Sometimes, only five to 10 people come in. The Reading Room is open five days a week, but visits are by appointment only and require two-day notice. The FBI office that handles FOIA requests is huge - 400 to 600 employees. The bureau gets 12,000 to 13,000 written requests annually for files - many of which aren't among the 278 files in the Reading Room. Linda Kloss, a public-information officer for FOIA requests, says it takes at least one to four years to fulfill a request.
People can pay for copies of files, which then are sent through the mail.
There's one catch - for the FBI to make one of its files public, the subject must be deceased, unless an individual is seeking his or her own file. Already, there have been 20 requests for any files on Frank Sinatra and Barry Goldwater, according to FBI officials. The most common Reading Room patrons are college students, authors, academics and attorneys working for clients. Lesar says he has spent his legal career devoted to Freedom of Information Act litigation. Lesar believes the volume of files, especially of celebrities and spies, had to do with the times.