Aggressive use of FOIA—repeated requests for vast swaths of information—adds to administrative costs and gums up the operations of the state, taking resources away from regulatory activity. … At the broadest level, it seems likely that Americans’ ability to FOIA the state but not the private sector contributes to a general public impression of relative state incompetence and corruption.

David E Pozen; Michael Schudson, Troubling Transparency- The…, loc. 78