This page presents an official legal definition of “freedom of information act” from a government
source. Additional definitions will be added as jurisdictions publish them.
United States
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal statute that:
Says people generally have a right to request access to federal agency records; and
Establishes a presumption that records from agencies and departments of the Executive Branch of the U. S. government are accessible to the people, except when the records are protected from disclosure by any of nine exemptions contained in the law or by one of three special law enforcement record exclusions.
The legislature occasionally skips outline levels.
For example:
(3) A person may apply [...]
(4)(a) A person petitioning for relief [...]
In this example, (3), (4),
and (4)(a) are all outline levels, but
(4) was
omitted by its authors. It's only implied. This presents an
interesting challenge when laying out the text. We've
decided to display a blank section with this note, in order
to aide readability.