Daniel Carpenter: evaluation

Transcript context

…Is the impact of FOIA laws overrated or underrated? [laughs] Depending on how enforced, I would say underrated. They have had one cost, which is that it used to be the case — I don’t want to say it’s a cost, but they’ve changed an equilibrium in one sense — which is that it used to be the case that reporters had to cultivate a relationship with an agency insider, a bureaucrat, in order to get information out of that person. What that led to sometimes was, of course, well, we didn’t see as much, but it also meant that the reporter became better informed about what was going on in the agency. There are stories you can tell — reporters and mid-level agency folks who would talk on a semi-regular basis for years. Now they don’t need to have that relationship to get the information they want, and so they just file a FOIA request, and they get it. That said, and again, going from the experience of the last few years, going from what I regard as a critical worry for our globe, for our country — creeping authoritarianism — I think FOIA is — and strongly enforced because it was just weakened by the Supreme Court — is one of the most important laws that we have. In the area of regulation, the impact of ethics laws — overrated or underrated?…

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