Freedom of information in the United States relates to the public's ability to access government records, meetings, and other information. In the United States, freedom of information legislation exists at all levels of government: federal level , state level , and local level.
11-514: The Colorado Open Records Act ( CORA ) is the state freedom of information law in Colorado . Enacted in 1969, the legislation was patterned after the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Following the passage of the 1977 Criminal Justice Records Act, law enforcement agencies and courts were given discretion to withhold all criminal justice documents with the exception of "records of official action", including arrest and conviction records. In
22-734: A FOIA requester under one of the statute's exemptions "unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records". The Ashcroft Memorandum reversed the Reno standard. Agencies were told that in making discretionary FOIA decisions they should carefully consider the fundamental values behind the exemptions—national security, privacy, government's interests, etc.—and to lean in their favor whenever possible. The Ashcroft Memo with its "sound legal basis" standard encouraged (or at least seemed to support) greater use of FOIA exemptions by federal agency personnel. The Ashcroft Memo
33-494: A FOIA suit has seesawed for about the last three decades. The Reno Memo established a "presumption" in favor of disclosure by providing that "it shall be the policy of the Department of Justice to defend the assertion of a FOIA exemption only in those cases where the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would be harmful to an interest protected by that exemption". It encouraged all government agencies to review FOIA requests in
44-582: A bipartisan coalition in the Colorado Senate led by Democrat Chris Hansen and Republican John Cooke pushed reform legislation that would have, among other provisions, abolished per-page fees for electronic record requests. However, the bill ultimately did not make it into law Freedom of information in the United States Since the founding of the United States, the public's right to know
55-489: A manner most favorable to openness and to release information, even though it might fall within one of the nine exemption categories, if no "foreseeable harm" would result from the disclosure. The goal was to achieve the "maximum responsible disclosure". On October 12, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a policy memorandum on FOIA to all federal executive agencies. The AG declared the Department of Justice (DOJ) would defend agencies' decisions to withhold documents from
66-508: Is part of series of policy memos on how federal agencies should apply FOIA exemptions. Beginning in 1977 with Attorney General Griffin Bell , and continued by Attorney General William French Smith in 1981 and Attorney General Janet Reno in 1993, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced how the executive branch should approach FOIA, its application, and DOJ's defense of agency's actions. In other words, DOJ's position on when they would defend in
77-519: The 21st century, concerns over high fees for filing requests for information and inadequate access to filing systems has led to calls for reforming the law. In 2014, a coalition of lawmakers pushed a proposal to cap charges for filing CORA requests to four times the Colorado minimum wage . In 2020, a Denver Post investigation discovered wide inconsistencies between state agencies' email retention practices, raising freedom of information concerns. In 2022,
88-642: The affairs of their government has been foundational democracy. James Madison wrote during the United States Constitutional Convention , "The right of freely examining public characters and measures and free communication, is the only effective guardian of every other right." Several federal laws have strengthened the public's ability to access public records . The most important was the Freedom of Information Act , signed into law on July 4, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson . The Holder Memo
99-431: The ideal that in a democracy, people have the right to know the business of their government. However, the laws vary in scope and strength among jurisdictions. For example, Florida's Sunshine Law creates both a statutory and constitutional right to access whereas many states only provide the statutory right. Additionally, while a state may have strong legislation the state's compliance with its own laws may negatively impact
110-506: The rest. All fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia also have freedom of information laws that govern the public's access to government records at state and local levels. These laws go by many different names including Sunshine Laws, Public Records Laws, Open Records Laws, etc. Additionally, Open Meeting Laws govern the public's access to meetings of public officials or appointed boards. All Freedom of Information style laws supports
121-471: Was rescinded by Attorney General Eric Holder on March 14, 2009. The AG Holder Memo appears to have reinstated the Reno Memo standard and extends the policy. The policy of the executive branch is to be open, responsive, transparent, and accountable. The current memo encourages the maximum disclosure possible in discretionary exemptions and to, whenever possible, reasonably segregate exempt information and release
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