Central Intelligence Agency

About the agency
"The CIA is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers."

Records available
Per its Annual FOIA Report for 2015, the CIA, "consistently protects, among other things, classified national security information, information relating to intelligence sources and methods, and organizational information from release under the FOIA."

Requester suggestions, tips and guidance
The CIA rejected a FOIA request by MuckRock regarding emails mentioning the CIA's online FOIA request portal that was down in 2014. The CIA replied to the FOIA, citing that, "the request has been rejected as being too vague, burdensome or otherwise unprocessable." In a lawsuit between MuckRock and the CIA regarding the release of the CREST database, the CIA defended the slow process in releasing the file by claiming that the files would need to be updated to a different format that was releasable. The attorney on behalf of the CIA argued that because there was no public interest in the CREST files that MuckRock requested, there would be a charge of $108,000 to process all of the files for distribution. The CIA also began to shut down CREST terminals that allow individuals to look up and print out files that were available on the database.

Appeals suggestions, tips and guidance
Learned something about this agency's process through an appeal? Let everyone know.