Download the form
DA Form 4948-R handles one job: freedom of information act (foia)/operations security (opsec) desk top guide (lra). The official title is FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. Download it below, fill it in, sign it, send it where your directive says. The edition on this page is November 1989, status not stated, running 1 page(s) with about 38 fields to complete.
Two references decide everything about your use of it: CIO/G-6 maintains the content, AR 25-55 sets the trigger and the routing. Consult the directive when your case is not routine; otherwise the printed blocks tell you enough. The person named in the entries fills it, or the administrative office holding the file does it for them.
PDF, XFDL are available and the decision takes one second. Type your entries: fillable pdf. Write them: printable pdf. The published layout is common to both, so the format governs your method and nothing more.
Use a full pdf reader, not the browser viewer. Browser viewers display fields they cannot always save, and the loss shows up only when you reopen the file — type one entry, save, reopen, verify, then fill the rest. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, used inside Army systems, and opens in the Lotus Forms Viewer alone — no pdf reader, no word processor.
Free, unregistered, unmodified. What arrives is what the publisher released.
What the form asks for
- ADVISOR
- ContentArea1
- PHONE
- Page1
- R47
- R48
- R49
- R50
- R51
- R52
- T10
- T11
- T12
- T14
- T15
- T17
- T18
- T19
- T23
- T24
- T25
- T26
- T28
- T33
The heading entries carry more weight than the body. Name spelled as in official records, identification number, organisation, date prepared. Retrieval runs on those values, so a transposed digit or a casual spelling costs someone a file search. Fill them before anything else.
Tab through the fields rather than clicking. The tab order was fixed when the form was built and generally follows the page, which catches boxes a mouse skips past. Check boxes and option buttons take a click, and an exclusive group clears the previous selection when you make a new one. Single-line fields do not wrap — text past the field width prints truncated while still showing in full on screen, which is why the loss is discovered after printing. Overflow goes to remarks or a continuation sheet. A field that does not apply gets the mark meaning none; blank space reads as an omission.
Signature comes after every other entry — ink or an approved electronic means, and without it the document is a draft. Where reviewing, approving or witnessing signatures are called for, take them in printed block order, each dated on the day applied. Before release, one pass from the top. The defects worth hunting are always the same four: mandatory fields left empty, identification digits transposed, dates with day and month reversed, and stale data surviving in a copy reused in place of a blank form.
Read the Privacy Act statement at the point it appears. Authority, purpose, routine uses, mandatory or voluntary — four facts, and they govern what you are about to enter. A completed copy holds personal data and takes the handling rules that attach to it.
The prescribing directive names the destination; office custom does not. Depending on the case that means a specific office, the unit administrative channel, or the personal record. Keep a copy first, because the original does not come back. Retention runs on the applicable records schedule.
Look for associated forms by series and number. In the DA series, documents sharing a proponent or a governing directive tend to travel together, and anything referenced on the page normally submits alongside. Collect continuations, covers and transmittals in advance of sending.
Edition date is the version number, printed on the page. Hold a locally saved copy against the current edition before reuse, since nothing on your machine signals a revision. Work already executed under a superseded edition remains as filed.
What is distributed here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents. Independent site, no official standing, no forms of its own. Nothing on the page constitutes legal advice, and acceptance by any office is outside what can be stated. Put questions about entries, requirements or eligibility to CIO/G-6 or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4948-R?
- FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
- Which edition is current?
- November 1989
- Who is responsible for this form?
- CIO/G-6
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL