On 21 January 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised that the U.S. Department of State would execute "better and faster and more effectively than any other agency in our government." 
 
As famously noted by former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the problem is that it is difficult to "make transformative change in an institution of [its] size and complexity." 
 
Under Rubio's watch, it is therefore not surprising that the U.S. Department of State has failed to fulfill its obligation to correct any and all information that is non-compliant with the U.S. Department of State Information Quality Guidelines. 
 
Over the last few years, I have been documenting issues with the quality characteristics of official information published by the U.S. Department of State. This includes information contained within the Foreign Affairs Manual and its associated handbooks (FAM/FAHs). 
 
As background, the FAM/FAHs represent an important set of documents. 
 
The FAM/FAHs is intended to provide "a single, comprehensive, and authoritative source" on "the Department's organization structures, policies, and procedures that govern the operations of the State Department, the Foreign Service and, when applicable, other federal agencies." 
 
The information contained within the FAM/FAHsneeds to be of a relatively high degree of quality to fulfill this purpose. Unfortunately, it is not. 
 
In the course of my academic research, I have discovered that the FAM/FAHs are riddled with inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, uncredible, out-of-date, imprecise, non-compliant, and difficult to understand information. 
 
Consider 2 FAM EXHIBIT 461. 
 
This exhibit is supposed to report consular districts by country, with posts providing consular services listed alphabetically. 
 
Unfortunately, there is a long list of problems with the quality characteristics of information provided in 2 FAM EXHIBIT 461. 
 
Let me cite but three examples. 
 
First, the exhibit is supposed to be organized by country. However, not all of the entries are countries. Nor are they independent states (e.g., Dutch Caribbean). 
 
Second, the exhibit reports that operations are suspended at the U.S. Embassy in Bissau and consular services for Guinea-Bissau are being provided by the U.S. Embassy in Dakar. However, no similar account has been provided for several other U.S. embassies with suspended operations (e.g., Afghanistan; Belarus; Syria; Sudan; Venezuela; Yemen). 
 
Third, the exhibit has not been updated since 22 May 2023. In other words, it has not been updated since the Biden Administration. 
 
The failure of the U.S. Department of State to correct known issues with the quality characteristics of the FAM/FAHs not only appears to violate the Information Quality Guidelines. 
 
It begs questions about the extent to which Secretary Rubio has fulfilled his political commitment to the American people to transform the U.S. Department of State into a better, faster, and more effective agency. 
 
Sadly, the U.S. Department of State is not helping his cause. 
 
The Information Quality Guidelines instruct impacted persons to use the Data Quality Act Form to report incorrect information to the U.S. Department of State. However, the hyperlink to that form was broken the last time I checked. 
 
Fortunately, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations possesses the oversight powers needed to hold the U.S. Department of State accountable for these data quality issues. 
 
This session of Congress, Chairman James Risch (R-ID) and Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) might want to consider wielding those powers on behalf of the American people. 

Michael Walsh is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute