91心頭 Law Professor Testifies In Front of Senate Hearing
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, assistant professor at the油, testified July 12th油in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The hearing was designed to highlight FOIAs successes and identify its remaining challenges in celebration of the laws 50th油anniversary, and to respond to the amendments made in the FOIA reform bill signed by President Barack油Obama June 30.
Kwoka was invited to testify油by Sen. Chuck油Grassley,油chairman of the committee,油because of her油油that油examines the way corporations profit from their use of FOIA. Businesses use FOIA to get information about their competitors, lawyers use FOIA to get information to recruit clients油and companies use FOIA to provide due diligence services to clients, she says.
There are also businesses that request large volumes of records from the federal government and resell them, at a considerable profit, to private parties, Kwoka油says. Those resellers are among the top requesters at five of the six agencies she studied, and at two agencies multiple resellers compete against one another, she says.
During her testimony, Kowka addressed some of FOIAs unintended consequences. She says, one problem posed by this volume of commercial requesting is that agencies are often recouping only between one and five percent of the cost of processing commercial requests by charging fees, essentially providing a private subsidy to these businesses.
She also explained that commercial interests can prevent public knowledge about governance. News media and other requesters may be crowded out due to resource constraints, given that some commercial requesters are providing hundreds and even thousands of requests per year.
Based on her research, Kwoka offered several recommendations for future FOIA reforms. Congress could legislate requirements that agencies publish their FOIA logs, she said. Legislation could further require that agencies evaluate those logs annually, and publish frequently requested categories of records in searchable, downloadable油and indexed databases.
In addition to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kwoka油has油previously presented her research to the staff of the Office of Government Information Services, the FOIA ombudsman agency, and the federal FOIA Advisory Committee. View a full video of the hearing油.