Question

• What impact does the Freedom of Information Act have on domestic and international terrorism?
• What type of access does FOIA allow to the media to include: television, print, and social media?
• How does the media use FOIA to obtain information? Explain the process in detail. (Provide an example)
• Do you believe the media uses the contagion effect to inflict economic crises on society by using FOIA?
• Should specific FOIA requests be denied and censored for any reason at all? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Is an act that requires the government to issue information that has been requested for except for the exceptions. The FOIA was in USA. The basic purpose of this act was to create transparency. This act gives the citizens rights to request for any information that is held with public authorities. While the act does give people the freedom to ask for information, not all agencies are required to act in accordance to the FOIA. Only the executive branches need to do so.

Since individuals can request for information, so can members of a terror group. To explain this let us take an example. If a group of terrorists want to attack a country, a request can be made under FOIA. A simple example is a group can request for the number of international students that are admitted in a government school or college. This can then be used against the federal government to get other requests completed. Terrorists can capture these students and make demands in exchange for them.

As mentioned above, FOIA does have certain exemptions under which the government is allowed to not give the requested information and most of this is for the purpose of security and is classified. The media like any other individual has access to information on matters like the president’s email id, or data that is from the past and has expired in use or the chief of police’s last few emails on a particular topic that is being covered. Journalist may not receive data on policies and its effectiveness immediately and directly. They may need to request for individual data and then made deductions of it. For eg. a journalist wants to disclose the fraud that is taking place under a certain policy. The journalist could ask for the papers that speak of the policy and its details. The next request can be for the impact analysis documents. The journalist can then make deductions from it and prove the point.

A journalist will 1st send a request a written request to the concern agency. It will have the name and details of the person, the information needed. Specifications are important as one may not receive the information. The agency will then send the request status if the details can be provided or not. If it can they will confirm the medium through which the details will be provided. One if the ways to push to get the information is to assure the agency that the information is for the good of the public.    

In my opinion, the media does contagion effect create economic crises. When media reports a matter, it makes matter sound worse or different to what the matter actually is. People due to lack of understanding on a matter will lead to take the information on the face value. When a reported says there is a credit crunch, it could refer to an economy or a region, this however may be considered true for a global or a different economy. This is how the contagion effect is speared.