Brushfire with Julia: Freedom to Withhold Information,Department of Homeland Security Finds FOIA to be “Politically undesirable”! http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/11/brushfire-with-julia-freedom-to-withhold-information/

In theory, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guarantees the legal right of the American public to obtain federal agency records. Judicially enforceable, FOIA was designed to ensure public access to Executive Branch records. The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that FOIA’s purpose “is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold governors accountable to the governed.”

In practice, FOIA morphed into a monstrosity that not only denies citizens their right to obtain information, but causes some of the requesters to become targets of investigations. The Supreme Court has consistently held that FOIA does not permit agencies to investigate either FOIA requesters or their reasons for submitting requests. In 2004, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s a general rule, withholding information under FOIA cannot be predicated on the identity of the requester.”

[ALSO SEE...Eight Federal Agencies Have FOIA Requests a Decade Old, According to Knight Open Government Survey http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB349/index.htm