What Is Government Transparency? FOIA, Appeals, and Open Data

Government transparency is the principle that public institutions should operate in the open, so that anyone can see the decisions, records, and data behind what officials do in the public’s name. In the United States, that principle is not just an ideal. It is written into federal law. The Freedom of Information Act gives every person a right to request records from federal agencies, and separate statutes open up federal board meetings, personal records the government keeps on you, and public data. Together, these laws turn transparency from a value into a set of tools you can actually use.

The Federal Laws That Make Transparency Enforceable

Four statutes do most of the work. Each answers a different question about what the public can see.

The Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the backbone. It gives any person the right to ask for records held by executive branch agencies, and the agency must produce them unless a specific exemption applies. Coverage is broad: every federal executive department, military department, government corporation, independent regulatory agency, and the Executive Office of the President.¹

FOIA also requires agencies to publish certain materials on their own, without waiting for a request. Electronic reading rooms are supposed to contain final opinions and orders, policy statements not published in the Federal Register, staff manuals that affect the public, and records that have already been released and requested three or more times.²

The 2016 FOIA Improvement Act added a critical limit on withholding: the foreseeable harm standard. An agency can only withhold records if it reasonably foresees that disclosure would actually harm an interest protected by an exemption, or if another law prohibits disclosure.¹ Fitting a record into an exemption category is no longer enough. The agency has to identify real harm.

The Government in the Sunshine Act

The Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b, opens up meetings of federal agencies run by multi-member boards or commissions whose members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Think of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission. Every portion of every meeting must be open to the public unless a majority of the full membership votes to close it under one of ten specific exemptions, with each member’s vote recorded. Agencies must announce the time, place, and subject of every meeting at least one week in advance and publish that notice in the Federal Register.³

The Privacy Act of 1974

FOIA lets anyone ask about anything. The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, is different: it governs records the government keeps about you. If a federal agency stores records in a system organized by your name, Social Security number, or another personal identifier, you can see them, get copies, and ask the agency to correct anything inaccurate, irrelevant, or incomplete. If the agency refuses, you can request a higher-level review, and if you still disagree, you can file a statement of disagreement that the agency must attach to the record whenever it shares that record with anyone else.⁴

The OPEN Government Data Act

Enacted in 2018 as part of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, the OPEN Government Data Act pushes transparency past documents into raw data. Federal agencies must publish public data assets in open, machine-readable formats under open licenses, at no cost, and make their data inventories available through Data.gov, the federal government’s centralized open data portal. Each agency has to designate a point of contact for the public and for complaints about compliance. If published government data isn’t available under an open license, the law treats it as part of the worldwide public domain.⁵

How to File a FOIA Request

Filing is simpler than most people expect. There is no required form. Your request just needs to be in writing and describe the records clearly enough for the agency to find them. Most agencies accept requests through web forms, email, or fax, and you can submit to any covered agency through FOIA.gov.⁶

Before filing, check the agency’s electronic reading room. A quick search can save you weeks. If the records aren’t already public, describe what you want with enough specificity that a staff member unfamiliar with the topic could locate it. “All emails about Project X between January and March 2025” works. “Everything about pollution” doesn’t.

Response Timelines

Once an agency receives your request, it has 20 business days to decide whether to release the records and notify you.¹ If a request lands in the wrong office within the agency, the clock starts when the right office receives it, but no later than 10 business days after the first office got it.⁷ Complex requests at backlogged agencies routinely take months in practice, but the statute gives you remedies when agencies miss deadlines, including the right to go straight to court.

If you need records fast, you can request expedited processing by showing a “compelling need.” That covers situations involving an imminent threat to someone’s life or safety, or where you are primarily engaged in sharing information with the public and can demonstrate urgency about actual or alleged government activity. The agency must decide whether to grant expedited processing within 10 calendar days.⁷

Fees and Fee Waivers

FOIA requests aren’t always free. What you pay depends on who you are and what you plan to do with the records:

Commercial requesters pay for search time, document review, and duplication, with no free pages.
Educational or scientific institutions pay only for duplication, with the first 100 pages free.
News media representatives are treated the same as educational requesters: duplication only, first 100 pages free.
Everyone else pays for search and duplication, but not review.⁸

You can also ask for a fee waiver. The agency must waive or reduce fees if releasing the records would significantly contribute to public understanding of government operations and you aren’t asking primarily for commercial reasons.¹ Journalists, researchers, and public-interest advocates routinely qualify. Include the waiver request with your initial submission and explain how the records will be used.

When Agencies Can Withhold Records

FOIA’s default is disclosure. But the law recognizes nine categories of information agencies can withhold, and the foreseeable harm standard still requires the agency to show real damage from releasing the specific record, not just a category match.

Exemption 1: Classified national security information properly classified under an executive order.
Exemption 2: Records that relate solely to an agency’s internal personnel rules and practices.
Exemption 3: Information another federal statute specifically requires be kept from the public, when that statute leaves no discretion or spells out particular withholding criteria.
Exemption 4: Trade secrets and commercial or financial information submitted to the government that is privileged or confidential.
Exemption 5: Inter-agency or intra-agency communications protected by legal privilege in litigation, including the deliberative process privilege. This protection expires for records older than 25 years.
Exemption 6: Personnel, medical, and similar files where disclosure would clearly be an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
Exemption 7: Law enforcement records, but only when disclosure would interfere with proceedings, deprive someone of a fair trial, reveal a confidential source, expose investigative techniques, or endanger physical safety.
Exemption 8: Reports related to the examination, condition, or operations of banks and other regulated financial institutions.
Exemption 9: Geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells.¹

Exemptions 1, 6, and 7 do the heaviest lifting in practice. Exemption 9 is narrow and rarely invoked. Just as important, the exemptions are permissive, not mandatory. An agency may withhold qualifying records, but nothing in FOIA forces it to.

An exemption that covers part of a document does not justify withholding the whole thing. The statute requires agencies to release any reasonably segregable portion after removing the exempt material, and to mark each redaction with the exemption it relied on.¹ If you receive a heavily redacted document, those markings tell you what to challenge on appeal.

In unusual cases, an agency will refuse even to confirm or deny that records exist. This is called a Glomar response. Agencies use it when the mere acknowledgment that records exist or don’t exist would itself reveal protected information. Law enforcement agencies commonly invoke it under Exemption 7(C) for third-party requests about a named individual, because confirming an investigative file carries a stigmatizing connotation that implicates the subject’s privacy.

What to Do If You’re Denied

A denial letter is not the end. The law builds in multiple levels of review, and agencies reverse themselves more often than you might expect, especially when the initial decision came from a mid-level FOIA officer under time pressure.

Administrative Appeals and Mediation

Your first step is an administrative appeal to a higher authority within the same agency. The statute guarantees at least 90 days from the date of the denial to file, and some agencies set longer windows.¹ You don’t need a lawyer. Write a letter explaining why the withholding was improper, address each exemption the agency cited, and point out records that should have been released in redacted form.

Every agency has a FOIA Public Liaison whose job is to reduce delays, keep requesters informed of status, and help resolve disputes informally.⁹ The Office of Government Information Services, the federal FOIA ombudsman, offers free mediation between requesters and agencies if the liaison can’t resolve things.¹⁰

Going to Court

If the appeal fails, or if the agency simply doesn’t respond within 20 business days, you can sue in federal district court. When an agency misses that statutory deadline, the law treats your administrative remedies as constructively exhausted, so you can file suit without waiting for an appeal decision.¹

A court can order the agency to produce improperly withheld records. If you substantially prevail, the court can award reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs. You qualify as having substantially prevailed if you obtain relief through a court order, a consent decree, or even a voluntary change in the agency’s position, as long as your underlying claim wasn’t frivolous. The general statute of limitations for a FOIA lawsuit is six years from when the right to sue first arose. And in the most egregious cases, where a court finds the withholding raises questions about arbitrary conduct by agency personnel, the Office of Special Counsel must open a proceeding on whether the responsible employee should face discipline.¹

Where FOIA Doesn’t Reach

FOIA covers the executive branch. Congress and the federal courts are not subject to it and operate under their own access rules.¹

Congressional records become publicly accessible on a time delay once transferred to the National Archives. The House generally opens most of its records after 30 years and the Senate after 20 years, while both chambers keep records involving personal privacy, information closed by statute, and certain sensitive categories sealed for 50 years.¹¹ Active legislative materials like bills, votes, hearing transcripts, and committee reports are generally available in real time through Congress.gov and committee websites. Federal court proceedings are generally open to the public, and case records are accessible through the PACER system, with judges able to seal records in specific cases involving minors, trade secrets, or national security.

States have their own transparency laws for state agencies, counties, municipalities, school districts, and other public bodies. The core principles mirror FOIA, but the details vary. Response deadlines range from a few days to 30, with many states using vague standards like “prompt” or “reasonable.” Open meeting notice requirements range from 24 hours to 10 days. Copying fees vary too, from free electronic records in some states to per-page charges elsewhere. Your state attorney general’s office or state archives website will have the specific rules for where you live.

Proactive Disclosure and Open Data

The most effective form of transparency doesn’t require a request at all. Federal agencies must maintain electronic reading rooms containing frequently requested records, policy statements, staff manuals, and final agency decisions. If an agency fails to make required materials publicly available, it cannot use those materials against you in a dispute.¹

Data.gov is the federal government’s single public portal for open data, built so researchers, developers, journalists, and ordinary citizens can actually use government datasets.¹² Under the OPEN Government Data Act, publishing there is not optional: agencies must post their enterprise data inventories and make the data machine-readable and available under open licenses.⁵ When proactive disclosure works, it eliminates the request bottleneck entirely, which is the direction transparency law has been moving for two decades.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 552 – Public Information; Agency Rules, Opinions, Orders, Records, and Proceedings
2
eCFR. 7 CFR 1.2 Public Reading Rooms
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 552b – Open Meetings
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 552a – Records Maintained on Individuals
5
Congress.gov. H.R. 1770 – OPEN Government Data Act
6
FOIA.gov. How to Make a FOIA Request
7
eCFR. 29 CFR 70.25 – Time Limits and Order in Which Requests and Appeals Must Be Processed
8
eCFR. 14 CFR 1206.507 – Categories of Requesters
9
eCFR. 45 CFR 2105.63 – What Are Public Liaisons?
10
National Archives. Office of Government Information Services (OGIS)
11
National Archives. Rules of Access
12
Data.gov. About Us