This New Rule Makes the FBI Even Less Transparent

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stopped accepting Freedom of Information Act requests by email. The agency wants requesters to use fax, standard mail, or the agency's online portal to make things on their end more efficient. But, FOIA advocates say this puts a lot of burden on the requester.

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Hey millennial FOIA nuts: Time to familiarize yourselves with the concept of a paper jam.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has stopped accepting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by email. The agency wants requesters to use fax, standard mail, or the agency's online portal, FBI eFOIPA.

The goal seems to be "creating a lot of extra burden," says Adam Marshall, an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Everyone is used to emails. It creates a permanent record. It has a time-stamp on it. Everyone knows how to use it."

The FBI says the move will help the agency expedite its backlog, which was estimated at 2,614 requests in 2015. Agency spokesperson Jillian Stickels told the Daily Caller that using an online portal will automate the processing of requests and "increase efficiency."

But does the FBI really want to make the process more efficient? And its decision to continue accepting faxes and standard mail seems to only create headaches for requesters, who might run out of toner or have their transmission signal interrupted when someone picks up the line.

"Most mail that goes to a federal agency has to go through a screening process," says Marshall. "Sometimes they irradiate it to make sure that there isn't anthrax or other things in it ... So, it can take a long time for your mail to get from you to the FOIA officer who's going to open it up and read it." Yet the law says that the agency is required to provide a response to a FOIA request within 20 business days.

A beta version of the online portal required users to provide personal information about themselves and limited requests to one per day. The FBI backed away from these rules in response to public pressure from Muckrock and Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), but the system still imposes a 3,000-character restriction. Also, the FBI says that not all types of requests can be fulfilled through the portal, though which types the agency won't say.

There are other bureaucratic hurdles: The FBI has multiple computerized filing systems for documents. Typically, if a requester doesn't specify which records system to search, the Bureau only queries its Central Records System (CRS) and then might fail to locate a document that it actually has on file. Marshall finds these multiple record systems "incredibly confusing" even though understanding them, he says, is part of his job.

The shift away from accepting emailed FOIA is part of a trend. Eleven other government agencies have recently followed suit, Marshall says, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Commerce, Customs and Border Protection, Office of General Counsel of the National Archives and Records Administration, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Department of the Navy, General Services Administration, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Justice Office of Information Policy, Defense Logistics Agency and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense.

Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Field produced by Josh Swain. Additional footage by Todd Krainin.