 Welcome and thank you for joining the FOIA Advisory Committee meeting. Before we begin, please ensure you have opened the WebEx chat panel using the associated icon located at the bottom of your screen. Note that all audio connections are muted at this time. You're able to submit questions throughout the presentation by selecting all panelists from the drop-down menu in the chat panel and answering your question in the message box provided. If you require technical assistance, send a chat to the event producer. And with that, I'll turn the conference over to David Ferriero. David? Good morning and welcome to the National Archives Records Administration and our very first virtual meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee. I usually welcome you to my building. Today I welcome you to my office. Today as we distance ourselves from the downtown building where this committee usually meets, I'm reminded of one of the four monumental statues placed at either side of the two entrances of the building. One of the statues is an allegorical figure designed by Robert Aiken and actually chiseled by the Piccarelli brothers who did the Great Lion at the New York Public Library. It depicts a young woman with an open book gazing into the future above an inscription that reads what is past as prologue. This quote, as you know from Shakespeare's The Tempest, speaks particularly to the National Archives records being used to learn from the past in creating a better future. But the quote is also a reminder of a very important work that goes on every day by FOIA requesters and professionals across the government. The work to ensure that records of the public interest are released to the extent that they can be to inform citizens, hold those in power accountable, and to help document these extraordinary times. Some of the records released under FOIA during these times will become an important part of our nation's history. The public health emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic is putting unprecedented stress on agency FOIA operations, processes, and staff. FOIA staff and requesters alike face uncertainty and anxiety in staying healthy and educating children from home while continuing to ensure that the FOIA process works. This is not easy for any of us. I understand that since the abrupt shift to full-time telework just more than a week after the FOIA advisory committee's March 5th meeting, a small working group has met weekly to write the outline of the final report, while two of the three subcommittees have met to find human recommendations to be discussed and voted on here today. In the face of such uncertainty, I applaud your continued work, quick shift to virtual work, and commitment to completing the work of this third term of the FOIA advisory committee. I look forward to receiving your final recommendations at the June 4th meeting, the final for this term. I thank the entire FOIA community for all you do in these challenging days. Like the statue of the young woman gazing into the future, I also look to the future and the time when we can meet together again in our downtown building. Take care. Safe. Be well. I return the meeting now back to Alina Fimo. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, David. We really appreciate it. As the director of the Office of Government Information Services and this committee's chairperson, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our very first virtual meeting of the FOIA advisory committee, and also our eighth meeting of the 2018-2020 term of the FOIA advisory committee. I hope everyone who's joining us today has been staying healthy, safe, and well. During this unprecedented time, the National Archives has temporarily closed nearly all of its facilities. Certain NARA facilities do remain open in reduced operations, but NARA has canceled all of its public meetings, at least until the end of June. So we will not be gathering in the Gallant Theater as we have for the past several years as we finish off the current term of our committee. I know that these have been challenging times as we all navigate changes to our personal and professional lives. But as we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic that works with these atypical circumstances, it is more important than ever to recognize the value of this committee. I want to thank all of you for your service and for your passion and commitment to developing consensus recommendations for improving the way of administration. I remain grateful for everything this committee has accomplished despite these challenging times. I especially would like to recognize all the hard work that the committee's designated federal officer, Justin Mitchell, give her a round of applause. She's done a great job. And we are all in this together. We're also in the home stretch, so that's the good news. Today I will go ahead and cover some housekeeping roles, review our general agenda, and along the way set some expectations for today's meeting. As David pointed out earlier, we are ambitiously trying this new mode of holding this committee meeting and our next one as well, virtually. So the virtual environment in lieu of the in-person meeting has many advantages, including much shorter commutes for all of us and very casual Fridays. The disadvantage for me and Kirsten is that we will not be able to see you raising your hands or eagerly leaning forward, ready to make a comment or ask a question. I have asked all of you to turn on your camera so I could try to see you throughout the meeting. And I will be doing my best to monitor your verbal cues during the webcast. But I do want to remind everyone we will need to be respectful of one another and try not to speak over one another, although I realize that may be inevitable at times. I also want to encourage all committee members to use the all panelists option from the drop-down menu in the chat function if they would like to speak. You can also chat me directly. But I also want to point out to everyone that in the spirit of complying with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, please keep any communications in the chat function to only housekeeping and procedural matters. No substantive comments should be made in that chat function as they will not be recorded in the transcript of the meeting. Any questions so far? No. Okay. If you need to take a break, please do not disconnect from either the audio or video of the web event. Put your phone on mute and close the camera and join us again as soon as you can. Just a reminder again, as I remind everyone of every meeting, please identify yourself by name and affiliation, which time you speak. This will help us down the road with both the transcript and the minutes, both of which are required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. As most of you know, the Federal Advisory Committee, which reports to the Archivist of the United States, provides a forum for public discussion of FOIA issues, and offers members of the public the opportunity to provide their feedback and ideas for improving the FOIA process. We encourage public comments, suggestions and feedback that you may submit at any time by emailing flia-advisory-committee.nara.gov. Meeting materials are available on the committee's webpage. We will upload a transcript and video of today's meeting as soon as it is available to the committee's webpage. Information about the committee, including members' biographies and committee documents, are available on the 2018-2020 Federal Advisory Committee on the OGIS website. I invite everyone to visit the site, and that way we can dispense with introductions today. Nearly all of our members are participating today. Bradley White from the Department of Homeland Security is unable to join us today. And Sarah Kotler from the Food and Drug Administration will need to depart approximately halfway through our meeting. Everyone else please hang in there. To promote openness, transparency and public engagement, we post committee updates and information to our website, blog and on Twitter, at FOIA underscore unbutton. Stay up to date on the latest OGIS and FOIA advisory committee news, activities and events by following us on social media. We have posted the agenda for today's meeting on the FOIA advisory committee's website. And our goal as the committee today is to propose, discuss and vote on recommendations from the vision, subcommittee and the time volume of subcommittee. We have not allocated specific timeframes for each subcommittee. We thought we would see how the meeting progresses and flows. But I do promise that although there is no break on the agenda, we will take a 15-minute break at a logical point. And if anyone wants to prompt me in that direction, please feel free to do that. And although we have an ambitious agenda today, we will ensure there is time at the end of the meeting for public comment. And we look forward to hearing from any noncommittee participants who have ideas or comments to share. Jesse Cratt, the National Archives Historian, who is assisting OGIS with its many administrative responsibilities for the FOIA advisory committee, will be monitoring the chat function during the webinar. And I will ask her to read out loud any questions or comments during the public comment period at the end of our meeting. I also hope to have sufficient time during today's meeting for us to discuss the final report outline item on our agenda. Thank you very much to the following working group members who have been hard at work already. Jason R. Barron, Abby Mosheim, Sean Moulton and Patricia West. Since our last meeting on March 5th, this small but mighty group has been hard at work drafting a report of those recommendations that the committee has already passed. We will be able to make additional headway once the vision and time volume subcommittees recommendations are voted on today. The goal is to circulate a final draft well in advance of our final meeting on June 4th and use our last meeting to iron out any outstanding issues and take any final votes if needed. Next, I would like to, first before I move on, any questions from any of our committee members? No, I'm seeing lots of head shaking. No, great. Okay. I would like to try to approve the meeting minutes from our March 5th meeting. We have been circulated those earlier this morning. We apologize for the last minute circulation. We were just trying to finalize things. Did everyone on the committee receive the minutes from the March 5th meeting? Great. I'm seeing a lot of nods. Yes. Love that. I want to note that the transcripts in the March 5th meeting did not reflect the fact that I abstained from voting on certain recommendations that were passed by the committee. That is consistent with the position I took during the second term of the committee as well. In order to avoid a potential conflict of interest, I have and will continue to specifically abstain on any specific recommendations that relate to the Office of Government Information Services and Ornara. And there will be several other recommendations that are coming into play today that involve the Chief Loyal Officer Council since I am co-chair of that council. I also plan to abstain from those. I have added that statement in the minutes for the relevant recommendations that we considered and voted on during our March 5th meeting. Bobby Tlaibyan has lost the board, abstained, so his job is so much easier. I see that a lot of people do. So later today, Kirsten and I would like to certify the minutes to be accurate and complete, which we are required to do within 90 days. So we're actually well ahead of that 90-day requirement of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. But if I don't see any objections, do I have a motion to approve the March 5th meetings? Can I make a comment first, right? Is this James Stoker? Yes, please, James. So I appreciate all the work that goes into the minutes. I know it's very difficult to put these things together. But I did just want to draw attention to one particular point in regards to the time, volume, recommendation number four at the end. So the minutes note that Mr. Stoker moved to vote on the amended version of the recommendation four, which was seconded and passed with Mr. Tlaibyan abstaining. It's unclear whether committee members believe they were voting on the recommendation in spirit. So my comment on this is that it is very important to accurately record what we are voting on. And I was under the impression that we had actually voted to pass the resolution. Now, I think we can come back to this today and vote on it and not worry about what happened in the last meeting because we can have another vote today. But I just want us to be very clear before we vote today on whether or not we are voting for recommendations in spirit or to actually pass. So I just wanted to make that comment so that we are aware of this issue going forward and that we're very clear on what we're voting on. Now, James, thank you very much for that comment. Yes, we are at Kirsten and Jesse and I spent a while going back and forth trying to figure out exactly what happened. We tried to look at the transcript carefully. We also listened to the YouTube video and we agree there's definitely uncertainty. I see Kirsten nodding her head as well. And I definitely agree with you. It's very important today that we ensure that we're voting on each recommendation, not in spirit, but as the language we're proposing. To that end, we have actually provided and are sharing with everyone, attendees and committee members the slides that have each of the recommendations as written. And I definitely wanted to encourage you in particular, James, to make sure that you go back over time, volume, recommendation number four and make sure that we vote on exactly the language that you want. So I think it's a very fair point. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions or comments? Okay. Do I have a motion then to try to approve the March 5th meetings in their current one? I have a motion. Thank you, James. No second require, but do I have a second? Usually I have Tom seconding, but be silent today. Second. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. I think I believe, I believe that was you. All present, please indicate if you're in favor by saying aye. Aye. Anyone, is anyone a nay on the minutes? Okay. Is anyone abstaining from the minutes? Probably you're not abstaining on the minutes, correct? No, correct. Okay. Just one double check. All right. So it looks like we've passed them unanimously. We have approved the minutes and we will get those posted as soon as possible after today's meeting. I do want to just briefly review the voting procedures in our last meeting. We did include them physically in your individual folders. Obviously we weren't able to provide you folders today, but any member of the committee can move to vote on a recommendation. The motion does not need to be seconded, although it seems like we've been doing that. So happy to entertain that. The vote compacted by unanimous decision, which is when every voting member accepts abstention, is in favor of or opposed to a particular motion. A general consensus, which is when at least two-thirds of the total vote cast are in favor of or opposed to a particular motion. And general majority, which is when a majority of the total vote cast are in favor of or opposed to a particular motion. In the event of a tie, we will reopen discussion and the committee will continue to vote until there is a majority. If you are in favor of a recommendation, I will ask you to stay aye. If you are against a recommendation, I will ask you to stay may. If you do not wish to vote, stay abstained. In this current virtual environment, we will try to take a voice vote, so we'll continue that practice. Kirsten and I will make sure that we take particular attention to any nays and abstentions to make sure we have the record clear. And Kirsten is our DFO. We'll report and announce the results of the vote. I'm not sure we announced them last time, but we can certainly get out this time. So today, to begin our discussion, I'm going to ask each of the subcommittees to present their recommendations. And as I understand it, from each of the two subcommittees, we're going to have individual subcommittee members present. On individual recommendations. So hopefully I'll remember to turn it over to each correct member. Folks should feel free to comment, ask questions, discuss. I will open up the floor after the recommendation has been presented for that comment period. Feedback also welcomed. After comments, questions, discussion and feedback, I will ask whether the committee is prepared to take a vote on each of those recommendations, and we will vote on each one. And hopefully the records will be crystal clear this time on what we're voting on. So before I go on to the substance of the meeting, I want to make sure that committee members are all good. Anyone have any questions? I've got a thumbs up from Tom. Thank you. All right. Looks like we're good. So I promised last time, the vision subcommittee would go first today since I took away any of their air time last time. And again, I apologize for that. We did run out of time. So at this time, I would normally turn it over to Chris and Joan. Do either one of you want to make any preliminary introductory remarks? No, I don't have anything to say at first. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks for me. Thank you. Okay. So I believe, Kristen, if you could flip us over on the talk with legislation to vision recommendation number one. And I believe Michael Murci is going to present on that recommendation. Hi. Yes. Am I coming through? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So for vision recommendation one, thank you. First of all, a lot of people had some really great feedback as you were kind of crafting this in terms of thinking through what would be most effective. And the recommendation comes down to the archivist of the United States requests that the Chief FOIA Officer's Council for the Committee for Cross-Agency Collaboration and Innovation to research and propose a cross-agency grant program and other revenue resources for FOIA programs. Review and promote initiatives for clear career directories for FOIA professionals, building on the government information specialist job series, and in coordination with existing agency efforts and explore and recommend models to align agency resources with transparency commitment. As we were thinking through sort of what do we need to do to kind of better align the agencies that resources have with the jobs that they're charged to do, we wanted to find a way to kind of let agencies sort of highlight their needs and make sure that FOIA officers, FOIA processors, FOIA offices feel supported both in the short term with resources and innovation grants, but also in the long term to make sure that they feel that this is a field where they can really build a career. And I think there's been some really wonderful efforts in that area over the last few years, both by individual agencies, as well as support groups, as well as sort of the government information specialist job series. But we really want to sort of give FOIA processing communities sort of an avenue to kind of say, hey, here's what we're seeing as working and not working within our career field and how agencies can better support long term professional growth and stability for that field. And then I think one of the more discussion around the proposal to kind of research and propose a cost agency grant program, anything that involves spending sort of new money is always a tricky proposition. But one thing that was really important to me was sort of as we move forward with future legislative improvements and sort of, you know, changes to the FOIA programs, really having suggestions on the table, really sort of finding ways to let FOIA offices kind of highlight pain points and opportunities for future investment, I think is really important. I think with FOIA reforms, with FOIA changes and legislative efforts, we've seen a lot about what the Requestor community wants. And we haven't seen enough in terms of what is needed to actually support that work as well as support the workloads that FOIA offices currently struggle with. And so this seemed like a good sort of way to kind of give a voice to sort of FOIA offices and let them say, hey, here's what we need. Here's areas where we could use funding. And here's experimental programs that we would like a chance to kind of work on. And so, you know, it's always challenging for agencies to kind of lobby on their own behalf. But I think finding ways to kind of let good ideas come out and have specific grant proposals that will be in need of funding, but I think that's at least the starting point for future conversations. Okay, Michael, thank you very much for that. I think the applause was muted. Yes, the applause was muted. I want to open up the floor to questions, comments, thoughts, reactions. As a reminder, you can submit a question or comment by sending a chat to all panelists. Or if you want to make your comment over the phone, you may now pound two to indicate that you wish to ask a question. Okay, I would just... Patricia asked. I just wanted to say that I like this recommendation a lot, and I think that we've seen success from prior subcommittees that were created by the Chief Fully Officer Council in the Technology Committee, and we've seen how much VAX assisted us. So I think this is going to be a very interesting committee, and I look forward to their findings. Michael, did you want to add something? I thought I heard you speak up earlier. Yeah, sorry. This is Michael Mortesy from Luck Rock again on absolologies for not introducing myself last time. But I do just want to note that I do want to throw out the way... I did get some really good feedback the last few days about more context and background that can be included below the actual recommendation itself. So I'm hoping to kind of have a beefier version of that in the coming days. All right, thanks, Michael. Patricia, thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate that. Anyone else want to chime in? Why am I see you leaning in? Do you want to say anything or just looking interested? Yeah, no, thank you, Alina. And this is Ryan. So, no, I really like this recommendation, I think particularly in highlighting and promoting best practices and improving career trajectories for FOIA professionals. I know there are some agencies that do it very well. Others can do a better job, and I think I really like this recommendation. So I don't have anything to improve it. Okay, great, thank you. All right, anyone else? So Lizette and Sarah, I just want you to know I can't see you on camera, nor can I see Patricia. So if you guys are leaning forward, like Ryan was just a second ago, I am not able to see you. So don't be afraid to speak up. No, I appreciate that. My camera is not enabled on my computer, so you will not see me. But I probably am slouching as well. Oh, thank you. This is Patricia. You can't see me at all? Is that right? Correct. Oh, okay. I will try and figure that out. Sorry about that. No problem. Okay. Anyone else want to comment on vision recommendation number one? Going once, going twice. Okay. Do you all think that we're ready to vote on it? Yes. Okay. Thank you for the yes. Does anyone want to make a motion? No. Well, I'll move. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear who moved. Can someone say that again? Tom Sussman moved. Tom Sussman, thank you for the motion. Vision recommendation number one. Do I have a second? This is Patricia last. I second. Thank you, Patricia. All those in favor of passing vision recommendation one as proposed on the screen in front of you. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed to vision recommendation number one, please say nay. Any abstentions? Aye. I'll continue abstain. Thank you. I will also abstain for this one based on my comments earlier. So Kirsten, do you want to read out the vote on this one? So we're all clear. The vision recommendation number one passes with two abstentions, Alina Semel and Bobby Tlaivian. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Moving right along. So the next vision recommendation number two, Kirsten, you're going to turn the slide, right? I believe we're going to have Patricia West and Suzanne Petrowski presenting on 2A, 2B and 2C. And I'm going to turn it over to Patricia and Suzanne. I don't know who wants to go first, but the floor is all yours. Sure. Good morning. This is Patricia West from NLRB. The first part of our recommendation, this is regarding raising the priority of FOIA, and this is obtaining support from leadership, and I'll just read the recommendation. The Archivist of the United States proposes that the chief FOIA officer is helpful, recommend that agency leadership annually issue a memo reminding the workforce of its responsibilities and obligations under the FOIA, and encouraging the workforce to contact the agency's FOIA officer for assistance with the FOIA process. And the goal here was that if the agency leadership sends out this memo to the employees, it really highlights the importance of FOIA throughout the agency. And just a little bit of background information on how we came up with this recommendation. Back in 2013, OGIS provided for this recommendation, and they had recommended that agency leadership actively support FOIA programs and encourage the issuance of memos by their senior officials. And they made this recommendation, but not only that, they led by example in that the Archivist sent this memo around agency-wide. During that time, 2013, to my knowledge, two other agencies followed suit, and that was Department of Transportation and Department of Energy, and I was at Department of Energy when the secretary issued this memo, and I can tell you, it really assisted the FOIA program there greatly. Whereas before my colleagues did not realize that we were limited and that we only had 20 working days to turn around a FOIA request, or that when we needed a consultation with them, again, we had a limited time constraint. And just this simple memo going around really helped the employees become more engaged and realize that FOIA is everyone's responsibility. Since that time, I was at two other agencies, including my current one, where this memo has been issued by leadership, and I can tell it does engage employees, and it just shows that the leaders at the agencies support the program. So our thought in having the chief FOIA officers counsel recommend this is because those are the folks at the agencies who can really obtain the leadership buy-in into sending such a memo. So we thought that that would be the best group of folks to make that recommendation, and I think by doing that, it will really make it much easier for those types of memos to be coming down. Our goal is that it would be sent out annually, but there you have it. Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding this recommendation? Very quiet, Patricia. Does anyone have their questions this morning? I just want to make sure we're all right. Oh, thank you. This is Bobby. I was just going to say the previous one and this one are great recommendations, which is probably why people aren't commenting as much. Yeah, and Alina, this is Chris Knoss at Deloitte. On the vision subcommittee, we've talked about these recommendations extensively, so I wouldn't expect to hear much from the vision subcommittee. Great. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? This is Michael. Michael Morrissey from Muckrock. I just love the fact that anything, this is something that doesn't cost a lot of money. This isn't something that is going to require big dramatic shifts, but it is something that has demonstrated success in the past. And I think we have really seen that the messaging from the top matters. And I think this is just a great recommendation, a lot of thought went into that. I think this is something where FOIA is a team sport and I think we don't often recognize that it really requires the whole team playing on. And I think this helps with that. I'd love to coin that expression, Michael. Can I? FOIA is a team sport. That's great. I love that. Especially because you can have any team sports right now. That's wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? Along with FOIA is everyone's responsibility. Absolutely. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. It sounds like I'm seeing shaking of heads. No. No more comments. It sounds like we're ready to vote on this recommendation 2A of the vision subcommittee. Do I have a motion to pass this recommendation? I move to pass this recommendation. Patricia, do I have a second from anyone? Sure. This is Suzanne Kiatraski. I move to second. Suzanne. Okay. All those in favor of vision recommendation 2A, as it is displayed on your screen currently, please say I. All right. Okay. Not sure I heard everyone. Hopefully, Kirsten, did you get everyone? Is there anyone who's opposed? Please say nay. Okay. I didn't hear any nays. Is anyone abstaining? Hi, it's Bobby. Abstaining. And Alina Cimo, abstaining. So Kirsten, can you read us out? Yes. Vision recommendation 2A passes 17-0. There are two abstentions. Alina and Bobby. Thank you very much. Okay. We're doing a great job, guys. Moving right along to vision recommendation 2B, I believe Patricia and Suzanne, you guys still have the floor. So please, by all means, go ahead. Okay. Great. This one was mine. This is Suzanne Kiatraski from Rutgers. I won't read you the recommendation since everybody has it on the screen and probably has it in part of them as well. But the title is FOIA and administrative transitions. The gist of it is trying to figure out ways to brief senior leadership after transitions or other times of leadership change. The rationale is that there is a lot of good training right now for FOIA officers or staff dealing with FOIA, but there's not a formal training or briefing for senior leadership. And this is the intention of this recommendation. To make briefings for senior leaders when they come in either during transitions or other times. I think that's it. And this is Patricia Wath. One of the things that Susanna and I thought was that to have that OGIS and OIP work together to prepare these briefings for the different federal agencies would really carry weight with the agencies in that it's not just, you know, one particular agency's briefing. I think when new leadership comes in and they hear that this type of training was created by OGIS and OIP, it will really take note of that, I believe. Thank you for that, Patricia. And this is Sean Moulton with Project and Government Oversight. I think this dovetails, as Michael just said about the previous recommendation about FOIA being a team sport. And the importance of leadership, I think it recognizes it's going to be really important for leadership to even understand FOIA. And when we have these big transitions, that can be one of the things that as a new team comes in, they've got a lot of people on their plate. I think this one can get lost for a long time. And that can be a real problem. So I think that's what this is trying to address. And I think it says it well. Patricia, thank you very much. Any other comments or reactions? Emily, are you trying to speak? Not here, Emily. Did you unmute? Alina, this is Ryan's law. I just wanted, this is, I like this recommendation. I think it's incredibly important for all the reasons that our fellow panel members have mentioned. I know that DOJ had five years ago. Melanie did a great, quick ten-minute briefing done by video that I know the Treasury utilized during the transition. I think that worked well. We may want to ensure that that's updated as well. And then also, I think we could find other opportunities to provide that train to them. But I think this recommendation is great. And I think the committee should pass it. This is Bobby. Thanks, Ryan. That's actually partly what I had thought about for this recommendation, too, to update that video. Okay. I think Emily is trying to talk to us as it goes to her being another call, but we cannot hear her, right? Can anyone else hear her? Emily, if you have something that you could chat to all of us, even though it violates my role of no housekeeping, of anything other than housekeeping rather, we could read it out loud. There was a note in the chat that most of the lines were muted and we needed to hit star six to unmute. Emily, that might be the question. Lauren, our event producer chatted all that to us and I just chatted that to Emily as well. So if you can post star six, that would be great. If I'm misreading any of Emily's cues, I'm leaving moving. Okay. In the meantime, anyone else want to chime in on anything with regard to a recommendation to be from the vision subcommittee? Sounds like there's positive support. Are we ready to vote on it? Yes. Do I have a motion from someone to move recommendation to be of the vision subcommittee? I move to vote on recommendation to be. Okay. Thank you, Patricia. Do I have a second? Sure, Jim. Tom, thank you for the second. Okay. All those in favor of passing vision recommendation to be as it appears on the screen, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. If you're any nay. Any abstention? This is Bobby and I abstain. This is Elina Fimo. You may also abstain. Here's to me. I'm just going to talk about Emily not being able to hear and to be able to chime in. Lauren, are you having suggestions for Emily to make her audio is working? I just want to be sure she's getting the opportunity to be heard and able to get her votes heard. Emily, if you're able to, can you dial pound two on your telephone keypad? If you can hear us. Okay. It looks like Emily is on the attendee line. So I will just go ahead and unmute her. Okay. Thank you. Is this Emily? Yeah. Thank you, Emily. Are you apparently on the attendee line? Okay. I'm unable to hear Emily. Another one? No, we can't hear her. I can't hear her either. Okay. So the line disconnected. Emily might be trying to come in on the speaker line at this time. Okay. That would be great. Everyone just bear with us for one second. Give Emily a chance to catch up with us. Thank you. I appreciate your patience. Okay. Now we've lost. No? Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Sorry about that. Hi, Emily. No, it's okay. Sorry. Did you want to make a comment on recommendation to be? Ryan sort of addressed my question, which was, I think, I am not sure practically speaking how some of this training would be introduced, but it's, I think that he provided some insight for me. So I think my question was essentially answered. Okay. And since I'm concerned that we couldn't hear you before, I just want to be sure that your vote on recommendation to be is an I or an A? Anyone else hear her? It was an I. Can you hear me? Yes. And just to be clear, you were a vision recommendation to A. Were you also an I? Yes. Okay. So Emily. I've been an I. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. I just want to be sure we're clear. And Kirsten, now you can go ahead and report out the vote please for recommendation to be. Yes. Thank you. Recommendation, vision recommendation to be passive with two abstentions, Alina and Bobby. Okay. Great. All right. Thanks everyone. Let's move along. How are you doing? Hang in there. Okay. So recommendation to see a division subcommittee on again turning it back to Patricia and Suzanne. I don't know who's been picked up. This is Suzanne. I'll kick it off and Patricia will jump in. Okay. Oh, you already got it up there. Thank you, Kirsten. So this is speaking about speaking to the issue of FOIA and agency performance plans. This is a relatively new topic it seems for the group as a whole. So the recommendation as currently written is relatively broad to give OGIS and OIP a little bit of room to think this through. Again, in the same way that the prior one was asking for the team between OGIS and OIP, this one is also. And this one is directing OGIS and requesting OIP examine the FOIA performance measures and agency performance plans. Just as sort of like a little shy note, these are not individual employees performance evaluations. We're talking about performance plans of agencies as a whole. And then the next step would be actually I'm reading here now it says the subcommittee further recommends, I guess that's right, that OGIS would submit the results of an assessment of how FOIA is used in performance plans to Congress and the president. And the rationale behind this is generally you get what you measure, right? So for including performance, FOIA performance in at least more of the agency plans, maybe hopefully there's more likely to be, there's more attention that will be given to FOIA processes. Patricia, do you want to add anything? Yes, well, I will add this. I remember our first meeting and Suzanne made a comment about the lack of FOIA performance measures in the various agencies' plans. And it's never even dawned on me that they would not be incorporated in an agency plan. So I remember this from our first full committee meeting and I just thought it was such a brilliant idea. I did go back to the office that day and I checked my agency this year if we had measures in our performance plan. And I'm happy to say we did but I think it's really something that can help FOIA programs at the various agencies and also add in to have that leadership support because once you have the support of leadership, I mean, it's everything for a FOIA program. Thank you so much. Can I just chime in to Suzanne and Patricia? Do we want to change in the second sentence from subcommittee to committee? Yes. I think so. The reason why we had subcommittee there was just that this is division subcommittee recommending but yes, you're right, it should be the full committee. Yes. It passed. Right, passed. Or I guess we would change it to committee now and then if it's passed it goes into the committee. Right. Is everyone good with that? With that speech? Okay, I'm seeing none. Okay. Anyone else want to comment or chime in on this recommendation? Elena, this is Chris, not especially a question about the working group as they compile these, are they rolling them all up as a committee recommendation so that any language that might have sat at the subcommittee is rising up as we vote and I'm going to approve them as the committee recommending it. I would assume the working group is doing that. So I'm pausing for a second. Sean and Jason and Patricia and Adi, can you guys help me out with this? Exactly how to answer that. I didn't quite hear the question. That's okay. I think the question was are we fixing things if we come across them in the drafting committee, if we have a language problem like this where the subcommittee is there, are we making it all from the committee? And I think the answer to that is yes and no. I think we feel the freedom but when it comes to the formal, bolded recommendation language, we haven't really been changing anything and if we think about doing it or have discussions about that, the idea has been to come back to the full committee to get approval for anything. And I agree with that approach. I just wanted to confirm. Thank you. Patricia, did you want to add anything to that? No. But I think for this particular recommendation, we can all agree that we're changing subcommittee to committee so that when it is indeed passed, we'll have the correct language. Okay. I see Tom's up and raising an end. Yes. Make sure you can hear me on here. Yes. I was, when I first read just the recommendation, the recommendation was pulled out from any explanation. It doesn't really tell us why they're examining the performance measures and what the assessment and recommendations address. The discussion language is, you know, suggests the goal of ensuring agencies include the one and the firmest plans. I think that ought to be reflected up into the recommendation because otherwise examine. Okay. I mean, we'll examine the measures. And then we report, but what do we, you know, why are we assessing it? What are we assessing? It doesn't really stand on its own. So I think it's just like maybe the drafting committee even could make some slight additions to show what's going to be, why it's being done. So I think that's one of the criteria assessments will be based on. Patricia Suzanne, do you want to react to that? I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense if it would be clearer by adding additional language or moving language up, then I think we should do that. Tom, do you have a particular suggestion for language you're thinking of when you're reading us and it feels like something's missing? Yeah. I'm just taking their language from the goal statements in the report, in the discussion that should examine performance measures used in the agency performed by the records to ensure that agencies include FOIA in their performance plans. And then the committee recommendation of the assessment, and that's the assessment is whether they're including it. I guess the assessment, I think, is qualitative or simply at this point a determination that FOIA is included. Well, I think I appreciate your notes, Tom, and I think that the first and kind of foremost most important aspect is that they even address FOIA in their agency performance plans because from Suzanne's research, there were a great number of agencies that didn't even mention FOIA in their plans. So I think that's the first step that you make a great point about, you know, about putting in maybe some language taking some portion to the rationale below and incorporating that up top. And that's something Suzanne and I can work on. Melanie, that's Jason. Yes. One simple possible fix is to say that the doctors of the U.S. directs narrowages and requests that DOJ-OIP examine whether FOIA performance measures are used in agency performance plans and reports with the presumption being that they should be. Okay. Yes. Jason, although I hear Tom wanting to add to that sentence and to ensure that FOIA performance measures are included in agency performance plans and reports. Yes. I mean, if you need that as a motion, I'll be glad to do it and I will certainly defer to Patricia's notion that that's step one and that we don't need to get into any kind of qualitative standards for assessment here. Tom and this is Suzanne here and as you know better than me, different agencies have different relationships with FOIA, right? So how NARA would include FOIA and their performance plan would be different than another agency. So we just would want to make sure we recognize that reality and I think this would be your additions would. Okay. I'll take guests for an answer. Are you comfortable with the addition that I cited earlier? If we add the clause and to ensure FOIA performance measures are included in agency performance plans and reports? Looks for me. Alina, this is Patricia. Can you say that again and to ensure that agency? And to ensure that agency FOIA performance measures are included in agency performance plans and reports. And then we would insert the word whether after examine per Jason's suggestion, correct? Not necessarily. I like mine as simpler, but I understand the point. Whatever the wording is, that's fine. This is Sean from Pogo. I'm wondering if we make that change of ensure that FOIA performance measures are used in their agency performance plans and reports? Do we even need to request that we examine? I mean examine if they're used and ensure they're used. If we're saying OGIS and OIP should ensure that they're used, I would assume that that would entail an examination and then other steps. Well, it is in some tension with the second sentence then, which is recommending that some results of some assessment be made rather than a direction to do something. That was Jason Darren for the record. Yes, it was. I mean, I think if we take Tom's recommendation to strengthen the first sentence and go from examine to ensure to make it a recommendation that these proactively be done is our recommendation, then it negates the need for submitting the results of the assessment recommendations to Congress. Although we could change that to say, you know, it would be a lot of forward-smithing right now, but the committee further recommends that if agencies are found not to be using them, then any recommendations be submitted to Congress and the president, et cetera. So we could still include a sentence there, and like I said, it's a lot of forward-smithing right now. This is Joan. I like the idea of making it more proactive or the direction to do something, but I think that it would simplify things by striking the second sentence if we did make that change to be the first part. That would be my preference because I do think that it gets complicated. If OJIS is providing recommendations to Congress and the president, would it be reporting on the agencies that have failed to do this? And then I think we would have to dig down into what OJIS can report to Congress and the president under H5. It's possible that they could do that. They could make a report of agencies' failure to do something, but I think it would require a little bit of research. This is Bobby. I'm a bit more in favor of the examines with the goal being to ensure that the FOIA is in their performance plans, simply just to give us flexibility, not knowing how much we can impact an agency's overall performance plan or where that would come from, but it clearly states that the overall goal of the work that we would be doing is to ensure that these are including in their plans. Yeah, this is Alina. I just want to comment that certainly wearing my hat as the OJIS director, we have not felt as though we have any particular constraints about what kinds of recommendations we can take to Congress. I think they're very open to hearing from us. And I think there's some other legislative recommendations later on. We're going to discuss as well which adds to our plate, but I'm agnostic and I was actually going to abstain from this recommendation as well in terms of how you guys both best want to proceed with all of this. Kirsten is prepared to read wordsmith's language if we want to go in that direction. The other option is we table recommendation to see until our next final meeting and have it wordsmithed, circulated, and then we vote on the final language at the next meeting. I'm going to look to Patricia and Suzanne and Joan and Chris as to how you guys want to proceed. This is Patricia West from NLRB. And I appreciate everyone's comments and feedback. That's very helpful. The reason why we drafted it as we did was one, we wanted to see how many agencies were addressing the FOIA program in their agency plans. And then to have OGIS submit a report to Congress on it with recommendations, we felt that that would carry some weight with the agencies and that they would then consider putting FOIA performance measures in their plans. The one concern I have about adding the language, the deep thing, examine and ensure that agencies, that performances are included in the program, is to say and to ensure, is that something that OGIS and DOJ can do right now? Because I don't know that there has been, to my knowledge, a recommendation by OGIS or by OIP to include FOIA performance measures in a plan. So that's the reason why we drafted it the way we did. This is Suzanne, I'm agreeing with everything Patricia says and maybe we knew who needs to work with this some more because it is getting a little complicated. Also, I'm not so sure and ensure feels very strong and I'm not so sure OGIS can do that. Maybe encourage, you know, report and encourage agencies to include FOIA in their performance plans or facilitate or something along that line. And I think the idea with some type of reporting out was a bit of the naming and shaming, right? So you have a report which says which agencies are and are not including it and maybe that would facilitate or encourage agencies to include. So it's up to the groups. Joan or Chris, how did you want to handle it? I think Patricia left. Can I just also say something else? I think someone had suggested that we move that second portion of the recommendation where the committee recommends OGIS submit the results of its assessment to Congress. I think that really needs to begin because OGIS would be the proper group to make such an assessment. And I think, again, you know, if OGIS is doing an assessment of this, I think that will encourage agencies to take this to take this suggestion seriously. This is Joan. The suggestion to move the second sentence is only if we change the first move away from an examination. I agree that if it remains as an examination, there's a real benefit to including the reporting recommendations. I agree with Suzanne that we might end up losing some clarity if we continue to verbally discuss what the language would look like and the benefit for seeing any suggested altered language via email or something like that. That would be my suggestion. Okay. So, Chris, do you want to weigh in as coaching? I agree with Joan as well. Okay. It sounds to me like the consensus is we want to work somewhere between now and the next meeting and we're going to table this recommendation to make sure it's not correct. Okay. Alina, this is Patricia. Yes. Similar to what we did with time volume, may I suggest that we vote on the spirit of this recommendation? Sure. I'm happy to do that. Okay. Knowing that we're still playing around with the language and we need to firm up whether we add a language to the first sentence, whether the second sentence stays in or comes out, et cetera. Is everyone prepared to vote on the spirit of the recommendation? I'm sort of seeing most for yeses. Thank you, James, Jacob. Okay. So, can I have a motion in favor of voting on the spirit of recommendation 2C from the vision club committee? I can move. All right. Thank you, Patricia. Do I have a second? Sure. Okay. I second. Thank you, mom. Thank you. I think it was Jason the second. All right. All in favor of moving for the spirit recommendation 2C of the vision club committee? Please lay aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. All those in favor, please say nay. I move again. Did I hear any names? Any abstentions? This is Bobby and I abstain. I'll be in a chemo. I also abstain. Okay. Patricia, can you read out that vote, please? Yes. Vision recommendation 2C in spirit was passed with two abstentions, Alina and Bobby. Okay. Thank you. All right. Let's keep moving. And I want to go on to vision recommendation 3. It's got three parts to it, A, B, and C as well. And I understand Sean, Nation, and Kogla was going to present on this. So Sean, over to you. Thank you. And I welcome all the committee members to the controversial portion of our meeting. So one of the ideas here was to come up with a series of recommendations for legislative action or congressional action, I should say. Not necessarily a bill per say, but. And there has been some discussion which I won't go over here. I'm sure we'll go over as we finalize the report. But ways that and if this subcommittee or this committee can make recommendations directed at Congress. And I think we have enough wiggle room is the final consensus is that we can craft something if that's the committee's choice. So a structure B3 in a sending order of controversy. And the first one that you'll see on the slide in front of you is about strengthening oversight. This is both congressional action with hearing, more regular hearings, more regular communications and information collection with agencies rather than the maybe once a year hearing we get on FOIA right now, right around sunshine week. But then also to, as you'll see at the end, strengthen the office government information services with clear authority and expanded resources. And the language supporting this explains that they've done terrific work since being founded, but that they're a very small office trying to assist with FOIA across the entire federal government and they need greater resources and clear authority for when interacting with other agencies. And so I will pause there for this first recommendation and open it to discussion. So this is James Stoker. I just want to applaud the spirit of this recommendation. I think it's extremely important that Congress play a stronger role in the oversight of the freedom of information act and it's good to issue a clear call for the Congress to do so. I think it would be nice to see more specifics in this recommendation. I know the vision subcommittee, I think I saw a job maybe, tell me if I'm right, as coming up with a very broad vision rather than as specifics here, but I think that there would be a lot of different areas in which this could be made more clear. One example that comes to mind is determining which part of Congress is in charge of FOIA. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't think that there are any committees within Congress that specifically have FOIA or transparency as their subject or their domain and the way that they might not say foreign affairs or Homeland Security or immigration or conducting illegal drugs or whatever else. So maybe one way to, I don't want to say put people into this, but to focus the measure would be to ask Congress to identify particular agencies that would be in charge of the issue. I'm not sure whether that would fit within this particular recommendation or not, maybe that's something that needs to be done between a future session with this committee in the next term, but it just would be helpful to have more specifics here for the Congress. Thank you. Tom? Can I raise my hand? Yeah, for at least 50-something years the committees in the House and Senate with jurisdiction over FOIA have remained the same in Congress. They may have changed names of subcommittees or in the House, the committee name, but I don't think there's any mistaking who has jurisdiction. The question of this address is that they don't do anything about it. Once a year, usually when there's sunshine a week, there's a hearing sometimes oversight. So I think it's useful to encourage Congress to do more because it's always extremely helpful. So this is Kevin. I hope you can hear me, Kevin Goldberg. One of the things I was thinking about is it would be a slight tweak, but after the word regular and coordinated because this picks up on what time is just saying. You tend to have one a year maybe if you're lucky, twice a year hearings. So what often happens is in the interest of time, you know, an agency official, and I'm not picking on you Bobby, but usually your office is caught up to testify, ask a bunch of questions, the answers are given, and then there's no follow-up to that specific to see what has happened since. There's just a new set of problems a year later that we're dealing with. And that's why I mean coordinated. If there's a better way we can say that, that is kind of an issue because it doesn't always have to be hearings, it just has to be follow-up to make sure that things are occurring as promised. Kevin, just to clarify, which regular did you want to add that word to? Is it the first regular or the second regular? Sorry, yeah, that's a great point. I would put it in, I didn't even notice that. I was so focused on the second sentence, I would say we encourage Congress to hold more hearings, establish a more regular and coordinated stream of communication if there's two issues. Take it from there. And that's fine. I agree. This is Sean Sampogo. I think Kevin raises a good point that the oversight we have seen comes across as a great work, Sean. Now I have to step away from my computer but not out of the room. Thank you, Kevin. Okay, any other comments or feedback on this? Sorry, Sean. That's exactly what I was going to ask, so that's fine. Are we ready to vote on this recommendation? No, yes. Okay. So are we in agreement, we're going to add the words and designated in the second sentence after the word regular and before stream. So we're also voting on recommendation 3A of vision subcommittee. The second sentence would read we encourage Congress to hold more hearings, establish a more regular and coordinated stream of communication. And the rest goes on to same place. Okay. So can I have a motion? I had a question. James, yes. Were we going to add the specific committee as per James Stoker's comment or is that not necessary? Just a question. Good question, Sean. What do you want to do? Ryan, do you want to speak on this? No, no, I'm sorry. I'm just making sure I hold my place in line. Okay. So James's point I tend to agree with Tom that I feel like from Congress's point of view it is pretty set which committees in the House and Senate have jurisdiction over FOIA. I mean, I think we could make cases that issues committees, like environmental committees might get involved more. Certainly we could see an expansion if an agency like EPS is going to be here, but I'm just saying that the committees with jurisdiction over those agencies could also get a little involved in FOIA which I would be fine with, but I think the real oversight of FOIA as a system and process I do feel is pretty established. Maybe just as a further on the other side of the question, I think we could see a little bit of a difference. I think we could see a little bit of a difference further on recommendation just putting it into the rationale to describe that so that the public would know which committees of Congress do have jurisdiction over FOIA. I think that would be very helpful. I can certainly add into the text as we move it into the if it gets approved, move it into the full report and everyone can be able to see it. But yeah, thank you for that. Thank you, James. Thank you, Steve Stoker. Does that make you happier? Yes, I think that's fine. I mean, I think that there are different ways that this could be taken further. I think if this is an issue that's just seen as sort of a small part of one committee's duties, that may be why they're not paying as much attention to it. So perhaps Congress could rethink how it organizes or names the committees. If it's a committee on oversight and reform or something that's going with FOIA, maybe it could be oversight and reform and transparency. But if the authors of this recommendation don't feel the need to take this any further, then I'm not going to push for it. Ryan, did you raise your hand? I did. Yes, and I'm sorry for the late question. This is Ryan Law. Is it directly to Congress that they take this action? Or are we requesting that the Archivist of the United States request that Congress or recommend that Congress? Who's doing the action here? So my understanding, and as I said, we had some subgroup have some discussions as to how we might handle this. And what we're going to try and do is craft in the introduction of the full report of some language that explains these recommendations that follow, all of them are being delivered to the Archivist. And that any recommendations that require action by someone outside of the National Archives, we fully expect the Archivist to convey them to those parties or those entities. And that way we don't have to, and I tried to avoid the we recommend the National Archivist convey to Congress. So that's why it's saying we recommend Congress right now because they just thought it would be simpler. But these are still going to be delivered to the Archivist and the ideas and hopefully maybe we'll be able to streamline some of the language with the other ones by moving that these are all being delivered to the Archivist. Any other questions or comments before we vote on 3a? Yeah, hi. Was that, I mean? Hi, was that? Yeah, just kind of following up in that same vein of maybe providing a little more specificity for the portion of the recommendation that says longstanding problem. I was just curious. I was looking at the material we received. Are we talking about one specific problem or kind of several? I just didn't know what we were discussing here or what this was referring to. So I drafted it and you raised a good point that I didn't even I was definitely talking about multiple problems and I didn't really illuminate with any detail but I'm unhappy to include some of the larger problems or the longer standing problems, the delays, increasing backlogs, problems with resources, updating regulations. I mean, there's there's a good number that we could we could list but Okay, yeah. That's cultural. So Sean, you can add that to the rationale section. Yes, I can and will. You have the rationale done to the first paragraph starts with the fact that given the difficulty of the responsibilities laid on employer rising volume of registered stress, the challenges would be helpful. Yeah, I agree. Okay, thank you for that for that comment. That's very helpful. Okay, anyone else before we vote? Right. Do I have a motion to vote on recommendation 3a, the vision subcommittee, this, the word and coordinated added in the second sentence after regular and before stream as proposed by Kevin Goldin. Okay, I have a second. I'll second it. This is Kevin. All right, thank you Kevin. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. Abstentions. This is Bobby. And this is Alina Fimo. I also abstain. Okay, Sean, you have your work cut out for you on 3a. Do you want to take us to 3d so we can keep the momentum going? I'm just going to check in with everyone before you get to 3d. Usually around this time we take a break. Sean, how quickly do you think you can get through 3d and 3c? It's a fair question. I do think that they're, I'm fine with keeping conversation limited. My expectation is that 3c will be something that we'll discuss in great detail on our subcommittee. It's something that will probably have to be moved over to, or held over to another term of the FOIA advisory committee. It's a rather substantive one, but I did want to at least have some discussion for this term. I think we can get through the two of them by June, maybe sooner, or later. I did want to say do we want to have Kirsten report in on the voting? Sorry about that. I forgot to turn to Kirsten. Thank you. Thank you. Kirsten recommendations 3a passes with the language agreed upon with two abstentions, Alina and Bobby. Thank you, Kirsten. Sean, do you want to present on 3b? Sure. 3b is, I tried to keep the language simple. I'm actually going to have to read it. We recommend Congress directly address the issue of funding for FOIA offices and ensure that agencies receive and permit sufficient dedicated resources to meet their legal obligations to respond to FOIA requests in a timely manner both today and in the future. We did not if you've read through the supporting text we did not say exactly how Congress should do this. I actually raised the idea of a budget line item for FOIA in the future or also report language, but neither are specifically recommended to be pursued. But the idea was behind this idea the idea behind this recommendation was Congress gave the agencies this responsibility. Congress controls broadly the purse strings of government and they should make sure that resources are brought to bear. Obviously, agencies have the potential to solve the resources problem and we have some recommendations for that. But I also think Congress could weigh in and should weigh in on this. I don't hear anyone typing in. Does anyone want to get to our break? Anyone want to comment on this? This is Joan Caminer ETA. I would just note that in the time volume we do have a request for budget funding resources. I fully support this recommendation and I think it's along with it. FOIA is expensive and we probably should be more effective with more resources. Anyone else? This is Ryan Law. And this may be something the subcommittee considered. The Congress does set agency budgets and it sometimes is very specific on how agencies provide those tax dollars. But the document that guides, well, of course the president's budget, which is agencies develop, Circular A108 is the document that's put out by OMB every year. I checked quickly there were six references to the word FOIA in it. They all dealt with how information regarding the disclosure of the budget would be. Not a really scientific evaluation of the content of A11, but it seems that I think this recommendation is great but another way to crack the nut might be to request that OMB include in A11 specific instructions to agencies to include in their agency submissions for their annual budget funding sufficient for FOIA operations. I would like to hear if the subcommittee considered that. I included a reference in the supporting text saying that maybe include a line item and that is in part a reference to the fact that it's not included in any agency budget right now a specific broken out line item for Congress to even consider. I still would probably my personal preference is to approach this in Congress rather than to try and come through OMB but I do think that that's a potential point where if we got a line item from agencies that alone would be a real victory. Thank you. I think that's good. Any other comments or questions? Adjustive language? Do you think we're ready to vote on this recommendation? Like we are. There's no language crafting that was done here so as is does anyone have a motion they would like to make? This is Ryan. This is Ryan. I'll move to vote. Thank you, Ryan. Do I have a second? This is James. I'll second. Thank you, James. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Please say may. Any abstentions? Bobbi, abstain. Nina, Cimo, abstain. Okay. Here's to continue report on these. Yes. Recommendation 3B is passed with two abstentions, Alina and Bobbi. Okay. Thank you very much. John, you're on a roll. Over to you for recommendation 3C. Where that roll will immediately stop. So this is the certainly the most controversial one we've had a lot of back and forth in our subcommittee which was so much fun that I thought I was doing this in the full committee. And if we could advance the slide. I don't know if I can do that. I cannot. There we go. The concept behind this was expanding in some way the FOIA statute so that there would be requirements to both bodies in the federal legislative and judicial branches to accept and a requirement that they respond to requests for information. That there would be laid out the idea of exemption, excluded records that all of us be appealable and judicially reviewable that the essential principles of FOIA be applied to some bodies again, you know, we could play around with it. But to the judicial and legislative branches, right now there's a lot of information that comes out from both those branches which is obviously very good. But for the most part there's no legal requirement that that information be available. A lot of that information could change and there would be no legal recourse for people if suddenly a committee started to operate behind closed doors and we didn't agree with it. If a particular member stopped posting certain information on the website or to the constituents. And so one of the things you may see in the supporting text that I wanted to point out is that a large number of states do include some portion of their legislative and judicial branches in their open records laws and require requests. Sometimes those are limited to administrative records only. How they're spending money, things like that. But they do have those branches covered and I think that we can craft and this may not be it, but we can craft a way to have similar requirements for those two branches. And I will leave that open to conversation. I think Tom and Kevin my co-yles in the subcommittee will probably step up first because I'm ready to. I am too. You're going to say it better. I know it. Let's start by saying we have to read the recommendation three days because I think it would be very awkward to have oversight on its own activities in this area. I thought that the last comment was really good because the way this reads non specifically is looking at non FOIA statutory requirements for most transparency. The recommendation recognizes that expand FOIA law to include new statutory requirements and I think if you look at the states as was mentioned, the states and other countries have adopted right information laws for the legislature. Many of them are specifically for the legislature and we are after a advisory committee so I'm not sure that we ought to be going there but frankly I think we need to look at this. I told the tail many times about how the members of the House asked John Moss for their request and this is one of the few statutes that does specifically exclude Congress. I don't know if the SOC committee looked at it, I don't believe so but 50 years there have been legislative proposals and hearings in the 70s and 80s on proposals to present FOIA labor laws equal employment laws and what that's the Congress there's a lot of good material in there I think suggesting that it's not necessarily a good idea and finally I think we have to look at the potential consequences I would say unintended consequences in those jurisdictions that do apply FOIA to the legislature a few that I've looked at the legislatures are might be possible to transparency and FOIA because they have to comply and I don't think that's a good place to be Congress has always been very supportive of transparency of the executive branch and I think I'd hate to lose that congressional support oversight and strengthening FOIA from time to time just because we think that Congress up to be more transparent I wouldn't mind looking more specifically at Congress and the public and not public I think that the issue of more of many transparency and budget transparency for the courts is absolutely useful I'm just not sure that that's our way to work for this committee so that's all I have to say and that's a great place for me to pick up Tom because I have less of a problem with the legislative side than the judicial side of things and my problem is that while not perfect I do think that the right of access to judicial records that is case records is not impeded by things that would be fixed under this recommendation there are kind of not categories but there are standards for covered and excluded records there are ideas of what's exempted for withholding a pretty well created body established comedy if you ask there's an appeal process in the right to judicial review and Franklin the standard is arguably higher for access to a judicial record than it's constitutional rather than statutory so I do see what you're saying about the budget and administrative records perhaps and if we limited to that in a FOIA like process I would be more minimal but I don't think we really have the time to parse that now so what I'm saying is I don't see how this recommendation includes access to judicial records the only thing that I think everybody might be able to agree on and it's easily stated is some kind of recommendation that we can't make that pacer be free I think that's a really big impediment to people getting access to court grounds this is James Stoker I just want to applaud Sean and the committee for thinking very broadly about freedom of information I do think that this is within the realm of this this committee we are to think about freedom of information broadly not necessarily how the freedom of information act is currently structured but it's acceptable for us to kind of push the limits of what is being done right now that Tom and Kevin have raised really valid concerns here and I don't think that this recommendation at least in my view is something that I could support because those recommendations are very sorry those reservations are very valid I encourage Sean and everybody else to think specifically about what the problem is that this recommendation is trying to solve what are the specific types of documents or information that the public does not have access to right now and it needs access to so Kevin for instance mentioned a variety of ways in which access to judicial documents is already possible what are we not getting that we need access to if there is really something that is not available now either from the legislature or from the judicial branch maybe there is a way to modify the FOIA or to come up with some new set of rules that we could recommend and I'd like to see that in the future term of this committee thank you this is Lee I have a comment I know Jason also wants to go ahead just responding to the last comment right now first of all I'm in favor of this one at least it may be modified I'm in favor of this recommendation for instance a lot of the agency records are excluded from FOIA simply by virtue of the fact that they are designated a congressional record if for instance the committee on taxation writes to the IRS for some documents even if those documents are agency documents in the first instance the JCT is now making a claim that those documents have become congressional records and therefore have been taken out of the FOIA I do think there is an issue with legislative documents that agencies and congress use the exemptions in the existing FOIA law to actually reach out and take certain records that would otherwise be available under FOIA now and take them out of the FOIA context and so that type of thing I think is problematic at least from the requestor side of things and the amendment to FOIA that expanded to congressional records or these certain types of congressional records would actually be a help in my view Jason I wanted to chime in this is Jason Barrett you can hear me Elena yes so I applaud the sort of the visionary aspect of this like it's been said and it certainly within the scope of our advisory committee to be discussing this recommendation my initial reaction was that it was a complete non-starter with respect to the Senate and the House of Representatives and so we do need to dig through whether we would want to ever put this before congress because I have a feeling that it would in its current form undermine the good work that we're trying to do on the other legislative proposals and all the proposals generally however in taking a second look what I do want to say is that I have always sounded anomalous that the definition of what a federal record is or really what a federal agency is is different for federal record keeping purposes than for FOIA and if one looks at 44 USC 2901 subpart 14 the definition of a federal agency is any executive agency or any establishment of the legislative and judicial branch of the government except for the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House and the architect of the Capitol and with that in mind there is something to be said for further consideration maybe during the next term of this committee or otherwise to crafting a proposal that attempts to harmonize the FOIA with the federal records act in a way that would allow for other legislative entities that exist like the Government Accountability Office or the Library of Congress or whatever as being within the scope of the FOIA rather than out that is to make consistent FOIA and federal record keeping and so I think there is merit in having further conversations all around and I would very much support this proposal being essentially sent over a table for now but sent over to the next advisory committee to have a very full bedding where you would have speakers come in and have a full discussion and maybe iron out the nuances. Jason, I appreciate that. Anyone else want to comment? This is Suzanne. Can you hear me? Yes, hi Suzanne. In general I'm also supportive of the big picture take and this committee having the ability to look big picture and also acknowledging premature to vote or to pass on this now but maybe we could get to this later but I'm looking at the outline that the subgroup is working on and I didn't know if it was possible to make suggestions for possible topics for the next committee. I don't think you could let me know in the next federal advisory committee but possibly we could offer topics for them to consider just so we could have it on the record somehow. I think that's always possible. We can certainly include that in the final report. I think that makes a lot of sense. How does the working group feel about that generally? This is Sean. None of the previous terms have done that but there's some that prevents them from doing that as certainly as part of the report but as Suzanne said, the next term and its committee members would have the freedom to say it choose to pick something else to work on and say if they think it's more fruitful or more important than whatever this term suggested. So I'm hearing general sentiment that we overall want to push this back and table a vote on this, Sean. Is that what you're hearing? Yes. I acknowledge that it's a very thorny issue and even some of the stuff that has been raised here by Tom and Kevin some of it's new and I agree it's worth considering carefully and I think Jason made a good pitch for if the next term decides to explore this area they would have more time to unpack it bring in speakers, figure out if there's some way to break it down into smaller compartments, maybe the administrative records, maybe the alignment with the Federal Records Act are ways we could chip away as some of this in a more acceptable way with the unintended consequences that have been raised that I think we all agree we would want to avoid. I'm fine with withdrawing it for now. Okay. Do you have concurrence from Chris and Joan, your subcommittee co-chairs? Yes, I think part of this is Joan. Chris, you're good. I do as well. Of course. We have one more vision and a subcommittee recommendation we want to go through. It's vision recommendation number four. Jason is going to present to us on that but I think we're all ready for grace. So I would like to propose we take a is it possible to take a 10-minute break as opposed to 15 minutes? How do folks feel about that? I'm seeing nods. So can we all agree to come back here at 12 p.m.? That would be great. I'm going to turn off the volume and turn off your camera if you don't want everyone to see what's going on in each one of your homes during our break. So let's take a break for the time being and we will return at 12 p.m. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. So have a lot to cover and Jason is going to present on vision recommendation four which is literally very visionary and I'm going to turn the floor over to him now. So this recommendation says that the architects of the U.S. should continue to take a leadership role in ensuring that I'm going in future federal data strategies incorporate existing FOIA access and federal record keeping policies. The word continue is there purposely the way that I drafted it because Archivist David Ferriero has been taking a leadership role ever since he came into office but certainly after managing government records directed in 2012 and the 2019 memorandum that sets the 2022 deadline for agencies managing their records electronically there's a lot that's been happening however in my experience and the experience of others the elements of FOIA and federal record keeping are not necessarily always front and center considered when other parts of this administration and other administrations are talking about open government and federal data strategies so the focus here is to make sure that the Archivist has an opportunity to play an important role in reminding members of the open government and the federal data strategy community a substantial amount of data and information created or used by federal agencies also satisfies the definition of what constitutes agency records of the FOIA and federal records under the Federal Records Act there's always the challenge for NARA being at the table having a seat at the table in high level policy making discussions including those about federal data but I think it is important for the Archivist to continue taking a leadership role in highlighting the issues involved in managing and providing access to government records in the form of data because the data will, as we all know will exponentially grow over time and it's being created throughout the executive branch in every way possible and so this is a marker for this committee to say that the Archivist should continue what he has been doing and make sure in every opportunity bring up the subjects of FOIA and record keeping when federal data is being discussed Jason, thank you very much for that anyone want to comment on this or share your thoughts or ask questions about this and Jason just to line clear is it your intent that this is another of the recommendations of withdrawal and the rhetoric of things that were kind of passed forward to the next committee? No, I actually had a different conception in mind. I never consider this to be a formal recommendation I know for purposes here there was some consensus of the vision subcommittee to put it forth like that for a vote. My original conception of our final report which would say a look to the future and wouldn't necessarily be a formal recommendation but it would be what this committee is stating to the world as what we think is appropriate everyone thought that it could be a recommendation we could put it in as such but it's not something for us to do here to put in our final report. So just to be clear you don't necessarily want everyone to vote on it as a committee. Well that's where the vision since it has been put forth as part of a vision set of recommendations I have no problem certainly you all could consider it to be part of our votes today and to give it a thumbs up. I'm not sure it necessarily has to be in the form of a recommendation but that's up to everyone else. Can I hear from other folks who have a reaction to that? James Jacobs is raised his hand very politely. Hi, thanks everyone. Thanks Jason for putting this forward. I fully support this and wonder how you're going to jive this with the records management recommendation number nine which talks about machine readable information and FOIA records. There are several recommendations that we had as a subcommittee that do tie into this, that's one and certainly the one that we passed as a committee of the whole on chief data officers being liaisons to the greater CDO community also ties in given recent legislation. I think this is the standing alone. It's a step up from any of our other recommendations as a subcommittee. It's just a general statement for the archivist to take forward in everything that NARA is involved with and should be considered as such. I fully agree. Thank you. Anyone else want to chime in? Yeah, this is Tom Sussman. I like it as a recommendation actually. We're making recommendations to the archivist and this is general and high level but it's still our view. Yeah, this is Sean from Pogo. We discussed it, Jason as you mentioned came up with a kind of later in the process but we discussed it in the vision subcommittee and I seem to go over well there and I certainly thought of it as a recommendation. If there's a reason not to put it as a recommendation, I'm amenable to it but I don't see any reason we shouldn't just keep it in the same structure. Joan and Chris, you guys agree you were intending support to be a recommendation we would vote on? Yeah, that was at least my opinion. Sorry. Okay. It sounds like we want to vote on it. Do I have anyone else want to chime in? Any other comments? I just want to make sure we've heard from everyone that wants to weigh in. It's like seeing nods. Everyone's weighed in. Okay, can I have a motion to move this vision recommendation number four forward? I'll move Tom Sussman. Thank you. Do I have a second? Is this in favor of recommendation four for the new proximity? Please say aye. Aye. For the record, James Jacobs raised his hand. He didn't say aye, but I think that was an aye. I did say aye. Anyone to close? Please say nay. Are there any nays? Any abstentions? Bobby, and I'm staying. Yeah, this is Halina. I think I'm also going to abstain from continuing in this role. So I abstain. But Kirsten, do I want to read it out? Yes. Vision recommendation number four has passed. Bobby and Alina are abstaining and almost that Sarah Kotler had to leave the meeting. Yes, she does not return, although she is. Oh, and at least her camera mode is still on, but I have to turn it off. Okay. I would like to ask everyone to turn their attention back to vision recommendation two-three. Suzanne and Patricia have an opportunity to work a little bit and they would prefer to try to get it back in front of everyone today to see whether we could pass it with amended language. Patricia has circulated it to everyone. Kirsten is about to chat it to me and I believe that all participants will be able to see it. Can everyone see that? Yes. I see it now. Okay. I see it too. Kirsten, I see that you've got a doc panelist. Can you all sustain it with all attendees or you did that separately? She's giving you a thumbs up. I just want to make sure all attendees are seeing it. Patricia and Suzanne, do you want to address anything or do you think it speaks for itself? I can just, this is Patricia from NLRB. I can just point out that the changes, Suzanne was good enough to tweak it. Basically, in the first sentence, we added the language to encourage agencies to include FOIA in their performance plan. In the second sentence, we changed the word subcommittee to committee. I think the changes here incorporate a lot of the suggestions that we received earlier. I wanted to, with these changes, my goal was the hope that we could, I know we voted on it, that it passed in spirit, but I'd like to vote again to see that the language is approved, just so that we can have this done by the end of this meeting. Patricia, do you want to move? I move to vote on this recommendation with the revised language. Can I ask a question? This is Tom. Yes, Tom. Is it intended that OJIS and OJIS be jointly do this examination or independently? So the way that we drafted it is that OJIS would review the actual information and make the assessment. Our hope was that OJIS could assist them in the process. This is Alina. I'll talk to you in a second. As well, I think I view this as a collaborative effort. We may know this and OJIS. Yes, this is Bobby and we talked a little bit about it. I appreciate the flexibility there and how we're going to accomplish this, but something that we're looking forward to working with our district. Any other questions? I think we're ready to take a vote. I have a motion, I have a second. All those in favor of passing the amended language as displayed on your chat function or in your e-mail, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. Any abstentions? Bobby abstaining. And Alina seem all abstaining. Kirsten, can you read us out on 2C, please? Sure. Those who recommended 2C as amended the language is in the chat box and the e-mail to committee members have through Bobby and Alina abstaining. Okay. Thank you very much. I want to keep moving. Actually, I think we're ready to go to time value recommendation. And I know Kirsten in the Tower Point slide deck had included recommendation one, but I believe we have consensus that it is going to become a best practice. So I think we could skip over that slide with everyone's permission and flip over to recommendation two for time volume. And I believe this would have been presented by Bradley, but Emily is graciously agreeing to step in as chair to talk to us a little bit about 2C. Oh, hi. It's Nina. This is Patricia Weth. I think, Emily, did you want me to talk about this? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that. Patricia, over to you. Yeah. So we had voted on this in our last committee meeting, and it passed in spirit, but there were some great comments and suggestions, so we revised the language in accordance with that, and that's what you see on your screen here right now. The reason the rationale for drafting this was two things. It came from the survey that we conducted, and we found that a good deal of requesters did not have an understanding of the FOIA process, and so we felt that the agencies could do better in drafting an SOP as well as beefing up their FOIA webpage. Also from the results of the survey, it came back that many FOIA professionals wish to have an SOP. So that's how this recommendation came to be, and if anyone has any questions on the new language, I'm happy to discuss it, or if you have any other suggestions. Any comments, questions? Meeting to be. Okay. All right. Well, I think we're ready to move on the language, unless I hear any other objection. Can I have a motion on the proposed language for recommendation two for time buying and subcommittee? I can move. Michelle, do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Good day. Let's all vote. All in favor of recommendation two as written. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Please say nay. Any abstentions? Bobby, abstaining. Kirsten, you can mark me down as an aye on that. I'm not abstaining from this one. Selena. Okay. The recommendation time volume two passes with one abstention, and that is Bobby. Okay. Thanks, Selena. Thank you very much. Thanks, Patricia. Okay. I'm moving right along with time volume recommendation three. I believe in the show. Joan, you were going to present on this? Yes. Hi, everyone. So we discussed this recommendation at our last meeting, but as a result of that conversation and subsequent conversations, we made a few revisions. It's a little long, so I'm not going to reach through the whole thing, but I'm going to highlight that we are, one, requesting that guidance is issued for annual mandatory FOIA training for all agency employees, and that includes onboarding and where applicable program-specific training. In addition, and this is the portion that we discussed at the last meeting, we're directing, recommending that the archivist, direct OGIS, and request OIT to undertake the study of agency current FOIA training. And that would encompass beyond the annual training, but may include evaluation of varying agency requirements for mandatory training, onboarding supplemental, first-line supervisor training, and program-specific training for subject matter experts and technology professionals. And lastly, we are requesting OGIS ask Congress to support this recommendation by providing appropriations for agency FOIA training costs, acknowledging that training is very important, but also it can be a strain on resources and can be very expensive. So by showing support through appropriations for training, we believe we can further the goals of the committee as a whole, but also this individual recommendations. So I can answer any questions or if anybody has any comments. Thank you. This is Alina. I actually had a question about the bracket. Do you want to propose a recommendation? Do you want the study may include that bracketed portion to be part of the recommendation? Yes. I thought that was just an accidental fold over with the main sentence bracketed, the study may include that. The second section with bracket, which is a line item, is up for discussion on whether or not we wanted to, I mean, it's all up for discussion, whether or not it should be recommendation by providing appropriations or specifically a line item appropriation. Well, I could, it's Jason Barrett. I could weigh in. I'm responsible for the brackets and in making my suggestions to the committee, the subcommittee. The reason for the first set of brackets is simply because I have, as a general rule, I think for drafting purposes we should make these recommendations picky and as short as possible and confine the one sentence. And so that material could be moved to a, the text of whatever final report we do. And as for the line item, yes, that was up for further conversation. This is Tom Sussman. Can I talk? I would delete the line item reports. I just, I think it's kind of dangerous because then the Congress doesn't provide a line item in the agency says, well, that's why we're not doing training. And that just, that goes back to the earlier discussion about providing resources. I didn't mention at the time here, but I think it's really important to be careful about being so specific about how Congress and agencies direct resources in the FOIA area because this is not likely to feel through this while to single out line items for training in FOIA. And then when it doesn't, the agency says, oh, well, we tried. That's very much before our training starts. So I just, I would suggest deleting that. Joan, any reaction to that? I had no concerns with deleting the line item. I think that's a very legitimate concern with including it. Does anyone want to speak on whether you're included or not? Anyone else other than Tom? This is Suzanne. I think we should exclude it. I'm going to say the same thing. Kevin, thank you. All right. This is Ryan. This is Ryan. I think it might make sense to, of course, move it to the narrative below, you know, as opposed to including the recommendation. It sounds like general consensus, we're going to not include the bracketed line item. What I'm hearing. What about the earlier sentence that Jason is still responsible for? We're partially responsible for. What is the sentiment on that? Should we move that to the rationale section of the report? Or do we leave it in the recommendation? Anyone want to weigh in? One way or the other? Is everyone agnostic? Joan, as long as it's included in the underlying explanation, I think it's important to keep because I think it lists some varying areas of training that might not be considered and I think are important to acknowledge. But I understand the need to keep the actual recommendation extinct. So as long as we're confirming that we're keeping that language, even if it's in the section below, I have no concerns with that. Yes, Joan. Just to clarify, I was proposing that we would take up bracketed language and put it in the rationale section that would follow this particular recommendation. That was what Jason was recommending. Anyone else feel one way or the other about this? I feel like I've got Joan. James Jacobs. James Jacobs, I would agree to just move it into the explanatory part. Okay. In the interest of this. From Ryan and Jay Stoker. Okay. I agree with that. Okay. Thank you. Michael, you're good? Good. Okay. This is Patricia. I agree. I agree to move to the rationale. Okay. It seems like that's the consensus. So what I would vote, a propose that we vote on, rather, is we vote on the language as is before us without the bracketed information and an agreement that the sentence that's bracketed in both be put in the rationale along with a line item discussion, if you will, and the value of the line item in the rationale as well. Does that sound good to you, Joan? Okay. So can I have a motion to vote on recommendation number three for time volume? This is down. I agree. Motion to vote. Okay. I have two motions to vote. From James Stoker and Joan, can I have a second? This is Patricia. I second the motion. Patricia, thank you. And James Jacobs has also seconded it. So everyone's seconded it. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. No. No. There are nay. Okay. I didn't hear a nay. Anyone abstaining? I abstain. Alina Simo abstains. Kirsten, would you mind reading us out, please? Sure. So time volume recommendation number three passes with the first bracketed language moved to the explanatory text and the second bracketed text removed, passes with just two abstentions, Alina and Bobby. And thank you very much. So I think we're ready to move on to time volume recommendation number four. I believe James Stoker is going to present to us. And again, I think what we're trying to do here, James, I talked about this on shore, but we're just trying to ensure clarification that the committee knows exactly what language we're voting on, correct? That's correct. This is James Stoker. Thanks very much, Alina. So time volume subcommittee's recommendation number four had its language changed a little bit at the last meeting. As a result of concerns that the recommendation would be too burdensome for some agencies to use in a very timely manner. The current language resolves. I recommend that the archivist requests that OGIS and OIP request that agencies identify common categories of documents requested frequently under the FOIA and or privacy act by or on behalf of individuals seeking records about themselves and seek to establish alternative processes for providing access to these documents to requesters in a timely manner. The goal of this recommendation, as everyone will recall, is to help ensure that the Freedom of Information Act is meeting its original legislative intent, enhancing the transparency of government operations for the public. Currently, as we know, many FOIA requests are for information to be used by an individual, say information about their immigration file. And while these are important goals that require the government to produce information and documents, they don't necessarily serve the original legislative intent of the FOIA of enhancing government transparency. And so this can distort a little bit our understanding of what the FOIA is doing. So annual FOIA reports, for instance, although they show a steady increase in the number of FOIA requests, may not actually reflect whether or not the government is becoming more transparent. So the hope is that this recommendation will encourage agencies to establish alternative ways of getting access to this information whether through online portals or through separate requests, processes. And this will result in pretty much information act operations that more closely reflect that original legislative intent. So it's my hope that the changes that were made in this recommendation are so satisfactory to everyone that they've met all concerns that I'd be glad to take any questions or comments. Thank you. Have any questions, comments, ideas, thoughts? Okay, this might be an easy one for all of us. So can I have a motion to go ahead and vote on time volume recommendation number four? No, this is Ryan. I'll motion to vote. You. Do I have a second? This is Sean. I'll second. Take it. Thank you, Sean. I'll take the second. All those in favor of time volume recommendation number four, as James has just read it, please say I. I think I heard everyone say I. Anyone is against this recommendation, please say nay. I didn't hear any nays. Any abstentions? I abstain. Okay, Bobby's abstaining and Alina Simo is abstaining. Okay, this is Kirsten. Time volume recommendation four passes with Bobby and Alina abstaining. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, James. And we're now moving on to time volume recommendation number five. Kirsten has looked at our slides for us and I believe this is Abbi who is presenting on this. Yes. Yes, this is Abbi. Thank you very much. So we went over this recommendation in our last meeting and the one comment I got, I think from Jason Barron, was that in part B it wasn't entirely accurate that it was consistent with the M1921. So I changed that language to state in support of National Archives and Records Administrations in 1921 memorandum and then also deleted an extra that in part B. But the purpose of recommendation five is really to encourage people to or agencies to provide information that should already be made available, but perhaps is not online, to put that online so that people can readily access it and not go to the forum. That's it in a nutshell. Okay. Thank you, Abbi. Anyone have any questions, comments? Michael, you were discretion, right? That wasn't a, I wanted to raise my hand to say something. Okay, just checking. Correct. All right. I'm not hearing anyone jump up. So this one's perhaps also not terribly controversial. Anyone else just going once, going twice? Anyone else want to say anything? Okay. Do I have a motion to pass recommendation number five from time and body of the committee? So will be. Okay. Tom, Boston is moving for recommendation number five. Can I have a second? This is Abbi. I second. Thank you, Abbi. All those in favor of passing time-volume recommendation number five, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Again, recommendation number five, please say nay. Any abstentions? Abstains. Now, Alina, seem all abstains as well, along with Abbi's to lady. Okay. This is Kirsten, time-volume recommendation five passes with Abbi and Alina abstaining. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much for this time-volume book committee. Emily, thank you very much. So I have, anyone else have any thoughts at this point or can we move on to the last part of our agenda? I thought I heard someone want to time in with something. No? Okay. So before we get to the public comment section of our meeting, I thought it would be great if we could spend a few minutes discussing the working groups proposed outline for the final report. By popular vote, I believe we have nominated Sean Moulton to discuss the outline, but the rest of the working group can take questions and address any concerns. So Sean, can I turn it over to you? Yes. I'm not sure there was a vote, so much as a Shanghai, but it's been a terrific group to work with, so I'm happy to present the outline, and I will say there's a lot of work underneath the outline that we've really already tried to accomplish. We just, with a lot of the recommendations, still not finalized. We didn't want to give you switch cheese kind of product where there was just a lot of big gaps. So we thought the outline really does stand alone. We've taken some of the early structure from the previous terms report, the idea, executive summary, introduction, things like that, and are adapting that language. And then what we did is we tried to group the recommendations rather than by subcommittee, by the audience to whom the recommendations are directed. We did at first try to put them into buckets around themes and things like that, but which we've tried to maintain as you'll see color coded in here as well. But it seemed to flow better from our perspective by grouping everything together that OGIS and OIP would first do, obviously the biggest audience, but then also to the agencies, Chief Foyle, Officers Council, there's one for CIGI, and then the possibility of recommendations of Congress, and we have approved two there. And we haven't also, I should say, wrestled with the merger of all the recommendations yet, because again, we had some that hadn't been fully approved, and so I do think there'll be some work on that in the future. So just because they're listed here in the outline doesn't necessarily mean they'll all remain separate. There is that possibility that some of them overlap enough that we may put them together. And then finally, it finishes up, as you see, with some sort of basic stuff, the methodology from the subcommittees, which I believe have all been drafted, committee members, things like that, appendices, which is pretty standard stuff now. Happy to take any questions. We would also love to get everyone's reactions to follow this. Do you think this is a smart way to bucket things, if you will? Or would you have done it another way? Because if you would have done it another way, you should have been on the working group. Just kidding. We're happy to take the questions. This is Suzanne Petrovsky. I think substantively it makes sense to me. Great, thank you. Jason, do you have anything to add? No. Patricia? No, I don't have anything to add. Okay. Abby, anything to add? No, I don't have anything to add. All right. We either have meeting fatigue or everyone just loves the presentation of the order that we want to put the restored in. So I'm going to take it as a positive sign now. The concept that I floated by the working group yesterday that I'm just going to put out there, I can't tell you that it's 100% a field deal, but it is certainly my intent. The direction I want to move towards is once we do have a draft pooled together, we would like, we, the working group, would like to put it up on GitHub. And that way we can honor the spirit and the content of the FOIA sorry, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the DACA, and it would allow both the committee members and members of the public to provide comments. And hopefully that will very smoothly. Our goal is to try to get it up there by the middle of May. I believe that's what we're tentatively discussed. Don't hold me to that, but that's certainly what we're aiming for. So that would give us all of us on the committee approximately two weeks to review and comment and of course, it's going to be a fight and we'll be happy to listen to any comments we get from the public as well. So how does that sound to everyone? Oh, also I will, Kirsten and I will be working on some kind of cheat sheet to help those of you who've never been on GitHub before. I know enough about it to make me dangerous. I do have an account though, so I feel like I'm making some progress. It is not exactly the most intuitive tool to use, but once you get on there and you start navigating, I think it becomes a little more understanding. So hopefully, we can all manage that and we'd be happy to try to help folks individually on the committee who are having companies, technically. So I'll put that promise out there. We do have someone that's an F.R. guy who actually knows a lot about GitHub, so this is one of the technical issues we can make out to that person. Okay. This is James. Thank you, Alina, for doing that. Oh, sure, absolutely. Anything else before we wrap up our business and we hear any public comments either through chat or on the phone? Everyone, most people are shaking their heads, no. No one's raising their hand. Okay. So at this time, I would like to turn to members of the public writing comments, so for the next 15 or so minutes, we'll be happy to take comments from those of you who have hopefully joined us and stayed with us for this entire committee meeting, either via telephone or web. And Lauren, if I could turn it over to you just to give instructions again for how folks can send their questions or comments. As a reminder, if you'd like to make a verbal comment over the phone, you may dial pound two on your telephone keypad to indicate that you wish to ask a question and your line will be unmuted. If you wish to send a written comment, please select all panelists in the send to drop-down menu and enter your chat in the message box provided. We do have a caller on the phone. Okay. If you could please state your name and add your affiliation if it's appropriate. This is Michael Binder with the Air Force Declassification Office. We are not formally a FOIA organization. And therefore, I am not permitted to speak on behalf of the Air Force. I am speaking as a member of the public. But based upon my experience, I've done FOIA review for about 14 years. Air Force is a very large organization. For example, during our bi-weekly FOIA teleconferences at the last one, we had 362 names on the distribution list. Now, that's not all individual FOIA offices, but it does give you some idea of the order of magnitude of how many FOIA offices we have. I exclusively look at classified documents. A lot of our FOIAs deal with classified information, Air Force, as well as other agency information. And one of the overriding conclusions I have from what I have seen today is that there's very little that has a positive impact on Air Force FOIA processing. I just wanted to throw that out. And I have a recommendation. There is a lot of talk about the application of technology. So we have been doing some work with the application of technology to FOIA review. There are other government organizations that do the same. And yet there is no way for the individual agencies to know what each other is doing because there is no central coordinating office. And if NARA is very eager for agencies to apply technology, it would seem to me incumbent upon NARA to serve the function of being that central coordinating office for that technology development. And Michael, thank you very much for those comments. We really appreciate it. Anything else? We're good. We have no further comments on the phone. I'm going to go over to Jesse Kraft to see whether we have any chatted questions or comments. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. So we just had one chat earlier. So take us back to 1046 a.m. and this is from Michael Heist. And he says, good morning, everyone. Regarding vision recommendation 2A, is there a sample memo? And he apologizes and this was covered in a previous meeting. And that's the only comment. Thank you, Jesse. This is Kirsten Mitchell, and I would say stay tuned to the OGIS blog and also to the final report and recommendations which will be shared publicly and we'll ensure to reference that and get that language out there. Kirsten, thank you. Sean, did you want to comment? Yes. I actually wanted to respond to Michael Bender's earlier comment and just say, I do think that the coordination that Michael brought up is something that, you know, maybe isn't as directly addressed as he might like in these recommendations. But I do feel it was a theme in a lot of conversations that, and it's one of the reasons I think that we looked to the, for us on some of these subcommittees, I think it was the FOIA, Chief FOIA Officer's Council that we're hoping to step in and play a bit of that role and centralizing and solving some of this. And, you know, we'll have to see if they play that part to our satisfaction. And it's, you know, certainly something to keep an eye on and weigh in again down the road. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. I believe Jason Baron would like to also make a comment in response to the Michael Binders comment. I just want to say that while it wasn't covered in today's public meeting, we have addressed technology and the records management subcommittee and the recommendations that were approved in the last public meeting. And so we're very cognizant as a committee as a whole that there needs to be a step up in understanding what kinds of technology can be applied to FOIA. And so we are recommending in several ways that the archivist and OGIS and DOJ-OIT encourage agencies to adopt new technologies that are available, especially in the discovery space, but also to look to the AI future. And so I'd recommend looking to our final report when it's in a form that is publicly available for those kinds of recommendations. Jason, I appreciate that. Okay, Jesse, back to you. Do we have any other chat questions or comments? Nope, that was it. All right. Any other callers that want to weigh in? We have no callers on the phone at this time. I think we've lost everyone to lunch. And if that's the case, I wouldn't necessarily blame them. Okay, before we wrap up, any other last comments or items that we need to discuss or share with everyone while we're all together? This was a seriously productive meeting. Thank you, I think. Tom, is that you? You said something? Yeah, I just said it's a seriously productive meeting. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, so I think we could all thank each other, which is a lot of great work today. We should all applaud ourselves. I want to invite everyone to visit our website and social media for more information about everything that we're doing. I want to remind everyone, the next committee meeting and our final one, it's a little sad. It's been a great group of people, so I really enjoyed working with everyone. It's going to be Thursday, not Friday, Thursday, June 4th at 10 a.m. Again, we're going to plug in virtually. Please check our website for event write registration and note that we do try to close it a couple of days ahead of time so we can make sure we get our RCPs in and get link registration out to everyone. I want to thank again to everyone for joining us today under these unprecedented circumstances. I hope that everyone and their families remain safe, healthy, resilient, and we will meet again in a month. Okay, any questions or concerns? Okay, no? All right, let them stand adjourned. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Bye.