MuckRock is looking for reporters to help us investigate public records in two places where in-state citizenship is required to access them: Alabama and Arkansas.

David Cuillier is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Arizona. He specializes in public records reporting and co-wrote the book, The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, the second edition of which is being released this month. The book teaches journalists and involved citizens how to gain access to public records, which he says is an art that requires understanding of the system and human behavior. For this week’s Requester’s Voice, Cuillier spoke to MuckRock about his book and the study he worked on this past year.

From backlogs at the federal level to legal limitations at state and local, requesters are no strangers to the barriers met in access to information. But every now and then, an agency will make a demand so brazen or just plain bizarre that it’ll bring even the jaded #FOIA community to pause.

As we wrap up Sunshine Week 2019, we’ve compiled the ultimate list of transparency bills currently making the rounds throughout state houses and senates.

While a not-insignificant percentage of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s activities under Director J. Edgar Hoover were driven by personal vendettas, few were as well-known – or as publicly vicious – as Hoover’s feud with civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. That clash quite literally came to a head on December 1, 1964, when, at the urging of President Lyndon Johnson, Hoover invited King to FBI headquarters for their first - and only - face to face meeting, captured in a ten-page memo in King’s file.