Page 37 - GCN, March and April 2017

OPEN DATA
Bevarly said another way to lower costs is to be more proactive with pub- lic information by building reposito- ries of records that have already been released in response to requests. Ma- soncup said that’s the goal in Evan- ston, where requestors will eventually be able to search for already released information through the NextRequest portal rather than submitting a new request.
That approach aligns with a December 2016 draft policy from the Justice Department direct- ing agencies to post their FOIA responses online. “This concept would ensure that all citizens — not just those making a request — have access to information re- leased under FOIA,” officials said in their request for comments on the draft.
Although open-records propo- nents generally supported the draft policy, two groups have voiced concerns. The Sunlight Founda- tion and the Project on Govern- ment Oversight objected to the draft’s “good cause” exceptions, which they said are too broad and unnecessary because FOIA already allows for exemptions. Further, the organizations said the poli- cy’s immediate-release require- ment could harm investigative journalism.
The push during the Obama administration for open data has also had an impact on FOIA. Beth Simone Noveck, a visiting professor at Yale Law School, points to USAspend- ing.gov, which was created through open data at the federal level, and open-checkbook websites at the local level as examples of how an open-data mindset can be more responsive than FOIA.
“Open data encourages proactive disclosure and publication in open for- mats on a centralized data portal such
as Data.gov,” Noveck wrote in a No- vember 2016 Yale Law Journal essay. “FOIA, by contrast, imposes limited af- firmative obligations on agencies.”
But open data won’t completely stop requestors from seeking records, Bev- arly said. For one thing, online tools such as MuckRock, which will file up to four requests for a $20 fee, make submitting requests easier than ever.
“Open data encourages proactive disclosure and publication in open formats on a centralized data portal such
as Data.gov. FOIA,
BY CONTRAST, IMPOSES LIMITED AFFIRMATIVE OBLIGATIONS.”
— BETH SIMONE NOVECK, YALE LAW SCHOOL
“Not only do you have the individual requestor on the upswing, but the type of content being requested is much more voluminous than what a lot of these agencies have experienced in the past,” he said.
“You also have to consider that we have a society now that literally has changed its personal preferenc- es and expectations about how they get information and how they share information.”
CULTIVATING THE LANDSCAPE
FOIA dates to 1967, which has given agencies plenty of time to get respond- ing to requests right. But the digital revolution has left many scrambling.
“Some people have even gone on to coin it ‘content chaos,’” Adams said. It refers to the idea that there is a wide variety of content flowing around agencies’ data silos that is largely
unsearchable.
Wilson agreed. Governments
“just have really crummy ways of organizing and searching through this information,” he said. “That’s it. It’s not that much more complicated.”
But even when an agency wants to adopt new technology, there are obstacles.
Government “operates with guard rails,” Bevarly said. “There are political challenges, there are privacy challenges, and there are legal challenges that the public sec- tor has to appreciate when they go into new technology.”
The National Freedom of In- formation Coalition recommends that public organizations develop professional standards for records stewards, which will lead to best practices that other governing bodies can adopt and adapt. Bev- arly advises agencies to start by asking these questions: What is the cost of being a public records steward and managing that activ- ity for your agency? How are your
employees trained in responding to public records requests?
Experts agree that the number of requests and the volume of records be- ing requested will likely increase in the coming years. That’s why governments need to act quickly to modernize and streamline their open-records process- es, Wilson said.
“If they do nothing, it’s just going to hit them hard, and they’re going to be buried,” he added. •
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