ALL THE FILES

U.S. Government Sets Record for Censoring, Denying Files

Seventy-eight percent of FOIA requests were censored or denied in 2017.

An analysis by the Associated Press concluded that people "received censored files or nothing" in 78 percent of 823,222 Freedom of Information Act requests last year—a record in the past decade. The government turned over everything that had been requested in “roughly one of every five” FOIAs, and censored nearly two-thirds of the documents it did share. The government also spent a record $40.6 million in legal fees in 2017 to defend decisions to withhold documents. Government agencies have received a record number of FOIA requests, and many of them are attempting to clear their backlogs of overdue requests, according to the Trump administration. The Department of Justice recently announced the planned launch of a “national FOIA portal” that would "allow citizens to be even better informed about their government."