Your right to know - Freedom of Information Act 2010

I JUST recieved an email from Patrick Leahy about a bill he is sponsoring to streamline FOIA(Freedom of Information Act). Read below:

Dear Branden,



Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental to the responsiveness and accountability of our government, but only if citizens and journalists can find out what their government is up to.

That's where the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) comes in. FOIA requires federal agencies to release government information requested by individual citizens and the press, helping us hold our public servants and officials to a higher standard of accountability.

The LeahyForVermont.com community helped pass a major modernization of FOIA three years ago -- the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which effectively made the FOIA process more transparent and cut the number of overdue information requests in half.

But too many FOIA information requests are still going unanswered, which is why I've co-authored and introduced the bipartisan Faster FOIA Act of 2010 -- and I hope you'll join me.

Please join me as a citizen co-sponsor of the Faster FOIA Act of 2010 to make the Freedom of Information Act work better and more transparently for the American people.

The Faster FOIA Act will establish a commission to recommend ways to streamline FOIA in practice. With more than 67,000 overdue FOIA requests still outstanding across the federal government, we must do more to tear down obstacles to Americans' timely access to public information.

This commission would also investigate the rising number of FOIA exemptions used by federal agencies to deny information requests, to ensure that only truly sensitive types of government information are kept back.

I'm pleased that the Judiciary Committee approved the Faster FOIA Act of 2010 yesterday by a unanimous vote, but we're still a long way from final passage. So I hope you'll sign on as a citizen co-sponsor today, and show my other colleagues in Congress that the American people insist on the swift passage of this rare chance to strengthen the public's "right to know."

Please join me as a citizen co-sponsor of the Faster FOIA Act of 2010 to make the Freedom of Information Act work better and more transparently for the American people.

Our community proved its commitment to open government -- and its power to achieve it -- when we sent Congress more than 7,000 e-mails to pass the last major modernization of FOIA in 2007.

Let's do it again, and underscore our unwavering insistence on the American public's "right to know."

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

So let's hope this bill is passed and it actually opens more information to the public. We all know they won't do anything great but the more information the better IMO.

Just giving this a bump because I think it's important.

From just reading the letter you posted, it doesn't sound like it will take any major steps. But they will be steps in the right direction.