Congress Urged Not to Undermine FOIA

Media witnesses recommended changes embodied in several bills now before Congress, including creating a government office to oversee compliance with FOIA requests and imposing meaningful deadlines for agency responses.
Since the law was enacted in 1966, "there has been a shift away from a presumption of openness which has been at the core of FOIA," Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc. and chairman of the Newspaper Association of America, said in prepared testimony.