Another federal agency — the EPA — joins the Interior Department in adopting the practice of "awareness review" before federal records are disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

We recently posted an article dealing with this practice at the Interior Department and the significant threats to access that it poses.

https://www.facebook.com/1846598708/posts/10211281165225359?s=184659870…

It enables political appointees to determine whether responsive records gathered by federal agency employees trained and experienced in handling FOIA requests are indeed "responsive" to a particular request and to obstruct public access based on their "non-responsiveness."

Imagine a scenario in which a Kentucky political appointee wrestles control of a public record from the state agency that commissioned and paid for the record and argues that the record is forever exempt as a preliminary draft — and therefore non-responsive — in spite of a widely held belief that he is withholding the record to ensure that the elected official who appointed him "avoids inconvenience or embarrassment."

Oh wait. . . .

Our own home grown variant of "awareness review!"

https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/470485166831544?s=184659…