Freedom of information laws for open records and open meetings were put in place to keep local, state and federal governments accountable. The laws were made to ensure the public’s business is conducted in public.

The Eagle submits a large number of requests for open records and information covered by the Freedom of Information Act each year. Most are on the local level, though some are at the state and federal levels.

I find the hunt for these requests interesting, especially federal FOIA requests. The paths take some interesting twists and turns. Sometimes you have success and sometimes you don’t. That’s the frustrating part. When an agency doesn’t abide by the law, it makes you wonder what they are hiding from the public.

All public officials should remember they work for the public, not for themselves or for special interests. They are spending public funds and they are paid with public funds.

A recent FOIA request from the Eagle shows how long such requests can take and how little information can come from them.

On Sept. 28, 2005, the Eagle submitted an FOIA request for information about four Fort Rucker helicopter crashes. Fort Rucker had experienced four “hard crashes” from February through June 2005.

Since the invention of Homeland Defense and the Patriot Act, military information has become harder to obtain. We persevered because these crashes were of public importance. One local instructor pilot died in a June 23, 2005, crash in an accident that occurred near the city of Eufaula’s community center. Also, millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money was lost in the crashes.

The first FOIA request letter was returned due to a change of address, so I found the new address and mailed the letter back out that same day — Oct. 6, 2005. The FOIA statute requires the governmental agency to reply within 20 business days, and the military is better than most in its initial response to a request.

I received a response on Nov. 1, 2005, and was told in a letter from the Department of Defense that my request was referred to the Department of the Army.

The Department of the Army responded by letter on Jan. 3, 2006. The FOIA specialist informed me that my request had been forwarded to the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center at Fort Rucker.

I didn’t hear anything from Fort Rucker, so on May 23, 2006, I contacted the FOIA officer at the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center.

I received a response within the hour. The officer said she requested the status of the reports and she should hear back within the next few days. On June 14, 2006, I still had not heard from her, so I called. The officer again said she would find out the status and call me back.

I called again in August 2006, and she said she thought she had received some of the information on my request, but it was “buried” and she would have to call me back.

Her desk must be worse than mine, because by March 2007, I still hadn’t heard from her. I wrote another letter on March 16, 2007, and mailed it back to the Department of the Army Freedom of Information and Privacy Division. I explained the situation and my frustration.

On March 21, 2007, I received an “interim” response, and then another one on June 1, 2007. Then, on Sept. 26, 2007, nearly two years after the initial request, I received the first piece of information. The rest of it trickled in through March 2008.

Alas, nothing much to report. All of the interesting parts of the reports — analysis of what happened and recommendations — were redacted (blacked out). Your tax dollars at work.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time though. It served as another good example of the long and winding road of an FOIA request and the fact that despite Congress having passed a law which was supposed to mandate openness and communication with the citizens of this country, often the end result is anything but that.

Ken Tuck is the managing editor of the Dothan Eagle and the regional editor of Media General Alabama Newspapers. He can be reached at ktuck@dothaneagle.com or 334-712-7960.