The assistant secretary of state in charge of handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and handling public records explains the "unacceptable backlog" of 16,000 unanswered requests for information.





JOYCE BARR, CHIEF FOIA OFFICER, U.S. STATE DEPT.: The State Department is committed to openness, it is critical to ensuring the public trust and to promoting public collaboration with the U.S. government.



However, meeting our commitment to openness is very challenging. We have a large backlog of 16,000 FOIA requests. We know this backlog is unacceptable.