Transcript

FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting (Virtual Event)

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

10:00 a.m. (ET)

Chris [event producer]: Welcome and thank you for joining today's FOIA Advisory Committee meeting. Before we begin, please ensure you have opened the Webex participants and chat panels by using the associated icons located at the bottom right of your screen. And please note that all audio connections are muted and this conference is being recorded. To present a comment via Webex audio, please click the raised hand icon located right beneath your participants panel to place yourself in the comment queue. If you're connected to today's webinar via phone audio only, please press pound two on your telephone keypad to enter the comment queue. If you require technical assistance, please send a chat to the event producer. With that, I'll turn the meeting over to committee chair Alina Semo. Please go ahead.

Alina M. Semo: Thank you, Chris. And I just want to welcome everyone. Good morning, everyone. As the director of the Office of Government Information Services, OGIS, and this committee's chairperson, it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to our second meeting of the fifth term of the FOIA Advisory Committee. This meeting taking place so soon after our last week's meeting is a bit unusual, but it is our hope that last week's briefings from our committee's designated federal officer, DFO Kirsten Mitchell, as well as our returning members, Tom Susman, Patricia Weth and Dave Cuillier, help lay the foundation, as we roll up our sleeves and get to work today. Committee members, I look forward to a lively, but orderly discussion today, as we hone in on the three subcommittees this committee will form. And I also want to welcome our colleagues and friends from the FOIA community and elsewhere who are watching us today, either via Webex or with a slight delay on the NARA YouTube channel. Members' names and affiliations are posted on our website and member biographies will be posted soon.

I have a few housekeeping matters to go through first. I am advised that committee member Michael Heise is unable to join us today, but I'm going to turn over to Kirsten to ask if she has taken a visual roll call and if she could confirm we have a quorum.

Kirsten Mitchell: Indeed, I can confirm that.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thank you, Kirsten.

Kirsten Mitchell: You're welcome.

Alina M. Semo: Thanks. Meeting materials are available on the committee's webpage. Click on the link for the 2022 to 2024 FOIA Advisory Committee on the OGIS website. We will upload a transcript of minutes of this meeting as soon as they are ready, in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. During today's meeting, I want to encourage committee members to use the all panelists option from the dropdown menu and the chat function when you want to speak or ask a question, of course, also visually I'll be looking at my little tiles that I have on my screen to see if anyone is raising their hand. But please also remember to keep the chat function to only administrative matters, nothing substantive, in order for us to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, no substantive comments should be made in the chat function, as they will not be recorded in the transcript of the meeting.

If any of our committee members need to take a break at any time, please do not disconnect from the Webex event. Instead, mute your microphone by using the microphone icon at the bottom of your screen and turn off your camera by using the camera icon. Send us a quick chat, me and Kirsten, to let us know if you'll be gone for more than a few minutes and join us again as soon as you can. Today, we have not planned to take a break as we do plan to wrap up by noon Eastern time. So we're going to try to keep to our posted agenda. And a reminder to all committee members and also to myself, because I'm guilty of this, please identify yourself each time you speak by name and affiliation. This helps us greatly down the road with both the transcript and the minutes, both of which are required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Finally, I have a few other housekeeping issues to go through before we roll up our sleeves. For those of you watching us on the NARA YouTube channel, the chat is not on today, but we do want to hear from you. If you have questions and comments related to the agenda of today's meeting or any comments or questions, please address them to FOIA-Advisory-Committee@nara.gov. If you have questions on any other topic for the National Archives, you may direct them to Public.Affairs@nara.gov.

I also want to note that we have received and posted several written comments in advance of today's meeting. We review all public comments and post them as soon as we are able and if they comply with our public comments posting policy. We have also alerted committee members and have invited them to view the public comments on our website. If anyone wishes to submit any additional written public comments regarding the committee's work you may do so by emailing FOIA-Advisory-Committee@nara.gov, and we will consider posting them to the OGIS website. In addition to the written public comments we have already posted, we will invite oral public comments at the end of today's meeting, as noted on our agenda. And as we noted in our August 22nd, 2022 Federal Register notice announcing this meeting, public comments will be limited to three minutes per individual.

Okay. With that, I am going to just ask if any of the committee members have any questions about our housekeeping or administrative rules that I just went through? No? Okay. All right. Life is good. All right. So I think we're ready to roll up our sleeves. Again, after Thursday's meeting, everyone knows on the committee that Kirsten emailed asking each one of you to provide your top two or three FOIA issues that you would like to see the committee focus on this term. I want to thank everyone for everyone's robust responses. I definitely want to thank Kirsten publicly, as I have thanked her privately already, for all the hard work she's put into compiling everyone's fantastic ideas. They're represented in a spreadsheet that we have posted on our website under the minutes... I'm sorry, under the meeting rubric for today's meeting. And what Kirsten has done, that I think is very helpful, is to put the ideas into broad buckets to help start our conversation today.

It was interesting to me, I'm just going to comment, that there was definitely a lot of overlap in members' ideas. There are definitely a lot of folks thinking on the same page. So I was very heartened to see that and definitely seems to be some consensus around a number of the topics. But certainly the ideas center around four very broad areas that, as Kirsten has identified, the first one is review of past committee recommendations. So definitely seems to be a lot of interest in that. FOIA funding and fees was the second category Kirsten identified. FOIA process issues. And the final one, technology. Can't seem to escape that anywhere we go. So there's plenty to talk about. I look forward to our terrific discussion today. As a reminder, after we discuss priorities for the term, the goal is to form three subcommittees, please, not four. Four was too much last term. I'm here to say that again.

I just also want to add, that does not preclude the formation of smaller working groups under one or all of the subcommittees. So that certainly happened in the last term. We found that quite productive and I certainly want to encourage that again. As if everyone has heard last week, much of the committee's work does get done at the subcommittee level in between the full committee meetings. I want to encourage all committee members to join one or more of the subcommittees. You are by no means precluded from joining more than one. I definitely want to encourage all of you to think about volunteering for a subcommittee co-chairmanship. We usually encourage one government member and one non-government member, just to even things out as co-chairs. So hopefully you're thinking about that in the back of your minds. So I've done a lot of talking. With that, I am going to turn everything over to all of you and I want to invite all of you to what I hope is a terrific discussion. I'm going to pause. Who would like to go first?

Kirsten Mitchell: Alina, this is Kirsten.

Alina M. Semo: Yes.

Kirsten Mitchell: Pardon the interruption. But if we could ask our event producer to please advance the slide to number three.

Alina M. Semo: Thank you.

Kirsten Mitchell: So we have the chat information out there and then as the committee begins its discussion, the ideas that you just summarized are on slide four.

Alina M. Semo: Terrific. Thank you, Chris. Okay. All right. So I'm not seeing anyone waving at me frantically yet, and I don't expect all of you to jump in at once, but does anyone care to go first?

Adam Marshall: Hey, Alina.

Alina M. Semo: All right, Adam, are you waving at me?

Adam Marshall: Yes, I am.

Alina M. Semo: Great. Adam Marshall.

Adam Marshall: Adam Marshall from the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press. First of all, I really appreciate the efforts as … by Kirsten to try to categorize these in different ways. One of the categories is funding and fees, and I was wondering if some of the people who posted kind of shorter comments just on FOIA fees or FOIA funding could speak a little bit more as to what they were interested in, because it seems that some of those might be able to be combined with the process category or be a sub-working group within the process category. And that might be an easy way to get us down in terms of the subcommittees.

Alina M. Semo: Yeah, I just the process subcommittee was very active in the last term to address Adam's point and fees were definitely discussed and looked at. So no recommendations came out of that last time, but I see that there's continued interest in that. So I definitely want to encourage that. Does anyone else want to take up Adam's invitation to speak to your fee comments? Catrina?

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: Can you hear me?

Kirsten Mitchell: Yes.

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: Okay. So when I put up there the FOIA funding, I was speaking of, sorry about the barking in the background, the funding for resources for the program, for rightsizing staffing, things like that. The cost for fees, I guess that could actually be lumped into the processing side, which was, I think Adam was alluding to, I wasn't really looking at that because at the department, most of DHS, we don't really collect fees, so that's not a huge issue for us. I'm sure it might be for others, but mine was more so rightsizing the offices, getting funding for the federal FOIA programs that are needed. So that's where I was coming from, Adam.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Catrina. Anyone else want to follow up on that?

Patricia Weth: Hi, Alina, this is Patricia Weth from EPA. Regarding fees and FOIA funding, the legislation subcommittee last term, which I co-chaired, we had a working group for both. We had a working group for FOIA funding, as well as for fees. We did prepare a subcommittee final report. And the two folks who led those working groups on that, Matthew Schwarz and Allan Blutstein...did I pronounce his name right?...did a really nice paper on it and we didn't have any recommendations coming out of those working groups. If I remember correctly, I think Allan's paper really did a great job explaining why he didn't feel that it could go forward. Also the 2014 to ’16 committee, I believe, had a subcommittee just devoted to fees. I think I showed their subcommittee page. They have a lot of information there, so I just kind of throw that out to share for some help. For the FOIA funding, I don't think we, in the legislation subcommittee, had enough time to review it. It was really to look at ways that agencies could get the resources that they needed to accomplish the mission. So I hope that's helpful.

Alina M. Semo: I think I saw on the chat that Ginger McCall wanted to weigh in. Ginger?

Ginger McCall: Yeah. This was on the more general issue though. Not to answer Adam's-

Alina M. Semo: Oh, I'm sorry. I just saw it. So I apologize. Sorry. Well, should I come back to you?

Ginger McCall: Yeah, I don't have an answer to Adam's question because my responses to the request for comments were lengthy.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. All right. We'll come back to you.

Kirsten Mitchell: Alina, this is Kirsten again. I am terribly sorry to interrupt, but I'm trying to get the attention of Chris, our event producer, to please move the slides forward to slide four, so that the committee can see these categories. And again, sorry for the interruption.

Alina M. Semo: No problem. Gorka, I think I just saw you chatting.

Gorka Garcia-Malene: Yeah, no, this is unrelated to the topic of fees. So as long as that's sort of been concluded, then what I'd like to do is get a sense, just take the temperature on my fellow members' interest in exploring vexatious requests, because I think it's fertile ground for work. I think one of our remits here is to make FOIA more efficient and it doesn't happen often, but sometimes you'll get a request for that [inaudible] gum up the works or based on some misdirected fishing expedition. I think it'd be helpful for us to explore that topic in order to facilitate FOIA for the rest of the world.

Alina M. Semo: Thank you, Gorka. I know that I saw several other people. Oh, people are waving at me. Okay. Ginger, do you want to go first and then Catrina?

Ginger McCall: Sure. Yeah. I'm probably going to get myself cast out of the requester community for saying that I am interested in investigating that topic. I will also note that to my recollection in the very first iteration of this committee, there was a bit of study that we did on vexatious requesters and provisions from governments around the world and I think maybe state governments. I recall working on that as part of whatever committee I was on. So I think we've already sort of laid some groundwork for that.

And though that wasn't one of the three topics that I picked, I think it's a useful topic because there are certain requesters who are taking up an outsize amount of government resources. It's clogging up the queue for everyone else. Oftentimes the requests are not at all clear or narrow. And oftentimes it seems like they're submitted just to harass agencies or harass particular officials or gum up the works. So I think it would be a useful thing to look at, given that there are limited resources to process FOIA requests and when one person takes up all those resources or clogs up the queue, it does affect the rest of us who are requesting.

Alina M. Semo: Okay, Catrina's next. And Ben, I see you waving. So you'll go right after that, and Tom.

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: I'd like to look into this a little bit too, and it's not for the purposes of... One of the things that I've tried to do in the 27 years I've been doing FOIA is trying to be reasonable with requesters, especially with people suing us on the 21st day, trying to give them something, if not... I can't sometimes give them everything. I just can't. I don't have enough resources. I've never had enough resources. Like I said, I've been doing this back in the day when we were using X-Acto knives, cutting holes in papers.

So I've always tried to be accommodating to the point that, "Let me give you something." Sometimes there’s requesters out there that just won't do that. And so some of the requests that they write are very large, very voluminous. Again, like everybody else has said, we don't have the resources to... I would love to accommodate people. I'm sure everybody else here feels the same way. I would love to be able to do them all, but we've got to figure out some way to balance that a little bit better or come up with some kind of way to have a mutual agreement, some kind of way to come together with that. So if there was a way that we could talk about this topic and maybe find some approaches to address it, I would be 100% supportive of that.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Catrina. I appreciate it. I think Ben was going to go next and then Tom, and then I see Dave waving at me too.

Ben Tingo: Yes. Thank you. This is Ben Tingo. I fourth Gorka's recommendation. I do think that it's probably the first task in addressing this is really defining what it means for a request to be vexatious. It sounds like there would actually be several categories, whether that's a request that's submitted in bad faith, whether it's a particularly voluminous request that's intended to gum up the works or a duplicative request in coordination with others. That's sort of, I think, what we've seen some recent news items about, sort of physical denial of service attacks as they've been described in the media, for election offices getting duplicative requests that are intended to take up resources and time and are really not serving the purpose of FOIA, of actually getting the information that's requested for transparency purposes and for helping with governance. But it does seem like that's the first issue, is really defining what it means to be vexatious.

I think what we'll find is that it will lead into several of the other topics that several committee members have identified as being sort of subtopics, whether it's proactive disclosures, search ability to toll the clock when you're sort of crafting a request and getting to what the substance is and what you can do on a rolling basis to help somebody understand what they're looking for, what they're going to be getting and what the timelines might be, and helping to limit some of that.

So I think that maybe under a process framework, that would be a sort of good start to then lead out of that into several other working groups, but really lock down that definition in the beginning of the term in a way that you can then lead and define it a little bit more detail of then how do you address each of those categories in a reasonable way, without leaving it open to interpretation on an agency by agency basis of really saying, "Well, this is vexatious to us and so we're not going to respond or do this our own way." But in a way that can really be tailored in a meaningful way to educate requesters what might be categorized that way and maybe leading eventually towards some sort of codification of that type of category or what the options available are to the agency and FOIA personnel as a whole across the board.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Ben. I appreciate all that. I think Tom had been waving at me and then Dave, but Stefanie Jewett also wanted to chime in. Stefanie. I'm sorry if I skipped over you. Is there something you wanted to talk about back to fees or were you on vexatious requests?

Stefanie Jewett: No, thank you. My comment went back to the FOIA funding and I just wanted to comment that I submitted the FOIA funding and it was mostly in the realm of technology. So I think mine could definitely be looped into technology. I was looking at what resources would be needed to fund the technology.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Stefanie Jewett: Thank you.

Alina M. Semo: All right, Tom.

Tom Susman: Yeah. I had a chance to look at David's, having divided up the four general categories into three and it does seem to me that resources is a sort of good separate category, both at the larger level and then going down into the more specifics. And implementation, as you know, every time I talk about FOIA in the Advisory Committee, I talk about implementation, going back to the fee recommendation of the first committee. What am I... I lost the word. The dashboard is only halfway helpful because it says, yes, the Archivist made the recommendation, forwarded the recommendation to wherever, but it doesn't say that the recipient or target has done anything with it. So I feel very strongly that... And that may well involve some working groups looking at very specific issues and coming up with strategies really to advance it.

The bigger challenge in, I guess, Dave's third category, process and technology together, is there's a lot of sort of apples and oranges or apples and rocks. I mean, I'm not sure how the technology and vexatious requests kind of fit together. I mean, in the same category, but except for maybe the vexatious and burdensome issue, which there seems to be some interest in, I think technology does cover most of the process issues. So I'm not sure where do we... I guess I'd like to focus in on where we put the issue, since there is interest in addressing burdensome, vexatious, unreasonable, et cetera, where do we put that? And if we figure out how to put that in a way that makes sense, then I think we've got three subcommittees that would be pretty self-evident at that point.

Alina M. Semo: So Tom, just to summarize, and I know Dave, you want to go next. What I'm hearing you say, is resources, implementation of past recommendations and then I'm hearing process, slash, technology as third one.

Tom Susman: Right, right.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. I just wanted to make sure I heard. Dave.

Dave Cuillier: Yeah, thanks Alina. And I wonder if I could be enabled to share real quick? I emailed Tom. I tried to clump all that stuff into three working groups or subcommittees that make sense. And then within those subcommittees, we can have any number of working groups. Right? And certainly vexatious request is probably going to come up. It came up last term. So I'm happy to show just what Tom was talking about to the group, if I have the ability to share. Oh thank you so much. All right. So this is kind of what I was thinking about. Do you all see that?

Multiple: Mm-hmm.

Dave Cuillier: Okay. I mean our objective right now, I think first, is to get the three subcommittees nailed down and then within those, anybody could create working groups to get specifics. This isn't perfect. I mean, things can float among different subcommittees, but it seemed clearly some kind of follow up subcommittee made sense, a taking stock subcommittee to review all the previous work and studies because there's been a lot of work already done on vexatious requests, for example, and maybe figure out, like Tom said, what's been completed and what needs to still have work. There are recommendations that probably need more work and then the OGIS stuff. And then how we break down the other two subcommittees, it's up for debate. We could have a resources subcommittee, funding, fees subcommittee, where we're talking about money stuff. I put vexatious under there, mostly because last term, that came out of our discussion of fees.

We're finding out that fees, I think are sometimes used as a way to get requesters to hone their requests, overly broad. So they just throw out lots of fees and it's a tool to combat vexatious or overburdensome or what voluminous requests. So maybe it fits under there. Maybe it's under process, but we could clump process and tech under one subcommittee. I mean, if it makes sense, I mean, processing records through AI or machine learning could fit under process. I'm not sure we had enough subtopics to create a signal tech subcommittee this term. I only saw a couple truly tech topics in the spreadsheet. So that's one way to approach it, form three subcommittees like this. And then from there, we can discuss what working groups people want to do, start up. Certainly, that probably doesn't even have to be handled today. That could be done later, once the subcommittee's going.

But if that makes sense of clumping these topics, and there may be others that come up. Another approach is to instead go ahead and throw the funding stuff into process and make tech separate. But again, I don't know, I'm kind of veering toward the first one. I think the process subcommittee under this scenario would be pretty huge and, boy, whoever would be on that and co-chairing it, I would..well, wouldn't be me. So that's just my thinking.

Alina M. Semo: Why not?

Dave Cuillier: That's just my thinking and I'll stop sharing. But if anybody else would like to go another way, it's not tied to anything. I'm just trying to get the discussion going, so we can form three subcommittees and then create working groups from there.

Alina M. Semo: Great. Thank you, Dave. Anyone else inspired by David Cuillier's presentation? Patricia? Was that you raising her hand or no? Oh no, Gorka was raising his hand.

Gorka Garcia-Malene: I was just thinking through this and I'll just say, I'm new to the committee. Does it make sense? Because it seems like process, for example, has a lot of topics and then this recommendation to review past work, which I endorsed, right? It's really just one thing. Does it deserve an entire subcommittee when it's really one thing, and then we have things like process which have a list of 17? Does that make sense? I mean, can we make the review of historical recommendations and their progress and their effect a topic for a working group?

Alina M. Semo: Yes. That's always possible.

Jason R. Baron: Alina…Jason.

Alina M. Semo: Yeah. Jason, and I see Ginger waving at me too. Jason, go ahead.

Jason R. Baron: I've had my hand up.

Alina M. Semo: Ginger, you're up next.

Jason R. Baron: Okay. As for a past committee recommendations committee, we've had 51 recommendations and my view is that it's extremely important in this fifth term to look at compliance with those recommendations. OGIS has done a fantastic job with the dashboard and in many respects, OGIS and OIP have completed the first step in implementing past recommendations, but there has been no survey of compliance. And I suspect even though I've been out of government for a while that many, many agencies are either unaware of our recommendations or are not prioritizing them, in a sense that they would be reporting to NARA or OIP about what they have done. So, I think there's an enlightenment factor. I think it would do well and it's an extremely big effort to try to come up with strategies for finding out what is going on. We have a huge government, 300 reporting components to NARA, and it would take a tremendous amount of work.

So, I strongly have advocated - I wrote the paragraph in a prior final report that advocated that the committee devote substantial time in a subcommittee to look at past recommendations. Let me also point out that I really appreciate David's work in clustering this. A number of the line items under process have been in the past considered, and I think we would do well to limit any kind of process slash improvement/implementation/implementation type committee to a limited set of topics. For example, records management - we devoted substantial time and there's many recommendations that came out of two terms ago. So, there are ways to limit it to make it more even. Lastly, as many of you know, I have been on a soapbox about technology and machine learning and there are other aspects of this, including the growth of text and the federal messaging that's been in the news, and a number of ways to approach technology including an adequacy of search that we could discuss in such a committee.

So, in sum, my recommendation is to balance what's going on in process, but to have a past recommendation subcommittee, a committee that is either called, under Tom's words, implementation or process. My favorite would be FOIA Improvement Committee. I know that's everything we do, but I think we could use that as an umbrella term. But whatever term you want. Process has already been used in a prior iteration of this committee. And advanced technology or just technology, which has also been a term used, but technology is an extremely important issue to look at as we're looking forward. We had a Vision Committee a couple terms ago. We're looking to 2030 and the growth of billions and billions of agency records that are going to be FOIA-able. So, I'm an advocate in that way too, to have three committees.

Alina M. Semo: And Jason, thanks for all your comments. I just want to be clear I understand your proposal. You want past recommendations, the FOIA Improvement Subcommittee, and a technology subcommittee?

Jason R. Baron: That's correct.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. And you're volunteering to co-chair all three of those subcommittees, correct?

Jason R. Baron: No. I actually am volunteering a couple of others to co-chair.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. We can talk about that as well.

Jason R. Baron: But yes, I would take on the technology committee and I would be happy to serve on all three subcommittees.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. You know I was just kidding about that?

Jason R. Baron: Yes, I know. I understand.

Alina M. Semo: But I want to leave that door open. So, Ginger has been waiting very patiently and then Gbemende would like to also comment. So, Ginger first.

Ginger McCall: So, I was going to suggest that we just roll the review of past committee recommendations into each of the other committees. But having heard Jason's comments, I actually do think it's important. I'm swayed on the idea that perhaps we should include that as a separate committee on its own, but I don't think that we should drop FOIA resources as a committee. I think that is the single most pressing issue, and it's a place where our recommendations stand to actually make a difference. Congress keeps passing bills with more reporting requirements, with more changes to FOIA, and at the end of every bill it says no additional resources are allocated. So, I think having a conversation about resources and the way that resources affect processing times and the efficiency and effectiveness of responses to FOIA requests is really important. I will note that both OGIS and Congress have asked GAO to do an investigation into FOIA resources.  I don't know if that's forthcoming, but I think this is an area where the committee could do some investigating, could look at some numbers, could talk to some folks and make some real meaningful recommendations. And I think under that umbrella, technology fits really well. 

I will also note that I co-chaired a subcommittee on technology I think two terms ago, which made very robust recommendations. We have spent a lot of time talking about technology already at the... We've made a long list of recommendations, which were very specific to my recollection. So, I think we've already done a lot of work on that. I will note I have not had time to go back and review all of the advisory committees prior work and prior recommendations, but I think that that's something that would be a good investment of time on my part and on everyone's part. I think that that's homework that we should do before we do our next meeting, is go back and look at all the recommendations that this committee has made in the past so we're not redoing work that has already been done and reinventing the wheel.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Ginger. Thanks for all those comments. So, instead of Jason's FOIA Improvement Subcommittee, I'm hearing you say FOIA Resources Subcommittee. Okay. Just wanted to make sure [crosstalk].

Ginger McCall: I would have it be review past committee recommendations, process and resources. So, basically what David did. And thank you David by the way, for putting that together. That's really helpful.

Alina M. Semo: Okay.

Kirsten Mitchell: Alina, Alex would like to speak.

Alina M. Semo: Yeah, but I promised Gbemende she would go next.

Kirsten Mitchell: Okay.

Gbemende Johnson: Hi. Thanks, Alina. This is Gbemende Johnson, University of Georgia, and I actually had a comment that was going in the direction of Ginger's initial comment about the review, and maybe this is where Gorka was going as well in terms of having the review of past recommendations being folded into three other categories. Because I wonder if you can have a situation where there's some review of past recommendations happening on that committee, but in the other areas in looking at the new suggestions being put forth, that will also involve reviewing past recommendations. So, I wonder if you would have some duplication there. And one way to prevent that is by having, say, a funding subcommittee, but having a working group that's focused on looking at their past recommendations in that area to perhaps reduce some duplication. But if the review is a separate committee, I think making sure there's a way of communicating between the review committee and the other subcommittees about what's being reviewed and what's being looked at towards going forward.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Gbemende. I do want to say I feel as though Kirsten and I do a fair amount of trying to promote continuity among all the subcommittees. And certainly when we hear topics that are being raised in one subcommittee, we make sure we bring it to the attention of the others. And there's going to be overlap. Unfortunately, there's just the nature of the beast. We try to coordinate as much as possible to make sure folks are talking to each other. And in fact, I believe in the last term, maybe some of the folks who were on the last term can nod if they agree, working groups crossed over a couple of the subcommittees and it seemed to work out very well. Dave is maybe not so sure, but I think it worked out okay. Certainly everyone was talking to each other and that's the most important thing. Alex would like to go next. Or not. Alex, are you there?

Alex Howard: Here we go. I think that's working. Okay.

Alina M. Semo: Yes. We can hear you.

Alex Howard: So, just to quickly circle back to something earlier. My primary concern with vexatious requests and spending any time on that is whether that might lead to endorsing effectively an unwritten exemption from FOIA. Because I can tell you that lots of public officials find the requests from journalists and watchdogs pretty vexatious. And so I'd be mindful that the committee isn't essentially taking the position that I would think Congress should and I'd just be careful about that from the requester side because it's not hard to see how that might be abused. That aside, I wanted to suggest that there's an opportunity for the committee to meet its charter in a way that I think hasn't fully done before, and that's the impending retirement of FOIAonline.gov, something that we've talked about in the past at these meetings. Certainly that's been in the public sphere because OGIS testified about it.

We had a FOIA hearing back in Sunshine Week in March. But it hasn't come up very much and the administration is not, to my observation, engaging the public about this. It seems to me that if we're going to talk about committees, that a technology committee that's specifically looking at how the roughly two dozen agencies that were using the EPAs FOIAonline site, what they're transitioning to and how that transition is going, and using that as a case study to understand what's happening and to really reach out to the requester community for each of those agencies and understand what's happening. That could really inform our recommendations. My sense is that there's a natural interest in using the expertise of the people on the committee to focus on making recommendations, but the more that we can bring the public, specifically the requester community into those, I think it will strengthen them.

It'll certainly, I think, add to the legitimacy in terms of its perceived legitimacy if we are actively soliciting feedback from the people who are affected by that change. And then look at how each one of those agencies is approaching this in terms of a blank slate. If you're leaving this approach, what technology you're choosing, how does it affect your processes? Are you putting up the FOIA liaison's number? Are you asking for feedback from the requesters? If you're adopting a new platform, are you building it with the requesters or not? And I'd love to see that that transition is something that the committee is actively monitoring and engaged in and that is providing recommendations and response to what I think we can expect will be some bumps along the way. So, I just wanted to throw that out there and to yes and a lot of the other things that have been said about the other issues.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Alex. Ben, did you have your hand up earlier and I missed you?

Ben Tingo: Yeah, I did. I was going to say basically just to, I guess jump on board with David's grouping, I think that that makes a lot of sense the way he has it. And I agree with you, Alina and other people, that have said that there's most certainly going to be overlap between prior recommendations and some of these other categories. And we would obviously be remiss to not build off of what was done before and what was suggested before. And that will come up particularly in technology and funding and resources and a lot of these other areas. But it probably does make sense to have it as a specific subcommittee so it gets the attention and the focus that it deserves, which will really go also then to the heart of what the committee is here for and measuring effectiveness without having it totally buried within a working group within a subcommittee, but really elevating that impact.

I would just note from Alex's comments recently too, just honestly from an industry perspective that a lot of this is moving forward is currently an activity of agencies transitioning from their FOIAonline platform to other platforms. It looks like the experience is not so much process-focused but really in a market research phase where each one is finding the tools that best meet their needs. And I know from our experience that when agencies are going through this process of finding new technology in these areas, they are very influenced by making sure that they're not leaving any technology behind and that they're not leaving anything on the table or any functionality behind. And so what they're trying to do best they can is match up current functionality, current process to a new tool, to a new adoption.

It may not have so much requester input specific to it, but to the extent that the requester community makes suggestions through these other committees like process suggestions, reporting suggestions, certainly resources and all that, those do filter into these platforms and these tools that are then available on a commercial market to every agency to leverage as part of their FOIA process. So, I'm not so sure that FOIAonline specifically deserves the subcommittee’s attention, but it will come in at the fringes of process, technology, resources, not just when you're looking at what's going to be happening in 2023 from the transition on the case management perspective, but also pushing out to Jason's perspective view of 2030, right? We're sitting on top of a mountain that is only getting larger and larger. And so it's one thing to say what's happening now, which is in process and we might not have a lot of ability to sway that process from a committee perspective, but we may be best being able to focus and keep our heads up a little bit above the fray and look a little bit forward to things that we actually can influence.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Ben. I just want to repeat a comment that was made in the chat from Dave Cuillier. Just clarifying to Alex that he's signaling follow up, process, and tech as the three subcommittee recommendations as per Jason. Alex, does that sound right?

Alex Howard: Yes. Sorry, I'm slow on the mute button today. That does sound right. One of my specific priorities is to harmonize the Open Government Data Act of 2018 with FOIA and proactive disclosure. That's the thing I sent in tardily. And the extent to which the committee can, I think, promote and extend and defend those best practices around the default being open both in format and in disclosure will be well served. I certainly would like the committee not to just limit our influence, so to speak, to putting out recommendations or reports. I think that we can and should be using this platform as a way to actively encourage agencies to be embracing not just modern technology but a more forward stance with respect to the requester community than is currently the case. I think that the committee as chartered has that within its remit and it's up to all of us to decide how we want to approach that.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. I know Gorka has been waiting really patiently. Gorka, please. Thank you.

Gorka Garcia-Malene: Gorka from NIH. I think that my comment will touch on a few topics here. Gbemende was concerned about duplicative efforts. We're all, I think. They're interested to see how much the recommendations from these committees are being followed up on. And one thing that strikes me is, during its 2016-2018 term, this advisory committee recommended that the Chief FOIA Officers Council form a technology subcommittee. And they did. And I've been part of it for three years and I've been co-chairing some of these working groups that have been dealing with these issues for about three years, like FOIAonline. So, obviously I think technology's important because I've been dedicating my time to it for three years.

I'm interested to see what you all think about the fact that we're proposing to start up a subcommittee on something that my subcommittee has been working on for three years already. And just to give you an idea of the topics that we've been dealing with and we're dealing with now, certain AI, artificial intelligence, FOIA IT platforms to address the fact that FOIAonline sunsets. We have a data working group. We have an IT integration group. We have a 508 compliance working group. We have a FOIA and classified records working group. We have a technology best practices working group, and we have a FOIA reference model working group. And these are just this year's working groups. We've been working on other topics over the past two years. And by the way, everybody here is very close to the topics. People volunteered based upon their expertise.

So, I think what we can add from our perspective is the fact that we have members of the public, right? That can contribute to these conversations, which is something that isn't present in the Chief FOIA Officers Council subcommittee. But at the same time I wonder whether delving into these topics three years after the technology subcommittee started dealing with them is somewhat duplicative. I wonder whether there is space for maybe communication with that subcommittee. And maybe I'm speaking out of line and I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes. I just wonder whether we can launch into a two year term dealing or talking about artificial intelligence when we've been doing it on the other side for three years.

Alina M. Semo: Dave, I saw that you were raising your hand, and then Eira wants to go next. Okay.

Dave Cuillier: I think you raised some pain points, Gorka. And just the last term, we did have working groups working on some of these issues, and in fact one was on AI I believe, and we had some recommendations specific to technology come out of all that. But that's what they kinda discovered was...and they started looking in the FOIAonline replacements and they realized, "Oh wow, there's this other group that's been working on this for some years. What can we really add?" And I think they, for whatever reason, didn't proceed probably because of that. But there's nothing to say that we can't have a working group looking into AI and FOIAonline and other tech issues in tandem with the other group. I think perhaps that's what's going to happen with the OGIS recommendations. We might be working in tandem with the feasibility study that is commissioned perhaps. So, yeah, I think you're right, Gorka, that it's useful to look and see how we can work and fit with that to be most effective.

Like Alex is saying, it'd be nice to have some impact and not just toss out recommendations that may be followed or not. So, really to me it comes down to, I mean, again, I'm focused on just getting three subcommittees arranged and then the working groups fall into place. And certainly under the process whatever implementation FOIA Improvement Committee subcommittee, it doesn't have to be 20 working groups. I just tossed everything that was mentioned. Some of those will collapse into some. Some we have to triage and go with the priorities and won't really be handled or some will be picked up halfway through the term which happened in previous terms and taken up later. So, I guess to me the question is, do we go, follow up, subcommittee? I think most people are on board with that to...I mean, really, I think you're right, Jason. This is our taking stock term.

I mean, there's so many recommendations. We got to figure out what's happened and what needs more work, what hasn't moved forward. So, maybe there's agreement on that. Then it comes down to the other two. Do we do resources and process/tech or do we do process and tech? I don't have strong feelings either way because either way the work's going to get done. Either way, working groups will be formed under one or the other and we'll get moving. But if people have strong feelings either way on those clumpings probably now's the time for us to shore that up, get that done. Thanks, Alina.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Ginger, I see you but I promised Eira she would go next. Ben, did you also wave at me?

Ben Tingo: Yes I did.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So, I'm going to say... And Catrina's now waving at me. Adam, are you waving or are you just sitting back? You're just sitting back. Okay. And Eira, before you go, I just want to remind everyone, please don't put substantive chats in the all panelists chat comments. I see a comment from Alex that I'm going to read out loud. "Note that there are no deliverables for public engagement or feedback on FOIAonline transitions for FOIA Officers Council," I assume that means FOIA Chief Officers Council, "no event for requisites nor transparency about what platforms or tech agencies have chosen or why or cost." Okay. Eira, over to you.

Eira Tansey: Hi. Eira Tansey, University of Cincinnati. I am a new member of the committee so I hope I'm not speaking out of turn or taking us on a detour that people or members of the committee would wish that we don't go down. I noticed when I was looking at the spreadsheet that there are at least a few of us who are interested in the legislative question of expansion of FOIA to Congress and the judiciary. And I know that also, thanks to Patricia who had mentioned in the chat, that under the last term there was a legislation subcommittee and there was a recommendation about expanding FOIA to Congress. So, I think my two part question for my fellow members of the committee are, is there appetite for engaging in some of these larger legislative questions of expansion of FOIA for this term?

Because if I'm the only one I'm happy to serve elsewhere. But the second is that where do we think, since the question of expansion of FOIA into places where it doesn't currently exist and a lot of the prior discussion has been about improvements to places where FOIA already exists, where do we think that fits into some of the subcommittee models that are under discussion? So, I just wanted to step back and listen. Thank you.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Eira, thank you. And I know that I promised Ginger and Ben that they would go, but Bobby I think also wanted to speak earlier, so I apologize. I'm going to take everyone out of turn. Bobby, over to you.

Bobby Talebian: Thank you, Alina. Bobby Talebian, Department of Justice, OIP. I just wanted to chime in and I think I don't feel strongly about the three groupings because I think I'd agree with Dave that I think under any variation of how we categorize them, we could fit pretty much the working groups that we want to prioritize. I would probably suggest that we do review resources and process because I think technology could fit under both process and funding. And also agree with Gorka that we want to be careful not to duplicate efforts. So, in picking what technology things we're going to look at, that's something that we should consider. The one thing I wanted to turn back to is there's a lot of discussion about vexatious requesters and I think that's just, maybe it's unfortunate categorizing or description of what the issue is. So, I think it's an issue that should be looked into and it's important, but we shouldn't characterize it as vexatious.

It's really the impact of high volume requests and high volume records or substantially large requests in one request. And the reason I think it'd be great for this committee to look at it is because what I thought was really successful and I really enjoyed in the last committee and some of the other committees is the insight that was shared between what the requesters perceive and see and what the agencies see and perceive. And I think we learned a lot and were able to make really great recommendations based off that. So, I think there's an area here. I'm not saying that this is something that would lead into and I don't think it should.

It's something that is a barrier to access. Because that's not what the mission of FOIA is and that's not what we want as FOIA professionals. It's just an understanding and then maybe an exploring of how we can help the system. Communication is something that's come up, but there may be other things. I think it's something worthy of one of the committee's working groups, but I thought maybe we shouldn't categorize it that way and we should look at it more positively because it's an issue and I think it's worth exploring and it could fit under funding or process.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate that. I just also want to chime in, taking off my chairperson hat and putting on my co-chair hat of the Chief FOIA Officers Council along with Bobby, it was definitely a challenge, and maybe Allyson will speak to this when it's her turn, but it was definitely a challenge to coordinate the discussions we were going on between the technology subcommittee of this committee and the technology committee of the Chief FOIA Officers Council. And Gorka, I just want to applaud him for one second because he had graciously volunteered from the technology committee to be the conduit as well and he was keeping folks posted on what was happening at FOIA Advisory Committee meetings. So, that was very helpful as well. But it was definitely a challenge. And I'm really a big fan of not reinventing the wheel or also duplicative work. So, I think if we can avoid that, that would be really helpful. So, that's just my two cents. I wrote in the chat just administratively, "Ginger, Ben, Tom, Allyson," and then in between I might have missed Catrina and I apologize to Catrina. So Catrina, can I add you at the end? Okay. So…

Kirsten Mitchell: And also, Luke. This is Kirsten, who's also-

Alina M. Semo: Will do. Oh, good. Okay. Luke, I will add you to the list. So Ginger is first.

Jason R. Baron: And Jason Baron, and I'd like to-

Alina M. Semo: And Jason, okay, got it.

Ginger McCall: I had suggested technology as one of the three and I'm withdrawing that suggestion, based on what Gorka said. I just think we have limited time and resources. There's no reason to duplicate what we have already done on this committee, which again, I would encourage folks to look at the prior recommendations that we made on technology. They were granular and fairly comprehensive. And I think that technology can be folded under all three of the categories of reviewing past recommendations, resources, and process issues. I think it slots into all of those categories. We've already done the work, as Gorka said. There's another committee doing the work on this. And I don't want us to miss the focus on the resources issue. And resources isn't just about technology. It's about staffing, it's about agency investment in FOIA. And until we address the problem of agency investment in FOIA, I don't think that we can address any of the other problems with FOIA. So just withdrawing my initial suggestion for technology.

Alina M. Semo: All right. Sounds good. Thank you, Ginger. Ben, Ben Tingo, I think was next.

Ben Tingo: Yes. I want to say I actually do. I agree that Gorka raised some very valid points here, and that it seems like, not just that we don't want to, not have duplicative effort. We also don't want to be spinning our wheels in an area where we'll have to bring in a lot of the same resources that the Chief FOIA [Officers Council] Committee has already engaged with and going back over and doing that. But it does sound like, to Alex's point, we do have an opportunity here that they don't necessarily have, which is getting a lot of requests or input, and also educating the broader requestor community and everybody about, what is out there, what's possible and what activity is going on within our government to address these problems that is obviously at the forefront of everybody's minds. So I think that there's two parts where this will probably come up in some of the current committees.

One is reviewing prior recommendations regarding adoption of technology and the prior suggestions about adopting technology and checking on the status of that, which will likely lead into the resources issue as well. And also, maybe reviewing our engagement with the Chief FOIA Officers Council and making some recommendations around transparency, around their activities or suggestions to them about educating the general public about their activities. And maybe doing... I don't know exactly what's been happening necessarily. I understand what you said. Gorka has been a conduit, but maybe having a better outlet so that people can know, this is something we're aware of. This is something we're on top of. This is something that is being worked on and managed. So that might be something we would want to consider under a process or prior recommendations there too. 

To Eira's point though, which branches off, in a new area, I am also very interested in exploring expansions of FOIA. I do think that will come under, maybe prior recommendations as to see what the sticking point was. I think that there were some prior recommendations around that, and may be also in a process. And just as a general matter, I think it may help. I know that there's probably a lot of resistance in Congress to making themselves subject to this, which is something worth exploring. But if it happened, that might be what it takes to break the log jam in resources and funding, frankly, is that if they're feeling the pain and seeing it from the inside of what all the executive branch is currently experiencing. Just my two cents, I think it's something worth exploring and at least getting to the heart of, and publicizing what the difficulty is.

Alina M. Semo: Great segue into Tom, who led the effort on recommendation 2021-01 for certain congressional offices making FOIA-like rules apply to them. Tom.

Tom Susman: So just quickly on that subject, I do think that we have a foundation on legislative branch and we started work on judicial branch. We gathered information, we had some data, we didn't want to move further without having some conversations with judicial branch representatives. And so that didn't happen. And so, we sidetracked it, but it certainly is one that would, I think there are a few of us would like to build on. I want to come back to Eira's comment about legislative recommendations and expanding FOIA. Ginger will know well that there's been efforts for the last two years, biweekly meetings of large numbers of civil society people, trying to put together and work with bipartisan groups on the Hill on some FOIA amendments, and it never happened.

And so, I think that there's a lesson there, that if groups with access to the legislative process, lobbyists, political suasion, can't make progress with the chief FOIA proponents on the Hill, Cornyn, Leahy, Grassley, then an advisory committee recommendation might be really interesting and useful from an academic perspective, but I certainly wouldn't put it up there as something that was likely to be implemented in, I would say my lifetime, but that may not be that long.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks Tom. Ginger just commented that we still have hope. So, one can hope. Okay. I think, over to Allyson Dietrick next. And Allyson not to call out on you and put you in a difficult situation, but I just want to say you did co-chair the subcommittee on technology and perhaps you have some thoughts on how technology fits into this term.

Allyson Deitrick: I do actually, two things. One, the earlier comments about FOIAonline, the technology committee, our subcommittee did actually have a working group with some of the process subcommittee people about ways to go forward from the sun setting of FOIAonline. We weren't able to make any recommendations during the last term, but that was something that we were very aware of, especially from Commerce. We were one of the 20 or so affected agencies. In terms of input, there's a short timeframe, even with the acquisition schedule. I'm not so sure how much work can be done in terms of the successor to FOIAonline, especially because agencies need to make their own choices about which software fits their needs going forward. So I'm not sure how much we could do with that, but in terms of technology, I agree that it probably could be looped into process or some of the other committees, but there is an advantage to having requester or input as compared to just what the CFO Council is doing.

And we did have some of the CFO Councils come talk to us on the technology committee. And we were trying to come up with ways where we could build on the board that they were doing and not step on toes and reinvent the wheel. So that was something we were very aware of during the last term. And then, thirdly, I'm not a big fan of the prior recommendations subcommittee, but I know I'm very outnumbered in that regard. I think they could be back into the other committees that we create. And also, there's only so much that advisory committee could do in terms of how the agencies decide to implement the recommendations or not implement it. So that's my two cents on that. Thanks.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Then next after Allyson, we have Catrina. Thank you for waiting so patiently. Catrina?

Kirsten Mitchell: This is Kirsten. Catrina, are you on mute?

Chris [Producer]: Catrina? Just make sure your phone isn't on mute either.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. We'll come back to you. Yes. We'll circle back to you. Luke is up next and thank you, Luke. We haven't heard from you yet. So welcome.

Luke Nichter: Thank you. Luke Nichter, of Chapman University. Busy discussion, tough to elbow my way in here. Just have a couple quick comments. I'm not so concerned about what those committees are called. I think it has been said by others. I think the working groups will do the work, no matter what. I feel like most of my interest is on process. So I figure that's where I'll end up landing. But I do have a couple comments on that, but also other subjects. I'm interested in Eira's comment and others on expanding the reach of the FOIA. And I'd like to know more about past recommendations and work that's been done on that front, because I wonder if the right criteria have been proposed or established, that might make that a more welcoming idea, and not itself a kind of vexatious request, which is going to be my second comment.

But I am interested and one of my comments was focused on certain categories of legislative records. That might be the kind of low hanging fruit based on the age of the records or the subject matter or something and make this, I guess, a friendlier conversation with the other branches of the government, is my idea there. And I'd like to know more about past activity. And then on vexatious requests, I don't know that I will be on that subcommittee if it's grouped out the way that it is, but I would just make a suggestion that... I was going to comment initially, when Ben brought that up earlier in the meeting, and then it was overtaken by events, but then Alex brought it up again. So I figured, "Well, let me jump in here before it moves on." I think, how we define vexatious requests and requestors needs to be really carefully done if we get into this. I have submitted many FOIA requests. I have never submitted a request in a vexatious spirit. I think the average age of the records I request is at least 50 years old, yet I have been routinely listed as a vexatious requester by a major government agency. And that's definitely not what I do. And so, I think we have to be really careful that this concept is not used to deny requesters, simply because the nature of their requests happen to be complex or involve a lot of agency referrals or happen to be large volume, high tier, whatever you want to call it, types of requests. So just want to be very careful on that we're not accidentally creating precedent that we don't end up wanting to live with. Otherwise, that's my piece. Thank you.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thank you very much, Luke. So I promised Jason, next. Kirsten then wants to weigh in, and Gbemende came back and then Catrina will circle back to you? Is that good? Okay, Jason.

Jason R. Baron: Can you hear me?

Alina M. Semo: Yes.

Jason R. Baron: So really good ideas on the committee structure from everyone. Let me say, I was impassioned about technology. Let me as a first thing, say that it probably, from an optics perspective, naming committees that are the same names as a prior term is probably disfavor. And so, process and technology are probably not the best terms to use for any subcommittee. I had my favorite, which is Tom's idea about FOIA implementation, rather than process. And for technology, I liked Alex's friendly amendment, that it would be better served to call something modernization, which is a broader term that in my mind, and I liked Alex's point about FOIAonline. I know what Ben said and others, but there are lots of ways that we could think about modernizing FOIA. And let me get on my soapbox here again, that I think this committee, even if Gorka, there is a FOIA Chief Council's committee that is working on many forward looking issues, this committee has a different charter and it is public facing with public members and input. And it is the signal issue of our time. If you ask anyone in the requester community, and I have become one of those requesters, probably not vexatious, but I've only filed one request to 40 agencies and gotten very little back. The fact is, that the signal issue is that FOIA doesn't work very well, for many requesters in the public interest community and the greater community at large. I think we have to acknowledge that. I think during this term, I'm going to be suggesting that individuals that litigate against the government, talk to us about what we can do as a committee. It is really important to think about modernizing FOIA for the future, because 10 years from now, the government will be simply overwhelmed by the volume of electronic records that exist. And so, I continue to lobby for that being a prime focus of the committee. 

Having said that, I don't really care as long as the ideas are part of some subcommittee, it doesn't have to be that we're talking about machine learning as a prime subject of a modernization committee. It could fit into an improvement committee or a process committee. I echo what people have said, which is that, as long as good ideas are somewhere, in some working group, it doesn't really matter. However, from past experience serving on this committee as a whole, two terms ago, people tend to gravitate to committees they feel most comfortable with that, that have some holistic view of what they're doing. And so there is for me, a modernization committee would be a place where those of us who are more inclined to think about technology and about the world of electronic records, would gravitate. 

And an improvement committee or an implementation committee would be a place where people who are passionate about resources and funding would be part of that. And the last thing I say is about past recommendations and that committee. I conceive it as limited in scope, not 51 recommendations with a survey necessarily, but triaging what is important in what the last terms, four terms of the committee have done, and try to focus in areas that are of greatest interest. So it's not a boil the ocean subcommittee, not intended, at least in my mind to be that way. That's it.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So thank you, Jason. There's been a little bit of activity on chat, Tom Susman, I guess chalking up another vote for modernization, along with Alex and Jason now. And it looks like modernization implementation of past recommendations and resources seem to be the current. Tech would be subsumed to modernization, is what I've heard Jason say. So we have a few other people queued up and I definitely want to circle back to Catrina who hopefully will be able to come on, but Kirsten is next.

Kirsten Mitchell: Thank you, Alina. Kirsten Mitchell, with the Office of Government Information Services. Alex Howard put a comment in the chat that I just want to read into the record. It was 20 minutes ago, so I just didn't want it to get lost. Alex's comment is, "Yes to the appetite to extending FOIA like process to legislative and judicial branch. This came up last term and is worth recommending again, especially support agencies, U.S. Capitol Police and that sort of thing."

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks Kirsten. All right, Gbemende, you're next and then Catrina, and then Stefanie.

Gbemende Johnson: Thank you, Alina. Gbemende Johnson, University of Georgia. Earlier, we were talking about duplication, I actually had a bit of a question. So one of the things that I mentioned was a survey of FOIA professionals to understand challenges, opportunities, understand what makes the job great. If they want to leave, why? But I also know from the Chief FOIA Officers Council meeting, in April, there was also a discussion about a survey of FOIA professionals. And I’m wondering if that's moving forward or if it's maybe been fielded, because it seems like it's also an opportunity to get at this idea of challenging request, trying to get away from the word vexatious, because perhaps asking those requests, when you process them, which are the ones that are most difficult and seeing which key terms are perhaps repeated most frequently, to get an understanding of, not necessarily vexatious, but when we get requests of this nature, we have an extremely difficult time dealing with them because of X, Y, and Z. So there are a couple of things in there. The first one, and maybe that's for you, Alina and Bobby, about the survey recommendation from the Chief FOIA Officers Council, and maybe building in the question about the vexatious request.

Alina M. Semo: So Bobby, I don't know if you want to comment. I'm just going to chime in and say that, I think what you're referring to Gbemende, is the COCACI Committee, which is the Cross-Agency Committee on Innovation and Collaboration. Did I get that right? Collaboration and innovation. I'm sorry, we just have labeled it COCACI. It's just so hard to remember anything else. It was actually a committee that was formed as a result of another FOIA Advisory Committee recommendation from a past term. They did launch a survey that closed August 31st, to FOIA professionals. I don't remember and I don't think overly burdensome requests was among the topics that they asked about. Bobby shaking his head, no. Thank you for confirming that recollection. Bobby, any other thoughts on this?

Bobby Talebian: Yeah, no, that's right. And I think I'm going back to, I think the value of it being something studied under this committee term or this committee is bringing both sides, view and insight to the table. So that's why I think it's really a good fit for the FAC.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thank you so much. Catrina, hopefully this time will work.

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: Yes. Okay. So one of the things I was going to say, and I didn't think that I was going to go this route when I originally, Kirsten asked for ideas. And this is Catrina Pavlik-Keenan, with the Department of Homeland Security. So I was actually going through the 51 recommendations really, while everybody's talking, just looking at them. And I really think that we need to go back and look at those, because so far, what I've looked at, and like I said, I looked through probably about 10 or 15 while people were talking. Every issue that we have, almost everything that's on this list for us to look at, has been addressed somewhere, in some form or fashion in these previous 51 recommendations. And so I really think, especially since, if I'm not mistaken, and correct me if I'm wrong, because it's the first year I'm on here. Isn't this the fifth year this committee has been in existence, or this is the fifth rendition.

Okay. So five years, you need to really start making a bang for the buck and show we're making some...looking at these 51 recommendations and taking them. And some of these are repeated. When I looked at the 51 recommendations, some of the committees, previous times have reiterated or restated, maybe just a little bit differently than a prior committee. I really think that we should focus on this and I know some people might not agree with me and that's fine. But in order for us, everything seems to be linked together now, the path to the future. And I think we need to really focus on this, because I don't want us to look at anything and come up with an idea that was already thought of by someone else, because this is just going to continue to be a vicious cycle if we don't address what's been looked at the past, see what progress we've made on it, and then what further work needs to be done.

And so, I'm going to stop there and that's just my two cents for it. And I did not think that that was going to be something that I was going to...when Kirsten asked me. I didn't think that this was going to be the way I was going to go, but I started looking at this and I see a lot of value added from prior committees and councils, that recommendation that we could really work from that and build off of that. And some of the things have been done and we should recognize that they have in some areas.

Alina M. Semo: Yes, thanks Catrina. I appreciate it. And this is exactly why we're having this dialogue, so we can all learn from each other too. Okay. Stefanie, who has been very patient. Thank you.

Stefanie Jewett: Thank you. Stefanie Jewett, U.S. Department of the Interior, the Office of Inspector General. I just wanted to bring up…that I had also raised that we look at raising the FOIA profile within agencies and how we gain support from senior leaders. My thoughts are, if we do not have any support from senior leaders in [the] agency then it's very hard to do any of the things we are raising, such as getting FOIA resources, funding for staff, funding for technology, electronic. The other thing that I had raised that we looked at, but I know it's not a popular topic is, which I think is one of the greatest issues facing the government right now, is the increase of FOIA litigation.

The issue with the FOIA litigation, especially under the constructive denial litigations is that, most of the time, you're put on a FOIA production schedule and the ones addressing the, let's say 500 pages a month, are the very people who are the FOIA processors who are supposed to be doing the FOIA request. And what the requestor community does not often know is that, yes, there may only be, let's say 50 cases backlogged in front of you, but they don't know or realize that you also have to produce this 500. It doesn't get reported in the DOJ annual report. It's very difficult to let requesters know that you are stuck with these very burdensome production schedules, which is fine. You missed your timeframe. That's fair. But I just want to put another vote for FOIA resources. I think if we could somehow get leadership and government to get the funding that is needed, that would feed down for so many issues, including the FOIA litigation. If there's enough staff, then we wouldn't get sued so frequently for missing our timeframes. So another plug here, for me, for the FOIA Resources Funding Committee. I want to put in another vote that I would just say, we still keep technology. I've heard what everyone said, and I think it's valuable, but I still think technology, like others have said, is such an up and coming thing for FOIA.

Like so many have said as well, electronic records are where we’re at. There's so many agencies that are struggling processing requests with just Adobe. They haven't expanded their resources. And the only way we're going to be able to speed up, in the trickling effect of avoiding litigation and avoiding all these other things, is to get the proper technology to get their resources into the agencies. Thank you.

Alina M. Semo: Okay, great. Thank you. Kirsten.

Kirsten Mitchell: Yes. Hi, Kirsten Mitchell, the Office of Government Information Services. I am reading another comment into the record. This, from Alex Howard, at 11:12. Alex writes, "I'm curious if the agencies are aware this committee exists, much less if they've read any recommendations or adopted and implemented any of them. Understanding if there's a missing feedback loop or communications channel could be valuable in terms of maximizing the committee's impact and influence, past and present." So that might be a good comment for the follow-up committee or subcommittee.

Alina M. Semo: Kirsten, also just to piggy back on that. Catrina commented, "What Stefanie was mentioning is addressed in a previous recommendation that I just read." Catrina, can you just loop us back to which part of what Stefanie was saying?

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: The part about the raising a profile of FOIA within leadership. That was already mentioned in a previous... Actually several, I think I read it three different times, in some of the recommendations I was reading in. So that has been something that has been a recommendation all along. But I wanted to also say that I agree with her about the constructive denial. I think that is an issue we probably should address if it falls underneath the processing section too.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Thanks, Catrina. David Cuillier wanted to share his screen again, because he's been my de facto secretary, which I am loving. So David, can I turn it over to you? You re-clumped everything based on all the dialogue we've been having.

David Cuillier: Well, sure. Again, just to try to get our subcommittees nailed down, all these are great comments by the way. I love it. It's going to be a great term. If I can get the share screen thing? I can be God here for a second. And so, I've been listening. I think I've put down the three options that I've heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, but basically the three options that have seemed to boil up. If everybody can see that, great. So either a follow-up committee, resources and implementation, or follow-up implementation modernization, break tech out, or resources implementation and modernization, no follow-up. Those are the three things I've heard. And I apologize if I missed something that someone said. So if you look at how it breaks out, and again, we're not going to have all these many working groups probably, but it's how that would follow up on option one, if we really believe follow up is important.

And I added by the way, Tom, your comment, communicating, educating lawmakers on top priorities. How do we connect with this committee's works, to impact? Really, is what that's about. I like that idea, if we want to explore that. Option two, and I think this is what Jason and some others, Alex and others were talking about, are follow-up implementation improvement process, et cetera. Whoops, not including technology. And modernization. Technology is its own separate thing. Now I only found two items in the spreadsheet that fit under technology and modernization, but I'm sure there are more and I'm sure people could add more to this if they wanted. And of course, technology fits across a lot of things. And then the third thing, and this I think was Tom, what I saw, he put it in the chat. "Eliminate the follow-up subcommittee and just go with Resources, Implementation, and Modernization." So those are the three that I saw. And Jason, you made a good point, I think. The working groups, we can create any working group under anything, but it is worth figuring out early on what subcommittees we have because they can drive the train in topic areas. But anyway, those are the three things I saw.

And I guess if I were to go with one, and I could change my mind if I hear more, but I still gravitate toward option one. I think it's follow-up, and examining all this is important. And we will have to coordinate well because imagine a subcommittee doing this research, looking at what's been done, they're going to have to communicate to the other subcommittees, "Hey, we found that on the issue of fees, there's all this has been done. What's not been done. This has not been achieved. We encourage you to maybe take this up." Or what have you. Technology. So it would be an interesting subcommittee, the follow-up, and how it works for the other subcommittees. But I think it's important. And resources seems to pop out. And then implementation, of course, I think that's a slam dunk.

The question really is how much time and effort to spend on tech, I think, is really the question. And of course, different people have different feelings on that. My feeling is it's to be part of Implementation, because that's part of implementation technology. But of course, certainly people may wish to break that out as a separate subcommittee instead of resources or follow-up. But I guess if I were to vote right now, I'd go option one. But if people went the other way I wouldn't be all bent out of shape or anything.

Alina M. Semo: All right. Actually, Dave, could you leave your screen sharing up? Ginger wanted to make a comment and I actually had the same question that Ginger does. Ginger go ahead.

Ginger McCall: So my understanding of Implementation, and I'm sorry, I'm currently scrolling back up on the chat. Okay. So Tom's framing was Modernization, Implementation, and Resources. My understanding of implementation was that that meant the implementation of prior recommendations by this committee, and investigating that.

David Cuillier: Oh.

Ginger McCall: Yeah, in that framing I absolutely think those three are the right subcommittees, and would happily volunteer to co-chair the resources subcommittee because I feel that strongly about it. But I think Modernization, Implementation, and Resources, I like that framing.

David Cuillier: Oh, okay. So Tom, make sure I understand what... Ginger you're saying it was what three?

Alina M. Semo: Modernization.

David Cuillier: Modernization.

Ginger McCall: Modernization, Implementation, which includes implementation of the prior recommendations, and Resources.

David Cuillier: I threw those in there, and it includes all the process stuff and…stuff.

Ginger McCall: I think the process stuff would probably get filed under modernization. That was my thinking in it, but I'm happy to yield to others on that. And especially Tom. I'm happy to yield Tom's interpretation of Tom's own words.

Tom Susman: No. Well, the process stuff would come out under all of them. I'd say probably three quarters of the existing recommendations are process-oriented, and so Implementation would be, by definition, covering most process issues.

And I think modernization, because of the technology implications for process may be the more cutting edge and significant ones. But I do think that most of what we want to do does fall under those groupings. And yes, I just didn't like... Follow-up just seems pedestrian. Implementation is more of a big word, a multisyllabic word, so I like it better.

Alina M. Semo: You and Jason are teaming up to come with new and creative names. Okay, I'm with you guys.

David Cuillier: Okay. So Thomas, is that accurate on the screen there for what you're saying? By the way, I changed vexatious to voluminous. Just like last term, [we] recommended that no longer do we say Glomar, it's either confirmed or denied. Well, maybe this term we say no more vexatious, let's call it voluminous or whatever.

Alina M. Semo: Alex is shaking his head no.

David Cuillier: Okay. I'm joking. Tom, is that accurate?

Tom Susman: Well, it's little teeny type and I'm... And the other thing is I'm not one to do committee drafting, so I think you generally got it and people can add to it. And I'd leave [it] to Kirsten and Alina to finalize a proposal for the committee.

David Cuillier: Okay.

Jason R. Baron: Alina, it's Jason Baron. So what's up on the screen at the moment is too ambitious for the modernization committee, I think. And it slides into lots of different subjects. So all I could say is that when we are finally ready to vote on this, I don't think we should, in our minds, be locked in that there are 14 working groups within modernization. I think these categories can be collapsed. Some of them, I don't believe should be. I am a big proponent of what Alex named as modernization. He gets the prize for being proactive and creative here.

David Cuillier: What was his name, Jason, for?

Jason R. Baron: Modernization.

David Cuillier: Oh, modernization.

Jason R. Baron: Yeah.

Ben Tingo: And Alina-

Alina M. Semo: And also... Sorry, Ben, I just... I'll call on you one second. I'd also just wanted to add, past experience has shown that working groups form and then sometimes they devolve into other working groups because they find that there's not enough traction gained on a particular subject. So I don't think any one of us should be wedded to all these subtopics.

I do want to thank Dave for trying to group them. I think that's very helpful. It gives us a lot to think about as the subcommittees kick off, but no one should feel like they're wedded to all of these subtopics at any time. And a lot of them are very ambitious, so we may end up only getting to a few of them. Ben, go ahead please.

Ben Tingo: Yeah. Thank you. Ben from AINS, Ben Tingo. If we were here voting on these subcommittees today, I would agree with this formulation of being Implementation/Follow-up, Resources, and Modernization. And then to your point and Jason's point, leave the working group and the nitty gritty identification of the subtopics to those subcommittees to hash out and everything.

But I hope this isn't throwing too much of a monkey wrench in the process. Which is to say that, it seems like we are all... It sounds like we're all in agreement that review of prior implementations is very important to make sure that we're an effective committee. It's a good time period to take stock and to go back and review. And not only to make sure that we're effective and see what the log jams are at prior recommendations and check on the status of those, but also that, given the volume of prior recommendations and the breadth of prior recommendations, those prior recommendations are going to, by necessity, have an impact on each one of these other subcommittee's activities, choices of topics, choices of working groups. And where their starting point even is and how they engage with these issues.

So maybe I would just throw out there and take the temperature on whether it makes sense for us to take another cycle to really take stock as a committee of what the prior recommendations are. And then hash it out from there as to what the actual subcommittees would be, which may be that we end up with two subcommittees at that point. Because we'll recognize that these follow-ups are going to be critical components of another subcommittee's working group topic.

And then we can really have a better handle on what we're all going to be doing rather than maybe having an implementation/follow-up subcommittee do three months, four months, of work on identifying what they're working on. Only to find out that that's going to have a dramatic impact on what the modernization or resources subcommittee working groups have been working on for the past three or four months. Which is going to potentially set them back or realize that we've been doing duplicative work all that time, which will end up with us all being a little bit less effective.

Alina M. Semo: So Ben, thanks for all those comments. First, I just want to say, I always encourage the subcommittees as they get started to go back and review the prior recommendations. That's always a homework assignment that I think everyone should have so we're not duplicating efforts. I also think your concepts are not mutually exclusive. I think we can continue with these subcommittees, and as we hone in our thoughts perhaps we end up only tackling a couple of these subjects for under each one. I think they're all very ambitious.

But I'm also hearing folks who are feeling very strongly about the implementation/follow-up, that they not only want to study what's already been implemented, but they really want to take the pulse, if you will, of agencies. Are agency's actually implementing recommendation number, name 2018-15? What have they done to implement? How can we study that further? What surveys might we be able to affect in order to find out whether agencies are following a particular recommendation?

So I think what I've heard from folks is that they envision a pretty active engagement of trying to nail down exactly what's happening. So I don't want to detract from those folks that feel strongly about that with that subcommittee.

David Cuillier: Do you want me to stop sharing the screen or is everybody cool, and have a sense of stuff?

Alina M. Semo: Yeah, I think I really want to start wrapping up because, gosh, can you guys believe it we're almost at our bewitching hour of public comments. And Alex, do you have one other comment you want to share?

Alex Howard: Yes, I do. I just want to reflect that the process is part of the product here, and I think we just need to be careful about not focusing so much on committees and so much on the recommendations or report or white paper that comes out of that, but that the remit of this is to foster dialogue between the administration and the requester community, solicit public comments, and then make recommendations.

And the more that we can create, I think, architectures of participation for that, the better. And as we talk about a lot of these different things it strikes me that having the Office of Management and Budget involved in the committee could be relevant both to respect to the CAP [Cross-Agency Priority] goal for FOIA, which used to exist, but then disappeared the last four days, or four years rather. And the more that we can think about this committee as a vehicle for getting the requester community's concerns before the administration, the better. I don't want to just go down the rabbit hole of focusing only on committee assignments. I think we're going to lose a lot of people that way. That's what I wanted to share.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Tom.

Tom Susman: Yeah, this is just a one minute comment responding to Ben. Kirsten, as our official officer, sits in on the subcommittee meetings and she is a good link to prevent what you have concern about happening, which is one subcommittee going off and not knowing what anyone else is doing until they get to the end of the road.

So I found last year where we had way too many committees, too many subcommittees, too many working groups, nonetheless, we did know what was going on. And as Alina said, as things went along... I guess, Kirsten, some would disappear, some would be folded into another. So I think that all-in-all the coordination function that OGIS performs works quite well.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So we're at 11:45. I would like to say that I think we've had a very, very robust discussion, as I expected that we would. I want to thank everyone for their comments. I'm generally hearing, and I'm going to exercise my chairperson rights at this point, to the extent that I do have any, I'm definitely hearing a general consensus towards Modernization, Implementation of past recommendations, and Resources as the three subcommittees, with lots of shifting around of working groups that can fall under each of those three.

So I would like to ask if everyone is in favor of that. If I could get a voice vote or a hand vote. Let's take a quick vote on that now. I want to hear if there are any nays. Can we all vote on those three subcommittees? All those in favor, please say aye.

Multiple: Aye.

Alina M. Semo: Aye. Okay. All those opposing these three subcommittees. Okay. I hear silence. Okay, so we have our three subcommittee set. Working groups, TBD. I would like to now solicit subcommittee co-chair volunteers. First for Modernization.

Jason R. Baron: I'll volunteer as a co-chair. It's Jason Baron.

Alina M. Semo: Jason. I need a government person for modernization please.

Gorka Garcia-Malene: I wonder whether it makes sense for me to participate as well in that regard, given that-

Alina M. Semo: Gorka, was that you?

Gorka Garcia-Malene: .... I've been working in the technology subcommittee at [inaudible]. Yeah.

Gorka Garcia-Malene: Gorka Garcia-Malene.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So, Gorka and Jason, you have to promise to work nicely together.

Jason R. Baron: I welcome Gorka to be a partner here.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. Implementation/past recommendations.

David Cuillier: This is Dave Cuillier. I'm interested in that if nobody else on the requester side anyway… [crosstalk].

Ben Tingo: I would, but we could rock-paper-scissor so you could have it.

Alina M. Semo: And Eira…

Catrina Pavlik-Keenan: This is Catrina. I wouldn't mind doing it on the government side.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So Catrina and Dave Cuillier for Implementation.

David Cuillier: Yeah, I don't have to.

Alina M. Semo: I'm not ignoring you. Alex. I saw you too. I really appreciate all the enthusiasm.

David Cuillier: If someone-

Alina M. Semo: And Resources. I'm sorry, Dave, go ahead.

David Cuillier: Sorry, Alina. I was just going to say, I certainly, if someone really wants to do it, I'm happy to let them on the requester side for Implementation.

Alina M. Semo: No, Eira will serve on that subcommittee, and she will work very hard.

Eira Tansey: I'm not chairing. Sorry, I did not mean to put my hand up.

Jason R. Baron: Let me just say, Alina, it's Jason Baron, that David did yeoman’s service in writing up reports in the last term and he would serve as chair extremely well.

Ben Tingo: I think David will do a great job.

Alina M. Semo: Yeah. I second that as well. But Ben, you're welcome to join all three subcommittees, so we really want your participation.

David Cuillier: By the way, I was a member of three subcommittees last term. I encourage you to do it if you have nothing else going in your life. So otherwise if-

Ben Tingo: I'm not on David's committee anymore.

David Cuillier: Yeah, there's benefits, but I'd discourage more than two, one's probably fine. That's just my experience. Others may have other thoughts.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. All right. So Resources is the last one. Do I have a volunteer?

Ginger McCall: I volunteer. I volunteer. I volunteer a million times over.

Alina M. Semo: Ginger for non-government. Do I have a government volunteer for Resources? Come on, guys.

Paul Chalmers: Paul Chalmers from PBGC, I'll volunteer.

Alina M. Semo: Okay, Paul, thank you very much. You've been silent the whole time. I chatted you to make sure you didn't have anything to say, but thank you for volunteering for the co-chair.

So just to review. Modernization, Jason and Gorka. Implementation, Dave Cuillier, Catrina Pavlik-Keenan. Resources, Ginger and Paul Chalmers. Right? Do I have that all right? Okay. Again, everyone should join all three subcommittees despite what Dave Cuillier just said.

Okay. So let me turn now to our public comments part of our meeting, and I know that we look forward to hearing from non-committee participants who might have ideas or comments to share. I want to remind everyone that this is not the appropriate venue for concerns about individual FOIA requests or non-FOIA topics. Again, if you need OGIS assistance, please feel free to email us at ogis@nara.gov.

All oral comments are captured in the transcript of the meeting, which we will post as soon as it is available. And just a reminder, public comments are limited to three minutes per person. So as I turn over to this section, I'm going to first ask Kimberlee and Kirsten to let us know if there have been any relevant questions or comments that have come in through Webex Chat. I'll give you a second to collect your thoughts. And Chris, I'm going to ask if you could give instructions on folks who could call in through the telephone line.

Chris [Producer]: And as a reminder, if you would like to ask... Or I'm sorry, if you would like to make a comment on Webex, you can do so by pressing on the raised hand icon located at the bottom right of your participant's panel. And if you're dialed into the phone line, please press #2 on your telephone keypad and we will call on you.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. So Kirsten, Kimberlee, do we have any comments on chat?

Kirsten Mitchell: Yes. So this is Kirsten Mitchell, Office of Government Information Services. Before we get to the public comment I just want to read one of Ginger's chats into the record. She was responding to an earlier chat. And she says she “thinks that most agencies are aware of the FOIA advisory committee, but they are in triage mode, just trying to keep up with requests. When resources are this limited, agencies are not able to address best practices.” So I just wanted to read that into the record.

And before I turn it over to Kimberlee, we got quite a few comments about vexatious requests. Comments such as, "Why are you calling requesters vexatious? Please stop calling us this. It is inappropriate and disrespectful." I will say that I think we totally agree with that and Bobby addressed this in his comments earlier. And another commenter noted the problem is resources, not requesters submitting complex requests.

So I just wanted to get those thoughts into the record. And then I want to turn it over to Kimberlee because I think there are one or two more comments. So over to you, Kimberlee.

Kimberlee Ried: Thank you. Kirsten. Kimberlee Ried, National Archives. We do have one that I wanted to share from a commenter who...something for the...this is a comment for the committee. "Have we collectively considered limiting the scope of the focus of a subcommittee to facilitate taking one bite at a time versus trying to work on too broad of a topic?” In other words, think of the old cliche about eating an elephant one bite at a time.

So I think you all have discussed a little bit of that already, but that was pointed out as you all were having your conversations. And that is all we have.

Alina M. Semo: All right. Thanks, Kimberlee. Chris, anyone waiting on our telephone line to make a comment?

Chris [Producer]: It looks like we do have one caller in [the] queue. And caller, your line is unmuted.

Caller 1: Yes. Hi, good morning. This is Bob Hammond. Great stuff. I need to get this into the record for Debra Wall and Venita Gupta. It is deeply disturbing that NARA disabled YouTube chat for the 8th September and today's meeting. My comments are professional and relevant. I had not planned to, but I placed them into the all panelist chat to be part of the official record. This is an advisory committee. We need to let members of the public participate. I've already submitted an OIG complaint and you may expect a congressional inquiry.

So, life as a grandpa is good. My nine-year-old grandson played his third ever baseball game, got his first hit and scored a run. Life in FOIA is not good. In fact, it sucks. And things are going in the wrong direction, which is why I'm spending my precious time with you today. I'd rather be playing tea party with my seven-year-old granddaughter. When my time expires, I'll be calling back in to use the full 15 minutes allotted for public comments if there are no other callers.

You've all heard me say I believe agency budgets should contain a line item for FOIA supported by what they would do to improve FOIA, increase staff and grade levels, reduce backlogs, etc. Place the onus on OMB and Congress to provide funding. In my conversations with Senate and House staff, Congress is receptive to supporting line item budgets. That's not direct funding from Congress, that's a budget in every agency's budget alignment.

Lack of funding is the greatest impediment for FOIA, for OGIS, DOJ OIP, and the agencies. When I talk to Chief FOIA Officers and FOIA professionals the message is always the same. As they told GAO in the FOIA audit this year, litigation is skyrocketing and draining resources to process FOIA requests and increasing backlogs. And everyone is underfunded.

OGIS mediation by statute is supposed to reduce litigation. I do not believe that OGIS has done a single mediation case in years. OGIS owes that answer to this committee. Closing 4,100 mediation cases with three people, if that can be believed, is one every hour and a half, and that doesn't include bathroom breaks or a cup of coffee. Then DOJ data supporting the GAO findings is completely inaccurate and unusable for any purpose.

Bobby and Alina had a tough time at the Senate Judiciary hearing regarding the utter lack of FOIA compliance and oversight mediation. Both are grossly underfunded. The problem lies with NARA and the Archiv[ist]e of the United States, Deb Wall, and DOJ's Venita Gupta.

Every meeting I ask OGIS and DOJ OIP about-

Chris [Producer]: I do apologize. That is three minutes on the timer. And at this time I do not see any more hands raised.

Alina M. Semo: Okay, Chris, thank you very, very much. Out of respect for everyone's time I want to just check in to see if there are any other public commenters. Kimberlee, anyone else submitted any comments?

Kimberlee Ried: Not at this time.

Alina M. Semo: Okay. All right. So I just want to thank everyone today for the robust conversation that we've had. The hard work begins now, so please roll up your sleeves, volunteer for subcommittees. You all know who the subcommittee co-chairs are. We can facilitate conversations among subcommittees and intra subcommittee conversations. So Kirsten and I are ready and able to help.

I want to thank everyone today for joining us. I hope everyone continues to remain safe, healthy, and resilient. And we will see each other again virtually in the same space at our next meeting, Thursday, December 1st, 2022 from 10:00 to noon, or possibly 10:00 to 1:00 PM. Usually our typical meetings go three hours. We typically take a 10 to 15 minute break. So that's what I expect. Any committee members have any questions or concerns before we adjourn?

Jason R. Baron: Alina, it's Jason.

Alina M. Semo: Yes.

Jason R. Baron: Well, given the time period until the next public meeting, I would expect that you and Kirsten will be sending out messages to everyone to quickly make decisions with respect to subcommittees, and then subcommittee chairs to reach out to begin holding subcommittee meetings. Am I right?

Alina M. Semo: Yes. And thanks for pointing that out. I think the success of the last two committee terms in particular were in no small part due to the fact that subcommittee co-chairs set regular meetings, monthly or bimonthly, biweekly, whatever you would like. It's completely your call as to cadence. But I think having regular times is really important. And if you can set it up so it works for most folks, that's ideal.

Jason R. Baron: And for Kirsten.

Kirsten Mitchell: Yes.

Alina M. Semo: And for Kirsten. Yes, we have to work around her schedule. She is the DFO under FACA. She has to attend all subcommittee meetings.

Kirsten Mitchell: I will point out we have two alternate DFOs.

Alina M. Semo: Yes.

Kirsten Mitchell: Should I get hit by a bus or something we will have continuity.

Alina M. Semo: All right. Hopefully that will never happen. Okay. So we're at 11:59 AM. I just want to thank everyone again for your time and for your anticipated work. And we stand adjourned. Thanks very much everyone.

Chris [Producer]: This concludes our conference. Thanks for using Event Services. You may now disconnect.