I checked last week with the agency that we reported through. The number of requests has gone from about 700 the year before the new act to about 1,400 so far this year. The number of pages released to the public has increased from 16,000 to about 54,000. I don't know why. It may well be because we've suggested that more information be made available. It might be because people aren't being dissuaded by estimates of large fees. No one really knows the reason for it. I expect it will settle down to some reasonable place.
In terms of concerns about the demand this will put on agencies, it sounds crude and rough to say it this way, but I don't think access laws are intended to allow public officials and politicians to sleep at night. That's not the purpose. The purpose is so that the citizen, who wants to know what their government is doing in their name, can have access to that information.