Each year during Sunshine Week (March 13-19), The Foilies serve up tongue-in-cheek “awards” for government agencies and assorted institutions that stand in the way of access to information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock combine forces to collect horror stories about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records requests from journalists and transparency advocates across the United States and beyond. Here are this year’s “winners.”

The current President of the United States has prompted a new conversation in the hallowed halls of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: What will be the actual role of the US Space Force? A FOIA request filed in August of 2018 reveals that beyond just plans for a more militarized space, NASA is deeply dedicated and invested to the privatization and commercialization of the final frontier.

New documents released by Amtrak in response to a FOIA request shed more light on the 2017 panic and stampede at New York’s Penn Station that injured at least 16 people. While several eyewitnesses claimed panic was as a result of a police Taser being mistaken for gunfire, the officer who discharged the weapon blamed the incident on a mystery bystander yelling “ISIS ATTACK.”

Currently filling the 10 pm to midnight time slot on CNN, Don Lemon has apparently made no friends among temperance activists, opponents of potty mouth, and Trump supporters. According to Federal Communications Commission complaints released through FOIA, 41 people between 2015 and 2017 wrote to the Federal government to complain about Lemon’s newscasting.

A FOIA request to the Federal Communications Commission reveals that conservatives really do not like when comedian and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel talks about politics.