Since its inception, FOIA has rightly been denounced as a weak and ineffective law, but The Times continues to aggressively pursue documents through the statute, doing what we have done repeatedly over the past 15 years: going to court to challenge the government’s refusal to release materials that the public should see. The Times has brought more FOIA suits over the last decade than any other mainstream media organization in the country.

A study by the nonprofit group TRAC found that The Times had filed 31 FOIA lawsuits during the Obama years. Our peer news organizations around the country — the major newspapers, wire services and broadcasters — filed 10, collectively. A subsequent TRAC study found that The Times continued to be the leading filer among media organizations over the first year and a half of the Trump administration. The Times has now filed 27 FOIA lawsuits in the Trump years. (A handful of public interest groups and newer media outlets, in particular BuzzFeed and the Center for Public Integrity, have also been out front in pursuing litigation.)

So why do we devote so much time to trying to make a deeply flawed law work?

It’s not because it’s easy. Our FOIA litigation is done in house by our now three-lawyer team, with our First Amendment Fellow Al-Amyn Sumar playing the pivotal role. We have been helped in several cases by a FOIA clinic at Yale Law School. We spend hundreds of hours each year filing the suits, writing briefs, negotiating with government lawyers and going to court. We know better than anyone that FOIA cases are frustrating; the deck is stacked against us, and the lawsuits drag on for months and years.

But one part of our motivation is pretty simple: We manage to win documents. Between successful court decisions, and settlements in which the agencies agree to reverse course and give us documents, we regularly make a small dent in governmental secrecy.

In the past year, we have assisted our reporters in unlocking documents on topics ranging from gun control and herbicides to foreign lobbyists and federal land disputes in the West. In June, The Times published a report about Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s efforts to include her relatives in meetings during an official trip to China in October of 2017. Emails obtained through a FOIA lawsuit showed that the trip had been canceled after ethics concerns were raised with officials in the State and Transportation Departments.