The Foilies 2025: Recognizing the worst in government transparency.

THE PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT INFORMATION IS CONSTANTLY UNDER SIEGE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, from both sides of the political aisle. In Maryland, where Democrats hold majorities, the attorney general and state legislature are pushing a bill to allow agencies to reject public records requests that they consider “harassing.” At the same time, President Donald Trump’s administration has moved its most aggressive government reform effort – the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE – outside the reach of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), while also beginning the mass removal of public data sets.

Meanwhile, language is being removed from government websites to comply with Trump’s executive orders. The National Park Service’s website about Stonewall National Monument has shortened LGBTQ+ to LGB, for example.

One of the most powerful tools for public transparency in government is the ability to access public records, using tools like FOIA and, in California, the state equivalent (the California Public Records Act, or CPRA).

Sometimes agencies refuse to disclose disclosable records, charge exorbitant fees or use other tactics to delay making public information public. In creating DOGE, Trump reorganized the existing U.S. Digital Service – seemingly part of an effort to exempt DOGE from FOIA, treating its records as “presidential records,” and therefore exempt from public disclosure until at least 2034.

Several lawsuits are challenging that assertion and on Monday, March 10, a federal judge ruled in a case filed by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that DOGE records are public records that are likely subject to FOIA, noting the agency has so far been run in “unusual secrecy.”

As Elon Musk, who is spearheading DOGE, has himself previously stated: “All government data should be default public for maximum transparency.”

When public records requests or even lawsuits don’t work, one of the most powerful tools to fight back against bad governance is public ridicule. That’s where The Foilies come in: Every year during Sunshine Week (which this year takes places from March 16-22), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, of which Monterey County Weekly is a member, team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report, now a tradition at a decade old, names and shames the most repugnant, absurd and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.

Sometimes, the good guys win. For example, last year we highlighted the Los Angeles Police Department for using the courts to retaliate against advocates and a journalist who had rightfully received and published official photographs of police officers. The happy ending (at least for transparency): LAPD has since lost the case, and the city paid the advocates $300,000 to cover their legal bills.

Below, you can read about the “winners” of this year’s worst of awards, drawn from all over the country.

The Exorbitant FOIA Fee of the Year: Rapides Parish School District

After a church distributed a religious tract at Lessie Moore Elementary School in Pineville, Louisiana, young students quickly dubbed its frank discussion of mature themes as “the sex book.” Hirsh M. Joshi from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a lawyer representing a parent, filed a request with the Rapides Parish School District to try to get some basic information: How much did the school coordinate with the church distributing the material? Did other parents complain? What was the internal reaction?

Joshi was stunned when the school district responded with an initial estimate of $2 million to cover the cost of processing the request. After local media picked up the story and a bit of negotiating, the school ultimately waived the charges and responded with a mere nine pages of responsive material.

While Rapides Parish’s sky-high estimate ultimately took home the gold this year, there was fierce competition. The Massachusetts State Police wanted $176,431 just to review – and potentially not even release – materials about recruits who leave the state’s training program early. Back in Louisiana, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s office insisted on charging a grieving father more than $5,000 for records on the suspicious death of his own son.

The Now You See It, Now You Don’t Award: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sports reporter Daniel Libit’s public records request is at the heart of a lawsuit that looks a lot like the Spider-Man pointing meme. In 2023, Libit filed the request for a contract between the University of Wisconsin and Altius Sports Partners, a firm that consults college athletic programs on payment strategies for college athletes (“Name, Image, Likeness” or NIL deals), after reading a university press release about the partnership.

The university denied the request, claiming that Altius was actually contracted by the University of Wisconsin Foundation, a separate 501(c)(3) organization. So, Libit asked the foundation for the contract. The foundation then denied the request, claiming it was exempt from Wisconsin’s open records laws.

After the denial, Libit filed a lawsuit for the records, which was then dismissed, because the university and foundation argued that Libit had incorrectly asked for a contract between the university and Altius, as opposed to the foundation and Altius.

The foundation eventually did produce a copy of the contract in the course of the lawsuit, but the game of hiding the ball makes one thing clear, as Libit wrote afterward: “If it requires this kind of effort to get a relatively prosaic NIL consultant contract, imagine the lengths schools are willing to go to keep the really interesting stuff hidden.”

The Fudged Up Beyond All Recognition Award: Central Intelligence Agency

There are state secrets, and there are family secrets, and sometimes they mix like a creamy, gooey confectionary.

After Mike Pompeo finished his first year as Trump’s CIA director in 2017, investigative reporter Jason Leopold sent a FOIA request asking for all of the memos Pompeo had sent to staff. Seven years later, the agency finally produced the records, including a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” message recounting the annual holiday reception and gingerbread competition, which was won by a Game of Thrones-themed entry. (“And good use of ice cream cones!” Pompeo wrote.) At the party, Pompeo handed out cards with his mom’s “secret” recipe for fudge, and for those who couldn’t make it, he also sent it out as an email attachment.

But the CIA redacted the whole thing, vaguely claiming it was protected from disclosure under federal law. This isn’t the first time the federal government has protected Pompeo’s culinary secrets: In 2021, the State Department redacted Pompeo’s pizza toppings and favorite sandwich from emails.

The You Can’t Handle the Truth Award: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin

In Virginia, state officials have come under fire in the past few years for shielding records from the public under the broad use of a “working papers and correspondence” FOIA exemption. When a public records request came in for internal communications on the state’s Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program, which provides tuition-free college to spouses and children of military veterans killed or disabled as a result of their service, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office used this “working papers” exemption to reject the FOIA request.

The twist is the request was made by Kayla Owen, a military spouse – and a member of the governor’s own task force studying the program.

Despite Owen’s attempts to correct the parameters of the request, Youngkin’s office made the final decision in July to withhold more than two folders’ worth of communications with officials who have been involved with policy discussions about the program.

The Courts Cloaked in Secrecy Award (Tie): Solano County Superior Court, and Washoe County District Court, Nevada

Courts are usually the last place the public can go to vindicate their rights to government records when agencies flout them. When agencies lock down records, courts usually provide the key to open them up.

Except in Vallejo, California, where a state trial court judge decided to lock his own courtroom during a public records lawsuit – a move that would surprise even Franz Kafka as too surreal and ironic. The , filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, sought a report detailing a disturbing ritual in which officers bent their badges to celebrate their on-duty killings of local residents.

When public access advocates to protest the courtroom closure, the court denied it without even letting them in to argue their case. This was not just a bad look; it violated both the California and U.S. constitutions, which guarantee public access to court proceedings and a public hearing prior to barring the courtroom doors.

Not to be outdone, a Nevada trial court judge a local group from filming hearings concerning a public records lawsuit. The request sought records of an alleged domestic violence incident at the Reno city manager’s house. Despite the Nevada Supreme Court rebuking the judge for prohibiting cameras in her courtroom, she later the same group from filming another hearing.

The transparency group continues to fight for camera access, but its persistence should not be necessary: The court should have let them record from the get-go.

The No Tech Support Award: National Security Agency

In 1982, Rear Adm. Grace Hopper (then a captain) presented a lecture to the National Security Agency entitled “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People.” One can only imagine Hopper’s disappointment if she had lived long enough to learn that in the future, the NSA would claim it was impossible for its people to access the recording of the talk.

Hopper is undoubtedly a major figure in the history of computing whose records and lectures are of undeniable historical value, and Michael Ravnitzky, frequent FOIA requester and founder of Government Attic, requested this particular lecture back in 2021. Three years later, the NSA responded to tell him that they had no responsive documents.

Befuddled, Ravnitzky pointed out the lecture had been listed in the NSA’s own Television Center Catalogue. At that point, the agency copped to the actual issue. Yes, it had the record, but it was captured on AMPEX 1-inch open reel tapes, as was more common in the 1980s. Despite being a major intelligence agency with high-tech surveillance and communication capabilities, it claimed it could not find any way to access the recording.

Let’s unpack the multi-layered egregiousness of the NSA’s actions here. It took the agency three years to respond to this FOIA. When it did, the NSA claimed that it had no responsive records, which was a lie.

But the most colossal failure by the NSA was its claim that it couldn’t find a way to make accessible to the public important moments from our history because of technical difficulties.

But leave it to librarians to put spies to shame: The National Archives stepped in to help, and now you can watch the lecture in two parts on YouTube.

Read more about the Electronic Frontier Foundation and past years’ winners of the Foilies awards at eff.org/issues/foilies.