Researching FBI investigative records

I recently received an e-mail inquiry from a person interested in obtaining FBI investigative records and I thought I would post my response.

XXXX,

 

Thanks for your e-mail. Most of the research that I do is at the National Archives or Library of Congress, and while the the National Archives does have some FBI investigative records, these primarily of a historical nature http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/065.html.

 

Any more recent FBI investigative records would have to be obtained directly from the FBI, through the submission of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records request form. Unfortunately the FBI does have the right to deny any information request, this might happen for reasons of national security or if the case remains open. Additionally, if the request is approved it can take several weeks or months to obtain records. There are a limited number of FBI documents that are available in their FOIA Reading Room, but it does not look as thought the investigative records of XXXX XXXXX in among them, http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/foiaindex.htm.

 

Here is a link to the FOIA request instructions on the FBI website, http://foia.fbi.gov/foia_instruc.htm. Beyond submitting a FOIA request, which I would be happy to do, there is little that I can do. Once the request is submitted it would go to the FBI’s in-house research staff, who would locate the records and redact any sensitive information. In my experience there is little communication between the records requestor and the records agency.

 

My suggestion would be for you to submit an online records request throught the FBI FOIA link. Most agencies will provide confirmation of your request and a number you can use to check on the request status.

 

I hope this is of help, please feel free to e-mail me or call if you have any other questions.

 

Thanks,

 

Brian Gunn

The FBI really does a great job on the Research and Information page of their website of making it easy for researchs to see what type of information is readily available to the public.

 

Update

Well it has been a few months since the end of the History 696 class, Clio Wired and I thought that I would revive this blog. I found the process of blog posting to be extremely helpful during the semester as a way to sort my thought about the topics discussed in class, and as a way to post things from outside of class that I thought might be helpful to others (or that I simply found to be interesting). This being said, I hope to derive the same benefits this semester by posting thoughts and ideas about my present classes; History 628, Immigration and Ethnicity in the U.S. and History 711, Nuclear War Crisis, 1945 – Present. I will also be posting other items relating to historical research in a general and other topics. Thanks to those who have visited this site so for, I hope that I can continue to write on subjects that you will find to be interesting or useful.

- Brian