Open the release and watch where it lands
Click the link that's ranking on your name and let it finish loading in a normal browser. If the address bar still reads fbi.gov, an FBI office published it: the field office named in the URL, or FBI headquarters when the release sits under fbi.gov/news/press-releases with no field office in the path. If the address changes to justice.gov, a U.S. Attorney's office or Justice Department headquarters published it, the fbi.gov address is only a pointer, and the FBI has nothing to take down. We ran this on September 8, 2026: an fbi.gov Philadelphia news URL landed on justice.gov/usao-nj, while a Tampa one stayed exactly where it was.
When it redirects, copy both addresses. The fbi.gov URL is the one people find and the justice.gov URL is the one that can be edited, and your request needs both on it. Then scroll to the bottom of a justice.gov release, where the page carries Component, Topics, an Updated date and, on most releases, a Press Release Number. Copy whichever of those it shows. That number is how the office finds the file without going looking for it.
Read the press contact off the page you are already on
Do not guess the email address. The FBI prints the media contact at the top of the release itself and on the office's News page, and the format changes office to office. The Philadelphia release we loaded reads Public Affairs Specialist Sofia Kettler, philadelphia.media@fbi.gov. The Tampa one reads Public Affairs Officer Andrea Aprea, tp.media@fbi.gov. The Los Angeles News page lists three specialists, a phone number, and two addresses, LA-Media@fbi.gov and FBILAPressOffice@fbi.gov.
Some offices print a person and some print only a mailbox. The FBI Philadelphia News index gives FBI Philadelphia Media Office with the address under it and no name at all, which is still the right place to write. Take whatever is on the page. If you need to find the office that covers your city, the FBI's field office directory lists all 56 with addresses and phone numbers.
On a justice.gov release, the contact lives on that district's own Contact Us page, under the heading Public Affairs Office, on the line that reads For Members of the Press. The District of New Jersey's page gives 973-645-2783 and USANJ.PublicAffairs@usdoj.gov. Districts publish their own, and the release's own top navigation carries a Contact Us link straight to it, as the District of New Jersey release above does.
Write it as a letter, and ask for three things in order
There is no form, no portal and no ticket number. You are writing an email to one person who has to decide this by hand, so hand them everything and keep it short. Put the headline and, if the release shows one, the press release number in the subject line. In the body: both URLs, the publication date, your name exactly as it is printed on the page, and one paragraph on what is now false or superseded.
Attach the order, certified or stamped by the court that entered it, and attach photo ID in the same email. The office has no way to know you are the person named in the release, and no way to confirm a disposition you only describe. If the release names the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who handled the case, copy them on it, because they can confirm the outcome in one line.
Ask for three things in order, easiest last: take the page down, or leave it up and append a dated note saying what happened, or at minimum de-index it so it stops ranking on your name. The middle one is what a press office can say yes to without a lawyer. Quote the Department's own legal policies page back at them, which says the Department will make every effort to correct errors brought to our attention. That sentence, not a statute, is the leverage you have.
Skip the two processes that look official and are not
Do not file a Request for Correction under the Information Quality Act. It is the route most removal advice points at, and DOJ's own Information Quality page exempts press releases from it by name. The list of exempted categories includes press releases, fact sheets, press conferences or similar communications in any medium. DOJ answers a Request for Correction within 120 calendar days, and a press release is outside the process, so the filing buys you a wait and a rejection you could have read in advance.
A Privacy Act amendment request does not reach a webpage either. That process covers records held in a system of records, a public press release on a website is not one, and the FBI's central records system is separately exempted from the amendment provision. Your leverage is the press officer's discretion and, if you have one, a court order. Everything else on offer is a form that was never built for this.
If nothing comes back, escalate inside the same office
Set your own follow-up date the day you send it, because neither agency publishes one. There is no status page, no ticket number, and no acknowledgment to sit waiting for. When your date arrives and the page is unchanged, re-send the identical email one level up. Re-sending is not rude here. It is the only mechanism that exists.
On the FBI side, the next addressee is the field office's Special Agent in Charge, or the Assistant Director in Charge who heads Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C., and after that the National Press Office at (202) 324-3000, listed on fbi.gov/contact-us under Additional FBI contacts. That is a media line for reporters, not a removals desk, so use it only after the field office has had your request in writing and done nothing with it.
On the Justice Department side it goes district Public Affairs Officer, then the First Assistant or the U.S. Attorney by name, which you get from the U.S. Attorneys Listing covering all 94 districts, then the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. If the page has already moved to justice.gov/archives, the banner on it points at webmaster@usdoj.gov, which is a different desk from the one that wrote it.
If your case was dismissed, sealed, vacated or expunged, the strongest move left is back in the court that entered that order. Counsel can ask that court for relief directing the government to take down its own publication, and where the release contains a hard factual error about a named person, a demand letter from a lawyer to the district's Public Affairs Officer and the field office's chief division counsel is the pressure that gets releases edited. Neither of those is a form you file on your own.
Clean up Google only after the page actually changes
Refresh Outdated Content is the tool, and it is built for content that has already been deleted or changed on the site. Sign in to a Google account, follow Google's instructions, select Request refresh, enter the URL on the Page tab and select Submit. Running it against a live page nobody has touched does nothing, which is why this step comes last. Your request status shows under Refresh outdated content in Google Search Console.
Google's personal information removal is the wrong tool for a press release. Behind Start removal request, the list of what it covers is your address, phone and email, confidential government ID numbers, bank and card numbers, pictures of your signature or ID, and private records like medical records. A government press release is not on that list. And even a granted Google removal leaves the page sitting exactly where it is on fbi.gov.
What this does not do
An expungement does not reach a federal agency's website. Sealing or expunging the case changes the court's own record, and nothing in that order automatically obliges the FBI or the Justice Department to unpublish a release they lawfully issued. There is no U.S. right to be forgotten and no statute that compels the takedown, which is why the ask goes to a person rather than into a process.
Getting the page down does not get the story down. Old Justice Department content moves to justice.gov/archives, where the banner reads This is archived content from the U.S. Department of Justice website, and the news sites and aggregators that republished the release keep their own copies and keep ranking on your name. Each of those is a separate request to a separate publisher, and none of them is bound by what the FBI decides.
Nothing ages off on its own. The year filter on the FBI's press release index starts at 2010 and runs to this year, and nothing inside that window ages off on its own. Search your name again in a month and open the page yourself. A removal you have not seen with your own eyes is not one you can tell anybody about.