Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests for Records

The Freedom of Information Act, usually called FOIA, is a federal law that gives any person the right to request records from federal executive-branch agencies. It rests on a simple democratic idea: the government works for the public, so the public is entitled to see how it operates. You do not need to be a journalist, a lawyer, or a U.S. citizen to file a request, and you generally do not have to explain why you want the records.

This page offers general legal information, not legal advice. FOIA is a powerful transparency tool, but it has limits and procedures worth understanding before you write.

Federal FOIA vs. State Open-Records Laws

This is the single most important distinction to get right. FOIA applies only to federal agencies—the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, the IRS, and similar bodies. It does not reach Congress, the federal courts, the President's immediate staff, or any state or local government.

If you want records from a city police department, a county sheriff, a state agency, or a public school district, you must use that state's public-records law. Every state has one, commonly called a sunshine law, open-records act, or public-records act. These laws vary widely in deadlines, fees, and exemptions, but the basic approach—a written request to the agency that holds the records—is similar. Sending a federal FOIA request to a local police department is a common mistake that simply gets rejected.

What Records You Can Request

FOIA covers existing agency records in any format: emails, memos, reports, contracts, photos, data sets, and more. A few key principles:

• Agencies must release records unless an exemption applies.
• FOIA requires agencies to hand over records that exist; it does not require them to create new records, answer questions, or perform legal analysis for you.
• You should describe what you want clearly enough that an employee familiar with the subject can locate it with a reasonable effort.

The Nine FOIA Exemptions

Congress carved out nine categories of information agencies may withhold. When material is withheld, the agency should still release the rest of the record with the exempt portions redacted. The nine exemptions cover:

1. National security—properly classified defense or foreign-policy information.
2. Internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
3. Information exempted by another statute.
4. Trade secrets and confidential commercial or financial information.
5. Privileged inter- or intra-agency communications, such as the deliberative-process, attorney-client, and attorney work-product privileges.
6. Personal privacy—personnel, medical, and similar files whose disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy.
7. Law enforcement records where disclosure would cause specified harms, like interfering with proceedings or endangering someone's safety.
8. Records about financial institutions held by agencies that regulate them.
9. Geological and geophysical information, including maps of wells.

Fees and Fee Waivers

Agencies may charge for searching, reviewing, and copying records, but the rules favor requesters. The first two hours of search time and the first 100 pages of copies are typically free for most non-commercial requesters. News media, educational, and scientific requesters generally pay only duplication costs.

You can also ask for a fee waiver. Agencies should grant one when disclosure is in the public interest—meaning it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of government operations—and is not primarily in your commercial interest. State in your request a fee cap (for example, "please contact me before charges exceed $25") so you are never billed by surprise.

Response Timelines

Federal agencies are required to respond within 20 business days, and they must tell you whether they will comply and what fees may apply. In "unusual circumstances," an agency may extend this by 10 business days. In practice, complex requests routinely take much longer, and large backlogs are common. You can ask for expedited processing if you can show a compelling need—such as an urgent threat to life or safety, or, for news media, a genuine and breaking public-interest urgency.

How to Write an Effective Request

• Be specific. Identify the records, the time period, the office or program, and any names, dates, or file numbers you know.
• Cite the law. State that you are requesting records "under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552."
• Request a fee waiver and set a fee cap. Briefly explain the public interest if you seek a waiver.
• Ask for expedited processing if you genuinely qualify.
• Pick the right agency. Send your request to the FOIA office of the specific federal agency that holds the records. Most agencies accept requests online, by email, or by mail.

What to Do If You Are Denied

A denial is not the end of the road. Every FOIA denial letter must explain the reason and inform you of your right to appeal. To respond:

1. File an administrative appeal in writing within the deadline stated in the letter (often 90 days). Address it to the agency's appeal office and explain why the withholding was improper.
2. Seek help from the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), the federal FOIA ombudsman, which offers free mediation between requesters and agencies.
3. Sue in federal court if the appeal fails. Courts review the agency's decision and can order release; successful requesters may recover attorney's fees.

Persistence pays off. Many records are released only after an appeal narrows the dispute or forces the agency to justify a redaction.

The law behind your rights

You can sue police under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violating your constitutional rights, with excessive-force claims grounded in the Fourth Amendment (applied to state and local police through the Fourteenth), though the qualified-immunity doctrine requires showing the officer violated clearly established law.

Constitutional basis: Fourth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment. Your state constitution may add further protections.

Key court cases:

• Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961) — 42 U.S.C. 1983 lets you sue police for constitutional violations committed under color of state law, even when they break state law.
• Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) — police excessive-force claims are judged under the Fourth Amendment's objective reasonableness standard.
• Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) — deadly force is a Fourth Amendment seizure and is unreasonable unless the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious injury.
• Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982) — officials get qualified immunity unless they violated clearly established rights a reasonable person would have known.

These are landmark federal cases that establish the rights described above. How they apply can depend on your state, the federal circuit you are in, and the specific facts of an encounter. This is general legal information, not legal advice.