[I’m trying to request a bunch of military contracts to get them in the open](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/sierra-nevada-l-3-technologies-spyplane-contracts-93717/?#file-859721). I’m expecting it’s going to be expensive. Can anyone help with a strong fee waiver argument? Certainly being categorized “commerical” is the worst, but in any case it’s going to probably be much more than I want to pay and I think it’s worthwhile getting these out.
Hi Ted, you can write back and explain that you’re an individual making a request for noncommercial purposes. They’ll most likely realize they misclassified you. They’ll classify you as an “other” requester, so you won’t have to pay for review/redaction time at all, you’ll get 2 hours of search time for free, and the first 100 pages for free (and agencies often let you have more than 100 free if they’re releasing PDFs and other digital records). That might be enough to get you the docs at no charge (or very little).
When requesting a fee waiver, you have to do it as part of your original request.