This week’s round-up: The cost of protecting the Winter White House, pay for play(s) in Michigan, and the DOE’s dwindling civil rights caseload
Records released this week show taxpayers paid almost $20 million for the Coast Guard to protect President Donald Trump during visits to Mar-a-Lago, and a Michigan State Police captain is under investigation for favoring a towing firm in exchange for sports tickets. Plus, records show the Department of Education has closed more than 1200 Obama-era civil rights probes, and the Environmental Protection Agency is making FOIA requesters wait for documents - with an average processing time for complex requests of 388 days.
This week’s round-up: Florida forgets background checks, ICE’s numbers contradict narrative on California raids, and NYPD expands vague gang database
Last week, a newly discovered report left Florida struggling to explain how a year passed before anyone noticed it was issuing concealed carry permits without a federal background check, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement emails suggest that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have misrepresented the expected yield of recent raids in California.
MuckRock Release Notes: Improved date handling, easier local installation, and more
This week we pushed out a number of bug fixes and subtle improvements, while also making it easier for developers to get up to speed if they want to help contributing to MuckRock. We’ve also (temporarily!) removed one of our most charming and beloved features: The magnifying loupe, which made it easier to read screenshots of documents in our news articles.
Why did the CIA classify a birdhouse?
A search through the Central Intelligence Agency’s archival photography reveals the Agency once classified a picture of a birdhouse. Help us figure out why.
FBI file contains evidence of a possible conspiracy behind the Moscone-Milk Assassinations
Despite ample evidence of premeditation, public knowledge of political and personal clashes, and a taped confession, Dan White was charged with voluntary manslaughter after he assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Previously processed Federal Bureau of Investigation records released to Emma Best reveal details about White’s alleged antisemitism and homophobia, and lend credence to accusations that the State’s prosecution of White was performed with “reckless and wanton disregard of normal prosecutorial standards.”
Projects See all
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The Private Prison Project
★ Featured- Contribute
- 44% funded
- $4470.00 raised
- 110 backers
For-profit detention continues to reap the rewards of an incarceration system filled to the brim and facing an uncertain future. Our FOIA requests have released thousands of documents that show how for-profit prisons have leveraged the legal system to their advantage, letting companies pick-and-choose inmates to off-load costs, ignore complaints and concerns, and create dangerous conditions for prisoners and staff alike. This is all done while billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into these private companies, which then pour millions into politicians' campaigns to keep their growth going. With your help, we can provide needed scrutiny of an industry few are even aware exists. -
Subjects Matter: FBI Files
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- 43% funded
- $2150.00 raised
- 19 backers
This project aims to sift through the hundreds of thousands of pages of FBI archival material we've released, so we can better understand why the Bureau had an eye on these people - and through that, better understand who they're keeping tabs on today. -
Counting the Uncounted: The Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Project
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- 44% funded
- $1555.00 raised
- 22 backers
Despite an estimated 175,000 sexual assault evidence collection kits that sit untested in evidence rooms and crime labs across the country, there is no federal law in place mandating policies or testing of kits, and we don't know how many more go uncounted. This project aims to end that, one city and one kit at a time. -
FOIA 101: Tips and Tricks to Make You a Transparency Master
★ FeaturedWhether it's your first request or your first request *today,* it never hurts to go over the basics. MuckRock's compiled a lot of FOIA advice over the years, and with this project, it's all in one place.