>>> In the following article, the former head of Australia's Freedom of Information agency reveals the tricks used to deny requests for government documents. According to an accompanying article, Don Coulson "managed more than 3000 FoI requests over two decades to 2001," so keep in mind that he's speaking from 20+ years of first-hand experience.

Based on the experiences of myself and others who file Freedom of Information Act requests in the US, these ploys and ruses are universal.

The FoI's Bag of Dirty Tricks
Chris Tinkler

Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne), 10 November 2002
Copyright 2002 Nationwide News Pty Limited

FORMER Freedom of Information manager Don Coulson has lifted the lid on a swag of tactics used by many officers to delay or hide information.

FoI officers, often under pressure from ministers and ministerial advisers not to release potentially damaging documents to the public, had plenty of tricks up their sleeves, Mr Coulson said.

The tactics include:

SIMPLY leaving damaging documents out.

NOT searching properly, then claiming documents cannot be found.

INTERPRETING a request narrowly to exclude damaging information.

STEERING an applicant away from potentially damaging information by redefining the request in correspondence, offering other information as a compromise or burying the applicant in masses of irrelevant documents.

PUMPING applicants for extra information to find out why they want documents, before briefing ministers and advisers.

HIDING behind the excuse that requests are too voluminous or time-consuming to process, often without helping applicants to narrow down exactly what they want.

CLAIMING documents are not available in a readable format.

SCARING an applicant with suggestions of exorbitant costs.

DELAYING the release for months and even years with clarifications and re-clarifications until an issue is stale, or until after an election.

DELAYING the release by saying an application has been overlooked, the department is overloaded with requests and is understaffed.

Sometimes staffing was even restructured with the sole goal of providing an excuse for a delay, Mr Coulson said.

Officers also routinely refused documents, stating it would not be in the public interest to release them, but did not fulfil their obligation under law to explain why, he said.

Others did not notify applicants of their rights of appeal, as was also required, and some officers illegally left their names off correspondence.

Mr Coulson said often an officer would understandably advise that a request should be redefined in order to help make it more manageable.

It was also fair for an officer to seek a clarification of what an applicant was pursuing if the request was too broad and might include information the applicant did not know about but could be damaging, he said.

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