December 5, 2006
In the fall of 2005 I started on a project to document the history of phone phreaking. As part of this project I’ve filed more than 80 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with various “three-letter agencies” (FBI, NSA, CIA, DoD, …). Though I found a number of good FOIA references on the web, I thought it would be useful to share some of the things I’ve learned over the last year.
The Freedom of Information Act allows you to request copies of documents, records, correspondence, or other material from various Federal agencies. I won’t go into much detail on the basics of how to file a FOIA request, what types of documents you can request, or which agencies are covered as there are plenty of good resources on the web that cover this, such as the National Security Archive and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. However, there are a few things worth noting that are applicable to almost all FOIA requests:
Note that if you request information regarding someone other than yourself, you’ll have to prove that this person is deceased or you’ll have to provide a notarized signature from this person giving you permission to see their file. The typical way one proves death is via a newspaper death notice or obituary, or a Social Security Death Index (SSDI) record. There are several good sites on the web for obituaries: NewspaperArchive.com, Legacy.com, and Ancestory.com.
The sections below talk about each agency I’ve dealt with.
Because of the subject matter of my research, most of my FOIA requests have been with the FBI. To date, I’ve filed 57 requests with them. Of these, 8 have resulted in documents, 18 were “no records” (including cases where records had been destroyed), and the remainder are still open.
The most important thing to know about the FBI is that their records system is decentralized. By this I mean that every FBI field office keeps its own records, and there is no centralized database for searching all records at once. Yes, FBI Headquarters (HQ) in Washington, D.C. keep lots of files, but just because FBI HQ doesn’t have any records on a topic doesn’t mean that the field offices don’t. For example, I requested information on an organization called the Youth International Party Line, or YIPL, which was based in New York City during the 1970s. FBI HQ had no records on YIPL, but the New York field office did.
What this means for you is that you need to send FOIA requests to both FBI HQ and to any FBI field office that you think might have records responsive to your request. This is a pain, but it’s not the end of the world. There are about 56 FBI field offices and you can use the same FOIA request letter for each one, so we’re talking about at most $22 in postage to spam all of their field offices with your request. This link provides a list of all the FBI field offices, and this other link provides the same list in Microsoft Word mailing label format.
The second important thing to know about the FBI is that their records system is broken up into “automated” (i.e., computerized) and “manual” indices. The manual indices are for criminal investigations prior to 1973 and security investigations prior to 1958. By default, the FBI generally searches only the automated indices, since it’s much easier for them to do so. If your request covers times prior to 1973, you should add a big bold note specifically asking them to search both the automated and manual indices.
In most cases you’ll likely be requesting an FBI “main file” (aka “FBI file”) on a person, organization, or topic. In my limited experience the FBI seems to have the most records on people (living and dead), fewer on organizations, and still fewer on topics. For example, requesting information on a topic or subject such as “phone phreaks” or “blue boxes” (a device used by phone phreaks) netted me relatively few files. Requesting files by name of some famous phone phreaks would have been more successful, except that you can’t request files on a living person without their permission. So, another route is to request files of people you know (e.g., from newspaper articles) were investigated by the FBI and who have passed away. Obviously, this is easier if you’re doing more historical research than current research!
Another approach is to request documents by FBI file number. Where do you get an FBI file number? Why, out of other FBI documents, of course! This is why the FOIA process is a bit like pulling at a thread on a piece of clothing: every time you get a document you’ll want to scan it for other file numbers that might be relevant to your work, and then fire off FOIA requests for those documents. One of the reasons this is so important is that, although you can’t request the FBI file of a living person by name, you can request it by file number! That is, if you request my FBI file, they’ll bounce your request back to you because I’m still alive (at least as of this writing!) and you don’t have my permission to see my file. But, if my FBI file number was 87-12345 and you requested that file, they might just send it to you … just with my name blacked out everywhere. So unless you knew beforehand it was my file, you’ll still not know it’s my file once you receive it.
A FBI file number typically looks like a two or three digit number followed by a dash and then a three, four, or five digit number, e.g., 87-12345. The first digits indicate the category of the file or type of offense being investigated, and the remaining digits are the file number. Note that file numbers are not unique to a given field office, so it is possible – even likely – that FBI HQ and FBI Los Angeles and FBI New York might all have a file 87-456, with each file being completely unrelated to the other. For more information on the FBI file numbering system, see "How FBI Files Are Organized" at fbifile.com.
Mail to the FBI (HQ at least, possibly field offices as well) is delayed due to procedures put in place resulting from the anthrax attacks in 2001. As a result, the fastest way to send your HQ requests in is via fax at (202) 324-3752. Note that fax requests cannot be used for requests on another living person – those must be handled via U.S. mail, since you must include an original notarized document giving you permission to see the other person’s file. And as mentioned earlier, the above fax number works only for requests going to HQ -- for field offices you'll have to either mail them or look up their fax number elsewhere.
Once you’ve submitted a request to the FBI, you will get back an “in process” letter that acknowledges your request and says that they’re working on it (or that points out some problem with your request and why they can’t work on it, e.g., if you asked for records on somebody else but didn’t prove that they were dead or that you had their permission to see their records). On average I've found it's taken about 27 calendar days to get back an "in process" letter from the FBI (this is including postal transit time). The fastest response was 13 days and the slowest was 49 days. The “in process” letter typically will come from FBI HQ, although you may sometimes get one from a field office directly.
If the FBI has no records responsive to your request, you’ll get a thin envelope in the mail. (This is a lot like applying to college: if you get a thin letter in the mail, you know you didn’t get in.) "No records" responses generally come back quickly if the subject of your request wasn't found in the automated indices and you didn't need a search of the manual indices -- in simple cases like this you might get an answer back within 20-30 calendar days after your original request was sent in. If the "no records" response was due to files not able to be located or having been destroyed, this can take longer: I found an average of 95 calendar days from filing my request with a fastest response of 29 calendar days and a slowest response of 185 calendar days.
If you don’t hear from them for more than a few weeks, this is probably good news, because it means that they have likely found some records and now somebody needs to go through and sanitize them (i.e., redact portions of the records that you’re not allowed to see). Now the wait really begins! In the 8 requests in which I’ve received documents back, the fastest FBI response was 126 days from my original request, the slowest 248 days, and the average was 185 days. So, figure between 4 and 9 months to get goodies back.
What if you’re unhappy with the FBI’s response? What if they tell you that there are no records and you’re sure there are? File an appeal. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll get anything with an appeal, but what is guaranteed is that you won’t get anything more if you don’t file an appeal! (As a Department of Justice FOIA Counselor said when I asked him if I should appeal an FBI “no records” response, “Well, that depends. Do you want to get any documents?” “Of course!” I said. “Then I guess you should appeal, since you certainly don’t have any documents now,” he replied dryly.)
To date I’ve filed three appeals with the FBI. The one response I received took just a hair under a year from when I filed the appeal, and the other two are still pending. Although the response to my appeal didn’t overturn the “no records” response from FBI HQ, the response did helpfully suggest some other avenues of approach.
The FBI has its own jargon and abbreviations, some of which are listed below.
| FBI Abbreviation | Meaning |
| ADIC | Assistant Director in Charge |
| SA | Special Agent |
| SAC | Special Agent in Charge |
| UACB | Unless advised contrary by Bureau |
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