FOIA This!

FOIA This! — Digging Out Government Spending

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Tracking down local government expenses is a recurrent theme for many successful freedom of information requests. Some recent examples suggest that quite a variety of information is potentially available — about credit card charges, salaries, retirement parties, and even costs of leak investigations. Have a great story you developed using a FOI/RTI request? Send it to us at freeinfo@email.gwu.edu. We’re currently looking for examples regarding immigration.

Data

FOIA This! Big Stories in Government Data

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Data on government workforces might not sound that exciting — that is until you consider the trove of information it can help uncover. Here’s how journalists worldwide are using FOI requests to dig into great stories.

FOI

FOIA This! — Requests Uncover Green News

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Freedom of information requests have fueled recent environmental stories around the world. GIJN’s Resource Center director, Toby McIntosh, put together a round-up of a few that might stimulate your investigative thinking.

Allen Ginsberg

Writers Under Surveillance: Hunter S Thompson’s FBI Files

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The power of the pen — writers are so dangerous that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation deemed it necessary to start surveillance on many of them, including Hannah Arendt, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Susan Sontag, and Hunter S Thompson. The book “Writers Under Surveillance” gathers some of these investigation files that were obtained with Freedom of Information Act requests by MuckRock.

FBI

Document of the Day: Beginner’s Guide to Requesting an FBI File

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How can a journalist request Federal Bureau of Investigation’s files on an individual? MuckRock’s JPat Brown prepared a useful step-by-step flowchart guide for all scenarios to help you make sure you’ve gathered all the materials you need before you file that FOIA.

Homepage Top Story

How an Award-Winning Investigation Was Buried in Two Newsrooms

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Earlier this month the Indian news site Newslaundry won a prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for a series of stories based on Right to Information (RTI) requests. The information — over 2,000 letters from Indian state-owned enterprises revealed how political leaders routinely misused up to US$15 million in public funds by asking for media ads or sponsorships for their pet organizations. Here’s the inside story of how the piece almost didn’t come to light.