University of Pennsylvania Law School Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository Faculty Scholarship 9-2-2008 The rF eedom of Information Act and the Ecology of Transparency Seth F. Kreimer University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Administrative Law Commons, American Politics Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Communications Law Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legislation Commons, Politics Commons, President/Executive Department Commons, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, and the Public Law and Legal Theory Commons Recommended Citation Kreimer, Seth F., "The rF eedom of Information Act and the Ecology of Transparency" (2008). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 192. http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/192 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND THE ECOLOGY OF TRANSPARENCY Seth F. Kreimer∗ TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION: THE FLAWS OF FOIA? .................................1012 II. THE ECOLOGY OF TRANSPARENCY: FOIA AND CONSTITUTIVE STRUCTURE .................................................1016 A. “If a Policy Falls in the Forest and No Trees Are Killed”: The Creation of Records...............................1017 B. A Machine that Won’t Go Of Itself: FOIA Requesters1020 C. FOIA and Spheres of Public Contention .....................1025 1. Prerequisite Knowledge and Public Contention...1025 a. The Problem of Aladdin’s Lamp and the Status of “Deep Secrets” ................................1025 b.