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A sample Freedom of Information Act request letter from the Illinois Attorney General's office.
Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act gets a make-over
New rules open doors to better government accountability.
By Jamie Loo, First Amendment reporter
September 4, 2009
Sweeping changes to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have been signed
into the law, which open government advocates say will result in better access to
public documents and more government transparency.
FOIA laws give residents the right to inspect documents on the public record such
as meeting minutes, budgets, court documents and documents involved in the government
decision making process. Freedom of information laws vary from state to state and
generally apply to public bodies including city councils, boards and commissions,
as well as some other entities that receive tax dollars. Although the federal FOIA
was adopted in 1966, Illinois didn’t enact a state freedom of information law until
1984.
One of the key changes to the Illinois FOIA law is the state’s powers to enforce the
law, said Terry Pastika, executive director of the Citizen Advocacy Center, which
works on government accountability issues.
The law codifies the position of the Public Access Counselor (PAC) in the state
attorney general’s office and empowers the counselor to enforce FOIA law. The
public can file complaints and have them reviewed by the counselor for violations
of the Open Meetings Act or the denial of records. The PAC has subpoena power and
can compel public officials to cooperate in investigations. The Attorney General
can issue advisory and binding opinions on disputes, and there are also civil
penalties between $2,500 and $5,000 for public bodies that don’t comply with FOIA.
Illinois Press Association (IPA) director of government affairs, Beth Bennett, said
these provisions provide important recourse for residents fighting to obtain public
documents. Prior to the change, citizens had to take their cases directly to court.
The new rules also require that a Freedom of Information Act request denial include
“the specific reasons for the denial, including a detailed factual basis and a
citation to supporting legal authority,” which is stronger language than the previous
law.
The new measures include guidelines and deadlines for how public bodies handle FOIA
requests. Public bodies are now required to have a Freedom of Information Act officer,
who must complete a training course by the state on responsible processing and
compliance with the statute. Pastika said only one other state in the Midwest
requires FOIA training. The bill also shortens the response time for FOIA requests
from seven to five business days. Public bodies must provide the first 50 pages of
a document for free and photocopying fees after that are capped at 15 cents per page.
Bennett said the IPA, a trade association which represents daily and weekly newspapers,
saw many good provisions that they’ve wanted for years enacted in the bill. For example,
Bennett said settlements between public bodies and groups such as insurance companies
were often sealed before, forcing journalists and the public to go to court to get
those documents. Settlements are now considered public documents.
Public bodies often enter into contracts with outside entities for government work,
Bennett said, and the courts had varying interpretations on whether these contracts
were public. The law now clearly says that these contracts are open to the public,
she said. The media often ran into problems obtaining arrest reports and criminal
history records, Bennett said, so to work around the prior Illinois FOIA law the
Media Arrest Report Law was passed. The FOIA law now includes language from that law,
Bennett said.
There are some however, that are opposed to the changes such as the Illinois Municipal
League which is a lobbying group that represents city and town governments.
In a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn, the league says that the new requirements will create
an overwhelming burden on local officials who have to process Freedom of Information
Act requests every day. Many municipalities have small staffs and the shortened time
period to respond to requests will mean an increase in labor. Local governments have
cut back on printing and copying to save money, and asking them to produce up to 50
pages of documents free of charge will hurt their budgets.
The IML noted that any court reviews of the PAC’s decisions must be filed in Cook
County or downstate in Sangamon County, which would make it difficult for public bodies
that are far from these counties to seek legal remedy. The law doesn’t have eligibility
guidelines for the FOIA officers, which raises questions about appointment procedures
and if there is a conflict of interest for the designee to hold other municipal positions.
The league letter said the law also ignores the “legitimate needs of government to keep
some information confidential” and doesn’t adequately protect government rights in
the process. FOIA has been used as a “political tool not to gather information but
to harass and harangue public officials,” which the IML claims were not recognized
in the bill.
“I think more work needs to be done in the exemptions section,” Pastika said.
The Citizen Advocacy Center director said restrictions on what can be claimed under
privacy exemptions have improved but overall Illinois still has more exempt documents
than other states. Bennett, from the IPA, and Pastika said draft documents are still
exempt and the law doesn’t define when a “preliminary document” becomes open to the
public. Bennett said it’s also not clear when the disciplinary action records of
public officials can be released, so for now those documents can be protected by
personnel files.
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Public set to benefit from FOIA changes
The Illinois Public Access Bureau received 1,389 total requests for assistance with the
state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law and Open Meetings Act (OMA) in 2008. The
majority of the freedom of information cases came from members of the public who filed
231 requests for assistance from the state attorney general in obtaining records from
public bodies; 290 FOIA requests for documents from the attorney general’s office; and
made 173 phone inquiries. The attorney general’s office also received 128 written
inquiries and 130 phone inquiries from the public on the OMA.
In both categories, members of the public made more requests than the media and government
officials. Overall, the smaller number of requests from the media may be because professional
journalists tend to be experts on the FOIA and OMA laws and therefore would have fewer
questions for the attorney general’s office. Journalists also often resolve disputes over
denied information requests and open meeting issues with public bodies before it reaches
the level of the Public Access Bureau or the attorney general. Government officials contact
the attorney general’s office about FOIA and OMA for a variety of reasons, such as how to
apply the law to specific meetings and whether requested documents can be disclosed.
In FOIA cases, the media made 37 requests for help obtaining records from public bodies, 20
requests for internal attorney general documents and 23 phone inquiries. Government officials
made 123 phone calls with FOIA inquiries, 13 FOIA requests for attorney general documents
and 26 asked for assistance obtaining documents from public bodies. The media filed 15 written
requests and 14 phone inquiries about the OMA, and government officials made 127 calls and 39
written inquiries about the law.
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