Forty percent of police families deal with domestic violence compared to 25 percent of the general population, and getting out hands on the records that detail these abuses is proving to be expensive. Here’s how you can help.

A previously classified document that the Central Intelligence Agency provided to Congress during the investigation of the Watergate affair shows that G. Gordon Liddy used papers that the Agency had provided - without authorization - while traveling to California to break into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. This newly released document shows that CIA’s Inspector General report on Watergate left out key details, and exposes CIA’s Deputy Director Vernon Walters’ claim that the assistance was provided in response to a “duly authorized extra-Agency request” as false.

Want to stay up-to-date on how the incarceration industry is growing? Visit MuckRock’s Private Prison Project page and check out years’ worth of articles covering the micro to the macro.

Last week there were a number of bug fixes pushed out, including fixing one bug report that netted the reporter three requests as our thanks. See below for all the updates and how to help make MuckRock even better.

For this week’s FOIA round-up, an adorable lesson on why to always be FOIA-ing, shocking evidence that pizza and infrastructure are popular, and Chicago’s mayor finds out the hard way that doing business in secret can cost you.

Are you a journalist? An activist? A concerned citizen who thinks there should be better accounting behind corporatized corrections? Help contribute to the Private Prison Project.

We’re celebrating the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s birthday with a look at five different ways MuckRock users have used FOIA to bring shed light on the Bureau’s 11 decades of skulking around in America’s shadows.

Here are five close-to-home ways for you to learn more about the private prison industry, and to contribute to the ongoing discussion about their use.

As part of our ongoing project to document Central Intelligence Agency activities around the planet, we’re compiling a curated list of links to records in the CIA archives, divided by country and presidential administration. Today we’re looking at the Near East (the Middle East and North Africa).

In a series of letters and memos from late 1983 unearthed in the Central Intelligence Agency’s archives, CIA Director William J. Casey expressed dismay over the Peace Corps’s lifetime ban on former Agency employees, claiming that it could set a precedent that would lead to the unfair stigmatization of those “tainted” by the CIA’s activities.

A heavily redacted file Federal Bureau of Investigation file documents the Bureau’s lingering suspicion, if not outright hostility, towards the African National Congress, including concerns of communist ties and terrorism.

Files recently released to MuckRock include the transcripts of phone calls the Central Intelligence Agency received from Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate arrests. Previously unavailable, the only apparent reference to the tape is Congress’ request for a copy of it. According to the request, “it is not known what is contained in the tape, but its importance is obvious.”

Our public-facing pace of development is going to slow a bit as we focus on reworking a lot of our user authentication and permissions systems, but we did fix up some RSS feeds last week so now you can subscribe to your favorite MuckRock requesters and get updates on what they’re filing.

The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering a bid by Securus Technologies, one of the largest providers of prison phone services in the country, to further consolidate its hold on the inmate communications market by acquiring a competitor, Inmate Calling Solutions, which is currently owned by Keefe Group. The companies argue that a merger wouldn’t edge out competitors.

For this week’s FOIA round-up, the Federal Bureau of Investigation claims it can withhold footage of a dark web bust it had already made public, Secret Service records show a five-figure bill for a First Family visit to a Trump International Hotel in Canada, and a rare indictment for violating public records laws gets handed down in Texas.

One of the more persistent, but less well-known, conspiracy theories surrounding Watergate is the crash of United Airlines flight 553 that killed Dorothy Hunt, a former government employee who was transporting $10,000 in hush money on behalf of her husband and Watergate burglar, E. Howard Hunt. Recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation files, however, tell a different story - one of pilot error, unfortunate coincidence, and an utter lack of foul play.

The human experience is complex, language can only do so much to convey its intricacies, and in some situations, just what would and wouldn’t be considered unforgivable can be determined by just one word. Few government entities understood this better than a post-Church Committee Central Intelligence Agency.

A recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation file, which the Bureau previously said they couldn’t find any record of, sheds a sliver of light on an enduring Watergate mystery: the contents of E. Howard Hunt’s White House safe, which was cracked open and its contents eventually given to the FBI after the Watergate arrests. In typical fashion for matters that touch on the Central Intelligence Agency (including anything involving Hunt), the answers offered up by the FBI file raise additional questions when they’re interrogated.

Private prison company CoreCivic sees growth in demand from U.S. Marshals Service as part of its forward-moving plan.

MuckRock’s amazing community of FOIA and public records enthusiasts have crossed another milestone: A user recently filed the site’s 50,000th requests, the 9,486th request this year.

Last week, we rolled out a big change on our backend, unifying how we handle support tickets. We also improved our data export tools for Professional and Organizational users, and fixed a bug when submitting requests to a bunch of new agencies (there were some errors when you included over 30 or so new agencies in a single request).

For this week’s FOIA round-up, public records help confirm a story about President Donald Trump bringing members of his golf club on Air Force One, a lawsuit shows tax assessor pulling property values from Zillow, and a California city takes a stand against one reporter’s dogged crusade to keep city records secret.

While the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s track record with FOIA has never been good, it’s hard not to argue that it has recently gotten exponentially worse. In just the last few years, the Bureau has thrown out thousands of FOIA requests because there were too “burdensome,” investigated FOIA requesters, redacted the names of fictional characters and engaged in questionable fees practices. However, just last month, the FBI hit a new low and declared that - contrary to all statute and case law - the dead have an expectation of privacy.

Though contracts are usually subject to disclosure, prison phone company ICSolutions added a provision in Wyoming that is preventing the release of its financial agreement in a state with no administrative appeal option.

An Illinois Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Chicago-based Lucy Parsons Labs has led to the release of a “Best Practices and Training Guide” for the PredPol predictive policing software. The manual offers a rare look at how private companies are encouraging police to embrace algorithms as a means of seeking out crime before it happens.