---
title: "Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "concept"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Freedom of Information Act"
aliases: ["FOIA"]
first_seen: "2026-07-21T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["AC Gravity LLC","MuckRock","defense-funding opacity","primary-record verification"]
---


The U.S. federal statute allowing any person to request release of executive-branch agency records, subject to enumerated exemptions and a "reasonably described" specificity requirement. It matters to the vault as a recurring verification route for defense-funding-opacity claims — and its first documented example here is a caution rather than a triumph: a 2022 request for AC Gravity LLC's DoD grant paperwork was administratively closed for being insufficiently specific, before DoD ever searched its own records. A FOIA closure on procedural grounds is a distinct, weaker outcome than an exemption denial, and the two should not be read the same way when a claim rests on "no records were released."

## References
- [[claim-ac-gravity-llc-foia-request-closed-without-records]]