This article focuses on the tremendous, time consuming challenges that journalists have had to face to for decades in their efforts to obtain access to federal and state government documents in accordance with theFreedom of Information Act (FOIA), Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552. Subsequent to 9-11, there has been considerable press related to broad brush decisions that have been made by government officials to either remove documents entirely from public access for security reasons, or severly limit their availablity to such an extent that one could grow quite old in the process of attempting to obtain specific materials.