Recently, as the 111th Congress concluded its business before the 2010 midterm elections, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) introduced a bill, H.R. 6266, which, among other things, proposes to exempt certain law-enforcement guidelines from disclosure under the federal FOIA.  But it doesn’t even mention FOIA. Proposing a FOIA exemption is nothing new. Congress has had the ability to craft exemptions to FOIA’s mandate since the passage of that law.  Laws allowing such exemptions from FOIA’s mandates of disclosure are called “b(3) exemptions” for the subsection of FOIA that enshrines them into law (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(3)). A decade’s worth of annual agency FOIA … Continue reading Let’s be clear – a friendly reminder