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Fall 2007 Bulletin
New CIA Rules for FOIA Fees Give Bloggers a Price Break
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced effective July 18, 2007 that when processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, it would redefine the term “news media” to include bloggers.
In a mid-July announcement in the Federal Register, the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices from federal agencies and organizations, the CIA said that it had decided to broaden its definition of “news media” after it received both criticism and positive comments concerning rules the agency proposed on Jan. 8, 2007 which would have required some bloggers to pay FOIA search and copy fees.
Under the Freedom of Information Reform Act of 1986, (Pub. L. No. 99-570, §§ 1801-1804, 100 Stat. 3248), different fee provisions have been set out for four categories of document requesters. Members of the news media and from the educational or scientific category pay no document search fees and can copy up to 100 pages for free. “Commercial use” requesters must pay fees for document searches, copying, and review. Other requesters are restricted to two hours of free search time and can receive 100 pages for free.
The CIA announcement in the Federal Register stated, “After a review and consideration of all of the comments, it was clear that there was no way to reconcile the positive and negative comments into a refinement of our approach that was workable… . Since there was no support to proceed with the proposed rule as originally drafted, rather than implementing the sweeping changes set forth in the proposed rule, we have a more modest change by simply adopting the definition of ‘news media’ contained in the March 27, 1987, Office of Management and Budget FOIA Guidelines.”
The 1987 Office of Management and Budget FOIA Guidelines’ definition of “news media” encompasses representatives of “alternative media” who primarily disseminate news through “telecommunications services.”
The announcement also said that the CIA changed its rule in order to avoid the “sterile and unproductive technical litigation” that would have resulted from its previous interpretation of the term “news media.”
Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, a research institute and library at George Washington University, said that the CIA changed its definition in order to preempt a court ruling that the intelligence agency’s existing regulations were illegal. The National Security Archive filed a suit against the CIA in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in June 2006, according to the July 18, 2007 edition of Government Executive, a business news daily for federal employees. The National Security Archive’s suit challenged a CIA decision that it did not qualify as “news media” for purposes of a FOIA request.
“We hope these changes will minimize CIA efforts to discourage news media FOIA requesters in the future,” Fuchs said.
Government Executive reported that the CIA declined to comment on whether the new rule was a product of the lawsuit.
- Amba Datta,
Silha Research Assistant
University of Minnesota | College of Liberal Arts | School of Journalism and Mass Communication
