HNewsWire: On March 15, 2022, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a Memorandum to the heads of executive departments and to federal agencies mandating how they were to handle Freedom of Information Act requests. Garland wrote: “For more than fifty years, the Freedom of lnformation Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, has been a vital tool for ensuring transparency, accessibility, and accountability in government. As the Supreme Court has explained, the Act’s ‘basic purpose … is to ensure an informed citizenry,’ which is ‘vital to the functioning of a democratic society [and] needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.’ NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214,242 (1978).” Despite this laudable endorsement of FOIA by the Biden administration’s top law enforcement officer, the Securities and Exchange Commission under Chair Gary Gensler […]