This year saw the release of MuckRock’s one millionth page of government records released under FOIA, and what’s more, half of that is from 2016 alone. Here’s the stories, big and small, you helped uncover this year.

• We kick things off with a look at how American voting machines are old and broken, which was not at all a portent of things to come.

• We ask the Open Gov community to share their 2016 #FOIAResolutions. It’s fair to say that Phil Eil knocked his out of the park.

Win my #FOIA lawsuit. https://t.co/h4Gb1JI20I— Philip Eil (@phileil) January 3, 2016

• New Jersey tries to cite “medical privacy” as a reason for denying a request for a dolphin autopsy report, giving us a solid contender for “most creative use of exemptions” just a few weeks into the year.

• Emails released to Phil Mocek reveal that Seattle tough anti-surveillance laws were easily trumped by a federal agency out to catch rogue grease dumpers.

• Relatedly, files released to Michael Morisy show members of the FBI’s Tracking Technology Unit bragging about how awesome the upcoming surveillance state is going to be.

• Relatedly, and somewhat adorable, it turns out the decision to put a giant world-eating octopus on a spy satellite was not a sinister reference to SPECTRE, and instead just an engineering in-joke that got way out of hand.

• In Massachusetts, a particularly underwhelming version of the badly-needed public records reform bill resurfaces, prompting transparency advocates and MuckRock staff to brave the cold to protest.

• In honor of the X-Files relaunch, MuckRock digs into some of its strangest docs, including a Duke University study on dog ESP, funded by the Army. The theme is quietly shelved after staff actually watch the new episodes and conclude they are terrible.

• Beryl Lipton kicks off the Private Prison Primer, a six-part series attempting to answer some of the biggest questions surrounding the for-profit incarceration industry. She starts with the big one - how is this even legal? - and spends the remainder of the year vaguely depressed.

• After decades of secrecy and denial, the Army releases thousands of report listings for research performed at the Dugway Proving Grounds, a Rhode Island-sized chunk of the Utah desert used for testing biological weapons. To get a sense of how scary this stuff can get, we’ve got two words for you: “weaponized mosquitoes.”

• A DEA official warns that marijuana legalization will lead to hoards of stoned zombie rabbits who have “cultivated a taste” for the plant, threatening civilization as we know it. Beryl requests any evidence to back up these claims, and shockingly, none exists.

• Census Bureau breaks out the “neither confirm nor deny” rejection, adding them to the list of FOIA offices whose most transparent thing about them is how badly they wish they were the CIA.

• MuckRock turns six, and celebrates with a tour of our day-to-day operations, an interview with co-founder Michael Morisy, and look back at our most popular articles from each year. Much to Michael’s chagrin, it also becomes another opportunity to remind everybody this picture exists.

• MuckRock observes the first FOIAentines Day on the Tuesday after President’s day, with an exchange of transparency-themed Valentines.

• Allan Lasser starts his hunt for the hunt for the government’s oldest computer.

• The Department of Defense shatters all previous records with a $660 million FOIA fee estimate, claiming that a search for contracts would take up to “15 million labor hours.” The requester sends the same request to the DoD’s Inspector General, who phones up IT and gets an answer in about 15 minutes.

• Michael writes up a guide to getting records related to the #AppleVSFBI encryption showdown, which should come in handy for the next big encrpytion showdown in about a month or so.

• MuckRock files over 50 requests to the FBI as part of our International Women’s Day #pledgeforparity

• The CIA responds to a FOIA request for processing notes with a redacted copy of the original request, which brings us to …

• For Sunshine Week, MuckRock rounds up some of our most notable rejections from over the years for our redaction hall of shame, including this pretty amazing “release” from the Bureau of Prisons:

• FOIA reform passes during Sunshine Week, which is nice.

• What starts as an office joke turns into our first-ever FOIA March Madness - 64 requests, 4 rounds, and one comically unresponsive CIA later, the USDA is announced the winner! Stay tuned for next year!

• Speaking of superlatives, here’s a reminder that Andrew T. Krog has the greatest signature in FOIA.

• Matt Guariglia uses public records law to prove what many New Yorkers have long known - that the NYPD is operating at least five “cop cabs.” Those New Yorkers take to twitter to point out that they knew this already in an extremely New York fashion.

• A High School in Virginia apologized to parents who were offended by a Black History Month presentation implying that things haven’t always been great for people of color. Fortunately, nothing racially problematic happens again for the rest of the year.

• In a totally un-KEWL move, the NSA maintain radio silence on CryptoKids request.

• MuckRock starts a campaign to stop overfarming the redaction beetle, which sadly falls on deaf ears. #ThinkOfTheBeetle

• Newly released talking points regarding a controversial Army interrogation manual shows the Pentagon justifying its use of torture by arguing its not that different from the conditions inside the American prison system. Beryl’s depression worsens.

• Just in time for the BuzzFeed FOIA Hackathon, MuckRock makes all 112 gigs of our public records data available for torrent.

• For our aneurysm-inducing annual tradition, the Tax Day Anger Read, we put together a list of IRS FOIA rejections.

• MuckRock celebrates Earth Week in the most downer way possible, with articles on the FBI labeling Greenpeace a terror threat, which government agencies waste the most paper, and the largely unregulated uranium mine operating out of the Grand Canyon that the EPA can’t do anything about.

• At the Super Bowl 50 half-time show, Beyoncé transcends the mortal plane and becomes an FCC complaint unto herself.

• Hoover Week!

• Beryl lists five little-known costs of being incarcerated, in case you needed a reminder that we spend $80 billion a year to charge inmates 29 cents for toilet paper.

• Waqas Mirza launches the CVE Watch Project, the Obama administration’s secretive, flawed, and deeply problematic counterterror program that is almost certainly going to be replaced with something much worse.

• MuckRock releases its millionth page of government records! Next stop, a billion! Or the Gulag, which ever comes first.

• The Justice Department redacts a smiley face, giving FOIA the lovable cartoon mascot it so badly needed.

• Life imitates Fallout when the Air Force releases photos from that time it accidentally dropped a nuke on a child’s playhouse in South Carolina.

• Beryl crunches the dog data of New York and determines that a Upper West Side Yorkshire Terrier named Max is the most New York dog there is. To the Williamsburgian who named their pug “Ziggy StarFox” - MuckRock salutes you.

• MuckRock teams with LittleSis to launch a project looking at the growing police use of social media surveillance tech. Serveral of the companies investigated later lose data access from Facebook and Twitter once it comes out how cartoonishly sinister they are.

• A year after rejecting the request, the CIA release their web traffic stats for no discernible reason.

• Brian Sparks starts looking into wage theft in Massachusetts, in case you needed to get sad and angry really quickly.

• MuckRock is sued by a multinational, who demands we turn over the IP addresses of anyone who saw a public record they didn’t like, presumably so they could neuralyze them. A judge grants a temporary restraining order without bothering to read the case, the EFF generously offered to represent us in court, and couple months later the whole dumb affair is resolved because public records are public even if you don’t like them.

• Arguments break out over whether the NSA’s guide to the internet is crazy, amazing, or a combination thereof.

• Peak online outrage is obtained after MuckRock publishes a story on how parents refusal to get a vaccine forced the Minnesota zoo to put down their meerkats.

• “Where we’re going, we don’t need tracking numbers” - Bureau of Prisons close out a request due to lack of interest three days before they receive it.

• MuckRock opens projects to the public, which provides us a great opportunity to remind you to make your own project.

• Denver Police release their footage of last year’s Freddie Gray protest, manage to leave out the part where they pepper-spray a 12-year old. Beryl gets under a blanket and never leaves.

• State Department estimates it should have records related to Hillary Clinton and the Trans Pacific Partnership released no later than November 31st, a date that does not exist.

• Snake Island is real, and it’s in Massachusetts.

• MuckRock is officially granted non-profit status. In practical terms, this means donations are tax-deductible, and MuckRock staff have an easier time explaining what they do at parties.

• Hey, remember all those 24-ton military vehicles police departments all over the country got? Daniel Welch launched a project looking at the amount of training that comes with them, which is often terrifyingly little.

• Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen’s police academy application is released, revealing that he was so obsessed with becoming a cop his email address was “onpatrol1986@yahoo”

• DEA release their files on “the grandfather of ecstasy,” Sasha Shulgin, revealing that they raided the prominent drug researcher’s home over a High Times article, and that they have a pretty hilarious idea about what goes on at raves.

• CIA release an updated round of cafeteria complaints, revealing that the French food services company Sodexo has been waging guerilla war on the agency for years.

• Massachusetts gets a modest-to-mild update to its public records laws, which is nice(?).

• Caroline Curtis launches a project aiming to treat gun violence as a public health issue. In a personal best, MuckRock is accused of being Hitler on Twitter less than twenty minutes later.

• FOIA turns 50, and MuckRock celebrates with a look at the law’s turbulent history, and 50 photos of presidents with cakes. It seemed a good idea at the time.

• Rick and Morty fans respond to Rick and Morty FCC complaints in a very Rick and Morty way.

• MuckRock begins publishing the Use of Force policies for police departments involved in high-profile shootings. The fact that is kind of article is necessary, and worse, that its a template, is profound indictment of society.

• Michael puts together a guide to public records and Donald Trump, adding a checkmark to his “surprisingly prescient” counter.

• MuckRock announces our plan to build a guide to every state’s public records law, and a corresponding exemption database. Find out how you can help in your state by checking the list here.

• CIA’s targeted recruitment campaign aimed at women is actually called “Target Women”

• MuckRock begins its first collaboration with Michael Best’s Glomar Disclosure, whose amazing work you can support here.

• Michael heads to HOPE XI in New York for a breakout FOIA session, awkwardly captured here.

• Low prices, lower expectations of privacy - we looked at when Homeland Security teamed-up with Walmart.

• Beryl uses the “FOIA kills flossing” story to remind everybody that we keep putting mercury in our mouths, despite that being an obviously bad idea.

• MuckRock’s newest staff member, Caitlin Russell launches a project to get executive session minutes from every municipality in Massachusetts. Almost immediately, she discovers that Fall River uses Open Meeting law to keep its meetings closed to the public, because Kafka doesn’t have anything on politics in the Bay State.

• DEA announces that they have no intention of rescheduling marijuana, despite their own admission that the biggest threat it poses to it user is getting arrested for smoking it.

• Beryl publishes the last piece in her Private Prison Primer on the same day that the Bureau of Prisons is phasing out its private prison contacts. Amid all the congratulatory excitement, Beryl quietly points out that this won’t have much of an impact, as the vast majority of federal contracts are with Homeland Security for immigration detention facilities, and then descends further into her blanket.

Privately Operated Immigration Detention Facilities

• While looking through the archives, Caitlin manages to dig up this hilariously passive-aggressive public records response.

• For back to school coverage, MuckRock puts together public records guides for High School and College journalists, and a round-up of the strangest military gear sent to campus police

• Somebody writes a bad article about FOIA and emails, so Michael writes a good article about FOIA and emails.

• Beryl briefly emerges from her blanket to talk about the two and half years she’s spent covering Private Prisons.

• Brendan Kenny’s crowdfund successfully releases over a hundred pages of records related to Serial’s Adnan Syed case.

• The NSA reveals its soft spot for weed-dad lit.

• FBI releases a 2011 report which finds that “broadening U.S. military presence abroad” is the root cause in the rise in terror attacks. Despite being obvious, this continues to be completely unaddressed in counterterrorism programs.

• In a move that definitely won’t come back to bite us, MuckRock announces the MuckRock Thiel Fellowship to investigate the work of Peter Thiel.

• The hunt for the oldest government computer is concluded when a GAO report finds that the IRS is operating off of code from either the late ’50s or the early ’60s. The fact that nobody’s quite sure just how old it is is doubly-disconcerting. The title of oldest government computer not on earth goes to the Voyager probe, which 39 years later and 12.47 billion miles later, is still going strong.

• Beryl discovers the unusually long career of the State Department spokesman who wouldn’t let death get in the way of his job.

• MuckRock responds incredulously to a FOIA response that appears to be for ants.

• Beryl’s guide to the role public records can play in pipeline protests is perfectly illustrated by Unicorn Riot publishing their amazing FOIA-based reporting on #NoDAPL

• Speaking of amazing FOIA reporting, the Chicago Reader covers how Lucy Parsons Labs used public records to open up CPD’s secret $4.7 million surveillance program.

• MuckRock celebrates 250 years of FOI laws with yet another cake.

• Shawn Musgrave’s request for State Department estimated completion date methodology enters its third year.

• Beryl walks us through the whole lot of nothing that happens after you win a Massachusetts public records appeal.

• Curtis Waltman takes us inside the NSA’s cybersecurity summer camp, where the next generation of CyrptoKids are made.

• MuckRock’s Halloween spooktacular features missing brains, urban legends, zombie survival, demonic mascots, fictitious cults, and because this was 2016, the creepy clown police report map.

• A seemingly endless series of terrible election takes necessitates the Leaks and FOIA FAQ.

• MuckRock’s first FOIA-themed PowerPoint Karaoke is a rousing, wonky success.

• Beryl asks if your dog has what it takes to join the Beagle Brigade.

• CIA’s fax-only FOIA policy somehow manages to get even worse.

• Baltimore Police jack up the price of public records requests after a series of incriminating emails get released, prompting us to write an article about it and for that article - and those incriminating emails - to get shared thousands of times.

• MuckRock kicks off a new monthly series to remind people that they shouldn’t wait until an election year to complain about how terrible the electoral process is.

• On that subject, here’s Beryl on why you should be mad all the time, rather than just every four years.

• On that subject, police social media surveillance is still a thing and you should be worried.

• Oh, and another still a thing - Curtis launches a nationwide census of police departments using cell phone surveillance (also worrisome), and gets GLOMAR’d in Maine, a complete usage log in Virginia, a price list in New York, and a $13,000 bill in Florida.

• Back to mad right-now issues, here’s Michael’s guide to public records and the Trump transition

• And to tie it all together, Beryl on how private prisons are looking stronger than ever under Trump.

• MuckRock somehow manages to tie Veteran’s Day and the start of college ball together with a look at Coach K’s military record.

• Homeland Security once blew up a 27-ton generator to prove a point about cybersecurity.

• FEMA’s crowd-control guide is released through Unicorn Riot’s #NoDAPL coverage, offering a glimpse into the oddly-dated future of police response to protests - including the FBI’s “seven types of protesters”.

• Stop us if you’ve heard this before - the DEA wants to ban a plant without offering any evidence why.

• Mike Best finds the real-life X-Files that the FBI insisted they didn’t have.

• MuckRock gets its very own jargon translator to help understand the terrifying things the military hides within buzzwords.

• Beryl’s depression is miraculously cured when a kind reader such as yourself buys MuckRock a lighthouse.

• In other better-late-than-never good news, MuckRock wins its lawsuit with the CIA.

• MuckRock hits its 100th article in the Subjects Matter FBI Files Project, and to commemorate the occasion, we put together a sprawling interactive timeline of all our reporting so far.

Whew. So, if nothing else, 2016 was eventful. As we move into an uncertain future, we take solace in how much we’ve managed to accomplish together, and how now, more than ever, we need people willing to fight to hold our government accountable. From all of us at MuckRock, a very sincere thank you, and have a very transparent New Year.

Image via National Archives Flickr