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.

FOIA law governs access to public records at the Federal level, but each state mandates their own public records policies. Navigating the ambiguities in these state laws can prove cumbersome and frustrating to requesters - we’ve identified particularly irksome examples, and offer tips on what you can do about them.

One question we get asked a lot here at MuckRock is what to do in situations where an agency claims it has no responsive records when the requester knows the records exist. It comes up with frustrating frequency, we’ve found that the root cause is often one of the five following factors.

Here are five close-to-home ways for you to learn more about the private prison industry, and to contribute to the ongoing discussion about their use.

After a couple decades of wholesomeness, terror, and wholesome terror, the National Security Agency’s security posters took a turn for the mellow in the ’70s. Here’s five of our favorites.

Intelligence work can make on feel awfully stupid, and in the Central Intelligence Agency’s 13 million pages of declassified documents that’s more than a few times that folks made their frustrations felt. Here’s five of our favorites.

From Soviet supersoldiers to shadowy networks, the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified history is often stranger than anything Snake’s encountered.

The popular imagination has conjured a Central Intelligence Agency of stealth and shadows, but sometimes the Agency’s spookiest moves are the ones that really happened.

459 pages of complaints from the Nevada Division of Insurance (NDOI) related to bail bondsman point to epidemic in the state: bounty hunters in a largely unregulated industry are routinely using that vacuum to line their own pockets or abuse their customers.

Private prisons have received increased scrutiny in the last few years, and Inspectors General and independent investigations have found more than a few questionable habits behind one of the government’s top contracting agents.