In this week’s FOIA Roundup, we feature an investigation from Science on oversight of clinical trials, a questionable court decision on Twitter direct messages, and the recent decision to overturn Department of Justice exemptions throughout the Mueller report.

Palantir, a data mining startup based in Silicon Valley, will be handling initial delivery of the U.S. Army’s battlefield intelligence network, the Pentagon confirmed earlier this year, positioning the company to influence the Army’s long-term implementation of its artificial intelligence priorities.

An internal audit of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Chronic Offender Program and PredPol usage found few accurate ways to measure accountability in data-driven policing.

The AI Now Institute is calling for checks on the datasets used by predictive policing systems because of concerns that the technology can perpetuate, rather than address, “dirty” policing practices.

We spoke with experts around the country for advice on using the Freedom of Information Act to dig into military contracts. Here are their top tips.

Mark Harris was getting tired of consumer reporting when he found a way to get great scoops to literally come right to him: Freedom of Information requests. Here our inaugural MuckRock Thiel Fellow shares the tips and tactics that helped him pierce the secrecy around Palantir and dig into other secretive tech companies.

Sometimes just one FOIA request can change how we think about everything - and sometimes it takes a whole fleet of requests. Whether you’re a veteran public records guru or someone just starting to get interested in government transparency, here’s some creative uses of public records we’ve seen and tips you can use.

In early 2014, hoping to learn more about StingRay cell phone surveillance by the Chicago Police Department, Lucy Parsons Labs started filing a few requests - and began a two-year journey into unveiling a secret, multimillion dollar surveillance program.

Peter Thiel - co-founder of both PayPal and Palantir and an early Facebook investor - has profoundly reshaped industry after industry and, ultimately, remade the world to better fit his radical vision of the future. With MuckRock’s Thiel Fellowship, we want to help journalists and researchers better understand this pivotal figure’s work and share what they learn with the public.