Civil society should develop reference guides for government FOIA workers

David Reed proposed a research idea at the Sunshine Fest conference at Johns Hopkins University, that civil society should develop reference guides for the wokers in government agencies who respond to Freedom of Information requests. The guides would provide workers with the legal justifications and sample language for making the fullest disclosure provided by law. Agencies’ official procedures for Freedom of Information are often “undercontrolling rules” which superficially comply with law but which workers cannot implement because they are vague, contradictory and require actions that management will not accept. The proposal is at https://pubadmin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/sunshine-fest-research-idea-guide-for-foia-responders.pdf