“Justice edged out a crowded field of contending agencies and career officials who seem in practical rebellion against President Obama’s open-government orders,” commented Archive director Tom Blanton. “Justice’s leading role as the government’s lawyer signals every bureaucrat they don’t have to stretch as much as Rose Mary Woods to cover up the government’s business.”
“The Department of Justice – which is responsible for enforcing FOIA government-wide – was supposed to be the change agent and role model for President Obama’s FOIA reforms,” said Nate Jones, the Archive’s Freedom of Information Act Coordinator. “But, despite the president’s clear instructions, the DOJ has embraced a ‘FOIA-as-usual mindset’ that has failed to transform the decades-old FOIA policies within its department, much less throughout the government.”
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