Tisha's Blog: Like so many of us in Washington, my grandfather was a fairly ordinary man who happened to work alongside some extraordinary names. Einstein. Oppenheimer. Neil Armstrong. But don't try to tell me G.Paw (short for "grandpaw") was anything but amazing.

Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming when men still robbed trains from horseback, G.Paw would keep me enraptured with stories, like the time he drove through Yellowstone in a Model T. He could take a boring old rope, tie it into a loop and create a lariat that he could swing in a perfect circle around his feet, up his chest and over his head. Then he would throw the thing ten feet and lasso me in for giant bear hug. It wasn't until I became a reporter, and long after he died, that I really began to appreciate how his skills with a rope were nothing compared to what he did for a day job.

Like so many men during World War II, Shelby Thompson was recruited by the Federal Government to help with the War Effort. But instead of being sent to the Pacific or into Germany, my grandfather was sent to New Mexico to work on the Manhattan Project. He not only watched the first atomic bomb test during the Trinity explosion, he helped capture it on film.

As the Director of Communications for the Atomic Energy Commission, and later for a burgeoning NASA program, G.Paw witnessed the Bikini Atoll explosions, the first manned mission to space and multiple Apollo launches to the moon. Family lore says scientists didn't want to put a movie camera on the first moon launch, thinking it would weigh too much and waste valuable cargo space. It was my grandfather, if you believe the family stories, who told them no one would believe men actually landed on the moon if you didn't record it on camera.

So when I found a website called "Get Grandpa's FBI File," I immediately thought of G.Paw. "He must have a file," I said to myself. I filled out the form provided by the FBI's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) website in November. I assumed I would get something back in a few weeks. Of course, I quickly found out its a lot more complicated than that.

In theory, getting your FBI file is supposed to a simple process. But as the stories I've since written for Fox 5 demonstrate, the FBI's system for finding names and then processing files is antiquated.

In this modern computer age, when a simple Google search takes less than two seconds, the FBI spends months searching an "index" system created by J. Edgar Hoover in the 1930s. That's about the same time my grandfather was driving through Yellowstone in a Model T. That's not to say the FBI hasn't written me a few letters. The first letter I received informed me that I needed to "prove" my grandfather was actually dead. Due to Federal privacy laws, you can only get an FBI file if its your actual file, the file of someone who has died, or if you have explicit written permission from the person whose file you are requesting. The FBI analyst who received my initial request had never heard of my grandfather and is not required to do any research.

Instead, the burden is upon the requestor (i.e. me) to prove that G.Paw was in fact dead, despite the fact the FBI assumes anyone born more than 100 years ago has died. Or at least that was what the letter said. My grandfather would be 101 years old today...but I still had to send an obituary back to the FBI proving he was deceased. Several months later, I received another letter informing me the FBI had received my request and was processing it.

Based on other FOIA requests I've made for FBI files on behalf of Fox 5, I suspect I am going to receive several more letters. First, I will get a letter informing me how much money it will cost to process my request. I will send them a letter telling them I will pay the money. Then a month or so later I will get a letter informing me the file has been located but must now be declassified and reviewed by an analyst. After that, they will probably send me the file, replete with white boxes blocking out any classified or sensitive information. But he does have an FBI file.

During a phone call about another FBI file request I made, an analyst told me they had found my grandfather's file and it was being "declassified." Oh la la! It sounds so exciting. I simply can't wait to see it.