What’s yours and how it came to be: government records
By Alexandra Evans
A brief history
With Cold War roots, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has operated since 1967 after its 1955 proposal. President Jognson signed the document, deemed necessary because “publicity is one of the best protections against the potential for official misconduct,” (Feinberg 615). This required groups to lobby and pressure on the government to make a change, or in other words transition to more transparent modes.
Following the Watergate scandal in 1974, the act loosened. According to Feinberg, FOIA requests before the adjustment had to be precise and exact for the documents or records the requester sought, afterwards requesters just had to “‘reasonably describe’” (617), what they were looking for. Additionally, they added reasonable time limits to requests, so that agencies could no longer prolong the amount of time for which records requests took to process.
Another notable update to FOIA came under President Barack Obama’s Administration. On Obama's first day in office he issued a memorandum to underscore his commitment to the doctrine of FOIA. According to his memorandum, this was done through encouraging messages to executive agencies and direction to the Attorney General to issue FOIA guidelines that would “reaffirm the commitment to accountability and transparency.”
This resulted in a Mar. 19, 2009 update from Attorney General Eric Holder. According to the memorandum, the new FOIA guidelines were designed to facilitate more results from requests by slightly modifying standards; these standards are still in practice today.
From birth to death
We record everything that happens in society, from the moment you are born to the moment you die. Following life through a list of accomplishments can help paint the picture for everything that can be gathered on just one person. After all, mass data is based on the stories of thousands, or even millions, of individuals.
When born, there are birth records, of course. Soon after there are more records created for individuals, like medical records and vaccine histories, but these are held in private institutions, so instead this passage will focus on federally kept records. You get your driver’s license at 16, in most states, and begin building a driver’s record. Along with this, the car has to be registered with the DMV.
Some people may get into accidents, or traffic stops, which lead to criminal records. Maybe someone spends time in jail, which would require an arrest report and potentially a slurry of court documents. People get married, get divorced, spend time in court about any number of things. There are records of these interpersonal interactions and transcripts to go along with them.
Function in society
The point is, everyone touches systems that create publicly accessible documents. To some researchers, journalists or scientists, they FOIA large sums of data and recognize patterns. Each data point represents a person who has touched a system, civil or criminal, and created a record as aforementioned.
Besides producing stand out works of journalism, FOIA serves as an ultimate source of government transparency to prevent extreme oversight and corruption. Thankfully, other checks and balances work in tandem, but no matter what, FOIA is an indelible resource that often goes overlooked.
Works Cited
Feinberg, Lotte E. “Managing the Freedom of Information Act and Federal Information Policy.” Public Administration Review, vol. 46, no. 6, 1986, pp. 615–21. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/976227. Accessed 26 Sept. 2025.
Obama, Barrack. President Obama's FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder's FOIA Guidelines. Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, 2009, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/foia-memorandum.pdf.
