Celebrating Sunshine Week

Sunshine Week is a week dedicated to helping educate the public, journalists, lawmakers, and others on the right to know in the U.S. states and federal government. Here’s how we’re celebrating Sunshine Week:

• MuckRock is hosting a FOIA 101 on Friday, hosted byengagement journalist Kelly Kauffman. We'll cover the history of FOIA, state public records laws, how to write your own public records request and more!
• We’ll also be at Sunshine Fest this Thursday, including moderating a panel on Trump, populism and the backslide.
• If you haven’t already, join MuckRock on BlueSky! We also created a starter pack of open gov and transparency accounts.

The Foilies 2025

Every year during Sunshine Week the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report—now a decade old—names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.

Here are this year’s “winners.” While they may not all pay up, at least we can make sure they get the negative publicity they’re owed.

A year of FOIAFridays

To celebrate Sunshine Week and one year of FOIAFridays, MuckRock’s data journalist Dillon Bergin shares five things he’s learned through these monthly conversations.

The takeaways are both big picture and specific, the type of information you can expect to get if you join as we continue FOIAFridays this month, next month and beyond.

The FOIA author’s book club

For Sunshine Week, journalist Philip Eli walks us through a collection of FOIA-fueled nonfiction books, including on topics like organized crime in New York, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and FBI crackdowns on college-campus radicalism.

Data Liberation Project Dispatch

The Drug Enforcement Administration partly granted our appeal and provided a partially redacted manual for its Theft/Loss Reporting System (TLR). The manual provides some insight into how entities report thefts of controlled substances.

We have three kinds of tables that still need documentation in our FEMA Disaster Housing dataset. We can compare them against the HOMES Table and DARAC Dictionary to describe them in our documentation doc.

• 8 tables on Pre-Placement Interviews. These interviews occur after an individual requests direct temporary housing, and FEMA uses them to determine the most suitable type of housing for the applicant.
• 4 tables on Direct Assistance Recertification. According to FEMA, recertification is “a process that FEMA uses to re-evaluate the eligibility of Direct Housing occupants through monthly visits. It helps motivate the occupants to fulfill their Permanent Housing Plan.”
• 7 tables on Direct Assistance Registration. These tables track the registration process for FEMA’s direct assistance program. They are related to the pre-placement interviews, where applicant-significant data is collected and then used to determine eligibility.

Join us on the Data Liberation Project Slack to learn more!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Mar 19-20: Celebrating the 20th anniversary of national Sunshine Week, Sunshine Fest is organizing an in-person conference to find solutions to pressing problems in freedom of information and public records.

Mar 21: Join us and celebrate Sunshine Week with FOIA 101 hosted by MuckRock.

Mar 28: Join our community podcast! On the last Friday of every month, MuckRock's Data Reporter, Dillon Bergin, answers questions and gets into the weeds on a variety of topics in FOIA and state public records laws.

The Update

• Wired drops paywall for FOIA-based reporting: The Freedom of the Press Foundation applaudsWired for removing its paywall on articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
• Student journalist shines light on local school board: Sunshine Week spotlights teen editor Julia Roeder, who took on a Michigan school board official with public records requests.
• Democrats submit FOIA request to DOGE: Top Democrats on the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees have filed a lengthy Freedom of Information Act request questioning whether the Department of Government Efficiency is operating “outside the bounds of federal law,” reports Lisa Mascaro for ABC.

FOIA Finds

• Examining CORA requests: Sandra Fish at the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition analyzed more than 12,000 CORA requests made last year to state agencies to uncover who requests public records in Colorado and what they want to know.
• FOIAs show how agencies comply with the “Defending Women” executive order: Using FOIA, 404 Media obtained several memos that government agencies were required to create by President Trump in order to comply with his “Defending Women” executive order, reports Jason Koebler.
• Read through Trump docs: Now you can read and search through all of President Donald Trump’s presidential documents, with help from The Associated Press, including new executive orders and memos.