About American Oversight
American Oversight is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog that advances truth, accountability, and democracy by enforcing the public’s right to government records.
Since our launch in March 2017, we have obtained and published tens of thousands of documents from federal, state, and local government agencies. Records uncovered by American Oversight have supported congressional inquiries, investigative journalism, and independent actions by partner organizations — and our work has been featured in hundreds of news stories around the country.
What We Do
We are open records specialists
We act where corruption and government power overlap. From the federal Freedom of Information Act to state transparency laws, we use carefully crafted records requests to extract information from the government — information they often don’t want the public to have. When the government fails to respond as required by law, our team has the legal expertise to take them to court and enforce the public’s right to hold our leaders accountable.
Public records belong to the public
We believe in transparency and in sharing our work with others who are working to promote accountability in government. Through our online documents library, we make available the requests we submit, the lawsuits we file, and the government records we receive in response. We’ve published more than one million pages of records, and we’re obtaining and posting more every week.
Our priorities
We were founded in 2017 in response to the unprecedented challenges that the Trump administration posed to our nation’s democratic ideals and institutions. Today our work spans more than two dozen states, focusing on core priorities including Attacks on Democratic Institutions, Threats to Civil Rights and Liberties, Abuses of Power, and Erosion of Government Transparency.
Who We Are
American Oversight is a team of more than 35 lawyers, researchers, communicators, and more working across the country to expose misconduct and hold government accountable. Learn more about us here.
Work With Us
Uncovering the paper trail — emails, calendars, text messages, and more — can shine a light on government misconduct, but it rarely tells the full story. That’s why we make our findings available online, and we’re always looking for ways to help journalists, government watchdogs, and independent organizations hold our leaders accountable.
Press
Are you covering a story that we’re investigating or do you have questions about using public records to support your reporting?
Get in touch and see recent stories supported by our investigations.
Careers
We’re always looking for new team members.
Partners
Transparency can be a powerful tool for driving change across any number of issues. American Oversight is obsessively collaborative: Where our anti-corruption and pro-democracy mission intersects with another organization’s mission, we want to work together to amplify our impact. We are active at the federal level and across dozens of states.
Learn more about our partner collaborations here.
Contribute
We’re able to hold public officials accountable to the public thanks to the support of people like you who contribute to support our investigations.
