Your heart is in the right place, I think, but FOIA is useless here. FOIA is cool if you want to know what an agency has on file about you (which is usually nothing) or learning the “truth” about JFK, EBEs, and UAPs.

Sarcasm aside, the most important thing to note about FOIA is that agencies handle their own FOIA requests; each agency has a staff (sometimes even a staff of one) for processing FOIA requests. FOIA is also a “devil’s in the details” type of law: you won’t have much luck with vague, open-ended, or ambiguously scoped requests.

Some information and data are exempt FOIA requests, including information about law enforcement activities or investigations, the personnel files or personal details of staff, and anything considered relevant to “national security.”

Even if the information requested is cleared for release, agencies know how to stall. FOIA requests are legally required to be responded to in 20 days or less… unless “the information needs to be closely reviewed and redacted before release,” “we’ve received too many requests for the same information to answer them in a timely manner,” or “our staff are experiencing difficulty locating the specific files that would satisfy the request.” Flooding an agency with FOIA requests for the same document or topic typically makes things worse until the amount requests becomes so high that that agency just dumps them online somewhere.

The last thing I’ll say is that a lot of FOIA requests only get satisfied after a lawsuit.