In 1978, the director of the CIA warned that excessive, impulsive secrecy was a danger — not only to the public’s right to know, but to the agency’s ability to keep the important secrets. 40 years later, that lesson still needs repeating.

MuckRock and Open the Government sending public records requests about facial recognition technology to hundreds of police agencies across the country. There’s lots more to do, however, so we put together a guide on doing your own investigations.

We’ve been getting inquiries from organizations interested in running their own version of MuckRock or FOIA Machine, or in helping us update the feature sets of the sites to meet some specific needs. If you’re interested, please get in touch: We’d love to discuss ways to make that happen.

A sexual harassment scandal leads to a FOIA lawsuit, an inquiry at the Department of the Interior gets expanded, and a 130-meter asteroid swings by Earth and almost goes unnoticed.

The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council published on Monday a review of information on factory farms - released despite industry objections - that calls attention to shortcomings in the EPA’s regulation of potential pollutants.

Two years after Boston Public Schools faced parental backlash over an algorithm to improve bus routing, school districts are looking to give the software another chance, drawn by potential to save millions.

Last week, we rolled out a couple improvements related to communications, including giving you a helpdesk ticket number when you email in or use the “Get Help” button. We also implemented some changes to help improve onboarding in the future.

A resignation leads to promised reform, a FOIA office spreads to the heartland, and a little transparency at the Department of Justice raises more questions. This is this week’s FOIA roundup.

Next week, MuckRock is joining public records campaigners at the third AlaveteliCon to discuss new tactics for opening up government algorithms, maintaining a healthy transparency community, and building stronger international collaborations.

MuckRock recently reported on the State of Rhode Island’s one-time plan to eliminate blood lead levels in children. Here we break down where the numbers on these instances come from and what they’re missing.

After five years of trying to get records out of the Harvard University Police Department, I ended up spending $125 on a high-resolution photo German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This is the story of how and why.

Presidential contenders have pledged to expand CVE funding, but existing evaluations leave questions about their effectiveness.

Last week, no new features on MuckRock were released, but we did give ONA attendees a first sneak peak at the new DocumentCloud.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, we take a look at experiments with transparency in Florida, Oregon, and Wisconsin that have recently hit road bumps.

Celebrated Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme found himself in hot water for accidentally bringing a loaded firearm to the airport on more than one occasion, according to his FBI file.

The state of Tennessee has rejected an open records request for reports by 22 state agencies on how to improve the lives of rural Tennesseans.

More than 600 complaints about family separation events were submitted to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in 2018. You can help get these stories told.

Heading to New Orleans for #ONA2019 and not sure what to wear in Louisiana in the fall? Well, you’re in luck. The Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had their annual conference in NOLA in 1972, and their official publication, “The Grapevine,” has you covered. Literally.

Residents and visitors of Illinois will soon become part of a statewide data analysis effort that will allow traffic planners to observe and study individual and group travel patterns within the state.

There’s a running joke on both sides of the transparency community that the standards for secrecy are so absurd that “you could easily classify a ham sandwich.” And nowhere does that dictum ring more true than in regards to the Central Intelligence Agency, which has, on multiple occasions, classified ham sandwiches.

Tomorrow, residents of Edison, New Jersey will be facing a vote to decide whether to maintain community ownership of the city’s drinking water and sewer treatment systems, potentially blocking a deal struck between the mayor and Suez/KKR joint venture.

Last week, we released a fix to stop certain news article header images from getting improperly compressed. We also worked on GovLens design updates and improved the release pipeline.

A star quarterback’s career almost cut short over a case of fecal misidentification, a questionable profit center for departments of motor vehicles, and the citizen gripes behind a brewing Rhode Island bike war. All in a week’s work for public records.

Do you have a possible Chernobyl-type situation in your backyard? If you’re a Virginian, the answer is yes.

The MuckRock crew is heading to New Orleans for the Online News Association’s conference, and we’d love to see you! Come join us on Friday, September 13 for two events: DocumentCloud’s tenth birthday party at 4:30 pm, followed by a Hacks/Hackers cocktail hour at 6 pm.