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 …
An investigation rarely ends with a dramatic official stamping “CASE CLOSED” across a folder while violins play in the background. More often, it ends through a quiet collection of memoranda, database entries, supervisor approvals, evidence instructions, referral notices, declination decisions, and administrative forms. Those closing records can reveal what investigators examined, which allegations they pursued, …
Government agencies maintain lists for legitimate administrative reasons. Some identify suspended contractors. Others flag safety concerns, regulate access to secure facilities, screen travelers, restrict licenses, or prevent people from participating in government programs. Then there are the lists nobody wants to call lists. A person may discover that she has been quietly marked as disruptive, …