Before you send an agency another broad request for “all records about” a scandal, look at what other people have already asked for. A Freedom of Information Act request log can reveal useful search terms, agency offices, dates, tracking numbers and records someone else pursued. The agency’s reading room may even have the released material …
A government document can vanish from a public archive, disappear from a Freedom of Information Act production, or become mysteriously unfamiliar to the agency that once quoted it. That does not necessarily mean someone destroyed it. It does mean the document left traces, and those traces can be investigated. Documents create administrative footprints. They are …
Digital evidence rarely disappears with a theatrical puff of smoke. It is copied, renamed, converted, moved, redacted, separated from attachments, or excluded from a production. By the time the public notices, five offices may possess five versions and everyone has developed a sudden devotion to passive voice. Reconstructing the chain of custody means documenting where …