Where can FOIA requests be found?

Question

United States federal (e.g. FOIA) and state law allow people to request public records. The requests themselves are public record. Does any public or private entity maintain a database of those requests?

Answer 1

Here is an example for Washington state under RCW Ch. 42.56. First, you cannot request "all public records requests", because (RCW 42.56.080)

(1) A public records request must be for identifiable records. A request for all or substantially all records prepared, owned, used, or retained by an agency is not a valid request for identifiable records under this chapter, provided that a request for all records regarding a particular topic or containing a particular keyword or name shall not be considered a request for all of an agency's records.

Second, there is no central agency that maintains all records – you would have to make a request of the State Patrol for all State Patrol records, the Department of Transportation for all Transportation requests, Department of Labor and Industries for their records, Ecology; Gambling; Liquor etc.

There are numerous private persons willing to take your money to make records requests, but they all seem to be "name-driven", that is, they get records about a specific person (pursuant to RCW 42.56.080). There is no Department of Central Records to whom you can make such a records request.

Answer 2

You won't find a single repository of all FOIA requests, but you will find many large repositories of requests:

• Muckrock permits users to submit FOIA requests basically anywhere, and then it publishes both the request and the resulting records to the Internet.
• FOIA Online tracks requests for many federal agencies.
• Department of Justice FOIA logs are published online.
• SEC FOIA logs are also published online.

Answer 3

The Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy has information about FOIA requests they've received, including some of the released documents: https://www.justice.gov/oip/available-documents-oip