Editorial: Freedom to wait, and wait

Wednesday, July 4, 2007 | 1:04 a.m.

About the time the Freedom of Information Act turned 20, in 1987, some hopeful soul used its provisions to request that the State Department release documents it compiled about the Church of Scientology.

That person is still waiting for the request to be processed, a study released Monday revealed. Many other requests, still unanswered, date back almost as far, according to the study by George Washington University's National Security Archive, a private research group.

What a shame that today, the Fourth of July, on the Freedom of Information Act's 40th birthday, the milestone cannot be celebrated as it should be, with a bang. A whimper is more appropriate, given the study's findings.

"Forty years after the law went into effect, we're seeing 20 years of delay," National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton told the Associated Press. "This kind of inexcusable delay by federal agencies just keeps us in the dark.

FOIA backlogs plague all but four federal agencies, with 12 agencies experiencing such backlogs that many requests date back more than 10 years, the study found.

The Freedom of Information Act was passed by Congress to provide all Americans with a way to access most federal records in a timely manner.

A bill sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, would compel federal agencies to more quickly respond. A proposed aspect of the bill would require the government - not the requester - to pay any administrative and copying fees if it did not meet the response deadline.

Open government is essential to our freedoms. All federal agencies should find out why the backlogs exist and take steps to get those requests moving.