Requests for Information under the Freedom of Information Act

As part of its small arms policy, the state of Israel refrains from collecting and revealing data on small arms proliferation, gun crime and gun caused deaths, injuries and damages. In some cases, different authorities publish conflicting data. Comprehensive, detailed data, that is collected methodically and published consistently, is vital to the transparent, democratic formulation and management of small arms policies.

In the absence of a state managed data base on small arms, Gun Free Kitchen Tables takes steps to construct a (limited) civic data base. We follow reports on gun violence in the media and the network of GFKT activists regularly provides us with new items and information. Among other strategies, we submit repeated requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act. When these are ignored or rejected, we follow up with Administrative Petitions, which have so far achieved partial results (some of which were nonetheless significant).

In researching our report, “Loose Guns,” we submitted formal requests for information to the Israel Police, the Israel Defense Forces, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Public Security. The latter invested considerable effort in providing the requested information. However, about one third of our questions to the ministry (32%) were rejected on grounds that the information was classified for security reasons or (in a few cases) that the requested data did not comply with the definition of “information” under the law. Answers to additional questions were claimed to require excessive resources, indicating that the relevant statistics are not collected on an ongoing basis by the ministry and did not (and still do not) exist in its data base. The answers received from the other three authorities were even more glaringly poor and lacking. Such attitudes on the part of authorities violate civil society’s right to information on policy decisions and on practices. Meanwhile, they prevent data-based monitoring of small arms proliferation and its consequences.