FOIAbase

We propose to create a FOIA-centric website, called FOIAbase, where users can brainstorm ideas for potential FOIA requests, refine those ideas into actual FOIA letters, raise money to fund the requests, and browse released documents as well as statistics on the response rate and wait times of different government agencies. While such a tool would certainly not eliminate all the drawbacks to the current system, we believe that if implemented properly this site could serve to not only engage a wider audience in the FOIA process but also potentially reduce duplicate requests and allow for a more efficient filing and response system.

We envision FOIAbase as having four primary functionalities that combine elements of popular websites Quora, Reddit, Kickstarter, and PACER, specially tailored to the FOIA process. Additionally, we plan to provide badges for those users who register and are verified as legal experts (or “FOIA experts”) so that others on the site may weight their comments and input accordingly, while still encouraging broad participation from all non-expert users. Similarly, we plan to provide a different type of badge to individuals who possess a “preferred filing status” (i.e., members of academia, students, and news/media representatives) and are charged less by federal agencies to fulfill their requests. The four stages of FOIAbase are the following:

1. Quora-style idea brainstorming: In this stage, users will be able to post new ideas for materials that could be requested under FOIA as well as comment on and refine the ideas posted by others. There would also be a voting mechanism, fashioned along the lines of Reddit, permitting users to vote up the ideas they most support and want to see filed. Ideas that receive a critical mass of support from users then move on to the second stage of the site, “Claiming & Filing.”

2. Claiming & Filing: Users, especially those designated as “FOIA experts” and those with preferred statuses, will be encouraged to “claim” popular ideas and take responsibility for drafting and submitting the actual request, as well as keeping the community appraised of any responses, developments, or other updates on the process.

3. For requests that require payment, users may submit the fee request to a site moderator who would initiate a Kickstarter-style fundraising process for the request, through which any individual may contribute however much he/she would like towards funding the request. When the goal sum is reached, the moderator could then process the payment and send it directly to the relevant agency (in order to eliminate - or at least reduce - the possibility of user fraud).

4. Finally, FOIAbase will serve as a repository for all retrieved documents through user-filed requests. In order to incentivize journalists (and other preferred status individuals) to claim requests, a 30-day posting period will be allowed during which filers could retain exclusive access to the retrieved documents. After that period, users will be asked to post all documents publicly, and any filers who had retrieved the documents using FOIAbase-raised funds would be required to do so. In addition to serving as a PACER-style repository for the retrieved documents, FOIAbase would also collect statistics on how long different agencies took to respond to requests, how much they charged for fulfilling requests, how often they denied requests, etc.