There's a way out of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) backup at the Department of Homeland Security, and it's amazing that no one has figured out yet how to use technology to cut down on the requests. DHS has the largest backlog of FOIA requests in government, according to the Government Accountability Office despite recent efforts that reduced the backlog by 24 percent.

While some DHS agencies have worked to improve FOIA responses, plenty of other improvements need to be made, according to the GAO. They include online-status checking services and dissemination of records in electronic format. These tools have been used by DHS in a limited way, and have cut back requests from 99,000 in 2006 to about 75,000 two years later. Still, the pile of requests remains way too large and must be cut down.

To be fair, DHS has been faced with the problem of FOIA requests dwindling too slowly because the agency was created from 23 separate agencies with decentralized systems for handling FOIA requests, and no quick way to attack it. Once the backlog is eliminated at DHS, the bigger question will be, how can IT be used to help other problems across the blended agency?

For more on the FOIA backlog at DHS:
- check out this GCN article