Back in 2013, MuckRock user Jasper Craven filed a FOIA request with the State Department for records regarding Dennis Rodman’s 2013 trip to North Korea. After nearly two years of processing, the agency released 18 pages of cables, almost completely redacted under the b(1) national security exemption.

1992 economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. against North Korea contributed to the collapse of an already fragile economy, and in two years the country was in the throes of a severe famine. Despite the mounting death toll, the sanctions were utterly ineffective in their goal of pressuring DPRK into ending their nuclear weapons program - exactly as a 1991 National Intelligence Council report predicted they would be.