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司法部美国能源部
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To: Principal FOIA Administrative and Legal Contacts at All Federal Agencies
From: Richard L. Huff
Subject:Attorney General Memorandum on FOIA
附上的备忘录副本，带附件，由司法部长珍妮特·雷诺所有联邦部门和机构关于信息自由法的负责人。司法部长雷诺要求我们今天来促进这项备忘录将其所有代理头收件人的分布，我们已经这样做了。与此同时，我们也在它传播到所有联邦机构的主要FOIA接触。
你会注意到，司法部长雷诺备忘录指回，重视，以前被她和克林顿总统在1993年10月发布的FOIA备忘录，在那他们建立了信息自由法的原则和信息自由法诉讼标准的重申时间。最显著，司法部长雷诺的1999年9月的备忘录则是建立在她的出现之前，我们去年主要FOIA训练几百FOIA人员大力支持 - 并敦促所有机构负责人，反过来，以支持 - 所有的努力FOIA官员在整个行政部门。具体而言，该备忘录的后两页旨在加强检察长个人FOIA人员鼓励他们的工作，他们从别人接受他们的机构内，以最大限度的合作。我们特别高兴的是司法部长雷诺现在已经正式向所有机构的负责人，以尽一切所能来支持你的努力，最特别的与代理机构的信息资源管理（IRM）人员的协调努力。
这个1999年9月总检察长FOIA备忘录，两个1993年10月FOIA备忘录的副本一起，值得推广你的机构内的机构负责分发。Additionally, we encourage you to make use of it wherever it can be used to support your work, e.g., to gain cooperation in making discretionary FOIA disclosures and in making information available electronically under the Act, on a day-to-day basis in your administration of the FOIA. We also suggest that you continue to use the videotape of last year's governmentwide training session involving the Attorney General, which we distributed at the end of last year, for in-house FOIA-training purposes. Please note in this regard that as part of its transition to a new publication cycle, theFreedom of Information Act Guide and Privacy Act Overviewwill next be published in the month of May during the coming year and that the next such governmentwide training session (at which we will distribute a "pre-publication" copy of the May 2000 "FOIA Guide") is now scheduled to be held on June 15, 2000, in conjunction with that new publication process.
Lastly, we want to remind all agencies that the final implementation deadline of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-231, is approaching at the end of this year. Specifically, all agencies are required, by December 31, 1999, to have their indexes of their "frequently requested" FOIA records available electronically, which should mean having them available for convenient reference on their FOIA sites on the World Wide Web.看到5 U.S.C. � 552(a)(2)(E) (as amended). We recommend your close attention to this statutory obligation and suggest that Attorney General Reno's September 1999 FOIA memorandum should serve to foster the necessary cooperation of your agency's IRM personnel in meeting this obligation in a timely and efficient fashion.
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Office of the Attorney General
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备忘录部门和机构的负责人
FROM：律政司
SUBJECT:信息自由法案
1993年10月4日，克林顿总统发布信息法（FOIA）的政策备忘录（附件1），其中他呼吁所有联邦部门和机构打电话来更新其对信息自由法的承诺，政府开放其基本原则的自由，并且它的声音管理。这是一个适当的时候为所有机构采取新的眼光看待他们的行为的管理，以减少FOIA要求的积压，并符合机构的做法，由检察长，这是附着发布的新的诉讼指导。（备注2）
总统指出，FOIA是基于基本原则，即知情的公民是民主进程，而且更多的美国人民了解他们的政府更好，他们将管辖必不可少的制定。开放的政府问责制必不可少和FOIA已经成为这一进程的一个组成部分。
He directed that federal departments and agencies should handle requests for information in a customer-friendly manner. The use of the FOIA by ordinary citizens is not complicated, nor should it be. The existence of unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles has no place in its implementation.
After more than 5 years, I think we should all take a fresh look once again at the way in which each of our departments or agencies is implementing the FOIA to ensure that we are doing everything possible to promote openness in the Government and to respond to citizens' requests for information in a customer-friendly manner.
我有机会解决《信息自由法》官s from nearly all the federal departments and agencies. I am impressed with their dedication and commitment to the proper enforcement of the FOIA. However, there is still work to be done and we must back them up in every way possible in their day-to-day administration of this statute. FOIA officers increasingly must rely on the cooperation of agency personnel who hold primary responsibilities in other areas of agency activity. Without the support and timely assistance of others at their agencies, FOIA officers cannot provide the FOIA-requester community with the best possible service in accordance with this Administration's openness-in-government and customer-service principles.
我们都应该加强它是多么重要，所有员工支持FOIA过程，明确由FOIA官员正在做政府的工作的支持。
我想提请你注意FOIA管理需要所有机构人员的支持的两个非常重要的方面：
•Discretionary Disclosure.A major policy objective established for the FOIA in 1993 is the "maximum responsible disclosure of government information." (See Attachment 2, FOIA litigation guidance dated October 4, 1993.) This objective is best served when agencies apply a "foreseeable harm" standard in their FOIA decision making and consider whether they can make a discretionary disclosure of a requested record or portion of a record even though it falls within one of the Act's exemptions. In short, information should be withheld from a FOIA requester only when it is not possible for an agency to disclose it as a matter of administrative discretion.
作为一个实际问题，这一政策的应用需要一个机构的信息自由法官员和由FOIA要求寻求的记录机构的托管机构之间的密切合作。这些机构的员工谁理解主要关心的是自己的代理程序和机构的利益，必须意识到这个政府的开放性，在政府政策的同时也要注意它的重要性。最重要的是，他们必须打开使得信息酌情披露响应与他们机构的FOIA官员合作信息自由法要求的可能性。所有机构员工的这种普遍的认识和接受是一个机构的信息自由法计划的成功至关重要。
•信息资源管理（IRM）相关活性。与此类似，但比较新类型的合作是一个机构的信息自由法官员和其IRM人员之间的必要。两年前，1996年的信息法案修正案的自由电子（电子信息自由法修正案），酒吧。L.号104-231，放置额外的义务上机构相对于保持在电子形式的信息。根据电子信息自由法修正案，例如，机构现在都需要做出“合理的努力”来搜索，并根据要求生产各种电子形式或格式记录，往往需要复杂的计算机专业知识。
Most significantly, the Electronic FOIA amendments also require agencies to maintain "electronic reading rooms" and to make a growing variety of information available to the public on the World Wide Web. During the past 2 years, these amendments have spurred the development of agency web sites for FOIA purposes and an agency's FOIA Web site has become an essential means by which its FOIA obligations are satisfied. This requires that an agency's FOIA officers and its IRM personnel work together in a new partnership, with strong institutional ties, to achieve efficient information disclosure through electronic means. It should be a primary mission of each agency's IRM staff that it facilitate the prompt and accurate disclosure of information through the agency's FOIA sites on the World Wide Web. This assistance is now vital to the full and proper administration of the Act.
I hope you will do all you can within your department or agency to foster this new working relationship between FOIA officers and agency IRM personnel, as well as to promote continued commitment to government openness by all agency personnel. Accordingly, I ask that you disseminate this memorandum and its attachments widely throughout your department or agency, with particular attention to distribution to all agency IRM personnel.