In August of 1971, the White House directed the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct a “crash study of intelligence leaks” that had appeared in the press since the beginning of the Nixon Administration on January 20, 1969. That study resulted in a new proposal - an Agency created and maintained database of past and present leaks to help track their damage and identify the leakers. While ultimately successful, the creation of the database raised some unexpected questions for CIA, such as who should be responsible for it, what counted as a leak, and did the Agency care?

Redactions arrive at MuckRock often and in varying shapes and sizes; they range from the plausible to the irksome to the utterly maniacal. But there’s a lot to be gleaned from even the opaquest of black boxes.

NYPD is notorious among reporters as being about as transparent and open as a bank vault. But with the release of the complete listing of all forms used by the agency allowing users to make targeted requests, they’ll find it a lot harder to fall back on the blanket “too vague” rejection.