Federal Manager's Daily Report

An audit did not discover instances of political interference with DoD decisions under the Freedom of Information Act although it said that some of the department’s FOIA policies are outdated.

The IG was conducting its review at the request of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which asked for reviews at a number of agencies of whether noncareer officials unduly influenced the FOIA response process through unnecessary delays or withholding of information that would have otherwise been released.

However, the review determined that DoD had not updated its FOIA policies in response to a Pentagon directive on issuances, requirements in an executive order on improving agency disclosure of information, the Open Government Act of 2007 and DoD guidance on “significant” requests—those in which the subject matter of the released documents may be of interest to DoD senior leadership, the public, the media or Congress.

The report said that the Pentagon’s decision in response to create a new manual to replace outdated guidance satisfied the recommendations.