MuckRock

Before federal data appears on Data.gov, the agency that holds it must first determine that the information can be released to anyone who asks for it. Data.gov, the federal government’s public catalog of its data holdings, lists material only if an agency classifies it as a public data asset. That means the agency has released it, or would release it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. But data can meet that standard and never make it onto the catalog.

This year, we’ve been hard at work on rebooting Klaxon Cloud, an open source tool to easily watch the sites you care about for changes. We are proud to announce the brand new Klaxon Cloud, now a standalone service that makes it easier than ever to create new alerts and track changes across websites over time. With this relaunch come two major new features: The Klaxon Cloud browser extension, available for both Chrome and Firefox.

When reporting on mental health and services offered across the United States, journalists need access to public records and federal data to understand where the system works and where it doesn’t, and why. The federal government plays a significant role in the public health of Americans, and agencies such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense provide direct clinical care to military veterans and active-duty officers.

The federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee ended its 2024-2026 term on July 16 by approving a final report and recommendations that calls for more funding, stronger oversight and some of the most ambitious structural changes to FOIA in years. The committee approved the report, which packages together 11 recommendations it adopted over the term, in a unanimous 15–0 vote, with one abstention.

Requesters are using chatbots to brainstorm agencies, identify possible records, summarize documents and understand denial letters. Agencies are testing artificial intelligence, machine learning and e-discovery tools to search large collections of records, remove duplicates, flag sensitive information and narrow what human reviewers need to examine. A recent MuckRock FOIAFriday discussion on AI and public records highlighted the tension.

On July 4, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act into law, giving the public a legal right to request records from federal agencies. Six decades later, that right is being exercised more than ever. Federal agencies received more than 1.7 million FOIA requests in fiscal year 2025 and processed over 1.6 million, according to annual report data published by the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy on FOIA.gov.

The U.S. military banned slot machines from domestic bases in 1951. But that hasn’t stopped gambling on American military bases overseas, where slot machines continue to operate through the Army Recreation Machine Program, part of the Morale, Welfare and Recreation program. Overseas, the Pentagon has been running a gambling operation that generates about tens of millions each year.

During a recent MuckRock FOIAFriday training, Danielle Ohl of Spotlight PA described the overlap between federal immigration enforcement and local government as “butter melted into toast.” The two can be difficult to separate. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement relies heavily on local infrastructure, including jails, county governments and municipal law enforcement agencies.

The Trump administration is moving to require all federal government employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement. While the draft agreement largely restates existing restrictions on disclosure of sensitive material, lack of clarity around the broad range of records that it could cover and the potential consequences for noncompliance laid out in the draft form could make government employees more cautious about what they disclose under the Freedom of Information Act.

If you’ve filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act or a state equivalent and received a denial, delay or heavily redacted response, you’re not alone. Even experienced reporters run into roadblocks. Some are legitimate, some are not, but many are fixable. This guide breaks down the most common reasons requests get denied, how to revise your language and what to do when agencies stall, over-redact or claim records don’t exist. Common reasons FOIA requests get denied 1.