Recently submitted a dozen+ legit FOIA requests to a list of specific small and medium sized Trump-friendly jurisdictions around the USA. Both with governments and law enforcement. Many in places you wouldn’t think to look. But I’m a nosy motherfucker.

Most of the submission processes are (essentially) open borders, lol. With few barriers to entry. Which means you should try doing the same thing.

The biggest hurdle is knowing what to say in the original request message. But that is ultimately trivial.

Along these lines, here are three resources I have used to effectively investigate the names and events I submitted FOIA requests for:

  1. The Stevens Method (This resource is a Substack, which I know isn’t a popular platform here. But Chaz Stevens isn’t a typical publisher. This is where youll find most of your examples and shortcuts for FOIA requests.)
  2. u/ChurchOMarsChaz
  3. Little Sis

I submitted high-leverage FOIA requests (for specific public figures, domestic terrorist attacks, Flock camera query logs, right-wing terrorist organizations and others entities/subjects you would recognize) that I will release everything related to once responses are received.

But beforehand I did my own research into publicly available information so I knew exactly where to strike first. This is a game of cat and mouse unfortunately. Meow.

I learned about where certain people grew-up and live today. I mapped political contributions and connections. I scraped websites, databases and social media profiles. I used automation to help expedite the process.

The goal here is to become as super-hot-precise in records requests as possible.

I want the public to know everything. Get dat milk and honey bro.

Also, if my home is raided during this ramp-up effort, this post can be used as a reference for how unbelievably dangerous the United States has become for average citizens. FAFO.

  • LocalFOIA@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    10·
    14 hours ago

    As mentioned in the post text, I am a proud copycat. Because if I can do it, you can too.

    I was inspired largely by Chaz Stevens’ work. There are other resources I have relied on for doing research and filing FOIA requests, examples of which are listed below:

    1. The Stevens Method - Chaz Stevens’ substack which contains most of his templates for creating a FOIA request, as well as specific strategies for rejection responses
    2. u/ChurchOMarsChaz - This is Chaz Stevens’ Reddit account where he discusses most of his ongoing projects
    3. Little Sis - An excellent volunteer project attempting to map networks of power

    I also used automation to scrape the social media profiles of hundreds of politicians, local governments, individual LEOs, religious nonprofits, religious leaders and so on. Those tools were based on Chaz Stevens’ various tool kits. Which are described in articles and posts found at the links above.