You have filed your Freedom of Information Act request. You get back a thin stack of expensive paper in response, and a letter. The letter tells you that you got some things that you asked for, and that you didn't get some of the things you asked for.

I get those letters all the time and after a year of collecting them, I'm starting to ramp up the usual process of appealing the rejections. There are a lot of reasons for government agencies to reject a FOIA request in whole or in part. To simplify things, there are three things that you should always be prepared to appeal: the cost of the request, the small parts of it that were blacked out or redacted, and the large portions of the request that were missing or exempted.

Fees

If your FOIA request costs too much, appeal it. Go through the list of fees for the request that you got and negotiate down or appeal every single charge that looks too high. Could the agency or authority have done photocopying cheaper, or avoided photocopying and paper costs by providing you with electronic versions of records? Did they correctly compute the cost of the labor of the lowest-cost employee who could possibly do the work, and not just the salary of the person who actually did the work? Did they get the cost of the photocopying right, or did they mess up the math and charge you 10 times what it's supposed to cost?

A recent FOIA request I submitted to the City of Ann Arbor is instructive. The original bill was for more than $150, but after informal appeals, my total bill was $3.75. Even that was too much, since the copies were made wastefully on single-sided paper.

Redaction

If your FOIA request was redacted (blacked out) with a lot of interesting bits removed, appeal it. Appeal when small amounts of information are removed, because if it's been blacked out by a clerk, you want to bring that appeal to the level of the attorney's office for review. Appeal every redaction of a business address or other identifying information that was made on personal privacy grounds.

Object to every single redaction of a dollar figure or account number. Challenge the agency to prove that they have the right to not give you details.

Agencies that have a strong process for redaction carefully note the exemption for each bit of redaction they apply to a set of documents. Agencies with a weak or ad hoc approach use a Sharpie, and you don't know why each bit of information was removed. Efforts to push agencies toward all-digital redaction generally make the process go faster and work more efficiently.

Blanket rejections

Challenge blanket rejections that are made on the grounds that communications should be shielded because they reflect internal decision making. Ask that exempt and non-exempt materials be separated, and ask that any portion of the request that reflects facts under discussion, rather than opinion or decisions, be made available.

A non-response within the statutory time limits is also a rejection. If you ask in writing and don't get an answer within a week, push the problem onto the head of the organization. 

Endless bureaucratic delay

FOIA appeals are a pain. You are writing to the administrator, who has 10 busines days to respond. If you lose that appeal, you have the right to go to court. Most people don't bother with the appeal process, but it's worthwhile to be prepared to stick it out if you have a bunch of time to get to the bottom of what is going on. Fortunately, most agencies are not actively out to stall you. Many times they don't know how their records are organized, and it may take an extended appeal process just for the right person to be unearthed who has the key to the right locked closet with the fire-proof door where the information you are looking for is under seal.

Edward Vielmetti files FOIA appeals for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at 734-330-2465.