Our most recent FOIA Friday series unlocked new ways to obtain documents and data from the statehouse, local officials and more. MuckRock data reporter Dillon Bergin walked through how to request data and documents such as calendars, contracts, lobbying records and travel logs.

Requesting calendars of your local officials can offer a window into their work, priorities and even close allies. Detailed calendars can show who the official is meeting, and sometimes what is discussed. Bergin warns requesters of taking the “public calendar” at face value, because that proactively released calendar may not be as detailed as you would receive in a request.

Elected officials in state government also must fill out annual reports that disclose their sources of income, creditors, and business interests, as well as any gifts, hospitality or other perks they accepted. These gifts can provide insight into how lobbyists and other influential organizations may attempt to influence your local officials.

When requesting these documents, remember gift policies can change from administration to administration, with some officials accepting thousands of dollars in gifts and while others enact a not-even-a-bottle-of-water policy.

Get even more insight on what you can obtain from the statehouse, including lobbying records and travel logs by watching the full discussion below.

Join us for October’s FOIA Friday session, where we’ll be discussing 50 FOIA requests in 50 minutes. If you have any questions or comments, let us know by adding to our FOIA Friday feedback form.

The Update

• Prize for pitches addressing public service challenges: If you have an idea for a government transparency idea and need some support to get it off the ground, D-Prize will award up to $20,000 to teams with a plan to to design a new social enterprise that reduces corruption in public services.

• How Project 2025 will affect journalism: Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benson takes a look at the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plans for the news media, including barring journalists from the White House, killing funding for public broadcasting, seizing journalists’ emails and more.

• Nigeria election laws exposed: The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism released its newest story for Democracy Deferred, an investigative series on the legitimacy of the 2023 Nigerian election, with a focus exposing Nigeria’s election laws. This story was produced with the support of MuckRock and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web.

FOIA Finds

• Deactivated body cameras during a University of Michigan sweep: The Ann Arbor Police Department deactivated bodycams during the University of Michigan’s Gaza solidarity encampment sweep, according to public records obtained by Sophia Lehrbaum for the Michigan Daily. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the student newspaper obtained body-worn camera footage from 15 officers who assisted in the sweep.

• The cost of surveillance cameras in Chicago: The city of Chicago has spent an estimated $279 million since 2003 on surveillance cameras, reports Madison Hopkins from Illinois Answers and Joe Mahr from the Chicago Tribune. The investigation found that after filing more than 100 open records requests and analyzing more than a dozen datasets, “police rarely credit these cameras with helping solve cases.”

• Reviewing Charlotte’s public records: After a review of the city’s open portal data portal, the Charlotte Observer found that in the last five years, more than 1,500 open records requests were left unfulfilled with the City of Charlotte. The investigation found that the majority were labeled as “submitted to departments.”