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FOIA reform bill, S 337, passes the House of Representatives

We are extremely happy to report that the House of Representatives passed S 337, the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, by unanimous voice vote Monday, June 13. House passage of S 337, which also received unanimous support in the Senate, means that the FOIA reform we've been fighting for throughout the past five or so years will be a reality once S 337 is signed by President Obama.
As noted by some of our partner organizations, including the Sunshine in Government Initiative and OpentheGovernment.org, S 337 makes some very important changes to FOIA, which are intended to fix both the structure of the law itself and the processing of individual requests. Among them are increased "proactive disclosure" where frequently requested records are involved; codification of the "presumption of disclosure" that has been in existence since the beginning of this administration (but could possibly change when we have a new president); access to "deliberative process" documents after 25 years (increasing the ability to review background records of historical significance); and a strengthened "Office of Government Information Services," as known as the "FOIA Ombudsman," to help hold agencies accountable when it comes to FOIA.

This would not have been possible without your work. Thanks to everyone who wrote or called his/her congressmen and congresswomen, editorialized, carried op-eds or covered the progress of this bill. Every little bit helped and we're all better off for it.  

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