Over a span of almost nine months, the Austin, TX police department pursued plans to lease an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), only to kill the program suddenly. Revealed in documents obtained as part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock’s Drone Census, we get an agency-eye view of the process required to go from conception to (almost) kickstarting a UAV program.

After the high-profile "Craigslist Killer" Suicide, MuckRock co-founder Michael Morisy requested the Sheriff’s Department guidelines on suicide prevention. For two years, the Sheriff’s Department has failed to provide them.

There are no fines (or any punishment at all) for a Massachusetts agency that doesn’t respond to a Freedom of Information request.

As citizens of a democracy, we’d like to believe that our tax money is spent on programs and products that will support the nation, and create a better, stronger society. So what do we do when we discover that more than $33 million dollars was spent on a web application few find useful?