The MuckRock 50 States of FOIA Project aims to shed light on what it’s like to work with public records around the U.S., through the voices of requesters state by state. This time, we focus on the state of Florida.

At MuckRock, we love open standards, particularly open standards that make it easier to share interesting government info. So we’ve made it easier than ever to follow requests however you’d like.

Harvard University transparency exemptions have caused a great deal of controversy over the years, especially concerning the Harvard Police Department, which refuses to release its crime logs. Harvard’s student paper, The Crimson, even brought the matter to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, demanding greater access to records, but the court ultimately maintained they were private documents.

When Corrections Corporation of America bought the Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in September 2011, Lake Erie became the first state prison to be sold to a private company. Just that August, the State’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee had given the facility a positive review during its unannounced visit. By the next inspection, after a full year of CCA operation, the tone had changed.

Last week, MuckRock received over 500 pages in documents from the FBI file of the late Sun Myung Moon, religious leader of the cult-like Unification Church. Along with his widespread influence, Moon also attracted controversy - his file details allegations of slavery and involuntary servitude, death threats against Moon’s son, arson, and possible kidnapping of church members.

The city of Philadelphia has paid out more than $40 million in damages and settlements as a result of nearly 600 misconduct lawsuits brought against the police department since 2009, according to data provided by the cities under public records requests.

I’m excited to share that MuckRock is one of 18 new Knight Prototype Fund grantees. Since we started in 2010, you’ve helped us make more than 400,000 pages of government documents public. Now, with this grant, we’re going to build a better way of making those docs useful, relevant, and accessible.

Combined, New York law enforcement agencies have received nearly 300 assault rifles via the 1033 program, plus three fully tracked armored vehicles, two cargo planes, six helicopters, eight bomb robots and more than 150 military trucks and Humvees.

As part of an ongoing investigation, MuckRock’s Todd Feathers asked the NYPD for a list of all civil rights lawsuits brought against the department. To his surprise, what he got was every case brought against the NYPD since 2009, and how much those cases cost them in settlements. To all of MuckRock’s surprise, that amount is several hundred million dollars.

On April 3, 2012, the day Kendrick Lamar released LA anthem “The Recipe,” the city was comfortable in the mid sixties, the Lakers just managed to edge out the Nets, and no women were arrested for marijuana possession.

The Federal Communications Commission insists that it does not require police departments to sign a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI before acquiring or deploying cell phone trackers. The FCC’s response contradicts wording found in one such FBI nondisclosure agreement released last month by Tacoma police.

Last Monday, MuckRock joined the American Library Association, OpenTheGovernment.org, the Society of Professional Journalists, and dozens of other organizations devoted to the cause of a more open government in signing an open letter calling for a review of their FOIA policy, specifically in regards to the “Craig Memorandum.”

After months of stalling, the Federal Aviation Administration has at last released an updated list of waivers to fly drones in national airspace. New approvals include the ATF and Army Corps of Engineers, Michigan State Police and local cops in Mobile and Daytona Beach … plus the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.

A week ago, we tweeted about a request Todd Feathers filed for civil lawsuits filed against the BPD. Several days later, Todd received a response from the Mayor’s PR office, asking that all press-related records request go through them. Todd set out to find why.

A few weeks ago, we ran a piece about the BPD’s long overdue response to a request for internal communications and information regarding the city’s annual Freedom Rally, and how it might run up against the newly-enacted city parks-wide smoking ban. What we got back - or really, what we didn’t get back - was surprising.

While almost seventy percent of states have turned over the agency-by-agency data, Massachusetts is in the sad minority of holdouts - leaving several huge items unaccounted for.