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Questions tagged [foia]

Freedom of Information Act, a federal freedom of information law in the USA.

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2 votes
1 answer
58 views

Has any recent academic research been done on the comparative performance of FOIA response speeds by different European governments?

Recently, I took part in a large, international investigative journalistic project on dumps of oily waste water by ships. In that context, I did a FOIA request to the Dutch government. Whereas the ...
43 votes
8 answers
1k views

Should I approach an agency unofficially before FOIAing them?

Are there drawbacks to FOIAing (Freedom of Information Act, either federally or equivalent state/local laws) an agency? For example, can it lead to an adversarial relationship?
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Can state, county or city sales tax records be retrieved in the U.S. under FOIA?

Just stopped by my local state government department of revenue office and ask them about how to go about requesting sales tax receipts of certain businesses in my area under the FOIA act. I was told ...
11 votes
1 answer
160 views

Statistics on car life length for each car model?

Authorities of each country register cars when they are bought or scrapped. Is there an open statistics of average life time for each car model?
8 votes
3 answers
92 views

After FOIA is fulfilled where can it be found?

I recently saw a story where a City Weekly filed a FOIA request and received a trove of emails in response. Is the receiver required to publish a link to the source? Is there a way to get access to ...
5 votes
1 answer
63 views

Public access laws used for real-time data?

In a question about real-time gunshot data from Will Koper, he mentioned using public records laws to access it. ... which makes me wonder if anyone's even aware of FOIA or various state public ...
9 votes
2 answers
313 views

How to make a successful FOIA request?

There are several questions regarding making a US "Freedom of Information Act" reqest (FOIA) for data: What is the best way to request machine readable data from a FOIA request? - (this question and ...
7 votes
1 answer
171 views

Real-time gunshot detection data?

Was curious whether anyone had successfully obtained access to streaming data from any municipality that uses a "shots fired" detection system like this one. According to their own documentation, the ...
3 votes
2 answers
101 views

Need clarification: if state or city gov releases data in non-open formats (i.e. book, microfiche), *must* they now also release it in CSV format?

Consider the following not-so-hypothetical situation: A state or city government has, for many years now, released a certain data set in various "old school" formats, such as a printed book or ...
15 votes
6 answers
453 views

What is the best way to request machine readable data from a FOIA request?

Maybe there is no way to request a specific file type but what is the best way to request a file (paper or digital) that can be converted easiestly?