🎉  Happy 50th Birthday, FOIA! 🎉
President Obama recently announced some updates that will usher in a new era of transparency and reliability (lol), so let’s put that stately middle-aged public records law to work.
My favorite foia tool might be iFOIA, because it’s made by lawyers and offers free legal advice. It’s also integrated with the RCFP‘s indispensable state-by-state guide, if you’re filing a request at the state (rather than federal) level.
The upstart competitor to iFOIA would be FOIA Machine, made by some journalists with a Kickstarter. It offers a forum for reporters to exchange tips, contact info and consolation.
Both sites want you to actually file the request through them, but that makes me nervous, so I just download the form once I’ve filled it in. If you do file it through their services, they send you notifications and things like that, so it’s probably pretty nifty.
There are a few more ins and outs to these tools, but I’d give one or both a try, even if you don’t file FOIAs on the regular.
Bonus: If you’re outside the US, GIJN has a list of public records guides in other countries. Go file one!