This article aims to identify organizational factors that influence the performance of implementation of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and to investigate the strength and direction of their effects. Explanatory variables include administrative resources, organizational culture, litigation cost, and the complexity of FOIA requests. The study will analyze quantitative secondary data from official statistics of federal agencies and the 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey as well as qualitative data from semi-structured interviews of FOIA officers. The results of statistical analyses are as follows : FOIA funding significantly affects median processing time and number of requests pending. There is a significant relationship between bureaucratic culture and number of requests pending, but not between bureaucratic culture and number of requests pending. There exists a significant relationship between the cost of FOIA litigation to federal agencies and the performance of FOIA implementation. There exists a significant relationship between the complexity of FOIA requests and the performance of FOIA implementation. This study also has important implication in South Korea, which has been under a sharp confrontation with North Korea for more than 50 years. As illustrated by the conflict between people’s right to know and national security during the investigation of recent Sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, efforts should be made to prepare legal and institutional mechanism for freedom of information policy which can maintain a balance between conflicting values as well as efficient information disclosure in Korea.