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While this guide only covers use of the FOIA, which applies to only U.S. federal government records, many states provide access to public records, sometimes known as “sunshine” laws or public records laws. It can often be a good strategy to combine a series of both local and federal requests about a topic to approach from multiple avenues.

One thing to remember is that while the FOIA states your rights clearly and you have an appeal process and the government panels and lawyers are supposed to carry out the letter of the law in service of you, ultimately, the agencies only give you what they want to. When they search and release information, they have a lot of the power, but if we keep asking, we keep knocking on their door, they can’t ignore it forever. So, we keep knocking, and keep asking.

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