The Freedom of Information Act exists for a reason.

It exists so citizens of our great country can have access to local, state and federal government related information. The reason citizens have this right is because the work local, state and federal government does is on their dime essentially making the information theirs. While most information citizens and the press request from government agencies is available under the Freedom of Information Act, there are times these agencies will resist releasing the information.

Sometimes government agencies are right in not releasing information when it pertains to issues such as an ongoing investigation, juvenile records, family court proceedings and other privacy related cases.

We understand and respect a government agency not releasing that information because it could compromise many things.

But there are some things that the government knows by law they must turn over and out of stubbornness or concern over image they will resist releasing it, although those requesting will eventually prevail because of the FOIA.

The Obama administration is one which falls into this category.

His administration has set a record for failing to fulfill requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, which requires federal agencies to answer all reasonable inquiries, except in cases involving national security, privacy and law enforcement matters.

The Obama administration, who you will recall promised to be a transparent administration in the runup to the 2008 election, has been anything but.

It has also set a record for censoring government files. The federal government took longer to turn over files when it provided any; said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents, and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.

Citing missing documents is convenient, especially when those documents could be embarrassing.

That’s one of the oldest dodges in the book for trying to get around the FOIA.

The backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years, according to The Associated Press.

Of 714,231 FOIA requests made in fiscal year 2014, the government responded to 647,142, a 4 percent decrease from the previous year. It censored materials it turned over or fully denied access to them in 250,581 cases or 39 percent of all requests. On 215,584 other occasions, the government said it couldn’t find records, the AP reported.

This really does sound like a very transparent government the American people were promised.

The list of denying FOIA request goes on and on as these are just a few example of the Obama administration flaunting its nose at the citizens of this country and the FOIA.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest sounded like Baghdad Bob recently when he told reporters that, “When it comes to our record on transparency, we have a lot to be proud of. And frankly, it sets a standard that future administrations will have to live up to.”

Mr. Earnest, future administrations will hopefully run away from the record you all have set in denying the citizens of this country what is legally theirs.

Transparency was promised and most certainly wasn’t delivered by this administration which seems to have forgotten that our founders believed a well-informed citizenry was essential for a democracy to function well.

The American people deserve much better and hopefully they will get that under a new administration.