In another article in these pages, we discuss how you can use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to help get a leg up on the competition. We have found a number of FOIA-related sites that can help you navigate the FOIA process.If you want a guide to the Freedom of Information Act, check out this site:http://www.usdoj.gov/foia/04_3.html.. A word of caution, however: it’s pretty dense reading, prepared as it is by the US Department of Justice.

The DOJ also has a page with links to other agencies’ FOIA pages. This is a good staring point if you want to wade in to deeper waters: http://www.usdoj.gov/foia/other_age.htm

A commercial site, The FOIA Group On-Line, http://www.foia.com, offers assistance in preparing FOIA requests (for a fee). We get no referral kickbacks; we only offer it as a link.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has a great FOIA site athttp://www.spj.org/foia/index.htm.

Go to the State Contacts page, http://spj.org/foia/foiresources/states/, to find your state’s FOIA contact.

And for those of you for whom the X-Files are more than just a slightly shopworn TV show, you can go to the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Joint Staff Electronic Reading Room Documents Concerning UFO’s at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/ufo.
You can purchase both “The Roswell Report: Fact vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” and “The Roswell Report: Case Closed.” Be warned, however; these were prepared by the US Air Force, so consider the source.