Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act gives any person a right of access to federal agency records without having to explain why they want them. An agency must conduct a reasonable search and release what it finds unless the material falls within one of nine statutory exemptions, covering matters such as classified national security information, internal deliberations, personal privacy, and law enforcement.

The exemptions do most of the work in practice, particularly the deliberative process exemption, and disputes about their scope are the substance of most FOIA litigation. Agencies must also proactively publish frequently requested records in electronic reading rooms, which are an underused source of material nobody has to request at all.

Its relevance to daily coverage is that it produces documents no one intended to publish, which is precisely what makes released records valuable alongside the Federal Register and the dockets agencies maintain by design. Statutory deadlines are widely missed and backlogs are long, so records frequently arrive long after the events they describe. Compliance is itself audited by inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office.