The Freedom of Information Act is in desperate need of reform, says Brian Simboli in his On the Square piece today. FOIA is a useful tool for defenders of religious freedom (and for concerned citizens in general), but its implementation is broken and prone to abuse:
The government often has limited willingness or ability to fulfill [FOIA] requests. Even if it is able, the private party can be asked to take on the sometimes significant expense of fulfillment. In the case of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, its lawyers “were told fulfilling the requests would take three to five years and could cost them more than $1.8 million.” After “months of correspondence” the Diocese got the bill down to $25,000, but supplying the information would still take at least three years.
What can defenders of religious liberty do? Simboli has a few ideas on how to reform FOIA—to read them, click here .
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