Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. FOIA and Democracy: 1. Why Free Information?; 2. FOIA as Oversight; Part II. Who Makes a Million FOIA Requests: 3. It Is Not the News Media; 4. Immigration; 5. Other First-Person Requesting; 6. FOIA, Inc.; 7. Information Resellers; 8. Idiosyncratic Requesters; Part III. Let Oversight Reign: 9. The Problem with Repurposing FOIA; 10. Affirmative Disclosure; 11. Redesigning Agency Adjudications; 12. Customizing Information Delivery; Conclusion.

Promotional Information

The Freedom of Information Act is vital for democratic accountability. Understanding who uses it is key to re-centering its oversight purposes.

About the Author

Margaret B. Kwoka is the Lawrence Herman Professor in Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Her research on FOIA has been published in the Yale Law Journal and Duke Law Journal, featured in The New York Times, and has received the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Prize for Empirical Scholarship from the Law and Society Association. She has served on the federal FOIA Advisory Committee, testified before Congress in FOIA oversight hearings, and litigated FOIA cases, including a recent victory before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Reviews

'Margaret Kwoka has done a great service in illuminating how one of the world's most famous transparency laws works, and fails to work. Combining pathbreaking empirical research with insightful critique and sensible proposals for reform, Saving the Freedom of Information Act is essential reading for all who care about FOIA.' David Pozen, Columbia Law School, New York