In last October’s government shutdown, the Obama administration closed down, or blocked access to, many private businesses that had been allowed to operate in earlier shutdowns, such as during the Clinton administration. After lawyers and legal commentators suggested that these closures of private businesses were illegal, and pointed out that they were an unexplained departure from past agency practice, I filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the agencies that carried out these closures — the National Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Department of the Interiors — seeking to find out which officials were responsible for these improper closures, and how the decision to close them was made. …

In FOIA requests submitted on October 9 and 10, I sought information about the orders closing down these businesses, how the targeted private businesses were selected (some politically connected businesses were spared being closed), and about the policies the government relied upon in shutting them down. Months later, long after the legal deadline for responding to my FOIA request, the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior still have not produced any documents at all, even though they were legally required to respond within 20 working days after I made my request.

In March, the Forest Service did finally respond, but its response — producing only agency communications that occurred after the shutdown ended – suggests that it has withheld, or failed to search for, the most interesting (and potentially incriminating) documents.