FBI FOIA Webpage Disrupted

The Federal Bureau of Investigation respectfully declined to comment on a gap in service at an online portal for submitting Freedom of Information Act requests. The portal is part of the FBI website where visitors encountered an error message, depicted below, while trying to access the webpage between Saturday evening and Monday morning. "The FBI declines to comment," the Bureau's National Press Office wrote in a July 16 email in response to an inquiry submitted by Expanding Frontiers Research.

Message encountered by visitors trying to access the FBI FOIA portal from July 12-14

The disruption at the FBI website was experienced by EFR while trying to submit FOIA requests on Saturday. Other researchers also observed the downed webpage and began posting about it on Bluesky. The problem continued through Sunday and into Monday morning before the webpage was restored.

EFR requested comment Monday morning from the FBI National Press Office, which replied later in the afternoon it was unsure to what we were referring and asked for the link. By that time, the portal was once again operational, so EFR summarized the situation, provided the above screenshot, and asked if FBI was aware of the circumstances. Wednesday the NPO emailed its apologies for the delay in getting back to us and that the FBI declines to comment.