League
of Women Voters® of Virginia
League
of Women Voters® of Montgomery, County, VA
Citizen
Initiative For Transparency
F.O.I.A
Freedom of Information Act
Works for You When You Work It
Citizen Initiative for Transparency
F.O.I.A.
This is the home of the Citizen Initiative for Transparency in Virginia. Although initially part of a grant sponsored by the League of Women Voter's Education Fund, it is our hope to continue this process into the future and to expand it based upon the data collected. Please feel free to join in and help this be a success. The goal of this study is evaluate the F.O.I.A. as it is applied to local and state government agencies in the State of Virginia.
If you are a member of a Virginia League of Women Voters group, you will need a password to access the survey tool labeled "Enter Data LWV's groups" that isused to collect the data. If you are not a member, you can still participate by using the "Enter Data Anyone" survey tool which does not require a password.
Thank you for your help in assessing and monitoring F.O.I.A compliance in Virginia.
F.O.I.A.FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
ACT
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*** Althought similar in url name, this site is focused on the collection of data concerning F.O.I.A. requests. For an indepth review of Virginia F.O.I.A, please go to Virginia Coalition for Open Government. This organization works hard to maintain a site with the most current activities surrounding Virginia F.O.I.A. Along with The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, you can keep track of the most current changes in F.O.I.A., pending legislation that will change F.O.I.A., legal cases involving F.O.I.A., and a wealth of references.*** The Freedom of Information Act (F.O.I.A) is a federal law designed to bring transparency and accountability to federal agencies. It was passed into existence in 1966 and has been modified several times since then based upon Presidential or Congressional attitudes. For a good discussion on the history of changes to F.O.I.A. go to Wikipedia's Freedom of Information Act site If you are someone trying to obtain information about your state and local government, then the Federal F.O.I.A will not be of any help. Since, Federal F.O.I.A. applies only to federal agencies, it will not help you find out about meetings of your local Town Council, land-use decisions, local and/or state finances. For a list of the State Laws concerning F.O.I.A. and links to those laws PBS hosts a site called NOW that provides a great FOIA map. Here, you can find links to important F.O.I.A. information on a state by state basis. A quick look through some of those sites will clearly indicate to you that not all State F.O.I.A.'s are the same. In Virginia, we are fortunate to have some very good F.O.I.A. laws. We are also fortunate that we have some great agencies, that are constantly striving to improve those laws. Virginia Coalition for Open Government and Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council are but two of these. Federal and all 50 States FOIA information
is available in one wonderful site! Open
Government Guide (Published by The Reporters
Committee for Freedom of the Press) has a list of links to each of the states
with all the information you are likely
to need to accomplish any FOIA request.
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