An Illinois Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Chicago-based Lucy Parsons Labs has led to the release of a “Best Practices and Training Guide” for the PredPol predictive policing software. The manual offers a rare look at how private companies are encouraging police to embrace algorithms as a means of seeking out crime before it happens.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, we’ve got dirt on a Federal Communications Commission cover-up effort, long-awaited Chicago stop-and-frisk data, copies of environmental policy executive orders sent to President Donald Trump by a major coal executive, and document devouring tips from a New York Times investigative reporter.

In the summer of 2017, the Chicago Police Department did something on social media that would usually be unremarkable: it changed its profile picture.

How do police officers lockdown their online presence? A document released by the Chicago Police Department to Lucy Parsons Labs provides clues.

Matt Topic, a Chicago-based FOIA attorney, has taken on some of the biggest public records paces of the past few years, managing to win important precedent after precedent. He shares what he looks for when considering litigation, why public records matter, and how he accidentally fell into transparency law in the first place.