This commentary by Michael Ravnitzky highlights the critical period ahead for investigative journalism under the new presidential administration. Controversial stances and policy shifts will provide many more opportunities than usual for journalists to uncover and report on critical issues, ensuring that the administration’s actions are thoroughly examined and the public remains well-informed.
In this Opinion, researched and authored by Michael Ravnitzky, he says that the Heritage Foundation’s current public records campaign is an abuse of the FOIA process. In recent years, the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and its publishing spinoff, The Daily Signal, have filed an unprecedented and overwhelming number of FOIA requests – 65,000 according to Reuters and more than 50,000 according to ProPublica. According to recent articles, the goal of the requests is to scrutinize government employees’ communications, to identify (for example, individuals using keywords or phrases such as “climate change”, “reduction in force” or DEI) and potentially remove civil servants perceived as obstructive to Trump’s agenda, in preparation for a potential Trump administration.
Attorney and FOIA expert Michael Ravnitzky shines a spotlight on people, process and procedural challenges with his illuminating article. A small core group of researchers and historians have filed most of the declassification appeals being reviewed by the responsible appellate body. While these individuals are working diligently to facilitate public access to long-classified records that shed light on our nation’s history, their efforts also highlight weaknesses in the declassification framework.
Michael Ravnitzky is an attorney and former journalist who has more than 25 years of experience in using the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws. On December 21, 2023, the Federal Reserve Banks each announced the adoption of a uniform Transparency and Accountability Policy (TAP). The Banks have begun responding to public records requests under that policy. Following implementation of the new policy, Ravnitzky initiated several records requests directed at individual Fed Banks, utilizing the provisions of the TAP. His extensively documented evaluation of the new process is that TAP is a good start but it has some shortcomings.
Across most sectors, customer support is no longer provided by human contacts but rather leads customers into endless telephone loops of menus, dealing with chatbots, or receiving emails from “no-reply” addresses. Finding email addresses for actual people is very difficult but Michael Ravnitzky’s article features proven tools and techniques to locate and use the email address of individuals within organizations who should be responding to your issues and complaints and providing you with a satisfactory resolution.
This commentary by Michael Ravnitzky is based on a thought provoking premise – “The activities of attorneys and the activities of hackers are not as different as you might expect, if you define hackers as creative, unconventional problem solvers. Each explores vast spaces of complicated systems, looking to see how they work, both in ways intended and unintended, and to see what they can be made to do…”
Michael Ravnitzky focuses on how FOIA Annual Reports issued by federal agencies can assist researchers in the process of formulating requests and obtaining requested documents.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has for the first time released a massive two-part compilation of Comptroller General decisions and opinions that are included in two Excel spreadsheets. The first spreadsheet contains decisions from 1990 through present The second spreadsheet contains decisions prior to 1990. Michael Ravnitzky reports the details.
Michael Ravnitzky pulls back the curtain on a little known but extensive (his findings date back to 1915) and continuously updated source of topical comparative and international law reports, on subjects of public interest, produced each year by experts within the Library of Congress.