RFK Jr. Vows Transparency After Firings of Freedom of Information Act Workers

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‘We’re going to make it much easier for people to to get the information,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to revamp its responses to public records requests to make it easier for people to obtain the information they seek, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“We’re restoring all the FOIA offices, and we’re going to make it much easier for people to get the information,” Kennedy said on April 22 at an unrelated press conference, about three weeks after the department fired the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office and workers from other FOIA divisions.

“We’re going to try to post as much as we can. We’re going to start a website with all former FOIA requests and the documents that were produced so people don’t have to do it again and again. And we’re going to try to get as close as we can to total transparency in this agency.”

Kennedy’s department includes 15 divisions, including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.

FOIA, a federal law, requires agencies to respond to requests seeking information such as emails. The records must eventually be produced, with some exceptions.

The number of FOIA requests went up 25 percent in fiscal year 2024, setting a new record. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had a backlog of more than 12,600 requests by the end of the fiscal year.

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An HHS employee told The Epoch Times in a January 2024 email that it took so long to adjudicate a March 2023 request because of the backlog.

“I appreciate your patience,” the employee wrote at the time.

When HHS terminated FOIA staffers as part of its overhaul, a health official told The Epoch Times that the terminations were aimed at streamlining operations and improving efficiency. The official said that various FOIA offices within the agency did not communicate with each other or report to the department.
Kennedy said in his first address to staff after being sworn in, “We will make our data and our policy process so transparent that people won’t even have to file a FOIA request.”

Kennedy, who was chairman of the Children’s Health Defense group before becoming health secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that he spent years involved in lawsuits brought against agencies that allegedly stonewalled requests made under FOIA.

“A lot of the people who are in HHS right now … come from that background. So we all understand how important it is to have clear communications,” Kennedy said. “The papers that we produce in this agency do not belong to us. They belong to the American people, and we need to be honest with them.”

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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