Typically, MuckRock tries to follow the old maxim, “Report the story, don’t be the story,” but today I wanted to share some good news: The Freedom of the Press Foundation has graciously chosen us as one of four organizations to receive funding through its inaugural crowdfunding campaign.

Want to help watch the watchers? Suspect your local police department, college or other government entity has been playing around with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's), better known as drones? Help the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock with our national public records project: The 2012 U.S. Drone Census. Simply provide the contact information for the agency you want to know about, and we'll file the request on your behalf - free of charge.

Recently released documents detail the federal government's inability to pursue cybercriminals shrouded by the tricky anonymity tools used by the Silk Road marketplace and other darknet sites - tools which are funded in part by the federal government itself. In this particular case, a citizen reported stumbling upon a cache of child pornography while browsing the anonymous Tor network's hidden sites.

While his roguish charm won over classrooms and the public, physicist Richard Feynman was subjected to years of espionage and scrutiny as the Federal Bureau of Investigation trailed him and his associates, intent on rooting out communist sympathies from the man who helped make America the world’s first nuclear power.

While the vast majority of letters, interviews and other data gathered by the FBI regarding Richard Feynman pain the picture of a loyal genius who helped America build the first atomic weaponry, one interviewee saw a more sinister purpose: A methodical, patient path towards betraying the country from its very highest ranks.

In a reflective piece of fiction set after the War in Iraq concludes, then-Major General David A. Fastabend outlines a strategy for victory. Fastabend's writing, dramatically titled How All This Ends: It’s Fourth and Long, Go Deep, has become a work of fiction not only hidden from the public but officially made a state secret.

On May 3, 2011, Aaron Swartz filed a request for "photos or videos from the 2011 operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan". On Jan. 9, his request was denied. The reason was expected to be that they were exempted from disclosure. Instead, the Defense Department replied saying the documents could not be found.

A recent FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for "manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ" was met with a telling denial. In it, the FBI stated it did have responsive documents - but they were exempt under a provision that covers materials that, if disclosed, might reasonably interfere with an ongoing investigation.

The Boston Housing Authority is, by the government organization's own admission, Boston's largest landlord with thousands of contracts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars for services ranging from elevator maintenance to fire alarm replacements to the building of all-new affordable housing.

The FBI released 225 pages of threats against members of Congress made in 2009. While the release may not be comprehensive (ongoing investigations, for example, are exempt from FOIA), the pages paint a picture of the typical investigated threat: mentally unstable, intoxicated, or both, and angry about issues from both sides of the aisle.