Story Archive

This portion of the site is a collection of particular stories that illustrate effective and ineffective uses of FOIA, bureaucratic entanglements of a kafkaesque type, and the powerful potential of FOIA in revising history and shedding light on current events. It also contains a collection of FOIA request letters. These stories and examples should serve as a concrete complement to the strategic explanation of the FOIA process found throughout the rest of this site. It should also offer some illumination of the potential disjunctures between how FOIA is written about, how FOIA is supposed to work, and how the process often turns out.

Todd Patterson - A brief account of a teenager who used FOIA to find that the FBI had conducted a foreign counter-intelligence investigation on him.

DoD FOIA training film - My personal encounter in requesting a film called "The People's Right to Know," that the DoD decided I did not have the right to watch.

New Jersey FOI Council - New Jersey's state FOIA has a unique committee that allows a citizen panel to ensure proper disclosure of state-held records. This link will take you to New Jersey's Star Ledger's journalistic account of the Council and its effects.