Awaiting Acknowledgment

Asked by Ramola Dharmaraj on April 18, 2014.

4 answers from Shawn Musgrave, Ramola Dharmaraj and Yuno Parks.

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Ramola Dharmaraj

Hello– What does “Awaiting Acknowledgement” mean when you submit a FOIA request and 10 days have passed and there is no other response…? Thanks.

Shawn Musgrave

Hello!

Which request is this regarding? Depending on the jurisdiction, agencies have different statutory requirements for responding to requests. For instance, at the federal level, a government agency has 20 business days to respond to a FOIA request. 

Until an agency sends any sort of response, the request will have the status “Awaiting Acknowledgement.”

Let us know if we can provide any more information or help with a particular request!

-Shawn, MuckRock

Ramola Dharmaraj

This has to do with my FOIA request to the Secretary of the Commonwealth in Massachusetts regarding any correspondence between the FAA FSDO in Burlington, Mass and Quincy, Mass law encforcement and civic administration regarding frequent daily and nightly small plane/other plane flyovers in the Wollaston area of Quincy–Request re. information on small planes over Wollaston, Quincy–that I submitted on April 7 here.

I guess the main agency here is the Federal Aviation Agency.

Thanks!

Yuno Parks

Shawn, so if I understand your response correctly, MuckRock doesn’t edit/review and then send forward, the request goes straight to the agency without stopping by MuckRock first for any edit?

Another assumption? Even if the Agency opened the FOIA and read it can still mean the agency has yet to get back and “acknowledge” it.

Thanks for all your fine work here,

Regards, Yuno

Shawn Musgrave

Yuno - correct on both accounts! The only requests that require any intervention/processing from MuckRock are for the (blessedly few) agencies that only accept FOI requests by mail.