Getting the information you need: Filing FOIA and other open records requests

Editor’s Note: Subject librarian Katy Boss at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute created an instructive guide to filing FOIA and state and local open records requests. Boss gave AHCJ permission to publish this lightly edited version of the reference tool. AHCJ core topic leader Barbara Mantel has added some links at the bottom that will be of interest to health care journalists.

The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides that any person has a right, enforceable in court, to obtain access to federal agency records, except to the extent that such records (or portions of them) are protected from public disclosure by one of nine exemptions or by one of three special law enforcement record exclusions. A FOIA request can be made for any agency record. Before sending a request to a federal agency, you should determine which agency is likely to have the records you are seeking. Each agency’s website will contain information about the type of records that the agency maintains.

Tools for filing a FOIA request

FOIA Machine — a project to automate and streamline FOIA requests funded by a successful 2013 Kickstarter campaign and the Center for Investigative Reporting. This tool contains the contact information for federal, state, and city agencies and will help you draft the letter, get any related fees waived, and send your request. Create an account for free.

FOIA Mapper — The most difficult part of creating a FOIA request is often knowing just what document to request. The FOIA Mapper tool can help with this. Search FOIA Mapper by keyword, and it will return a list of what information exists, which government agencies have it, the format in which it is stored, and how to request the information using the Freedom of Information Act.

MuckRock — an online tool to file, track, and share public record requests. There is a nominal fee to file the requests but searching their database of successful FOIAs is free.

Searching FOIA archives

Sometimes the public records you need may have already been obtained by another journalist. If they have, and that journalist has posted them in a FOIA repository, that can save you a lot of time. The following repositories of successful FOIA’d documents are great places to search before making your request.

History Lab’s FOIA archive — The FOIA Archive is a full-text searchable database of millions of government documents from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

DocumentCloud — A tool to analyze, annotate and publish public documents, DocumentCloud runs every document you upload through the software Thomson Reuters OpenCalais (http://www.opencalais.com/), giving you access to extensive information about the people, places and organizations mentioned in your documents. It also includes a searchable public database of more than one million successfully obtained public documents.

MuckRock FOI database — A freely searchable database of FOI requests sent through MuckRock.

State and local Freedom of Information Law (FOIL or Sunshine Law) requests

While FOIA covers access to federal government agency records, state Sunshine Laws or other open records statutes provide public access to state and local government records. All 50 states have laws that govern access to these documents, though the provisions of the state laws vary considerably as does their enforceability.

Records Retention Schedules and FOIA/FOIL

A “records retention schedule” is the key to identifying accessible documents within an agency. If you know the name of the record or document that you are looking for, the chances of your request succeeding are far higher. To find a record retention schedule, run a Google search for the terms “records retention schedule” and the name of the organization: “records retention schedule” “new york state department of corrections.”

Here are some websites of interest to health care journalists:

For FOIA guidance