Saturday, July 23, 2016: 3:00 pm (Lamarr): The Supreme Court has stated that the Freedom of Information Act “defines a structural necessity in a real democracy.” On the 50th anniversary of its enactment, now is an opportune moment to reflect on the role FOIA has played in our legal and political system. This conversation will bring together Jameel Jaffer from the ACLU and David Pozen from Columbia Law School to consider the past, present, and future of FOIA. They will discuss virtues and drawbacks of the FOIA model, FOIA’s relationship with technology and other transparency mechanisms, the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of FOIA in the national security context in particular, and lessons to learn from foreign and state-level approaches to regulating government openness.

Jameel Jaffer, David Pozen