News
Original reporting, commentary, and analysis of public records by MuckRock’s staff and affiliates, with new articles every weekday.
CIA’s 60 year war with the Government Accountability Office: the conclusion
Since 1949, for 68 of CIA’s 70 years, the Agency has waged a war against the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and what CIA described as its “army of auditors.” Not until 2010 was Congress ready to grant GAO that authority, though the provision was dropped under threat of a veto from President Obama. The end result is a hard line that meant the Agency would almost certainly refuse to cooperate at all with any probe that they felt was oversight related. This interactive timeline offers a blow-by-blow of the last seven decades, explaining how and why things got to where they are today.
Don’t call it the Deep State: CIA archive reveals existence of secret network of ex-spies
A document in CIA’s archive points to the existence of an unofficial “Common Interest Network” of retired intelligence officers. The network, also known as CIN - “as in living-in-sin” according to one of its founders - exists to coordinate the efforts of different organizations. Described as “an unofficial Intelligence Community,” it doesn’t exist except as an abstract, with no chairman, no agenda, and “not even the formality of a rotating host list.” Yet it exists, meeting to discuss influencing Congress and the press, to successfully attack the Freedom of Information Act, and to coordinate the efforts of the organizations that make up the Common Interest Network.
Exploring trends in the CIA’s CREST database
When the CIA released its CREST database online, it created a historical treasure trove of 13 million pages, more than any one researcher is likely to ever comb through. Fortunately, we’re able to have a computer do that for you, following various trends in what the Agency is paying attention to in a given year.
It took the Secret Service two years to answer a basic question about the Presidential election
As part of MuckRock’s coverage of all things presidential leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Matthew Guariglia sent a FOIA request to learn the identities of the “one additional member” of the advisory committee who had to decide whether or not to grant Herman Cain Secret Service protection. Two years and two mostly-redacted documents later, we have an answer. Sort of.
Help build a comprehensive timeline of CIA’s history
For 70 years, CIA has been working on learning about and challenging threats to the United States - both imagined and real. Keeping track of all of its masked maneuvers can be a bit tricky, which is why MuckRock has begun an ongoing chronology of the Agency’s life. Join us in compiling primary sources on the Agency’s long and winding ways, and help inform others about the breadth and depth of our lead intelligence organization’s part in world affairs.
New York City shows how easy divesting from private prisons can be
Divesting from companies at the municipal level is a city-wide form of direct action that, this summer, New York City used this against for-profit prisons.
While deportation rates drop, the number of people held at detention centers steadily rises
The task of enforcing our country’s immigration laws has become a sprawling responsibility in the United States, and the mechanisms by which non-citizens are detained and removed are facing a lot of strain: practically, financially, and socially.
How does a private prison handle a hurricane?
We’ve filed requests with privately-run prisons and immigration detention centers in Harvey’s path to find out how they weathered the storm.
Kindle Project supports MuckRock’s work to open up Trump administration and private prisons
MuckRock’s mission has been to make government more accountable and open to the people. For the past three years that’s included a special focus on private prisons, and late last year we launched a project focused on the incoming Trump administration. Today, we’re excited to announce a $10,000 grant by the Kindle Project to further those missions, as well as a part-time opening.
Breitbart News’ FBI file details how site accidentally DDoS’d itself … but withholds over a thousand pages
On January 17, 2016, the alt-right news site Breitbart found itself under siege: A number of IP addresses were sending a large amount of traffic its way, straining its servers. Writing to the FBI two days later with the subject line “Request for assistance,” someone (identity redacted) shared the source of the IP addresses and asked that the FBI “explore the possibility that the identity of the criminal … be identified from this fingerprint.” It turns out, it was an inside job.
Truman Capote’s publisher tried to get the FBI to vouch for writer’s “In Cold Blood” investigation
FBI files on publisher Bennett Cerf show the Random House co-founder trying to use his leverage with the Bureau to get them to vouch for author Truman Capote’s investigation into the 1959 Clutter murders, which would eventually become the seminal true crime novel In Cold Blood.
FBI couldn’t get a clear picture on abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly spent nearly all of his 92 years creating geometrically-concerned works of abstract and colorful art - a focus he tuned for some time as a Camouflage Technician for the U.S. Army during World War II. But when he applied to participate in the European Recovery Program - popularly known as the Marshall Plan - he generated 50-odd pages in the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not for his military exploits but for concerns that an art school friendship might have been something more.
The General, the FBI, and the fascist plot to overthrow democracy (that nobody cared about)
As hordes of white men with dopey haircuts take to the streets to denouce progress, it’s worth taking a look at a moment in American history when a bunch of rich dudes attempted to turn the country in a fascist dictatorship through overt violence, before they realized they could just hijack the electoral system - the story of General Smedley Darlington Butler and the Business Plot.
Kindle Project supports MuckRock’s work to open up Trump administration and private prisons
MuckRock’s mission has been to make government more accountable and open to the people. For the past three years that’s included a special focus on private prisons, and late last year we launched a project focused on the incoming Trump administration. Today, we’re excited to announce a $10,000 grant by the Kindle Project to further those missions, as well as a part-time opening.
Justice Department confirms “ongoing investigation” into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign
Last year, Emma Best filed a FOIA with the FBI for all records on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Within a couple months, the Bureau responded by claiming they couldn’t find anything. Emma appealed, citing the FBI’s public statements - and just this week, the Justice Department confirmed there while there were records, they couldn’t be released on grounds there is an ongoing investigation.
Between the election and the inauguration, the NYPD spent an estimated $35 million guarding Trump Tower
Back in January, MuckRock’s Beryl Lipton filed public records requests with the NYPD for how much the city was spending in security details for President-elect Donald Trump. Those budgets just came in last week, and they confirm reports that Trump was costing his hometown the equivalent of a President’s annual salary every day.
Read the 1970s guide to impeachment from the Department of Justice
Since before even taking office, President Donald J. Trump has been the center of intense impeachment gossip. Cut through the speculation and read how it works from the source, the Department of Justice itself.
Counting the Uncounted: The Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Project
State University of New York didn’t comply with a law that required an audit of their sexual assault procedures
Last May, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the “Enough Is Enough” law, which requires schools in the state to complete a review of compliance with standardized sexual assault policies, with a preliminary report ordered to be ready by September 1st of this year. In light of this, we filed a request with the State University of New York (SUNY), a system of public colleges comprised of 64 campuses, asking for the results of Cuomo’s audit at all SUNY campuses. SUNY responded that they had no results to show - an audit was never conducted.
Five of the best - and five of the worst - sexual assault response policies across the country
The care rape victims receive is entirely dependent on where the crime occurred. Good sexual assault response policies are comprised of a number of initiatives, including (but not limited to) specific officer training, a victim-centered approach, access to victim advocates, guidelines for submitting kits to labs, and victim notification. Based on what we’ve seen in our reporting so far, we’ve rounded up a list of the five best - and the five worst - sexual assault response policies across the country.
Six years after earmarking funds, Dallas has only tested half of its rape kit backlog
Our request for data and policies regarding the collection, maintenance, and testing of backlogged rape kits in Dallas shows that, as of May 2017, more than 1,000 kits still have not been submitted to crime labs. Of those submitted, only 50% have been tested, and just 35% of those tested have been uploaded into CODIS.
There are finally federal guidelines for testing rape kits
The SAFER Working Group combined authorities from local police departments, the FBI, state crime laboratories, government institutions, colleges, medical examiners, and nurses, which met for more than two years before penning the first federal guidelines for sexual assault evidence collection. This document is undeniably a step in the right direction, but will local law enforcement agencies and state and private laboratories implement these recommendations?