So it looks like President Obama’s administration is even less transparent than previously thought. That’s not great.

Thanks to a FOIA lawsuit, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting journalism in the public interest, was finally able to gain access to documents that detail how the administration fought against FOIA reform. And this whole thing may come just in time for a perfect storm to make similar reform happen.

In 2014 the FOIA Act passed the House, while the Senate passed a similar bill known as the FOIA Improvement Act later that year. But despite near unanimous approval in Congress, a final vote to merge the two bills was held up, and then the Congressional session ended. The bills died, and no one knew exactly why.

But the picture is a whole lot clearer now. The documents in question show that while the party line was the “presumption of openness,” behind the scenes the administration was working against efforts to cement that. As the Foundation wrote on their blog:

During President Obama’s first few weeks in office, Attorney General Holder made clear that the Justice Department would defend an agency’s decision to withhold information from the public “only if (1) the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions [in the FOIA], or (2) disclosure is prohibited by law.” The FOIA Act would have simply made this policy the law:

Photo Credit: ScheckerPhotography
Photo Credit: ScheckerPhotography

An agency may not withhold information under this subsection unless such agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would cause specific identifiable harm to an interest protected by an exemption [in the FOIA], or if disclosure is prohibited by law.

Doesn’t sound controversial at all, right? While, the DOJ noted it was “seemingly analogous to the Attorney General’s ‘foreseeable harm’ standard contained in his 2009 FOIA Guidelines,” it referred to this language as “particularly pernicious.” They claimed a slight word change from the DOJ’s own policy would dramatically expand current policy; yet critically, they stated that they would be against it even if the language was exactly the same as their own stated policy.

The documents, which have been shared with Vice, show that the administration “strongly opposed” passage of the bill, couching opposition in concern that the bill would “cause delays” in the FOIA process and yield astronomical costs.  

It’s not encouraging news, nor is it really news: It’s no secret that the current administration has been less than transparent while in office. In fact, though they have self-described as “the most transparent administration ever” many critics have found the opposite to be true. To even get this information it took the Foundation threatening a FOIA lawsuit to uncover just how the Obama administration killed FOIA reform.

“It took the Freedom of Information Act to provide evidence of what many felt but could not prove: that the Department of Justice ‘strongly opposes’ fixing the Freedom of Information Act,” Nate Jones, the director of the FOIA project at George Washington University’s National Security Archive, said in Vice. “The released talking points make clear that on the one hand, DOJ ensures agencies do the bare minimum to comply with the FOIA’s requirements and paints a misleadingly rosy picture during congressional testimony, while [on] the other it secretly works to block Congress’s attempts to release more records to more people more quickly. It’s no wonder FOIA requests take decades to process and tens of thousands of pages are improperly withheld when the DOJ — the agency envisioned in 1966 to be the watchdog tasked to “encourage compliance” — is actually working to stymie reform.”

But it’s possible the fight isn’t over yet, and also that this release comes at a prime time to shape the rest of the conversation.

For starters these documents come amidst a renewed effort by the House and Senate to revive the reforms killed two years ago in Congress. That’s still an uphill battle; this is the seventh attempt in at least ten years by lawmakers attempting to amend the transparency law, and the Obama administration is reportedly trying to squash the initiative again.

But this news also arrived the week before Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of open government. And it’s the first Sunshine Week since “Spotlight” was released, renewing discussions of the importance of investigative journalism. It’s a bit tenuous, sure, but not since “All the President’s Men” was released has a movie about journalists and their methodical probing for the public interest aroused such public interest—it’s already launched at least one scholarship for an investigative journalism fellowship.

And the renewed interest in this fight comes on the 50th anniversary of FOIA. Back in 1966, the (then) bill faced its own uphill battle, namely that it had barely any support in Congress, and absolutely none from President Lyndon. B. Johnson or any federal agencies and departments. When it finally found itself to the President’s desk, he opted to not hold a public signing like he had for other major bills, instead issuing a signing statement where he expressed concerns attempting to undercut the law he was signing. But in that statement he enshrined the principle that’s come to be associated with the importance of FOIA: “A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation will permit.”

This isn’t the first time FOIA’s been plugged up, let alone the first time attempts to do so have failed. Ever since it’s hit the scene FOIA’s been fighting opposition from those in power. Fifty years into its life, it looks like modern FOIA life is no different. But with the stars aligning and the President leaving office, maybe a break is coming.