Humans are coming for automation's jobs washingtoncitypaper.com/article/7865...

ICYMI — I went through more than 1,100 lawsuits and found hundreds of Minnesota immigrants detained despite living and working legally in the U.S.

Happy 11-year anniversary to the first FOIA request I ever sent.

Gunma Prefecture’s popular official mascot is a cute orange pony named Gunma-chan, but a mysterious unofficial mascot can also be found also actively promoting the area. This enigmatic character has no name and is always changing form and color, so nobody is sure what it actually is.

@rcfp.org attorney Paula Knudsen Burke is representing a freelance journalist in his fight to access financial records from the University of Pittsburgh Police Department under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law.

Alden gets its hands on another paper

NEW: In the morning, lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment to a $580 billion transportation bill that would make federal highway funds contingent on states and cities killing off their automated license plate reader programs, i.e., Flock, in most cases.

The wonderful folks at Footnote are hiring a managing editor/AI specialist. ~1/2 time role: footnote.co/jobs

U.S. Navy really out here sending me FOIA docs that require access to a secure web portal that looks like it was built in 2005 that requires a claim ID, code and passcode and then a password for the document itself.

I wrote about the "anti-weaponization fund" and how the "weaponization" cited basically didn't happen and how there is *actual* weaponization happening at the moment but that the targets of it will never see a single dime for their troubles. Gift link:

"If you paid 2023 federal income taxes in the state of Connecticut, $3 out of every $100 you paid is now set aside for reimbursing people who a committee of people allied with the president decide were treated unfairly by government actions." www.ctinsider.com/columnist/ar...

🚨NEW🚨 The government subpoenaed Apple, Google and Amazon for data on every single user of a car tinkering app. For Google alone that means over 100,000 users. Privacy and car hacking communities are, unsurprisingly, concerned about overreach. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

In 2024 piles of rocks were spread out on sites around Pittsburgh that were used for tent encampments. Curious about who was responsible for the displacement tactic, and how officials were talking about such efforts, Jordana Rosenfeld put in a public records request to the city and county.

I know that with all the corruption and the criming it's easy to skip over just how absolutely unhinged some things are, but we really shouldn't. All of this should be a scandal.

I love how this google doc I created on a whim has turned into such a helpful resource. And I love the collaboration of the journalism and legal communities! Thanks to @tylermcbrien.com for building on it.

Florida law does not explicitly require prosecutorial agencies to keep a Brady List – as evidenced by the fact that several don’t. Eight of the 20 state attorneys’ offices in the state told The Florida Trib they do not maintain a Brady List. w/ @muckrock.com floridatrib.org/2026/05/12/b...

This is kinda fun! Also helpful for understanding certain properties of LLMs.

Minor OSINT scoop: That "Thank you, PRESIDENT TRUMP" banner Trump had plastered all over DC to take credit for taxpayer funded renovations features a photo of him in a hard hat taken last July — as he toured the Federal Reserve renovation he called a huge scam www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

making a best restaurants list without a map view is crazy

We sued the govt for these records, and are now releasing them so that others can use the data too

Any team retreat spaces/destinations for non-profits you'd recommend?

This is a nice step. The official FOIA committee within the federal government now officially recommends that FOIA should apply to the judiciary, and they cite the bill we have been working on with @fixthecourt.com !

What are newsrooms planning to cover during the 2026 midterm elections? MuckRock asked newsrooms about how they’re approaching their election coverage, the barriers they’re facing and how support organizations like ours and news collaborations might be able to help. buff.ly/aiYXB5J

Send a FOIA request in to the closest department to you using AI to draft reports--I can almost guarantee you'll find some internal emails of officer's saying this tech is not everything it's cracked up to be. So why is it being adopted so fast? Sophisticated marketing: www.eff.org/document/sel...

New: Access Now says its RightsCon conference in Zambia was cancelled following pressure from Beijing. Our story: www.reuters.com/world/china/... Access Now statement: www.rightscon.org/rc26-statement

On May 6, the White House released the Trump administration’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy. It focuses on 3 types of "terror groups”: cartels, jihadists, and left-wing extremists. Read the strategy, from @pwbeck.bsky.social.

BREAKING NEWS ON BLUESKY, THE OFFICIAL APP FOR SPORTS Dunno if the smarter basketball schedule people have already reported this, BUT JUST IN CASE THEY HAVEN'T, Wyoming MBB will play at North Carolina this season on Nov 11. $95K paycheck for the Cowboys

hey skyline, we've extended the application deadline for our contract reporter role covering LGBTQ+ issues and communities! we're actively working to build a diverse candidate pool and would love your help spreading the word✨ 19thnews.org/2026/04/cont...

New from 404 Media: Skyrocketing hard drive and storage costs caused by the AI data center boom are making it more expensive and more difficult for digital archivists, academics, Wikipedia, and hobby data hoarders to save data and archive the internet www.404media.co/the-ai-hard-...

Canada's Department of National Defence is claiming it has *zero* records regarding NATO's 5% GDP military spending target.

I scrape public documents, publish links to them for free and for my newsroom AND AI is abusing scraping so much that more cities, counties and other public entities are blocking all bots, including my polite ones that visit *maybe* once a day anyway, my public notice bot ➡️ @gapolbot.bsky.social

By me at this.weekinsecurity.com: I'm suing the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act.

Five minutes after reporting a bun bug. Both cool and disturbing :D

I am honored to share the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Best International Reporting with Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Garance Burke for our reporting revealing how Silicon Valley largely designed and built China's surveillance state and enabled human rights abuses.

How a University’s Censorship Conference Got Censored: www.404media.co/how-a-univer...

Always this one type of motherfucker at the campsite

NEW: DHS is using a legal tool called a 1509 customs summons to try to obtain info from Google about a Canadian after he criticized the Trump admin online. He says he hasn't been to the US in 10+ years and didn't ship anything during the time period DHS asked about: www.wired.com/story/dhs-de...

NEW: On April 28, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan accused environmental law scholars of bias, conspiracy and colluding to influence the U.S. judiciary. The next day, free-market conservatives kicked off a multiday climate skepticism event for more than 150 judges.

TTRPG playsheet or municipal licensing form.

This kind of mixed use urban planning is illegal in America

Let’s repackage RSS as “newsletters for agents” and get all the vibers excited to implement it

*extremely jg wentworth voice* it's my data and i need it now!

See something, say something.

US spending on data centers & computers has grown so much that it's larger than basically all other physical investment categories—more than all single-family housing construction, factories, power plants, industrial equipment, apartments I'm running out of points of comparison

NEW: After blocking the public from seeing the names of police officers charged with crimes, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan faced a 2023 Mass Dump lawsuit. To defend his office, the elected official turned to a lawyer who gave money to his campaign. #Massachusetts #mapoli

Sounds interesting, but if eating 100 tacos works, I'm still down to try.

Over the last week, our newsletter has been inundated with bots that give vague, nonsensical in context responses. Getting dozens of these a send.

Terrible news about RightsCon via @mjgault.bsky.social, particularly on the heals of the challenges RightsCon has faced in recent years due to USAID cuts & general crackdown on civil society. Doesn't get much more brazen from a government than this: www.404media.co/rightscon-hu...

ANNOUNCING: Swords Against Beginner's Box Replica Edition Coming in June, this is a reproduction of a specific, incomplete, unplayable copy of this 1979 game found at an estate sale in 2016, including replicas of personal effects of the former owner.

Archival research tips? What's the current best/most convenient tech for copying docs? Phone on a stand? Or tablet? If so is there a stand for a tablet? (I can go faster & ensure clarity with a stand.) Used to use a digital camera but it's been a while & I need to update.