Every week, journalists, researchers, and every day people use public records laws and the Freedom of Information Act to shine light on important (or at least interesting) issues in the most unexpected places. Whether you’re just getting started with public records or are a seasoned document hunters, here’s ideas to help jumpstart your own requesting.

By the early ’90s, the multi-agency program investigating psychic phenomenon known as STARGATE was nearing its end. After decades of dubious “remote viewing” experiments, the CIA been tasked by Congress with consolidating and evaluating the program’s efficacy - and little did anyone know, but that evaluation was about to be heavily influenced by one subject’s lunch.

A pamphlet written by the FBI’s Intelligence Division in 1983 and signed by then-FBI Director William Webster addressed “the unseen conflict” of Soviet espionage operations against the United States. The pamphlet argued, quite reasonably, that the only way the Bureau could defend against threats like these was if people who were approached by Russian agents remembered that “the FBI is as close as your nearest telephone.”

As part of ongoing project to document every state’s public records law, MuckRock looked at the policies governing how long an agency has to respond to a records request. While most states have clear deadlines, 11 are worryingly vague. Five don’t have any timeline at all.

The antics of hell raiser Hunter S. Thompson occupy a permanent place in the culture of anti-authoritarian American angst. In honor of the birthday HST certainly never expected to reach, MuckRock wants your help in tracking down what’s left of the paperwork the rebel king forced the bureaucrats to fill out.

As early as 1962, there were issues with CIA employees marrying “aliens.” There was a set procedure for those looking to wed someone who was not born in the states, and as always, romance and government paperwork did not mix well.

Behind the scenes, as law enforcement officials tried to stem protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, alumni from the George W. Bush White House were leading a crisis communications effort to discredit pipeline protesters. This revelation comes from documents obtained via an open records request from the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department in Wyoming.

Russell Means was a seminal figure in Indigenous politics for decades, rising to the rank of National Director of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1970. His 178 page FBI file, however, only includes records regarding one incident Means was involved in - the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, a months-long standoff between AIM activists carrying small arms, and local and federal law enforcement packing 133,000 rounds of ammunition, armored personnel carriers, and .50 caliber machine guns.

A formerly SECRET memo sent to the Director of Central Intelligence in 1982 reveals that the Intelligence Community’s concern with Russian attempts to influence the U.S. Presidential election go back decades. While some have called the recent Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election “without precedent,” the CIA memo shows that some of the first attempts by Russia to influence the outcome of the election were detected in the early 1980s.

In the D.C. area and want to learn how to peek inside federal agencies using FOIA? Join the Society of Professional Journalists D.C. chapter and MuckRock for a fun, informative talk by FOIA expert Michael Ravnitzky, followed by a few rounds of FOIA Karaoke.