"Study: Feds Slow in Getting Records on Web"

Federal agencies have dragged their feet on implementing 10-year-old law that requires them to use the Internet to make government documents easily available, a new study says.

The result is the public is blocked from easier access to information, the report says, and the cost of answering information requests is driven up.

The study by the National Security Archive, for official release on Monday, found widespread failure among federal agencies to follow the Electronic Freedom of Information Act amendments that took effect in 1997. The changes constituted some of the most significant modernizations of the original 40-year-old law that first guaranteed citizens the right to government information.

"Federal agencies are flunking the online test and keeping us in the dark," said Thomas Blanton, director of the independent, non-governmental Washington-based research institute. The study was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which focuses on journalism.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070312/D8NQEF8G0.html