Read a great FOIA-based news story we should highlight? Let us know and maybe we can include it in our next round-up!

In January, amendments made under recent Texas legislation will go into effect, strengthening the Texas Public Information Act (PIA) and addressing court-created obstacles to accessing contractor information within the state.

As campuses expand their surveillance abilities, that common college nightmare—the one where you’re in class for the first time and it’s the day of the final—might not make it into the next decade.

Last week, we pushed a new feature that lets you see the number of Assignment submissions per day. We also added improved logging on our end to help identify and correct bugs more quickly.

Read a great FOIA-based news story we should highlight? Let us know and maybe we can include it in our next round-up! Send it over via email, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Recently, MuckRock hit a new milestone: the 70,000th request we had helped file on behalf of our users. Here’s a little of what goes on behind the scenes and how you can have your support for that mission multiplied by 12 through the end of the year.

An interim report released earlier this month by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence says the U.S. will lose important advantages in defense, human resources, and the economy if it doesn’t cooperate with industry and academia to prioritize progress in AI research and development.

While most support the public’s right to know, few have plans for expansion or will commit to subjecting the White House to stronger sunlight.

Last week, we added notifications about donation cancellations for users without accounts, improved our error handling, and started working on our December demo night in Boston.

A layman’s guide to Chicago public records and city officials’ disregard for it. Transparency blog called for testimony to amend Kansas FOIA. Robots who see your phone and know who you are. It’s this week’s FOIA round-up.

In early 1999, a piece of malware with one of the oddest origins hit the scene. This article explores the investigative methodology used by the FBI, and highlights some of their findings.

Ahead of the December installation of Kehinde Wiley’s “Rumors of War” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, we thought we’d see what people have to say so far.

A bug in some of the code used to make selected Assignment submissions public broke some editing functions; that’s now fixed. More importantly, you can join us for an evening of food, beverages, and open data demos on Dec. 17 at Code for Boston Demo Night, where we’ll be unveiling our new project.

Read a great FOIA-based news story we should highlight? Let us know and maybe we can include it in our next round-up!

Law enforcement agencies nationwide are using predictive policing software, yet almost none of their users, past or present, have clear measures for how effective or accurate they are.

Across the country, facial recognition technology is being quietly acquired and used by government agencies of all sizes, but the full extent of police departments and agencies accessing or using the technology remains unknown. MuckRock and Open the Government want to change that.

Last week was quiet, with most of the focus on behind-the-scenes DocumentCloud work, but we did push two changes: disabling some faulty automated portal integrations and fixing some admin functionality that helps us more quickly resolve a variety of issues.

Toxic chemicals and cancer treatment impact veterans. The House of Representatives unanimously approves more oversight of drug company rebates, and still no answers on a single-car police crash from over two years ago.

Since 2010, MuckRock has prioritized transparency and integrity in its reporting. We exist to help journalists, researchers, and ordinary people open up government all across the United States —and we put accountability at the forefront. Now’s your chance to support that work in a way that goes twice as far.