We at Tennessee Heartwood take the right of the public to be duly informed of the workings of government. The Freedom of Information Act helps ensure that access.  We've written and been party to FOIA's over the years.  In the spirit of the Act's intent, this page is both a tutorial for those who may wish to write their own, and as a repository of information gathered over the years on the workings of the Forest Service and other government agencies. This is important, as the Act allows a waiver of fees for such requests only if  "disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester." 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii). By keeping this information available to the public, we justify these waivers.  
 

Text of the Freedom of Information Act, with changes made in 2016 to the law.

Our FOIA for Beginners.  Outline of the FOIA Law, fee waivers, categorical exclusions/censoring, timeline, how to effectively write a FOIA, FOIA Appeals, Examples of Using FOIAs for good government and transparency.

A few tips from our experience with federal land management agencies:

• Forests generally have a FOIA coordinator.  Requests go through that staffer. 

• It's probably good to go ahead and give the coordinator a heads up about your request.  The more helpful ones will help you with wording your request well enough to where you don't have repeated kickbacks to you asking for clarification on a document.

• If you are looking for a very specific doc, you shouldn't have too much trouble.  Once the request becomes general enough to cover  a category (ex: "all notes and correspondence on turkey management"), you better get as specific as you can- or expect a more drawn out process.

• There isn't really a hard standard as to what should require a FOIA request.  We have sometimes gotten things we were asked for just through an email from one forest district, and other times have had to go through the FOIA process at another for the same basic information.  

• Asking for electronic copies will take less time and trouble  (and make it less likely a fee will be assessed) than asking for a hard copy. 

• The LBL request below is an example of how the agency can stretch an exemption that allows censoring portions of a request by declaring very mundane things as somehow "proprietary".

• Many federal agencies have "FOIA Reading Rooms" that put up FOIA requests and their fulfillment.  Check to see of the information you're looking for has been requested.     Here's the Forest Service's.  Here's the US Fish and Wildlife Service's