MuckRock and the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project are teaming up to find the best Sunshine Week logos.

In November, MuckRock readers told us what presidential public records to request. Now you can follow along.

What public records can reveal about a rivalry that rocked submission grappling.

In some facilities, no texts are blocked. In others, hundreds are redacted or banned. Overall, one in six texts was censored.

MuckRock and Sunlight Search partnered to help dozens of newsrooms.

The results are in: According to their own reports, some federal agencies are already testing AI in their FOIA offices. Many more are already using machine learning functions baked into current document search and discovery tools or plan to make use of AI in the future.

Have you run into an egregious records denial? Still aching about an agency thwarting the public’s right to know? Just need to vent about the one (FOIA request) that got away? This is your chance to share and commiserate: Submissions are open for nominations to the 2025 Foilies!

We’re releasing thousands of pages of police misconduct records in New York. Let’s open up more nationwide

There are still plenty of requests you can file before Inauguration Day.

The state doesn’t publicize officer employment histories, making it impossible to track so-called wandering officers.

The police chief in Orange County’s Village of Chester claimed his department had no misconduct records. He was hiding an investigation into his own alleged malfeasance.

In almost every FOIA policy discussion these days, the topic of AI comes up. What we are already seeing should be concerning to those who want broad access to the public’s information.

Last November, Reuters published an extensive report — backed by interviews, internal communications and public documents — on Appin, an Indian cybersecurity training firm. A month later, an Indian court ruled in favor of a plaintiff for a preliminary injunction that claimed the article defamed not just the company in question, but was “derogatory to the entire Indian nation.”

The committee, established to hear testimony on the issue and recommend legislation, will meet Oct. 15.

Lisa Rowan of Cardinal News leveraged DocumentCloud’s Regex Extractor and Azure Table Extractor to investigate a school board’s unusual lawsuit against a parent. By analyzing financial documents, she revealed the hidden costs associated with the case. This Add-On case study demonstrates how data extraction tools can streamline reporting, enabling journalists to efficiently navigate large sets of financial information and enhance their investigative work.

For the Society of Environmental Journalists freelance tips newsletter, MuckRock’s Dillon Bergin offers a step-by-step guide to filing document requests, organizing and analyzing your documents and joining the FOIA community.

We’ll be releasing the experience for everyone in mid-November. Keep reading for an in-depth explanation for why we started this project, how we approached it, and how it succeeded.

Since at least 2023, the Attorney General has asked the federal government how it uses machine learning for public records. We want to know more.

MuckRock’s September FOIA Friday conversation focused on opening up the statehouse through requesting data and documents such as calendars, contracts, lobbying data and travel logs.

New changes have been made to both the DocumentCloud and MuckRock APIs, including that and embargoes are now restructured.

The Data Liberation Project transparency initiative is joining MuckRock, where together with the data experts at Big Local News it will expand how the community of FOIA enthusiasts requests, documents and publishes data.

Public records are a cornerstone of government transparency and accountability.

Reporters for both organizations were present at the awards ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

DocumentCloud, supported by the Filecoin Foundation, is using the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) network and Filecoin to ensure long-term preservation and distribution of documents. IPFS’s decentralized nature enhances censorship resistance and privacy, while Filecoin provides incentives for data storage and sharing. DocumentCloud’s Push to IPFS Add-On facilitates easy integration with IPFS/Filecoin for secure and enduring document access.

August’s FOIA Friday session covered documents that are especially useful during the election season: personal financial disclosures, business interests and finances.