FOIA Mapper is no more. Launched with great fanfare in 2016, the search engined developed by Max Galka allowed users to search a database of past FOIA requests, as well as a catalog of the government’s systems of records. Mr. Galka did not respond to FOIA Advisor’s request for comment before this post was published.
Perhaps filling part of that void is FOIAengine, a commercial tool in beta testing that allows subscribed users to search agency FOIA logs. When FOIA Advisor was provided access during the first week in March, the engine included logs from about 15 agencies and was word searchable by, among other things, subject, agency, requester name, and requester organization. We found FOIAengine to be user-friendly with a clean interface. What remains unclear from the website is how many more agencies are likely be included (all cabinet agencies, for example?), and whether FOIA logs will be added more regularly than, say, once per year.