It's not uncommon for records requesters to receive a response similar to that which was received in the linked article.

The FBI notified requester Emma Best — two years after she filed her request — that it could not produce files related to the investigation of a 20 year old white supremacist online forum because the files were lost or could not be located despite two "reasonable searches."

Best's two year wait yielded 104 heavily redacted "responsive" records.

She was philosophical about the FBI's response — after her Tweet about it generated a Twitter storm — explaining that the FBI commonly makes this claim.

She did not believe the files were intentionally "lost." It was, in her view, more likely that the FBI failed to conduct an adequate search or that the organizational system for its files, or lack thereof, would have former director J. Edgar Hoover "spinning in his grave."

One commentweeter noted that is is especially frustrating when the FBI denies the existence of records it previously released.

Open records requesters in Kentucky are receiving similar responses at an alarmingly rate. But our law addresses the problem so that agencies cannot avoid accountability "by denying a record's existence altogether."

Obviously, an agency cannot produce a record that it does not have or cannot locate.

In some cases, there is a plausible explanation. For example, the requested record reached the end of its retention "lifespan" and was legally destroyed in the normal course of business. Proof of proper records destruction can be obtained through the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Public agencies are required by law to provide KDLA with destruction certificates.

In other cases, the agency does not now, nor did it ever prepare, own, use, possess, or retain the record. A law enforcement agency may properly deny a request for records relating to an arrest that it did not execute or in which it had no involvement.

Where there is no proof that the public agency is concealing an existing public record, the courts have recognized that the agency is not required to "prove a negative."

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15077369517472743718&q=bow…

Where proof that the record existed or should have existed, the courts require a public agency to explain its inability to produce the record. "When it is determined that an agency's records do not exist, the person requesting those records is entitled to a written explanation for their nonexistence."

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4814671108794616634&q=epli…

For example, a requester obtains the record from the agency but a second requester is denied access on the basis of the record's nonexistence. Or the requester obtains a copy from a source but wants to confirm that the agency maintains the record. The requester is thereafter denied access. He or she is entitled to a written explanation for the record's nonexistence.

In other cases, the law requires the creation of a record that the agency is unable to produce. Another example, fiscal courts may purchase property but they can pay no more than the property's highest appraised value "as determined by a certified real property appraiser." A fiscal court's denial of a request for an appraisal associated with the purchase of property that is based on the appraisal's nonexistence must be accompanied by an explanation, even if the explanation is that the fiscal court didn't know the applicable law.

In each of these examples, the open records law assumes that the agency conducted an adequate search for all responsive records. Agencies must "make a good faith effort to conduct a search using methods that could reasonably be expected to produce the records requested."

https://ag.ky.gov/orom/2016/16ORD097.doc

And in any of these examples, where there is evidence of records mismanagement Kentucky's open records law authorizes the attorney general to refer an appeal to the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives for further action.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23059

That action most often consists of a revision/correction to existing agency records management practices. Whatever past mistakes the agency made that resulted in its inability to produce a public record should be rectified by KDLA's intervention.

Knowing these "rules of engagement" will prepare records requesters for the increasingly common agency response that "no record exists."