Request 027 — 1/27/2026

Don’t get territorial

It’s Tuesday, happy foiaday!

I’ve opened too many of these by complaining about the cold, so, instead, a peek behind the curtain: I’m currently watching the soapiest possible Netflix drama (about ice skating!) and it is the perfect thing to get work done to.

Hallmark movie quality acting, varying production value, snake-y and weird depiction of journalism, tension, drama, family dynamics, and curiously good music. Anyway.

Yesterday (if you squint), I published the fourth weekly roundup of foiaday, which is bonkers to me! January’s monthly update will go out this Saturday with a rundown of every request filed in the past 31 days, so be ready. 😤

Tonight, let’s go for gold by filing requests to government units I’ve never requested from before: U.S. territories.

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Even as the United States tries to buck its history in favor of staking freedom and independence as its identity, it was and is, like most modern global superpowers, an empire.

(Good book alert: How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr.)

And laying claim to overseas territories does an empire make.

The U.S. has five inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. We also have a host of largely uninhabited, military- and federally-occupied territories that are lumped into the United States Minor Outlying Islands.

Each territory has its own records request laws:

• Puerto Rico has the Transparency Law (with some very recent changes). Response times to requests are now doubled, and agencies can now take up to 20 business days for documents less than 300 pages, and up to a month to release docs older than three years or over 300 pages.

• Guam has the Freedom of Information Act as well. In Guam, the Open Government Act dictates public, open meetings, and the Sunshine Law requires a response within four (!) working days from an agency based on a request.

• American Samoa is tripping me up. I don’t think there’s a completely concrete “FOIA”-FOIA kind of law, but the dubiously reputable backgroundchecks.org says that there are specific discussions of public records in the law, but no specific public records law itself. Laws require agencies to maintain general records schedules, so an index of records, and the law does have specific provisions on public records, but no details (unless I can’t find them) on time frame/turnaround time or processes by which a request should be filed. From what I’ve gathered, every document type has its own provisions over what should be public or not.

• The U.S. Virgin Islands has the Virgin Islands Sunshine Act, which is a public records law alongside a separate open meetings law. (Though not without issues.) The Sunshine Act requires each agency to also provide an index of records four times a year to the territorial library, which is pretty sick. It’s not entirely clear to me though whether records are inspection-only, or if a custodian would send copies of records; I also don’t think there’s a bound timeframe that they have to respond within, or not one that I can find, at least.

• Northern Mariana Islands has the Open Government Act, which is also a combo open meetings and public records law. It’s a pretty standard open records law, with a 10 day window for response, but has some interesting explicitly carved out exemptions (like archaeological sites, internal public safety investigations, and library patron records).

On top of that, there’s the Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, which manages funding and policy at the federal level for the territories.

Broadly, records can also be requested from the federal agencies that operate on these territories and islands. (For example, many contain wildlife refuges or research, and would likely have documents housed in NOAA, NSF, the DOI, etc. Many also are or were military installations, meaning records could be housed within the DoD, NARA or other agencies.)

So! With all of that in mind, we’ll request for sort of standard types of documents to get a sense of what’s out there. You know the drill:

- A log, list, document or data to show all records requests filed with this agency (like a "FOIA log") between 1/1/2023 and the present (1/27/2026 or whenever this request is processed). Please release documents in a digitized format.

- The most recent records retention schedule for the agency, which includes a list of documents kept by the agency and for how long each record is retained. This may be called a general records schedule, a records index, or something else. Please release this in a .pdf if possible.

Let’s grab one more type of document from the different islands. Maybe something Greenland related? Like:

- Any emails, memos, publications or other records sufficient to show discussion of President Donald Trump's proposed invasion or colonization of Greenland and Venezuela. Keywords to search may include "Greenland" or "Denmark" between the date ranges of 1/1/2025 and present (1/27/2026) and/or "Venezuela" or "Maduro" between the date ranges of 12/1/2025 to present (1/27/2026). Please redact any personally identifiable information in accordance with local statutes, and please release documents in a digital format, like a .pdf, if possible.

As always, I’m putting the onus on the agency to let me know, “hey girl, uh, we don’t have that,” or “hey, what the hell,” instead of kneecapping myself from filing in the first place. I genuinely have no idea what infrastructure or carve-outs there are for records I normally request here in Illinois, so I think going for the five territories (for now!) and sticking to records indices and FOIA logs is a good place to start.

I just have a nagging feeling that I overcomplicated my search for records laws, but I truly don’t think that’s the case. It’s always hard navigating the ins and outs of other municipal FOIA legislation (for example, I’ve yet to file a request for the UK’s FOIA law, let alone file a request in New Jersey). If you’re reading this, and you’ve filed records requests to any of the territories mentioned above, hit me up!

And if you see something wrong, hit me up also, because it’s late, I’m tired, and I have at least fifty tabs open with different statutes and laws and editorials and websites and Facebook pages (so many official Facebook pages!) about public records laws in the territories that the U.S. occupies. 😃

Hopefully we’ll get some things in our hands. If we don’t, well. Try try again. (Except when it comes to Greenland, maybe.)

On a different bent: this Friday, I’ll be hosting my final FOIAFriday for MuckRock! I’ll be joined by the illustrious Chicago author, historian and journalist Robert Loerzel, and the inimitable New York Times investigative reporter Steve Eder, in a panel discussion about using FOIA to obtain historical records and documents.

It’ll be recorded and uploaded to YouTube, but if you’re free at 12 pm Central Time on Friday and want to hop on a lunchtime Zoom and say hi, here’s where to register.

Take care, and stay warm!

Cam