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Obama Administration Withholds FoIA Requests More Often Than Bush's
bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."
Breitbart.com? Really? Has Slashdot become Free Republic?
It doesn't mean anything until we get request comparison numbers and there is more than one exemption for FOIA. What about the others?
That's change I can believe in.
I'd like to be surprised - but it seems like all the presidents are mostly interchangeable these days.
Feeling a bit let down by the current administration, I am.
Is this really surprising?
I believed Bush when he said it was for our protection, I believe Obama when he says it's for our protection.
What's the matter? Why don't you trust Obama? is it because his skin is black? Seriously wtf guys, he's the President so I trust him and so should you!
Often implies a rate... denied requests per requests total.
Its nice to know how many total denials there were... but out of how many total? Whats the percentage?
(No, I didn't read the article.. back to lunch)
Transparency is great, but there are times when it is pragmatic to not be transparent. I don't trust the Republicans not to use this to oppress people. The Dems...well they have their vices, but I don't feel like I personally an being threatened by an oppressive regime. Also, Breitbart is doesn't have much credibility after some of the nonsense that's gotten on there. Breitbart and Drudge are in bed together and are essentially the web's version of Fox News. Hopefully people will get around to realizing that sooner rather than later.
If the same number of FoI requests were submitted in 2009 in 2008 then there is reason to be angry. However, if there were twice or three times the requests, then an increase in denials is consistant.
However, there had damn well better be good reason for this. O promised to be a more open administration.
it wouldn't surprise me if anti-obama spinsters would repeatedly request denied items just to contrive this story. out of context it's meaningless.
You can't look at Obama as left/right lib/conservative, you have to consider him as authoritarian.
http://www.dark-wraith.com/
He had him pegged as this at least a year ago, if you check his archives.
Dave
It's amazing how much hoopla goes into picking and voting for a particular party, when government is so much bigger than just one man (or woman). It makes you wonder if anything will ever, or can ever, change.
The agencies cited exemptions at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year, the review found. Over the same period, the number of information requests declined by about 11 percent, from 493,610 requests in fiscal 2008 to 444,924 in 2009.
Seriously, there is no need to speculate when the information was right there in front of you eyes.
How much do you want to bet that at least 30,000 of those requests were for Obama's birth certificate?
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
... and he doesn't need to answer to the ignorant masses or explain himself to them.
is a river in Egypt.
If the media really cared about open government and barring corruption, they would be publishing daily headlines about denials to FOIA requests, how long they have been waiting, and what the alleged reason is. If the press did their job and informed the people rather than preach propaganda, people could be better armed with information to put pressure on elected officials and force them to move on come election day if the officials don't mend their ways.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The first reaction, especially given the headline is, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But, as pointed out in the article: "Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored."
Then we look into the details. The fiscal year that this article is covering started in October 2008 and ended in October 2009. So for the first quarter of the time period covered by this article, we weren't even in the Obama Administration.
Also, if we assume that the decision to exempt information from FOIA requests is made by senior officers in the respective agencies, and we know that Bush had 8 years to appoint people who shared his views, and that the Senate Republicans have been doing an impressive job of blocking and delaying Obama's appointments, let alone the "cleaning" that occurs once the new bosses are in place.
Should it come as a surprise to anyone that this last year was no better, and perhaps even worse than the previous year? Absolutely not. I would expect that this coming year should show improvement, provided the white house is willing to back up Obama's directive now that they have had time to get more of their appointments into positions of authority.
That said, I sure hope this article makes it to the President's desk and that he thinks long and hard about it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
This is one more piece of evidence that proves there is no difference between the republicrats or democans. If they were truly concerned about the constitution they would be more transparent, not more secretive. When the government keeps more secrets they are proving they can not be trusted as they are doing things that would not be constitutional. Both parties have demonstrated what George Bush II stated, that the constitution is "nothing more than a god-damned piece of paper." This is why it is imperative to vote libertarian.
--
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
So Obama's numbers are higher in his rookie year than Bush's after eight years of experience? Well, duh. Give the guy a chance to figure out the process. Also, give us all eight years of Bush's numbers to look at.
Who gave Bush 4 yrs before they howled, vandalized, bitched and moan - and ridiculed!?
Watch a little Rachel Maddow, read a little of the HuffPo, you'll be surprised just how many times liberal sources DO report on stuff like this. The liberal blogosphere is kinda pissed that Obama isn't the far-left bleeding-hear socialist that conservatives make him out to be, and they call him out on it quite a bit.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
After all, threats against the president's life have tripled since Obama was elected ;)
Blar.
Do you realize that line means the numbers quoted are not comparable. If more than one "exemption" can be cited per request, then the number of exemptions, which they are quoting, does not actually tell you how many FOIA requests were withheld. It could easily be that the Obama administration is being more clear about what is being withheld and why for any given request, and that leads to a larger "exemptions" count. The problem is, without more info the numbers obviously do not mean what they are being represented to mean.
(From the EPA report, though all agencies use the same criteria)
a. Exemption 1: Classified national defense and foreign relations information
b. Exemption 2: Internal agency rules and practices
c. Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law
d. Exemption 4: Trade secrets and other confidential business information
e. Exemption 5: Inter-agency or intra-agency communications that are protected by legal privileges
f. Exemption 6: Information involving matters of personal privacy
g. Exemption 7: Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, to the extent that the production of those records (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, (E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or (F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual
h. Exemption 8: Information relating to the supervision of financial institutions
i. Exemption 9: Geological information on wells
Some of those exemptions provide for a certain amount of creativity on the part of the denier.
Our founding fathers had a dream: they set out with the goal that G-D should provide for the people of this great nation, and that the government would not interfere. That's why they won our independence from Ireland in 1812. For a while, our Country got along fine. Now, everyone talks about bad presidents, but I want to talk about a recent one: Obama almost ruined the dream of our Founding Fathers. He tried to remake this nation in his image between the years of our Lord 2008 and 2012, and was the worst president since Roosevelt! I know, I know, but everyone hates on Roosevelt. I wanted to do something different.
Obama, if he'd gotten his way, would have had my hard-earned taxpayer dollars to educate other people's children, improve roads for other people's SUvs, and to defend other people's homes from fire. He was really a fascist, socialist nutjob: what kind of society does that lead to? I mean, when you help out other people, all anyone does it sit around all day waiting for a handout. And after that, what happen is sodomy, and even worse, atheism. I'm glad Sarah Palin put a stop to that when she beat Obama in 2012. I'm glad we don't have elections anyone. Sometimes elections lead to bad people like FDR and Obama being in charge. I can't wait for Sarah's next State of the Union: I hear she'll have five tanks at this one! Those soldiers are soooo cute.
*giggle* but anyway, I mean, at first, Obama's reign wasn't all that bad. He tried to force credit card companies to not give the American people certain offers; he called them "lies", but as Ronald Reagan said, it's really government that's the problem. If he'd been on Mount Rushmore back then, he would have cried. I do have to give credit where credit is due: he stopped those evil commies using the "freedom of information" act to give away our government to China. That law should have been called the "freedom of spying act". I mean, if Sarah hadn't repealed it, China might have found out we'd nuke them in 2019.
The worst part of Obama's reign was when he tried to ruin the best healthcare system in the world by shoving rules and regulations and taxes down our throats. I'm glad that was repealed. Today, we still have the best health care system in the world. If I'm successful, someday I hope to be able to buy into it! I hear they can actually cure tuberculosis! My parents miss too many days at the factory because they keep coughing up blood. I'd love for them to be able to work real, honest 65 hour weeks like God said they should. That way, we could get our own place!
But I digress. This speech is about hope for the future. If we all work hard, we can earn more and more until we get into a lower tax bracket and we're happy. Isn't that what life is about? I know everyone can do it: if at our class reunion, you're poor, it's because you're a bad person, and I know none of my friends are bad people.
- Cynthia LeBaron, Texas, class of 2027 graduation speech
What goes unmentioned:
97% of the millions of denied FoIA requests that make up this statistic were requests for Obama's birth certificate.
The Obama Administration claims to the right to slay U.S citizens in "targeted killings" in the GWOT. But like the Bush Administration before it, the Obama Administration defines the "battlefield" as the entire planet. Which means that Obama claims the right to assasinate U.S. citizens anywhere, by invoking that magic word that suspends the Constitution: "terrorist". Nevermind that you can only be a suspected terrorist until you're convicted in a court of law. Nevermind that many of these people are not out on the front lines fighting American troops, but going about their daily lives when they are hit by a drone attack (see recent Slashdot discussion.
Then Obama is patting himself on the back for his transparency and accountability, at the same time he's issuing veto threats over bills that would strengthen Congressional oversight of intelligence.
But this really doesn't make any damned sense. It did for poppy Bush, because he was a CIA man. But Obama never worked for the CIA, so acting like a hard neocon on military/intelligence issues is baffling. Just as his acting like a neoliberal corporatist is baffling, as he's a self-made man and owes very few people any favors (compared to your normal politician).
Change you can believe in!
Were the inquiries both of a similar nature during both of the time periods in question? Or were there more rejected requests because the requests were asking for more sensitive info? Like most things that originate on Breibart/Drudge, too much information is missing....
Deceptive statistics 101! If you read the article you will find a number of interesting facts buried way down toward the bottom:
So for starters we have the unknown contribution of the Bush Administration stone-walling in its closing days, the elevated number of exemptions related to clearing the backlog of probably difficult to adjudicate requests, the fact that more cases are being cleared with no exemptions at all..
In short, this was written up as a sensationalistic hit piece rather than presenting any sort of balanced analysis. The stats offered make it very hard any firm conclusions without resorting to supplementary hypotheticals.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Every time I read a story about how Obama is continuing a Bush administration policy, or extending and exceding it, I post it to http://obamaisthenewbush.tumblr.com/
Having kept this up, on and off, for the last 6 months some patterns definitely appear. The Justice Department is seriously entrenched in covering its ass, cracking down hard on individual freedoms and privacy, and almost always falling on the side of big business.
I'm not disappointed because I believed all the pablum about "Change" and "Hope," but because Obama was a frickin' law professor. He should know better!
not all of 2009.
Just something to note.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Go get more informative numbers from here. In 2008 56% of requests were granted. In 2009 61% of requests were granted. 2009 also worked to clear up the request backlog. It is a move in the right direction and as others have pointed out Bush was still in charge for part of FY 2009, so he might have skewed the numbers for the year.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
Same (or worse) as the old boss. Is anybody really surprised?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Why do you hate atheists, pudge?
Why does the right wing appeal to you, pudge? Were you beaten as a child? Do you think lack of success in life is a moral failure? Are you the guy who goes around moderating any post that has a hint of sympathy for the human condition "-1 offtopic", while making sure all the "YOU CAN'T TELL A BUSINESS WHAT TO DO, COMMIES" posts are moderated through the roof? I thought that smelled a little funny, even for the Slashdot crowd.
God, the terrible and declining quality of Slashdot's community makes sense when one of the key people behind the site is himself a right-wing lunatic who beats off to authoritarianism and theocracy.
Do you realize that every single bill that isn't a referendum, ever proposed, could be described as "the whims of a couple hundred people?" What you say sure is true, but it sounds like you're implying something anomalous. There has never been a non-oppressive regime in the history of civilization, for which nearly every law they have, wasn 't passed as "the whim of a couple hundred."
You actually have a damn good point about the "2000 pages that nobody has read" part. That's a sure sign a bad law, even after reading the law, it somehow magically turns out to be benign (which IMHO is unlikely). What a shame you diluted your point with bullshit.
Did vote for change did ya not?
Hows that working out for ya?
You now own the change or rather it owns you dipshits
Drudge and Breitbart are Fox News on the Web.
What do you expect to happen in 5 years when people catch on? Those will become the top two sites on the Web, like Fox News is on cable?
You seem to hate them because they actually hire people who aren't liberals. Apparently "non-biased" means "100% liberal".
I would say the delay in getting the so called "Open Government" documents is more ironic than amusing.
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/03/18/Dan_Choi_Protests_in_Front_of_WH/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20AdvocatecomDailyNews%20(Advocate.com%20Daily%20News)&utm_content=FaceBook
Read radical news here
Bush was the EVIL HITLER CHIMP and Obama represents hope and change. Bush was about lying to us and decalring war on the world. Obama is about peace and love and he's so smart.
This is clearly lies...orchestrated by Rove and Cheney.
Obama wouldn't allow this...which is why he closed Gitmo and abolished the Patriot Act and ended the war in Afghanistan.
Oh wait.
Anyone who questioned the article or its source got modded to -1. Anyone who joined the groupthink Obama bashing got modded to +5. Way to be craptastic slashdot. This used to be a site where there were smart people.
I've done some work with federal agencies and how they process FOIA requests:
A request for information under the FOIA can be granted, partially denied, or denied. If the request is granted, the exact records requested are returned unedited. If the request is denied, one or more reasons (exceptions) must be stated from a list of allowed exemptions. If a request is partially denied, one or more exemptions must be stated and what the requester receives back will either be a subset of what was asked for or will be redacted to remove sensitive information. For example, PIA (personally identifiable information - like SSNs, birth dates, medical records, etc.) is an exemption and is grounds for a partial denial, but it usually only means that this information will be redacted from the requested records.
So if you are looking at statistics (annual FOIA reports are required by law from every government entity and the reports themselves are either published or available via FOIA request themselves), you need to know the total number of new requests, the total number of requests held over from the previous fiscal year, the number of requests granted, the number partially denied, and the number totally denied. There are also individual statistics for denials and partial denials broken down by exemptions. There isn't anything on the annual report about how many exemptions were applied to individual requests - that would just have to be averaged out.
The Obama administration did encourage more release of records under the FOIA and a relaxing of exemptions. The idea was to assume that any record could be released unless an exemption prevented it. The previous directive was to presume that any record could not released and then try to justify it. If they couldn't justify denying it, they would grudgingly release it. The other thing that has been encouraged is pre-emptive release. For any request that is granted (no exemptions) there is no reason to not put that record on the agency's public web site to avoid processing any future requests for it. Or if there are certain types of records that can be released and that get requested often, go ahead and publish them. Theoretically this will reduce the number of FOIA requests processed, but I think it's probably too early to see a difference based on this policy.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
That's pretty thin evidence of non-transparency. They concentrate on FOIA requests, and they don't do a good job of that.
From the Google Version: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hI24fNqhDbP2mY1wZyUBRJRa_UqAD9EG54N80
- paragraph 2: Obama told agencies specifically not to use the "deliberate process" exemption so frequently
- paragraph 4: Obama was only president for 9 months of the period in question, with no breakout by quarter. I assume a bit of lag as the new administration asserts itself
- paragraph 6: refers to non-FOIA transparency - release of full White House visitor logs and more federal data online than before
- paragraphs 7 & 8: Obama, Emanuel and Bauer all claim to be trying to improve transparency
- paragraph 9: "nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions"? is that 7? 8? which ones were reduced?
- paragraph 10: more exemptions are being cited, but there are no numbers of how many or what percentage of requests were rejected in part or in full
- paragraph 11: the "Open Government Directive" (a good thing) mentioned in a negative context - that they're still waiting after 3 months. much further down we find out they've cut the backlog of requests down by nearly half so far (paragraph 22). how long were requests taking circa 2008?
- paragraph 21: some fuzzy numbers suggesting there's more transparency, but they're no more convincing as the figures suggesting the opposite (how many agencies increased full and partial requests?)
In short, the article's a mess of numbers that don't mean much. Perhaps the next directive could be to report all the real statistics for each agency monthly.
Editorial bias can be expressed just as much by selecting which articles to present as by actually writing those articles. Even ostensibly unbiased, "mere aggregation" right-wing sites use this effect to create in the mind of the reader a worldview conducive to supporting the right. They over-emphasize terrorism, fear, and silly fluff pieces. They immediately harp on and play up even the most minor of scandals, so long as they deal with left-leaning politicians. These sites de-emphasize economic news, subtle world politics, or reports that make the case for more progressive action.
These sites undoubtedly present a right-wing atmosphere, and do it using only unedited, individually-neutral news stories written by professionals as building blocks. In a way, it's a far more effective form of propaganda than distributing opinion pieces: the easy defense is "we're just reporting the news", and someone relying heavily on one of these sites for news might be more receptive to the propaganda because the articles don't trigger his bullshit sensors the same way an op-ed would.
This proves that the Obama administration is more open, when they'll admit to blocking 23,000 more documents than Bush did.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The same old pattern repeats itself. Those who disagree with the numbers are quick to argue their fallibility. Plenty of rationalizations are provided to argue that these claims are untrue. It easy to dismiss something when it doesn't fit your worldview. At the other end we've got the people who openly embrace these claims and then will refer to them as gospel. Yet another bit of evidence to support your mindset.
I don't see why it's so hard to believe for some that this administration may actually be rejecting requests in greater numbers. Of course, it's meaningless because it isn't like the Bush administration was a pushover. It's very likely that the number of rejections would have gone up were he still serving as president.
The real problem I see is that there are still people out there so naive as to believe that politicians actually care about any of us. I don't understand how people can continue to be fiercely loyal to either republicans or democrats. There certainly must be politicians out there who care, but you'll find those guys are small-time unknowns who have no say in the fundamental workings of this country. And they'll never be in a position of influence because they wont play the game. The big players are all looking out for themselves and the special interests they represent.
...get over it.
Read this. Of course, you are an idiot so you probably won't understand it. You would rather just whine and moan.
This makes no sense: it uses the frequency of use of the (non-security) "deliberative process" exemption as a supposed example of the Obama administration using "security provisions" more frequently than Bush's did. It clearly isn't an example of that, since the deliberative process exemption isn't a security provision.
It's like saying "John Doe owns more pickup trucks than Bob Smith. For instance, John Doe owns 36 Toyota Corollas, while Bob Smith only owns 24."
Parts of TFA that were NOT quoted by the summary:
When I judge a site for bias, I like to look at the comments sections. BreitBart's blogspam site seems to only swing one way.
Blar.
(Johnson)It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: "I'm against those things that everybody hates
(Jackson)Now I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man but, quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said!
(Fry)These are the candidates? They sound like clones. Wait a minute. They are clones!
(Leela)Don't let their identical DNA fool you. They differ on some key issues.
(Johnson)I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far.
(Jackson)And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough!
(Fry)If I were registered to vote, I send these clowns a message by staying home on election day and dressing up like a clown.
I came here to find out how he left would spin this. Pretty good guys. Excuses, 1) They were mostly requests for his birth certificate. No proof given. And why not just let that one go and give access? Not that I care either way, just asking. 2) Bush was still on the clock for 1 quarter of that time. Fine, except Bush had 47 thousand denials while the following year it was 78K. It would be amazing if Bush had that many denials in one quarter. 3) It's a matter of the numb er of requests vs. the number of Hell, I don't even understand what Taevin is trying to say. But thanks for not letting me down. Obama is still a bove any and all criticism when it comes to the left.
axes
Hey, Gitmo is still open guys, what the hell. Taxes are going up on people making less than 250k a year. Unemployment, said not to get above 8% is hovering around 10%. The health care bill is being railroaded through in ways that are at best suspect. His appointies are have a tendency to make racist statements that are only allowed to be said by the left. Straight up bribes to two state senators, Louisiana and Nebraska. The list just goes on and on but you all have heard it before, and no doubt you have made your excuses and reasons for every single one of them. It's a proud day to be a Liberal.
nice.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Oily taint. That is all.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!
I hope you like your change.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Another reason that the USA needs to be split up and no longer remain United. Being United does not help anyone, does the federal government help anybody positively?
You think like a ReThuglican Jew
"De spits" has a weekly column "typish amerikaans" which is dutch for "americans are silly and fat". (Oh okay, it means "typically american", but you know silly is implied and fat is just a given)
Today it was about the government of Hawaii getting sick of the constant requests for the birth certificate of Obama by nutters (aka republicans) who want to prove he wasn't born in the US and therefor can't be president. I say that since he seems to have half a brain and a waist, that already proves he is not a true American, but apparently they need more.
Would the denial of such a request be counted? So how many of these requests are legit to begin with?
A request for the documents about torture of foreign nationals is a bit different then wanting the files on the UFO's being kept at area 51.
Not that I think Obama is all that different from the previous guys. Governments all over the world are having a real problem with the increased demands of openness by its citizens. But I also know that figures like this can be very easily manipulated.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So how's all that "hope" and "change" working out for you?
Republicans and Democrats are two advertising campaigns for the same rotten statist / semi-socialist product. They actually like to take turns - one hand (or iron fist) washes the other. The diapers change, but the source of the poo remains.
Third party politics are a bit better. Dropping out of the corrupt system entirely with movements like Seasteading and the Free State Project is best. Tax resistance -- if you have the balls -- can also play a very effective part in getting your voice heard.
"Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." -- Alexander Haig
(Signed: Alex Libman's sock-puppet.)
If you look at all the comments modded above 3 in this thread, 9 out of 10 conservative viewpoints. I find it difficult to believe /. mods are that right-leaning overall. Many of the upvoted comments are blatant trolls simply making fun of people who voted for Obama. Is it just me or did the modding system run off the rails in this thread? Now I fully expect /. to have a libertarian slant, but something is fishy here.
I am not shocked. While I'm glad he won (considering the terrifying alernative), any happy illusions I had about Obama went out the window when he voted (while still in the Senate) to give AT&T a free pass for willingly breaking the law when asked to by the NSA. He chose the issue over what was right and continues to do so on virtually every other issue as well. The decline and fall continues apace.
This is meaningless without knowing the number of of actual requests.
Which they don’t know. Or else they would have used percentages for the amount of denied requests.
So I think this is deliberate.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
If I had been logged in, I would have been treated like a breitbart.com was treated in this case, and the precise content of what I had said would always be drowned out by a chorus of argumentation. If you have unpopular views, being AC is the only way to have people consider whether those views are actually accurate or not, which is all I want.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
How is that whole Hopey Changey thing working for you now?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
All we've been talking about is media outlets. Does nobody care about the rise of FoIA rejections under Obama?
http://www.dailyshow.com/
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
The AP article linked to has been edited down from its original form. The original article makes it plain that, "Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request." And that there have not been 466,872 denials. There have been 466,872 citations of FOIA exemptions for the purposes of denying part or all of a request. Indeed, there has been a decrease in the number of FOIA requests denied in their entirety:
"They denied FOIA requests in their entirety based on exemptions 20,005 times last fiscal year, compared with 21,057 times the previous year."