Not All Federal Agencies Are Equal When It Comes to FOIA Response Times

Delays in the processing of Freedom of Information Act requests by federal agencies are, unfortunately, the norm rather than the exception. But some agencies — including the U.S. State Department — are outliers, routinely stretching those delays long past the point when the information could be of use to the public.

On Tuesday, American Oversight submitted a declaration to support ongoing litigation over the department’s egregious FOIA-processing delays. The declaration — which is in support of a January 2022 lawsuit brought by the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic (MFIA) on behalf of Prof. Ryan Scoville of Marquette University Law School challenging the State Department’s chronically slow responses — recounts the American Oversight’s experiences with the department and how these lengthy delays have hindered the organization’s mission to educate the public on matters of urgent concern.

As a government watchdog that uses FOIA and other public records laws to advance truth, accountability, and democracy, American Oversight has extensive experience requesting records from the State Department and other federal agencies. Tuesday’s declaration presents stark data revealing that more than 45% of American Oversight’s requests to the State Department from 2018 through 2024 remain pending without response. Another nearly 28% were closed without response, most often because the information sought was no longer timely, leading American Oversight to withdraw them so the department could focus its resources on more recent requests. As the declaration lays out, in American Oversight’s experience, the State Department is among the slower federal agencies when it comes to processing FOIA requests.

American Oversight’s work investigating the State Department has revealed critical details on matters of national importance, including exposing the Trump-sanctioned pressure campaign on the Ukrainian government by forcing the department and other agencies to turn over records originally withheld from Congress during Trump’s first impeachment. The declaration outlines the lengths the organization was forced to go — including through litigation — to bring the information to the public. It also describes outstanding requests on other important topics American Oversight has investigated, such as the extent of Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant influence throughout the government and the administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The State Department’s failure to respond to requests on these subjects — in many cases for years — has hampered American Oversight’s ability to fully educate the public so they can effectively hold their government accountable.

FOIA is one of the most vital tools for the preservation of an open, democratic government. Egregious patterns of noncompliance, like the State Department’s chronic and egregious delays, must be addressed to ensure the public’s timely access to important information.