Check this out, this website has FOIA request sample letters for all 50 states!

http://www.nfoic.org/

If you don’t know what FOIA is, it is one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal to combat fraud, theft, corruption, cronyism–you name it, you can pretty much FOIA it.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT means your government does NOT own any documents personally. The documents they have in their possession actually belong to the public and the public can get copies upon a simple written request.  No, really.

I know many of you have run into the court clerk, or the county agency that when you want information, you’re told “it’s private” or “it’s secret”.  Well, no, documents belonging to the public are not private or secret unless the government can show good cause for withholding each and everyone of them.  Generally, that’s a very high standard no state agency or court clerk…