II.2.4 FOIA Procedures and Logistics
The FOIA statute is administered by federal agency offices charged with responding to FOIA requests. In practice, these agencies have established systems under which persons requesting information have been required to specify the information or data requested to avoid "fishing expeditions." Agencies engage in negotiations with the party requesting the data, and these discussions usually yielded some degree of flexibility in releasing the information, at minimal risk or embarrassment to the person supplying it. (Science, Vol. 282, p. 1823 (Dec. 4, 1998)).
In light of the agencies' general success in handling FOIA requests in the past, CRE believes that the limited changes outlined in these comments will provide a workable framework for allowing the additional data access called for under the new law.