CIA accepts email FOI requests

Fair dinkum. Meanwhile Dr Hawke considers among other issues whether Australian intelligence agencies should continue to enjoy a blanket exemption from the Freedom of information Act. 

The heading "CIA enters 21st Century on FOIA submissions" reminds that Federal agencies here covered by the act have taken this step, and from some submissions to the Hawke review, may be regreting the application process has been simplified and made even easier via Righttoknow for example. But many state government agencies are still back in the stone age as we found from a quick look around a while ago.

South Australian Police still take the gold boulder- asking that you personally front up to a police station with your completed application form. Others such as NSW Roads and Maritime provide the convenient option of dropping your application into an office or dropping it in the mail. 

 

To be fair some NSW agencies such as Finance and Services moved into the 1990s in the last year or so, accepting an email application and EFT payment.

 

But there are plenty of others in NSW, SA and Western Australia still opening the stamped envelopes each morning, scanning the application before whacking it into the manila folder. And expecting the applicant has followed the guidance to pay the application fee-strictly cash, cheque or money order, thank you. (Memo to those of tender age: once upon a time, long before electronic payment there was something called a money order.....).