Staff Blog: DOJ withdraws controversial FOIA request

Today's paper included a Clippings column headlined "Fed action would leave citizens in the dark," prompted by a recent Department of Justice proposal to permit federal agencies to deny a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act by lying about the existence of records.

After widespread opposition from public interest groups and nationwide media scrutiny, the DOJ on Thursday (that's today) rescinded its proposal.

“Having now received a number of comments on the Department’s proposed regulations in this area, the Department is actively considering those comments and is reexamining whether there are other approaches to applying exclusions that protect the vital law enforcement and  national security concerns that motivated Congress to exclude certain records from the FOIA and do so in the most transparent manner possible,” wrote Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General, in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, dated Nov. 3, 2011.

Read the letter in its entirety here.