FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Mark Stanley, 202.681.7582
Email: press@demandprogress.org
WASHINGTON — Today the Senate passed the FOIA Improvement Act of 2015 by unanimous consent. The measure will now move to the House, which passed similar legislation, known as the FOIA Act, earlier this year. Similar FOIA legislation nearly made it through the legislative process last Congress, but was quietly defeated by the Obama Administration.
The following can be attributed to Demand Progress Policy Director Daniel Schuman:
"Demand Progress commends the Senate for passage of this bill. We encourage the House to speedily take up and pass this legislation, and we urge the Obama Administration to make good on its promises for greater government transparency by supporting and signing this important measure into law."
The FOIA Improvement Act has four major provisions:
- It writes into law a presumption of openness;
- It puts a 25 year sunset on the administration’s ability to invoke the “deliberative process” privilege to withhold information;
- It strengthens the FOIA ombudsman; and
- It pushes FOIA into the digital age.
For more information, read Demand Progress’s Medium post.
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