U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Office of Legal Policy
May 21, 1984
The Vice President
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510Dear Mr. Vice President:
Enclosed is a copy of the Department of Justice's 1983 annual report on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) activities. This report covers the FOIA activities of all Department of Justice organizations. Because in 1983 the Department, as a matter of administrative discretion, processed virtually all requests received under the Privacy Act of 1974 (requests by individuals for access to records relating to themselves) under the FOIA as well as under the Privacy Act, the enclosed report covers all access requests regardless of the Act cited by the requester.
A comparison of the report with our 1982 report shows that the Department received 815 fewer FOIA requests in 1983, but received 5,568 more Privacy Act requests than in 1982, for a net increase of 4,753 requests. Consequently, the backlog of Privacy Act unprocessed requests increased slightly (by 206 requests), but the FOIA backlog was reduced by more than 1,500 requests (a decrease of almost 18%). Reported costs increased by only 1.54% in 1983.
Calendar year 1983 costs are reported at page 18 of the report. This cost table primarily reflects those costs incurred in "processing" access requests. Nevertheless, to the extent that such cost figures are available or can be estimated, certain ancillary costs have been footnoted. Not included at all, however, are significant costs to the Department incurred in litigating FOIA issues for the United States Government.
While administration of the FOIA continues to demand considerable agency resources both in terms of time and money, the Department will continue to make a diligent effort to comply fully. At the same time, however, we are continuing our efforts to obtain FOIA amendments which we believe to be necessary to reduce the administrative burden on the entire executive branch. We are pleased that the Senate took a major step toward this in passing a comprehensive FOIA reform bill (S. 774) this year, and we look forward to timely consideration of that bill in the House.
Sincerely,
Roger Clegg
Acting Assistant Attorney General
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