 Good morning and welcome to the National Archives whether you're here in person or joining us online. The reason I'm laughing is we have most of the staff are with me here in the building and all of you are watching online. So thanks for joining us. For the third annual open meeting of the Office of Government Information Services, we're here today because Congress directed OGIS in 2016 to have an annual open meeting to inform the public about its reviews and reports and receive public comments. This September marks the 10th anniversary since OGIS just opened its doors as the Federal Freedom of Information Act ombudsman. Although ombudsman is not in OGIS's name, Congress has specifically referred to OGIS as the FOIA ombudsman. The word ombudsman comes from the Swedish and literally means represented as its most basic level, an ombudsman assists individuals and groups in resolving conflicts or concerns. Often an ombudsman advocates on behalf of a designated population such as patients and long-term care facilities. OGIS advocates for no specific population but for the FOIA process, whether providing dispute resolution services to requesters and agencies assessing an agency's compliance with FOIA or identifying new issues or opportunities for systematic change. OGIS advocates for a federal FOIA process that works for all. OGIS's work dovetails quite appropriately with two of NARA's four strategic goals, connect with customers and make access happen. Every day OGIS connects with a diverse group of customers, both requesters and agency FOIA professionals to assist them through the FOIA process, whether through informal and formal education about the process or guiding and coaching to resolve and even prevent disputes. OGIS staff members make access happen by providing resources that promote public participation with the FOIA process. The OGIS staff works hard to educate requesters about how FOIA can be used to access federal records and about the important balance between transparency and privacy in making records available publicly. Before turning the program over to OGIS director Lena Simo, I note that as OGIS marks its 10th anniversary, later this year we also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving all American women the right to vote. Accessing public records through a FOIA process that works for all and providing voting rights to all regardless of gender are two crucial foundations of our democracy. A recently opened exhibit here at the National Archives, rightfully hers, American women and the vote tells the story of securing voting rights for all American women. I hope you'll take a few moments after today's meeting to visit rightfully hers upstairs in the Lawrence Ephraim Gallery. It will be open through January 3rd, 2021. So thank you and over to you, Alina. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, David. Welcome again to the National Archives and Records Administration and to our third annual open meeting. I am Alina Simo, director of the Office of Government Information Services or OGIS. Thank you again for joining us, whether you're here in McGowan Theater or virtually on the NARA YouTube channel. We are very pleased that Congress has given us the opportunity to provide an update on the review and reports of our office and to allow interested persons to appear and present oral and written statements. This is a perfect forum to showcase all the great work that OGIS has been doing this past year. We have reserved time at the end of today's session to receive public comments. For our web audience, we are monitoring the chat on live stream and during the public comment portion of our agenda, an OGIS staff member will try to summarize any substantive comments we receive via chat. You may also submit any written comments to our email box, OGIS Open Meeting at NARA.gov. Before I launch into a discussion of our annual report and activities during fiscal year 2018, I want to take a minute to introduce some of the OGIS staff who is able to join us today. Without them, none of this would be possible. We have a terrific staff. I want to ask them to please stand up and wave. Deputy Director Martha Murphy, a compliance team lead, Kirsten Mitchell, mediation team lead, Kerry McGuire, management analyst Dwayne Bacon, and our summer law clerk, Caitlin Conroy. And last but not least, Sheila Portanova, our attorney advisor who is monitoring our live stream. I am pleased to have this opportunity to outline our fiscal year 2018 work today. Our annual report is available on our website. I am particularly proud of the hard work that went into publishing this year's annual report, which, despite a 35-day government shutdown, was still ready in time for Sunshine Week in March of this year. And this year, as David said, is a special year for us. OGIS celebrates 10 years as the Federal Freedom of Information Act FOIA ombudsman. From the day we opened our doors in September 2009, we have offered an alternative path to resolving FOIA disputes, mediation rather than litigation. Today, we are fully integrated into the FOIA process as we provide dispute resolution services and improve compliance with the statute, all while advocating for a fair process that works for all stakeholders. And keeping with the theme of our annual report this year, I will spend some time discussing the past, present, and future. After my presentation, I will invite my colleagues, Carrie, Kirsten, and Martha to come up to the stage for a discussion to talk in more detail about the great work that OGIS does. After our discussion, we will open the floor for any public statements or comments. And keeping with the theme of our annual report this year, I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on our past. And if you will bear with me, I'm going to venture back into history. The U.S. Freedom of Information Act FOIA turned 53 years old this year. While it certainly was not the first transparency law, that distinction belongs to Sweden. It is one of the older right to access laws. Its 20th century product of open government principles was embraced by our nation's founders. James Madison, our fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817, is hailed as the father of the Constitution for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Of course, we also celebrate James Madison's birthday during Sunshine Week in March every year, a national initiative launched in 2005 by the American Society of News Editors to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. As James Madison explained, a popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. It was not until 1954, however, the Congressman John Moss of California introduced a bill that would give the public the right to access the records of federal agencies. Over the next 12 years, Congressman Moss held numerous hearings regarding federal government transparency. In total, 27 federal agencies testified on his proposed transparency legislation, all of them in opposition. The Department of Justice said the FOIA would be unconstitutional that it violated the separation of powers. But Congressman Moss argued that access to information was every bit as essential to realizing the full potential of American democracy as the protections contained in the Bill of Rights. And by 1966, Congressman Moss had acquired a critical mass of support for the FOIA bill. And on June 20th, 1966, the House passed the FOIA by a vote of 307-0. On July 4th, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson reluctantly signed the Freedom of Information Act into law. He refused to have a signing ceremony at his Texas ranch and there were no television cameras. The two most recent amendments to the FOIA, the Open Government Act of 2007 and the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, have played a critical role in the creation and further establishment of OGIS. While the concept of dispute resolution as a way to improve customer service and the FOIA process has been around for a number of years, Congress formally embraced dispute resolution by creating OGIS with the passage of the Open Government Act of 2007. At the time of passage and since, Congress has referred to us as the FOIA ombudsman. Congress has given us two very clear missions. One, to provide mediation services to help resolve disputes between requesters and to agencies. And two, to review agencies FOIA policies, procedures and compliance and identify procedures and methods for improving FOIA compliance. There is some overlap between the functions of OGIS and the Office of Information Policy at the Department of Justice, DOJ. FOIA charges DOJ with encouraging agency compliance with the law. This function is currently carried out by OIP. However, Congress clearly intended a distinct and separate role for OGIS. One of the clear indicators of this distinction is in Congress's choice to establish OGIS in the National Archives and Records Administration. One of the National Archives strategic goals is to make access happen, making the agency a natural home for the FOIA ombudsman's office. Also, unlike DOJ, which represents agencies when they are sued under FOIA, our location within NARA allows OGIS the neutrality required to mediate FOIA disputes and objectively assess FOIA compliance. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 reaffirmed the critical role OGIS plays in the FOIA process. Congress increased our independence and further highlighted our neutrality by giving us the ability to share our frank observations about challenges to affect a FOIA implementation. From the start, we have worked to support agencies' alternative dispute resolution efforts. We kicked off our signature training program, Dispute Resolution Skills for FOIA professionals in 2010. The idea was not, nor is it now, to turn FOIA professionals into mediators. Rather, it was to give FOIA professionals tools to resolve or even prevent disputes with requesters. In those early days, our trainers say it was not uncommon to hear from FOIA professionals that they avoided talking with requesters. Anecdotally, we heard that processors were apprehensive about engaging requesters. We even heard from some processors that supervisors forbade them from calling requesters. Thankfully, we have seen a cultural shift. More and more FOIA requesters and FOIA processors are talking, sometimes with a little help from OGIS. There is a recognition that although FOIA processors cannot control the number of requests being filed or staffing to help process those requests, they can have a dialogue with requesters to help set expectations, improve requests, and shed light on the process. Communication between the agency and the requester, whether organic or through OGIS, does resolve many disputes, but our courts still play an important and ongoing role in interpreting the statute and shaping how agencies implement the law. Over the years, a very robust body of FOIA case law has developed that has shaped much of the FOIA landscape. FOIA litigation has grown from 448 cases filed in 2009, the year OGIS opened, to 839 cases in 2018. Lawsuits have risen sharply in the last several years. Between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2018, lawsuits rose an astonishing nearly 120%. Court backlogs of pending FOIA litigation have climbed even faster, with hundreds of cases waiting resolution. Indeed, the backlog has already approached the 900 case mark and will likely go over a thousand in the near future, if it hasn't already. It is worth noting that while the number of FOIA lawsuits has increased, so have the number of requests filed. This year, OIP estimates that in fiscal year 2018, the federal government received approximately 863,729 requests, although that percentage of requests that end up in litigation still hovers at approximately 1%. With regard to our more recent history, fiscal year 2018 has been our busiest yet. We handled 4,681 requests for assistance from FOIA requesters and agencies alike and responded to our 15,000th request since opening. I practice it, I still can't say it. As an ombudsman's office, we are here to help anyone who seeks our assistance. Increasingly, agency FOIA professionals seek our help in communicating with requesters, brainstorming processes, or discussing best practices and recommendations. We published five assessments in fiscal year 2018, which marked the fourth year of our compliance program. We published assessments of two agencies with widely differing FOIA programs and challenges. U.S. citizenship and immigration services and U.S. postal service. USCIS or USIS regularly receives and processes the largest volume of FOIA requests government-wide. In fiscal year 2017, USIS received an average of 732 requests and responded to an average of 727 requests each workday. It's pretty astonishing. In contrast, the highly decentralized U.S. postal service received 1,909 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2017 from requesters seeking records that could be located at approximately 30,000 field offices, mostly post offices and mail processing centers throughout the country, including in the U.S. territories. Our assessments of the government's highest volume FOIA program and a highly decentralized program that spans the nation's map illustrate well that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to administering FOIA. In addition to the two agency assessments, we also published two assessments resulting from FOIA questions asked in the government-wide records management self-assessment or RMSA. The result of a partnership between OGIS and the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the United States. The self-assessment survey process, which calls on agency records officers to work with agency FOIA officers, offers an opportunity to foster crucial relationships between records and FOIA experts as the government transitions to fully electronic keeping by December 31st, 2022, after which time the National Archives will accept transfers of records only in electronic format. Our fifth assessment in fiscal year 2018 looked at an agency compliance with required dispute resolution notices. In our role as an observer of the FOIA landscape, we saw repeated lack of compliance with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 with regard to agencies alerting requesters to the dispute resolution services offered by agency FOIA public liaisons and OGIS. In some cases, agencies thought they were complying, but a lack of clear communication or formatting confused requesters. After issuing this assessment, we saw clear agency communication to requesters and less confusion among requesters. Fiscal year 2018 also saw the culmination of the second two-year term of the FOIA Advisory Committee, which released a final report with seven recommendations to the archivist of the United States and 43 best practices, included among the committee's recommendations a proposal that the Chief FOIA Officers Council partner with the CIO Chief Information Council, Information Officer Council, to establish a technology subcommittee. The technology subcommittee is up and running and studying the use and deployment of FOIA technology across agencies and plans to meet with the CIO Council next month. A request that OIP collect detailed information as part of the annual Chief FOIA Officer Report regarding the specific methods and technologies agencies are using to search their electronic records, including email. A modification to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the FAR, to require all agencies when acquiring electronic records management software, electronic mail software, and other records related information technology to consider features that will help facilitate agencies responsibilities under FOIA to provide access to federal agency records. The launch of an interagency effort to develop standard requirements for FOIA processing tools to ensure that both the tools and their outputs are section 508 compliant. For OGIS to conduct an assessment on the methods undertaken by agencies to prepare documents for posting on agency FOIA reading rooms and on the use of appropriate performance standards in federal employee appraisal records and work plans to ensure compliance with the requirements of the FOIA. The archivist of the United States appointed members, some new, some returning to the third term of the FOIA Advisory Committee and this fiscal year 2018 drew to a close the new committee held its first meeting and established three areas of focus that resulted in three subcommittees records management, time volume, and vision of FOIA. One of the recommendations of the second term of the FOIA Advisory Committee resulted in an OGIS legislative recommendation which we included in our annual report this year. We recommended that Congress pass legislation to provide agencies with sufficient resources to comply with the requirements of both the FOIA and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as amended particularly with regard to proactive posting of large numbers of records. We suggested three possible legislative options but noted that they are not mutually exclusive and that other options may exist. Details can be found in our 2019 report on fiscal year 2018. We appreciate that the congressional committees that have jurisdiction over these matters are considering our recommendation. Last year I previewed our rollout of an educational vehicle we are calling the FOIA Ombuds Observer and OGIS Advisory Opinions. Education about the FOIA is a critical component of our work as the FOIA Ombudsman and is one of many key strategies for avoiding unnecessary litigation. Our first FOIA Ombuds Observer designed to be a companion to the Immigration Records Forum we hosted here in McGowan last August provided a roadmap to requesters to access a variety of immigration records at multiple federal agencies. Since our creation in the Open Government Act of 2007 OGIS has had the authority to issue advisory opinions but prior to the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 this authority was tied to resolution of a particular request for mediation services. As I have discussed in the past for several years OGIS struggled with how to reconcile its authority to issue advisory opinions with its ability to be an impartial party that can facilitate the resolution of disputes between requesters and agencies. OGIS has now used its modified advisory opinion power to issue its first advisory opinion July of 2018 on a topic that we saw repeatedly through our dispute resolution lens the need to improve agency communications with requesters. Please check out our website for our advisory opinion. Our plan is to build a body of advisory opinions available online for both requesters and agencies to consult that will help head off disputes before they fester or lead to litigation. OGIS opened in September 2009 with several guiding principles that remain as true today as they did then. We advocate for a fair process and for improving FOIA. We complement agency practice without burdening the process. We serve as a resource to help requesters navigate the FOIA landscape and to help agencies improve their FOIA practice. So how does OGIS envision its future? We are proud of the work we have accomplished since opening our doors in 2009 and we are equally excited about the challenges that lie ahead. The future for OGIS looks bright. Not only will we continue all of the great work that we have been doing we will explore new avenues for improving the FOIA process. We will continue to engage in our dispute resolution, compliance, training and multiple outreach efforts to our various constituencies. We will issue additional advisory opinions and other educational tools including the FOIA Ombuds Observer. We will work closely with the FOIA advisory committee and its recently formed three subcommittees, records management, time volume and vision. Be sure to check our regularly updated blog and follow us on Twitter for updates on all of these events. At this time I would like to invite Martha, Kari and Kirsten up to the stage so we can chat more informally about all the great work that OGIS is doing. So we thought this was a good opportunity to just go over some of the kind of questions that we get routinely through our mediation and for people contacting us online and just to start us off Alina you talked about how FOIA has changed in the last 10 years. Our first question is what has that look like for OGIS and its ombudsman work and Kari and Kirsten since you've been with OGIS almost since the beginning not quite, what is your perspective on this question? I'm glad to start. As far as our mediation program is concerned, over the last few years we've seen sort of a separation in the types of cases that we're getting. We get many, many requests for assistance on the more procedural or simple or administrative side of things. So where to send a request, how to file an appeal, confusion about the types of documents that are necessary to make a request and then many on the more complex side but that sort of middle ground, not as many cases. If I had to take a guess what I would attribute that to is some of the factors that Alina was talking about in terms of agencies taking a greater role in terms of customer service and dispute resolution and resolving those cases before they ever get to us. So I think it's a real testament to what's going on in the agencies in terms of providing customer service. Thanks Kari. I'm Kirsten Mitchell, the compliance team lead and as far as agencies being attuned to compliance, I think they are much more so than when OGIS opened. It's not just about the 10 oldest requests and reducing the backlog but really digging into the administrative cradle to grave process and making changes that in the long run can move the needle on those things like backlog. For OGIS that's really meant a greater interest in our compliance activities, particularly from agencies wanting a neutral assessment of their FOIA programs. There's also a much more complex conversation going on about technology, management, and efficiency. Certainly the rise in FOIA requests has had a lot to do with that. Alina mentioned 863,000, more than 863,000 FOIA requests in FY18 and agencies are really struggling with how to handle that. So that's been going on and OGIS has been involved in a number of ways in those conversations, particularly through the FOIA advisory committee. And I just wanted to mention two things about how the FOIA landscape has changed in the last decade. The FOIA profession has changed. We now have a GIS or government information specialist job series that OPM established in 2012 for FOIA and Privacy Act professionals. And that went a long way, I think, towards recognizing the professional nature of their work. The American Society of Access Professionals, or ASAP, had a huge hand in that. And ASAP, which has, they've been connecting requesters and agencies since 1980, long before OGIS opened and we really compliment each other. But ASAP has been working for several years on a certification program for FOIA professionals. And I think that will help put them on the same footing as other professions that have a certification program. So that's a lot, but that's sort of the past 10 years. Moving in the right direction. So we get over 4,000 inquiries a year at OGIS. What is the number one complaint that OGIS hears from requesters? I'm an mediator, so I'm going to take a little privilege and reframe that a bit. I would say that rather than receiving complaints, we receive many requests for assistance and few complaints, mostly requests for assistance. So by and large, lately, our number one request for assistance or the bulk of our case though has to do with delays. They are endemic to the FOIA. We are seeing this going on that requesters aren't necessarily hearing back in the time that they would like to. While OGIS cannot compel an agency to process any particular request before others, Alina talked about the importance of our education role. And this is a place that can really help where we can help the requesters better understand the FOIA process, what some of the delays can be caused by and ways that they may be able to help in terms of narrowing the scope or communicating with agencies. So that's a really important role that we can provide to shed some light on what too many requesters can be kind of a mysterious process. Yeah, and I'd say the same thing for compliance in terms of the number one issue that we hear about is delay. And oftentimes it is just shedding light on the process and explaining why there are delays. We hear a lot about estimated dates of completion, which is a requirement under the FOIA statute. And that's something that we'll be looking more at, as you know. I think it's important to note that we're not the FOIA police or we're and we're not an inspector general office. I mean, we are neutral assessors of the FOIA process, but we're also here to help. So when there are compliance issues, we serve various roles and just earlier this week, Alina, and I were meeting with the department that faced some pretty particular issues and we were able to hook them up with FOIA professionals at other agencies who had similar challenges and came up with solutions. So that's part of what we do for connectors, right? Yeah. So we also hear from agencies, not just requesters since we are advocating for the process. What is the number one complaint or concern or request for assistance that OGIS hears from agencies? Yes, we do hear from agencies. We often talk about how the whole FOIA, the scope of FOIA stakeholders are our customers. So we do also assist agencies with FOIA concerns. And we will often hear from agency FOIA professionals when there's been some kind of breakdown in communications with a requester, some sticking point in the processor in communications involving a particular request. And one of the the amazing things I've seen over the last few years is our role in these cases sometimes is much more subtle and helping talking to agencies and helping them realize the resources that they have that they're ready to resolve these disputes themselves. So it becomes more of like a coaching type model where we're just sort of helping them to think about ways to approach communications or ways that they might talk to the requester about what's going on. So those can be very satisfying interactions to have with agencies to help them sort of figure out how to do it themselves. Teach them to fish. Exactly. Yeah. And I just reiterate what Carrie said. I mean, we really try to help smooth the process by just listening to agencies and coaching them. I think sometime we were in a Alina and I were on the phone the other day with an agency. I think you were also there, Martha. And at the end the agency said, oh, I feel like this has been a bit of a therapy session. And you know, that's part of what we're here for is to be a sounding board and to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of. I might also add though in cases where there may not be a path to move forward just between the requester and the agency, our role as ombudsmen in that neutral third party can be really helpful. So in those cases we can work together as an intermediary with the requester and with the agency and in some cases can help to resolve things just through that role of being a neutral voice. When the trust has maybe broken down between the two. Yes. So Alina, I think you touched on this a little bit but maybe we can give a little more detail about the difference between the Office of Information Policy which is part of the Department of Justice and OGIS which is here at NARA. Yes, so this is mine, right? This one here. So I did talk about it a little bit earlier and OIP has been around for a very long time. It's stated mission is to encourage and oversee agency compliance with the FOIA to develop government-wide policy guidance on all aspects of FOIA administration to provide legal counsel and training to agency personnel and to assist agencies in understanding the substantive and procedural requirements of FOIA. So they have a pretty big mission. OIP's role in overseeing agency compliance is done largely through the review of the annual FOIA officer reports and the chief FOIA officer reports. That agencies are required to submit to OIP. But it's certainly been my view that there is plenty of room for both OGIS and OIP to happily coexist in the compliance realm. And I've pitched that many times to the director of OIP. Our approach is driven in part by the experiences we absorb through our dispute resolution program as we've talked about. As patterns and practices develop we cultivate those and issue a variety of communications based on our observations. Whether it's an individual communication to an agency, an issue assessment or FOIA ombuds observer or even an advisory opinion. As the FOIA ombudsman we're seen as a neutral which is crucial for us to serve as effective mediators of FOIA disputes and also allows us to assess FOIA programs and the FOIA process objectively. With the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 Congress increased our independence further highlighted our neutrality by giving us the ability to share frank observations directly with Congress and the President and that's another way we distinguish ourselves from OIP. But that said our offices work very collaboratively together on a variety of issues. We have referred both agency personnel and requesters to OIP for further assistance when we're not able to help them or it's more within their jurisdictional lane. The director of OIP serves on the FOIA advisory committee that I chair and the director of OIP and I co-chair the chief way officer council a body that was created by Congress with the advent of the 2016 FOIA Improvement Act. So all in all I think we have kind of carved out our lanes and we each have a very important role to play in the FOIA process. So you talked we've talked a little bit about the FOIA advisory committee. How does the FOIA advisory committee affect OGIS' work as FOIA ombudsman? Chair Sinai, do I first? I'll go first. Sure. So OGIS is the FOIA ombudsman to the FOIA process and the FOIA advisory committee is the advisory committee to that process through the Archivist of the United States. So I think that's sort of how the two work together. OGIS manages the advisory committee. Alina shares it but we also as I said manage it and provide administrative support. That work of course takes time and resources so it affects us that way. But it's really a very important part of what we do and we see it as directly related to our statutory mandate of identifying procedures and methods for improving compliance. So the work they do very much affects our work. So first of all I want to give a shout out to Carrie Talashay Smith and Liz Pickford who are two detail ease who have come to help us part time with the FOIA advisory committee and we have been just very, very pleased to have their assistance. Kirsten in particular there's so many logistical aspects to running the FOIA advisory committee. But when we were chatting about this question the other day I made sure that I commented that at the end of the day the recommendations the advisory committee makes go to the Archivist of the United States and very often it really calls upon OGIS to implement them. The Archivist will look at us and say make it so. And so we will. And in this third term we're certainly eager to get a lot of feedback from the subcommittees and the full committee. There's definitely a lot of work that's going on and we still have two assessments that we have to look at from the second term but we're very committed to completing as many of the recommendations as possible and making sure that they come to fruition. We want to make the Archivist look good. So how broad is OGIS's reach? How many agencies does OGIS touch? So we are available to and have worked with 100% of the federal agencies. Our work as FOIA ombudsman is truly reflective of the FOIA landscape government-wide. From our earliest days we have seen requests from the Department of Justice and its components of the Department of Homeland Security and its components. And when you look government-wide those are the two that received the most requests government-wide. And with regard to exemptions we most often see exemption six and seven C. Both personal privacy exemptions the latter in law enforcement records. So that's the most that we see and that reflects the government-wide. And as I said we've worked with every federal department and agency since we open in 2017 and Alina referenced this in her remarks we started working on sort of tagging on with the records management self-assessment through our colleagues in the office of the chief records officer for the U.S. government right here at the National Archives. So that really allowed us to leverage their incredible eight years of experience doing this and great return rate great return rate. Yeah, I think they've had a hundred percent return rate or very close to it the past several years. So and that really has helped us understand the crucial relationship between FOIA officers and federal records agency records officers. Not only better understand it but really sort of recommend that these two very important roles need to if they're not already communicating and working together they need to do it. So we also work with agencies gosh through compliance our compliance assessments and our mediation program and we hear from agencies every single day or we're reaching out to agencies or we're reaching out to them. Yes, the other so I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add to that caring. And I you know I think that the connection and those who are watching aren't real familiar with the RMSA it's a means by which our chief records officer reaches out to records management officers throughout the government to take a pulse check on specific questions that they need to answer about their programs. We've tagged along to ask some FOIA questions and we've seen a direct result of this in the advisory committee that has a subcommittee on records management. So I think that there is a growing recognition of the need for the records managers in the FOIA offices to be working together. Often they're organized in the same branches or same you know organizations within agencies anyway. Sometimes it's the same person. And sometimes it is the same person. And so whether you're acquiring records management technology or however it's working in order to do search you need to understand your records. That's just one example. So I think that's probably the best example of where we sort of touched every agency quickly. So one of the questions we have is how often is OGIS able to get more documents released through our efforts? So just a reminder to those who aren't familiar with OGIS or maybe aren't familiar with the role of a mediator. OGIS is a neutral third party. We can't we don't process FOIA appeals although we receive a few that we make sure to pass along or to advise people or to send them. We also can't compel an agency to release records. So our process is more about working together with both sides of a dispute to clarify the process increase understanding help to improve communications. We find that really that satisfies many of the requests that come to us which by the way run the gamut of FOIA disputes it's not just about the application of exemptions it could be about fees it could be about delays as we talked about search you know sort of scope of a request. So the majority of the cases that come to us are not asking us to compel an agency to release records it's more about just trying to understand why exemptions were applied and that's a place where we can as Alina talked about really excel in building that understanding and helping folks to think about how they might craft say their next request. So in most cases we're not acting as an advocate I mean we're never asking acting as an advocate for either side and most aren't looking for an advocate but really just sort of a someone to explain to a friend in the process. As Carrie mentioned we cannot force agencies to release anything that's not the role of an ombudsman as she said but with regard to compliance we review agency FOIA regulations and provide comments if we hear that agencies are non-compliant with the law we follow up with the agencies and talk with them and coach them through our agency compliance assessments we provide suggestions for changes and best practices and we really recognize that there is no one right way of doing things I mean you were talking about records earlier Martha and every agency's records are different and so there's no one size fits all approach to administering FOIA and we recognize that and I think one of the great strengths of OJIS is that we're able to sort of see the whole FOIA landscape and make those connections whether the connections are between ideas or connections between people and getting people connected to help solve problems that's really good I was gonna say that's great more wonderful what is OJIS doing to increase public understanding of the FOIA process so you gave that to me that's yours so certainly education as I mentioned earlier is a critical component of what we do but we're educating requesters every single day Kari talked about this whether it's on the phone or through email interactions another example is the immigration records form that we sponsored here in McGowan last fall last August actually we were very aware of the fact that we had a lot of requesters confused about the immigration records process and boy is it confusing there are just so many different agencies involved and a lot of requesters come to us and say where do I get records on this and I don't even know where to begin so we facilitated this records forum in order to have agencies across the board who deal with immigration records come and talk to requesters about how to access records and we also combined that with our FOIA ombuds observer where we spelled out if you need a record of this type you go to this agency and you ask them for this and I think hopefully helps requesters navigate that a little better we certainly participate in forums with various stakeholders inside and outside the government we have a strong social media presence we have a blog that Kari on most weeks is writing very hard and we are currently refreshing and reorganizing our website a bit to make it a little bit easier to find things and the website became mobile friendly nearly two years ago and as I mentioned we have more FOIA ombuds observers coming out in the next few months we plan to be rolling out topics on questions we are receiving frequently and repeatedly from our customers we want the ombuds observer to serve as a vehicle that will allow us to continue to educate requesters about various facets of FOIA and questions that we get often such as personal privacy that Kirsten mentioned earlier Vaughn indices that's a common question we get grand jury information how come I can't get access to it how to formulate requests Kari mentioned that as well and the use of exemption five that certainly comes up a lot of agencies are relying on exemption five deliberative process attorney client work product to withhold information and requesters are confused as to why they're not getting access so we have a variety of ways that we're trying to educate the public so the last question we have is sort of specific how did the partial government shutdown affect OGIS and its work I'll take this one so we received a lot of requests while we were shut down that's not different than many other agencies who were facing the same situation so we were really grateful for how gracefully agencies handled requesters and how understanding requesters were in the delays that were going to happen simply because we weren't here for 35 days however there certainly was work that was delayed at OGIS particularly in our compliance efforts as we had to shift our limited resources to prioritize responding to the backlog of mediation cases that we received during the furlough as well as other priority work such as supporting the FOIA advisory committee so that was all of the questions and answers that we have now is an opportunity in compliance with our FOIA statute if anyone would like to come up to the mic that we have over here and submit a statement you are welcome to do so and we'll also query Sheila who's been looking at the chats to see if there were any statements that came in through nope nothing from Sheila so there are any questions statements comments please don't all come up to the mic so so okay well with that we want to thank everyone for being here today for watching us on live stream and this is our contact information right behind me and feel free to reach out to us anytime we're here to help thank you very much thank you thank you