Public records are a key part of Racket’s library project—not just for the stories we cover, but as a resource to help you access the records that matter to you. I figured talking to a guy with “FOIA” as his vanity license plate would be a good place to start.
Allan Blutstein helps run a site called FOIA Advisor. It’s a labor of love among Blutstein and two others that he jokes is funded by his credit card. All three are involved in conservative politics for their day jobs, but FOIA Advisor is for anyone. It has a roundup of FOIA news, FOIA-related court cases, links to searchable FOIA regulations for federal agencies, samples of FOIA appeal letters by conservative and liberal groups, FOIA letter-generator sites, and electronic reading rooms where you can access records and see what other people are requesting.
The reading rooms are helpful. For one, their FOIA logs remove the need to FOIA all FOIA requests as I did back in the day. Blutstein also says they can be tremendously helpful in crafting your own request. Blutstein should know. He worked at the Justice Department responding to FOIA requests. He was also principal legal counsel for FOIA staff at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Stability. Now, he’s director of FOIA operations for the America Rising Corporation. Our conversation with him, edited for clarity and brevity:
Racket (Greg Collard): Which features of FOIA Advisor are most popular?
Allan Blutstein: Our summaries and postings of court opinions. There are hundreds of federal court FOIA cases issued every year and we try to keep on top of that. My former office of the Justice Department also summarizes cases, but they’re usually a month or two behind and they don’t post the actual decision. They will give long summaries. I’m not sure if that’s for trademark intellectual property purposes or why they won’t post the actual decision. So I think that’s our most popular feature. And also just daily news, what’s happening in the government and the world. And some educational resources that we have.
GC: What are the types of things that people are most interested in getting information about?
Allan Blutstein: All sorts. We’re mostly geared toward the federal Freedom of Information Act. While we don’t track state court decisions — we simply can’t keep up — if anyone asks us a question about a state law, we’ll do our best to steer them in the right direction. The other day, a rather significant decision was issued about whether [DOGE] records are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. We’ll see how that one plays out. I imagine the administration might fight the district court on that, but the department that gets the most requests every year is DHS. Far and away they get more than half of all federal FOIA requests. Immigration records are particularly popular. The Department of Justice and the Department of Defense are also quite popular with FOIA requesters. At DOJ, the FBI and all the law enforcement agencies get lots of requests, including from prisoners who want to re-litigate their criminal cases.
GC: They have a lot of time to file.
Allan Blutstein: They have a lot of time and some of them are quite good. I was impressed when I was at the Department of Justice. Some became jailhouse lawyers. They were quite good.
GC: Say someone wants to get information on how federal Title I funds are spent on certain schools… What’s your advice on how someone should start? Should they file a FOIA request immediately?
Allan Blutstein: That’s a good example. I would say go on the Department of Education’s website. Financial information is not typically controversial and a lot of it will be posted online. So I would start there. Really for almost any type of request, I might first go to an agency’s electronic reading room to see what they’ve posted. If nothing’s there on the website, I might look at their FOIA logs if they’re published. This is a list of requests that other individuals have filed. They’re often posted online. If you are interested in something, it’s likely that someone else also has an interest and they may have already requested records. That’s helpful just to get an idea of what an agency has and what other people have asked for. And also to help you craft a request. You can just copy what someone else has done or just ask for a file that’s already been processed. Just ask, “I’d like request number 255 that you received two months ago.” And you can just feed them the information, which makes it very easy. You’ll get much quicker turnaround times if you just piggyback off someone else’s request than inventing your own.
Now, there are some strategies. You’ll get better as a requester as you do more. You’ll learn what a burdensome request is that might make agencies push back. Your requests don’t need to include a lot of legalese. You don’t need a lot of definitions. They don’t have to be five pages. You don’t need long introductions. You don’t have to explain why you want the records. Agency personnel generally don’t ask. There are very few circumstances in which they need to know legally. So, a lot of background isn’t necessary. You want the person on the other side to understand what you’re asking for. Sometimes some context helps. FOIA personnel don’t know everything that’s happening in their own agency. The Pentagon is a big place. They may not know about the document that you’re interested in. So providing some background to facilitate the search is a good idea. But your request should be reasonably specific.
Some requesters in the business are looking for publicity. So they will include a long explanation at the front because they want reporters to pick it up, but that’s not for the average person. They’ll ask the agency to expedite their requests and argue why they’re entitled. They’ll argue why they’re entitled to be considered reporters, and they’ll argue for a fee waiver all upfront. They’ll include long definitions. They’ll remind the agency of what the response time is, and they’ll remind the agency that if they make redactions, if they withhold information, to explain why.
I tend not to include all these reminders, having been on that side. The agency knows the law. Law firms or lawyers who might be getting paid to make the request tend to include what I call “fillers.” It’s just perhaps to impress the client, but it’s really irrelevant. I would say skip it.
GC: Can you explain electronic reading rooms for people who may not be familiar with what they are?
Allan Blutstein: Before the electronic age — the old days, in the 70s and 80s — federal agencies had actual libraries where the public could visit. Now, federal agencies have on their websites FOIA pages. FOIA Advisor has a list of all the reading rooms. You can just click the links where agencies are required to post certain information as well as frequently requested information. And so that could save you quite a bit of time. I would say don’t hesitate to send a request. The government is not tracking you. They will not retaliate. This is a legal right that citizens and non-citizens have to ask for records.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you will obtain all the records that you asked for, but there’s no harm in requesting. You might have to wait a while. And that’s another key piece of advice: be patient. Although there are legal deadlines, those are more often not met. Those who have not made requests before might have trepidation about whether their requests are public. Will their names be publicized? Will I upset a government official? And the answer to that last one is no, at least at the federal level, FOIA requests are employing 6,000 people, so keep them coming.
GC: There are 6,000 people that deal only with FOIA requests?
Allan Blutstein: Yeah. The data just released for fiscal year 2024 shows that full-time FOIA staff increased from about 5,000 the previous year to a little over 6,000. Now that’s changing rapidly [because of government cutbacks].
GC: So does that worry you for fulfilling public records requests? Is it going to be a challenge to get public information?
Allan Blutstein: It will be at some agencies that are not exempt from both the federal hiring freeze and from recent layoffs. So I think DHS should be OK, and DOJ. But you mentioned the Department of Education. It looks like they’re trying to reduce their workforce by 50% and they may try to shutter it all together. So I think response times to requests this year will increase at many agencies. In fact, there was a news story where someone made a request to OPM and an employee quipped, “Good luck with that. They just fired the privacy staff,” or something along those lines. So wait times are likely to increase at the federal level.
GC: When you’re filing local requests, say with your local school board or town hall, what should that approach be? Should you file FOIAs immediately or talk to staff first? At least in my experience, sometimes it’s a different process to get what you want.
Allan Blutstein: Generally the FOIA process is an arm’s length transaction, and so personalities don’t have a lot to do with it. That might be different with local officials. If an office is particularly small, maybe you can get on the phone first and just ask, “Hey, can you help me out?” Or, “What’s the best way to get this type of information?”
I tend not to do that, but I think reporters do. They’re just more comfortable dealing with people like that. It’s sort of a double-edged sword. With local agencies, they may get fewer requests, so you’re not waiting as long, but they have collateral duties, so they’re not dedicated. They’re not sitting at their desk processing requests all day. It certainly helps to be friendly. I try to do that. They are human beings on the other side, and I was there. Saying please, the thank you’s — don’t harass them every week asking for an update. There’s something to be said for that. Being professional and courteous is good advice.
GC: Fees are sometimes a big issue (and were, especially before electronic records). Do you get a lot of questions about having to pay fees?
Allan Blutstein: The government in recent years collected about $2 million in fees, but that’s a fraction of 1% of what it costs to process and run the FOIA system, which is over $600 million. So they’re not collecting that much. The ordinary requester, Joe Requester, who’s just curious about getting some records, they are charged only after two hours of search time. So if the records can be retrieved in less than two hours, they’ll get that information for free. Duplication costs only apply if you’re getting hard copies. You’ll pay 10 or 15 cents a page, but you’ll get the first 100 pages for free. I would say duplication fees, in this day and age, are usually nothing. If you’re a commercial requester intending to use the records for profitable purposes, they will get charged for review time. Also, if an attorney or anyone needs to review the records to redact them, they’ll get charged as well.
You can apply for a waiver of fees under certain circumstances. There’s no waiver on the federal level for indigency. That might be a reason for a waiver at the local level. I hear more complaints on the local level about fees, especially here in Virginia. It really varies by state. If you’re asking for years worth of emails, voluminous records, you are more likely to incur a fee. So at the federal level, if an agency misses their response deadline, they forfeit the right to collect certain fees. Reporters, members of the media, are a favored fee category. They will not be charged for search time so reporters are essentially getting records for nothing. And there are a few other preferred fee categories. If you’re making a request for an educational institution, for instance, a university professor doing research or a non-commercial scientific institution.
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