To better understand the information which is available, users should note that the CIA was organized pursuant to the National Security Act of 1947 and that its primary mission is the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence information for use by our nation's leadership; the CIA has no police, subpoena, law enforcement, or internal security functions.
Effective Requests on Individuals
When requesting records on an individual other than yourself (please see Privacy Act [1] for obtaining information about yourself), you need to provide the following for us to conduct an effective search:
The CIA collects and produces a vast amount of material as a variety of offices collect and analyze foreign intelligence on foreign countries, regions, and international issues. To effectively search through decentralized, voluminous records indexed to a specific country, region, or broad issue of public interest, you must:
To avoid any unnecessary delays in processing because your request lacks the specificity required under the FOIA statutes, you must:
Unless "officially" acknowledged by executive acknowledgment or official release, an intelligence organization like the CIA takes exemptions under the FOIA to protect sources and methods and national security information by neither confirming nor denying the existence of records on:
To avoid any unnecessary processing or delays in processing under the "All Other [2]" fee category--should an individual qualify--a requester must:
If we locate records originated by another government agency during our search, we will refer this material to that agency for review and direct response to you.
We do not accept communications in other than the English language because we are not authorized to expend government funds for translations and because the FOIA does not authorize government agencies to conduct research in order to satisfy requests.
We do have some administrative Office of Strategic Services, (OSS) records; however, operational records have been transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). You can send any requests for operational OSS records to the following address:
Office of Records Services
Modern Military Records
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740-6001
Links
[1] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/privacy-act-1974-5-usc-%C2%A7552a-amended
[2] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/fees-and-waivers-foia%23categories