MuckRock wants to learn more about the operations of these immigration detention facilities, private and public. If you’re a group local to a facility and want to help our effort, let us know.

We are excited to share that Meredith Broussard, associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and the author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World, has joined the board of the MuckRock Foundation.

Partially due to Joe Biden’s time on the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence, a search of the Central Intelligence Agency’s CREST database returns thousands of records - news articles, memos, letters, and more - referencing the Senator.

We have a new name for our new platform for monitoring the security, accessibility, and speed of government websites: GovLens. Now you can help us build it.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, analysis shows that men still vastly outnumber women in Congressional nominations to service academies, the Chicago Tribune obtained documents revealing that Chicago Police Department has been compiling profiles on citizens who spoke at their monthly board meetings, and an Oregon judge’s recent ruling could have a disastrous impact on the state’s public records law.

MuckRock announced that it would be looking at the extent of drone use by municipalities, counties, and states throughout the country. Since then, individuals from Connecticut to California have responded to the call.

The state of Tennessee has taken a small step toward more transparency on the incentives it offers businesses to locate or expand in the state.

Richmond, Virginia’s public housing agency is working to demolish public housing while excluding the public from any input in the process.

A bipartisan team of senior U.S. Senators has introduced legislation to clarify important sections of the Freedom of Information Act and codify a presumption of disclosure for commercial records.

News that over a million people are planning on breaking into the infamous government facility known as Area 51 would doubtlessly come as a surprise to those who were actually stationed there, many of whom were all too eager to leave.

We looked at five cities and the steps and policies that are bringing new technology to city hall.

Steven Rich, the database editor for the investigations team at The Washington Post, recently gained access to a database that traced every pain pill distributed across the US between 2006 and 2012. The database provides a look at where opioids have been distributed by which pharmaceutical companies, and shows that the federal government has long been aware of the scope of the opioid crisis. Rich spoke to MuckRock about taking advantage of a lawsuit to gain access to the Drug Enforcement Administration pain pill database and how to use public records to report on private companies.

It’s summertime!

You know what that means: it’s the only time when the Middletown and Hamilton campuses of Ohio’s Miami University can stock the vending machines with the products of Pepsi’s competitors!

Last week, we introduced a new question type for Assignments crowdsources: Checkbox groups, that allow you to offer a variety of choices and let users pick as many (or as few) options as they’d like. We also began deprecating an experimental database feature.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, the Washington Post and HD Media gain access to a database that tracks opioid distribution, emails obtained through a FOIA request reveal the extent of a top Department of the Interior official’s violations of federal ethics rules, and city and court records reveal that in one Alaska town every single police officer has been convicted of domestic violence.

Five years ago, MuckRock teamed up with Motherboard to conduct a massive survey of drone use by local police departments. We want to update that effort, and we need your help to do it.

To understand how the Massachusetts government is dealing with wage theft, MuckRock requested files on the Attorney General’s investigations into four companies that have allegedly stolen wages from their workers. The AGO estimated that the processing and reproduction fees for these files will be $200 - so we’re opening the request to crowdfund.

Back in May, we wrote about the military’s official brownie recipe from 2003, and requested the updated specifications. In response, we were pointed to a document on the Defense Logistics Agency’s website: PCR-C-007F, which covers the standards for all “cakes, brownies, muffin tops and filled cakes” consumed by the armed forces. While the document doesn’t contain any recipes, it does have some pretty clear guidelines for what it takes to be a military-grade chocolate banana muffin top.

Irregular billing, rapidly increasing water and sewer rates, overflowing sewage - despite efforts to address the issues, residents throughout DeKalb County, Georgia remain dissatisfied and overcharged. Are you one of them? Let us know.

The Central Intelligence Agency kept a 1961 translation of the “Atlas of the Far Side of the Moon” marked as “For Official Use Only” in its archives for just shy of 50 years.

Ever get the feeling that your local government agency is hoping you just go away?

That certainly seems to be the case with the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority in Virginia. Over the last six months, prying event basic information about plans to demolish its existing public housing in favor of an entirely voucher-based system has been an exercise in futility. By the time you get the document, you’re too late.

We’ve launched a new homepage for MuckRock Assignments, our crowdsourcing tool that let’s you contribute your time, expertise, and curiosity to a journalistic investigation.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, records show federal law enforcement officials combine facial recognition software with drivers liscened databases to track undocumented immigrants, an admiral slated to become the next U.S. Navy chief abruptly retires after damaging emails are released, and legal rights groups raise questions about the constitutionality of gang policing.

For more than two years, MuckRock, through our Counting the Uncounted project, has been helping individuals learn more about the backlog of SAEC kits in their own towns. Hundreds of people have responded to the call to bring local accountability to the unprocessed kits sitting in or destroyed by their local law enforcement agencies. And submissions to our feedback form have helped to bring real attention and change.

Few parts of the FOIA process are more frustrating than finally hearing back from an agency after months of anticipation, only to be handed an invoice for a few hundred dollars in duplication fees. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 was meant to specifically address those frustrations, prohibiting agencies from charging fees if certain conditions are met. However, as is so often the case, sometimes agencies need a gentle reminder of legal requirements.