ten
Oldest FOIA Requests are available on the National Security Archive's
Web site, www.nsarchive.org.
Notes
1. The Department of Defense request was sent
on May 2, 2005, because of the relocation of their FOIA office.
2. The 2003 FOIA Audit asked for "Copies
of the [Agency's] ten oldest open or pending Freedom of Information
Act requests currently being processed or held pending coordination
with other agencies." The Archive changed the text in our
2005 audit requests - because the wording of the 2003 request
created some confusion about how to handle interagency coordination.
Appendix
A - Agencies that were sent requests for their 10 oldest pending
FOIA requests
1. Agency for International Development
2. Air Force - Office of the Secretary
3. Air Force - Air Combat Command
4. Air Force - Air Mobility Command
5. Air Force - Education & Training Command
6. Air Force - Materiel Command
7. ARMY - Army Human Resources Command
8. ARMY - Chief of Engineers
9. ARMY - Criminal Investigation
10. ARMY - INSCOM (Intelligence)
11. ARMY - Materiel Command
12. U.S. Central Command (DOD)
13. Customs and Border Patrol (DHS)
14. Central Intelligence Agency
15. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS)
16. U.S. Coast Guard (DHS)
17. Drug Enforcement Agency (DOJ)
18. Department of Homeland Security
19. Defense Intelligence Agency
20. Dept of Agriculture
21. Dept of Commerce
22. Dept of Defense
23. Dept of Energy
24. Dept of the Interior
25. Dept of Justice (Office of Information and Privacy)
26. Dept of Labor - Employment Standards Admin
27. Dept of Labor - Employment & Training Admin
28. Dept of Labor - Mine Safety and Health Admin
29. Dept of Labor - Occupational Safety & Health Admin
30. Dept of Labor - Employee Benefits Security Admin
31. Dept of State
32. Dept of Transportation - Office of the Secretary
33. Dept of Transportation - Federal Aviation Admin
34. Dept of Transportation - Fed Highway Admin
35. Dept of Transportation - Fed Motor Carrier Safety
36. Dept of Transportation - Fed Rail Admin
37. Dept of Treasury
38. Dept of Education
39. Dept of Veterans Affairs
40. Environmental Protection Agency
41. Federal Bureau of Administration
42. Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS)
43. General Services Administration
44. Health and Human Services
45. Housing and Urban Development
46. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS)
47. National Archives and Records Admin
48. National Aeronautics and Space Admin
49. NAVY - Naval Air Systems Command
50. NAVY - Chief of Naval Education and Training
51. NAVY - Naval Sea Systems Command
52. NAVY - Naval Facilities Engineering Command
53. NAVY - U.S. Pacific Command
54. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
55. National Institutes of Health
56. National Reconnaissance Office
57. National Science Foundation
58. Nuclear Regulatory Agency
59. Office of Management and Budget
60. Office of Personnel Management
61. Small Business Administration
62. Securities and Exchange Commission
63. Social Security Admin
64. Transportation Security Admin (DHS)