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FOIA Tip No. 6—The FOIA Process in a Nutshell
So what happens after you craft that great FOIA letter requesting those docs that will make your article/dissertation/book/life sooo much more interesting? That’s what we’ll be looking at today, the...
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FOIA Tip No. 7—The Glomar Response
Last week the Second Circuit US Federal Appeals Court upheld a lower court ruling that agencies have the right to “neither confirm nor deny” that they possess sensitive documents—a tactic, informally...
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FOIA Tip No. 8—Mandatory Declassification Review
Now that you’ve finally begun to wrap your head around the complicated FOIA process, we want to introduce you to another mechanism for obtaining the release of classified information, the Mandatory...
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FOIA Tip No. 9: Writing a Good FOIA Request Part II
Well, you have done your research and now know what you are going to ask for. Perhaps you’ve figured out how to phrase the subject of the request after reading FOIA Tip No. 4. What else should you say...
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FOIA Tip 12: Putting Arguments for Release in Your FOIA Request and Helping...
For an ordinary FOIA request, you do not need to justify your request or in any way demonstrate that you are entitled to the records you are seeking. Your right to records is not based on why you...
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FOIA Tip 13: Negotiating with the agency
We still have a lot to say about drafting your FOIA request, but today we wanted to look at something a little different and talk about something that many requesters have not had any experience with —...
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Document Friday: “Released in a Sanitized Form”… With a Twist.
Few things break a FOIA requester’s heart like tearing open an envelope from the CIA, seeing that they’ve released the document you requested, beginning to read it, and realizing that it’s been so...
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FOIA Tip 14: Which Government Agencies can be FOIA’d?
All executive branch departments and agencies are subject to the FOIA. A list of these departments and agencies can be found on the Department of Justice’s FOIA Web site. Congress and the courts are...
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Archival Survival Guide Part 1: Getting Started at the National Archives
Contrary to popular cultural depictions, the National Archives is a tremendous (and accessible) resource for anyone conducting research in a field involving the government. Whether your interest lays...
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Repost: How to Decipher a State Department Cable (FOIA Tip #2)
This guide –originally written by Kristin Adair– might come in handy as you peruse the 251,287 Department of State cables recently released by wikileaks. [As of today only 243 cables are available on...
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