Too Many FOIA Requests, Too Little Transparency

FOIA’s systemic problems meet partisan robo-requests.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was designed to help keep the federal government transparent by allowing anyone to request unreleased information and documents. Increasingly, though, federal agencies have been overwhelmed, in part because a wave of automated systems is flooding FOIA offices, funded by right-wing money. Federal FOIA requests have nearly doubled in the past five years, according to a Justice Department report, rising to 1.5 million in 2024. In that same time period, the number of FOIA officers at the federal level hasn’t budged. Last year, Dave Levinthal wrote for CJR about the problem this presents for journalists, who have found their requests routinely denied or ignored. Some news outlets, he wrote, believe “agencies are themselves violating federal law by ignoring statutory deadlines or failing to respond.”

“We’re at the tipping point,” said David Cuillier, the director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, which researches and advocates for the process of acquiring government records. “Every year it gets harder to get the government to give information, and it’s only going to get worse.”