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booklet is designed as a general "do-it-yourself" guide to using the federal Freedom of Information Act. This is the ninth edition of the guide, which was originally published in 1976 and has been updated and expanded to include recent court opinions that affect the FOI Act.
This booklet was researched and edited by The FOI Service Center, a project of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It describes how to use the Act as an effective investigative tool, and provides sample letters, forms and directories to assist you in dealing with the government promptly and effectively.
This booklet was researched and edited by The FOI Service Center, a project of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It describes how to use the Act as an effective investigative tool, and provides sample letters, forms and directories to assist you in dealing with the government promptly and effectively.
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Most people think of the FOI Act in terms of requesters, people who write to agencies seeking information. But the Act goes further to make information public. It mandates publication requirements and reading room requirements. Newer legislation requires that those materials be available electronically and that the government take other steps to make information easily available to you.
The FOI Act requires agencies to publish in the Federal Register any regulations or general policy statements. For instance, each agency will publish its regulations telling the public what rules it will follow in processing FOI requests. Final regulations are published in the Code of Federal Regulations available at law libraries. The Government Printing Office Electronic Information Enhancement Act of 1993 requires GPO to make these materials available on line as well.9
The FOI Act also requires agencies to make available for inspection or copying final opinions, staff instructions and other information which would affect a member of the public. This is often called the “reading room” requirement.
The Electronic FOI Improvements Act of 1996 greatly expanded the requirements that the government take affirmative steps to make information available. It requires government agencies to make available in electronic reading rooms information created after November 1996 that would be required to be placed in reading rooms. The law further requires that agencies identify FOI requests that have been or are likely to become subject to future requests and make the responses to those requests available electronically as well as on paper. The agencies must index these records for the public and by the end of 1999 the indexes were to be available electronically.
The newer Act also instructs agencies to develop reference guides to help the public access their information. These must be available both in the reading rooms and online.
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If the informal approach does not succeed, exercise your rights under the FOI Act to make a formal request. To preserve all your rights under the Act, your formal request must be made in writing. Any reporter, author or researcher should be able to write his or her own request letter. See Appendix A for a sample request letter.
Each federal agency subject to the FOI Act has a designated FOI Act officer responsible for handling information requests. Large cabinet agencies, such as Defense and Agriculture, have separate FOI officers for their various subdivisions and regional offices. If you are sure which subdivision of an agency has the records you want, send your request letter directly to that FOI officer. If you are uncertain, send your request to the agency or departmental FOI officer, who will then forward it to the appropriate division. You will save time by calling the agency first to determine where the records you seek are located and where you should direct your request.
Sometimes it is advisable to send separate requests to agency headquarters and to field offices that may have records you want. The FBI, for example, searches its field offices for records only when requests are made directly to those offices; a request to the Bureau in Washington will lead only to a search of its central files. If you are unsure which federal agency or office has the records you want, send the same request to several agencies or offices.
Address your request letter to the FOI officer at the appropriate agency or subdivision. Most agencies will accept a request by hand delivery, mail or fax. See list of agency addresses, Appendix G. If you mail your request, mark the outside of the envelope “FOI Act Request.” If you send the request by registered mail with return receipt requested, you may be able to track the request if you should later need to do so. Keeping a photocopy of your letter and your receipt will help you later if you need to make an appeal. Some agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, have built FOI request generators into their Web sites to receive requests electronically. Most, but not all agencies accept e-mail and the Department of Justice has encouraged all agencies to do so. You should check to see if e-mail requests or fax requests are accepted before you send them.
Generally a request letter should contain the elements included in the Sample FOI Act Request Letter, Appendix A. However, any written request is covered by the FOI Act. In most cases, you should be able to prepare a simple request letter by yourself. If you need assistance, you may call The FOI Service Center at 1-800-336-4243.