Do private prisons “cherry pick” inmates, leaving state Corrections departments saddled with offenders in need of more expensive care? While it’s not quite selecting from a line up, they do set the guidelines for who’s in or out.

The North Carolina Attorney General has spoken: the state must, in fact, release data detailing which police departments received excess military equipment. The ruling reverses the position taken by state public safety officials that disclosing this information would be akin to publishing a blueprint for scofflaws.

In late 2013, MuckRock’s Shawn Musgrave requested a copy of the Air Force’s Cyber and Information Technology Research Investment report, which the agency was required to compile and submit to congress. Last March, that report came in, detailing where the Air Force wants its tech to be by 2025.

Starting on April 19, 1956, the federal government practiced and planned for a near-doomsday scenario known as Plan C. When activated, Plan C would have brought the United States under martial law, rounded up over ten thousand individuals connected to “subversive” organizations, implemented a censorship board, and prepared the country for life after nuclear attack.

Ask how many MQ-9 Reaper drones the US needs for pilot training, and the Air Force budget hawks charged with making that call have an exact figure at the ready: 52 unmanned aircraft, each at a sticker price north of $10 million and total operating cost upwards of $100 million over its lifetime. What sort of analysis did they preform to get at this specific number? According to recently released audit, none.

After initially claiming to be unable to locate any such document, the FBI now insists that it cannot release its comprehensive list of police departments across the country that use cell phone trackers.

MuckRock’s September request for complaints made to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has so far yielded only four complete responses from OSHA’s ten regional offices. None of them mention interpersonal inmate issues but nonetheless they offer glimpses into what goes on within prison walls.

Back in September, MuckRock user Phil Mocek responded to a video of a black SUV allegedly hitting Ferguson protestors by filing for the incident report. Last Friday, as part of a larger document dump, that report came in.

In Massachusetts, a new law entitles municipalities to request utility companies’ gas line maps and gas leak inventories based on uniform standards, but few towns seem to be aware of the right. Check out our interactive map to see how Middlesex county responded, and help us file with the rest of the state.

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection piloted its first drone along the Arizona-Mexico border in the summer of 2004. This Monday, over ten years after it’s initial launch, Department of Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth went on C-SPAN to lay out the reasons he considers CBP drones “dubious achievers” despite more than $60 million per year in annual funding. Here’s what happened in-between.

Legislatures across the country reconvened this week, and in Massachusetts, where a new governor is also part of the package, a fresh attempt at access reform begins.

Back in 2012, MuckRock user Runa Sandvik requested FBI reports relating to Bitcoin and the anonymous online marketplace The Silk Road. Not quite three years later, heavily-redacted copies of those reports have been released, warning of “extremists” using the cryptocurrency “to conduct nefarious financial transactions.”

While for the most part, the 91 pages of searches serves as a reminder of public fears from the last three years, both justified and not (remember heartbleed?), some of the searches are a little more … opaque.

It’s been months since we learned of the seemingly compulsory non-disclosure agreement that the FBI hands police eager to use cell phone tracking equipment. But we still know precious little about which departments aren’t allowed to tell us what about their StingRays.

“Public-private partnerships” - established with local, state, and federal agencies - provide groups like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) the financial incentives that contribute to mass incarceration in the United States. MuckRock has submitted requests for nearly every contract currently maintained between a government agency and CCA, and plotted them by facility on an interactive map.