This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. is Director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida
By all measures, the ability to see what the government is up to in the United States has plummeted to new depths since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
For in 2025, I wrote about , the adoption of federal secrecy protections implemented by state and local authorities. In Florida and throughout the United States, this about its government.
A year later, this creep toward secrecy has become an all-out slide.
As of the at the University of Florida, I track the state of government transparency in the U.S. What has changed since January 2025 is unprecedented.
Clouds in the Sunshine State
Florida is a good example of this slide. Once viewed as a , the Sunshine State now charges exorbitant copy fees that .
According to the nonprofit MuckRock, 24% of public records requests in Florida , averaging US$1,623. Only Oregon charges fees more often, at 28% of the time. Fees are intended to help agencies cover the cost of large requests, but they and as a way to get pesky people to go away.
And that鈥檚 assuming you even get the information you want. One of my own studies from 2019 indicated that, on average, if you requested a public record in Florida, you would receive it about , placing the state 31st in the nation.
In 2025, MuckRock put the percentage dipping lower, . In March 2026, .
In Florida, more and more government agencies are thwarting the public鈥檚 right to know, including attempts to , the temporary in June 2025. The state鈥檚 Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, office has pushed cities to be more transparent while .
Members of the state Legislature are attempting . This would improve transparency in Florida鈥檚 state government, but I鈥檇 argue it doesn鈥檛 go far enough. Other states, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, have implemented stronger laws, including , to ensure their governments comply.
It starts at the top
State and local governments appear to be taking their cues from the federal government.
President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration heralds itself as the , pointing to the president鈥檚 willingness to talk informally to the press or directly to the public through social media.
While that may be one definition of transparency, the federal government鈥檚 willingness to provide documents that show what the government is doing 鈥� not just what it says it is doing 鈥� has been eviscerated under the second Trump administration. Examples include:
- Refusing to , again, unlike every other president in modern history, and then for $10 billion when some returns were leaked.
- Removing and .
- Firing the and the of the , the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice that oversees government agencies鈥� compliance with , or FOIA.
- Firing and pushing out assigned to handle FOIA requests as . This led some agencies, such as the Department of Energy, to apply unorthodox practices, including .
- Axing the new , which was launched to find ways of improving FOIA.
- Pulling out of the , which the U.S. helped found in 2011 to foster transparency around the globe.
As the federal government has taken steps to become less transparent, many state and local governments have followed. Typically, the Department of Justice on FOIA requests every March. When I examined initial reports posted in January, when just 11 agencies had provided their reports, backlogs 鈥� that is, requests that remain unresolved after a year 鈥� had increased 67% from the previous fiscal year. The time to process simple requests nearly doubled.
Plummeting to historical depths
In order to understand how secrecy in the United States now compares to historical precedent, I reached out to people who have researched freedom of information for decades, some going back to the 1970s.
I asked them a simple question: How does the current state of affairs in freedom of information compare historically?
Here is what they told me:
is a longtime FOIA scholar from the University of Minnesota who , 鈥淭he Bush administration鈥檚 contempt for the public鈥檚 right to know amounts to an organized assault on freedom of information that is unprecedented since the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act 40 years ago.鈥�
Today, in comparison? 鈥淎bysmal,鈥� she wrote to me via email. 鈥淚t was abundantly clear from the moment Elon Musk and his 鈥榤usketeers鈥� invaded and pillaged government electronic records that we have entered a new era of deletion, obfuscation, fabrication and utter contempt for the concept of data integrity and the public鈥檚 right to know.鈥�
, who helped craft the 1974 FOIA amendments and currently assists the American Bar Association, that increasing delays and backlogs threatened FOIA鈥檚 intended purpose.
In February 2026, he wrote to me that the 鈥渁rc of the FOIA universe has for six decades bent toward greater public access to government information 鈭� until now. If 鈥榙emocracy dies in darkness鈥� (according to The Washington Post鈥檚 official slogan), America鈥檚 democracy is threatened with becoming dead meat. We鈥檝e survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, Vietnam, Watergate and more. If we fight back hard enough, this too shall pass, though not quickly, and likely with lasting scars.鈥�
directed Open the Government from 2006 to 2017 and to an underlying tension throughout government: 鈥渢he ability 鈥� and willingness 鈥� to harness the promise of digital information for public access and accountability while not abusing its potential for control of that information.鈥�
Today, she writes that, as Benjamin Franklin put it, we 鈥渉ave a Republic 鈥� if (we) can keep it鈥� and are committed to the fight for our constitutional form of government.
Perhaps advances can be made to reverse the secrecy trend and carry out the intentions of the Freedom of Information Act, upon its adoption nearly 60 years ago: 鈥淚 signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people鈥檚 right to know is cherished and guarded.鈥�
, Director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, College of Journalism and Communications,
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