In September, the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records released its proposed update to public records regulations that would be used to carry out the long-awaited public records reform that goes into effect January 1, 2017. Here’s what’s in them.

We’ve already received a number of wonderful applications to the MuckRock Thiel Fellowship, and even more organizations and individuals have reached out to support highlighting companies connected to Peter Thiel. Selected fellows will now collectively receive over $5,255 in FOIA assistance, funds to pay request fees, and reporting stipends.

You never know what you’re going to find digging through old government records. Case in point: how Abbie Hoffman’s FBI file uncovered an arcane law regarding Smokey Bear.

Today, this 28th day of September 2016, marks International Right-To-Know Day, currently celebrating 250 years of Right-To-Know legislation on the Earth. In 1766, a full ten years before the United States birthed itself, Sweden adopted “His Majesty’s Gracious Ordinance Relating to Freedom of Writing and of the Press,” and so set an example for open access to governments around the world - at last count, 113 in total.

Since 2013, the Montgomery County Model (MCM) has been hailed as the gold standard for community-based Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs across the country. Despite these accolades, there is little indication that MCM has been able to resolve the concerns raised by Muslim and civil rights groups about these counterterrorism programs - in fact, MCM seems to have proceeded simply by ignoring such concerns, helped by the secrecy with which the program operates.

This summer, MuckRock submitted requests to all 50 state Departments of Correction for their materials related to the transportation of inmates. Following up on a stunning story by The Marshall Project on privately-operated prisoner transport, the requests, worded broadly, sought the policies and contracts that are being employed across the country. Two months in, here’s what we’ve found so far.

Curious about what criteria the CIA have for determining if they “can neither confirm nor deny” something? So did Jason Smathers, who back in 2010 filed one of MuckRock’s earliest requests for exactly that. Six years later, he still doesn’t know.

As government agencies and other entities are inundated with requests for public information as more and more citizens become aware of their rights under FOIA, obscuring information is evolving into a craft that requires a little more creativity than an old fashioned sheet of paper doused in black ink.

FTC complaints released to Robert Delaware regarding the uber-popular augmented reality game Pokemon GO run the gamut from allegations of fraud, to concerns about privacy, all the way to full-on “these pokemons are going to kill us all” hysteria.

A recently released Government Accountability Office report solved the mystery of the government’s oldest computer, which surprisingly enough, isn’t a technically a computer in the conventional sense. Even more surprisingly, The Simpsons accurately predicted the winner back in 1998.