MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY: New York Times lawyer outlines FOIA nightmare.

High-level journalists around Washington have engaged in a game of one-upmanship in recent years over denunciations of the transparency track record of the Obama administration. USA Today’s Susan Page perhaps takes the blue ribbon with her declaration that the Obama administration has been not only “more restrictive” but also “more dangerous” to the media than any of its predecessors.

Specific examples, however, sometimes carry more punch. On that front, New York Times Vice President and Assistant General Counsel David McCraw provides some assistance. In prepared testimony for hearings today and tomorrow of the House committee on oversight and government reform on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), McGraw notes that last year he filed eight FOIA lawsuits for the New York Times. Remember: FOIA lawsuits arise after FOIA requests stall.

One of the lawsuits was particularly noteworthy. The New York Times had asked the Justice Department for a number — how much money had the agency shelled out to pay the legal fees of FOIA requesters? (The law allows for such fees awards in cases where the requester wins FOIA litigation). McCraw: “It was a straightforward request about a budgetary matter. No FOIA exemption could possibly apply. But weeks passed without a response. Over a four-month period, we repeatedly contacted the FOIA office handling the request. We called more than 10 times and left messages. Almost all of those calls went unreturned. Finally we filed a lawsuit out of frustration.”

The lawsuit moved things along, to the point that an assistant U.S. attorney got involved in the process. “[T]he Assistant U.S. attorney ended up doing what the FOIA officer should have done in the first place,” notes the prepared testimony.

Make agencies pay a real price for delays. Otherwise nothing will happen.