Since Congress designed and implemented the last budget process in 1974, only on four occasions have all of the appropriations bills for discretionary spending been passed on time.
But poor record keeping hides the real number.
Massachusetts reformed its notoriously bad public records laws in 2020, but reporters are still fighting to get the police misconduct files they're legally entitled to.
Texas' public record law let police hide records of suspects who died in custody from grieving families, reporters, and lawyers.
The former president reminds us that claiming unbridled executive power is a bipartisan tendency.
Recent comments by former COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci contradict what public health officials told us during the pandemic.
It's been nearly three years since New York repealed its police secrecy law, and departments are still fighting to hide misconduct records.
Eye-opening insights into the messy motivations behind restrictive COVID-19 responses.
Even if you despise the media, you should be rooting for better public record laws.
People can never be made incorruptible. We can, however, design governmental systems filled with checks and balances that limit the temptations.
Reason reported in 2020 on allegations of fatal medical neglect inside two federal women's prisons. The Bureau of Prisons heavily redacted reports that would show if women died of inadequate care.
Artist Dave Cicirelli challenges his audience to create meaning.
Montgomery doesn’t want people to see a police dog maul a man to death out of fear of the response.
The five police officers involved in the deadly encounter have been charged with Nichols' murder.
Educators should be responsible to parents and students, not to the government.
Plus: The editors field a listener question on college admissions and affirmative action.
It's not Trump vs. Biden: High officials play fast and loose with government secrets, but only regular people face harsh penalties.
Prosecuting Trump for keeping government records at Mar-a-Lago now seems doomed for political as well as legal reasons.
Plus: a lightning round recollection of comical political fabulists
C-SPAN has shown House proceedings since 1979 but only what the House chooses to let it show. That needs to change.
Irvington made national headlines last year when it filed a lawsuit against an 82-year-old woman for filing too many public records requests. Now it says a lawyer for FIRE should be prosecuted.
The year’s highlights in buck passing feature petulant politicians, brazen bureaucrats, careless cops, loony lawyers, and junky journalists.
Texas law allows police to withhold records of suspects who were never convicted. Police abuse it to hide records from families, reporters, and lawyers investigating deaths in custody.
Joe Biden just declassified another batch, but the government is still keeping some under wraps.
The New York Civil Liberties Union is fighting about a dozen different lawsuits against stonewalling police departments.
Will a new commission at the U.S. Department of Agriculture solve racism? We're going to find out.
A lack of transparency doesn't make politicians better people.
The report says the inaccuracies "deprived Congress and the American public of information about who is dying in custody and why."
Behind the scenes, federal officials pressure social media platforms to suppress disfavored speech.
"The Court fails to see how the presence of a person recording a video near an officer interferes with the officer's activities," the judge wrote.
The FBI used a network of snitches to spy on entertainers and activists, and the Queen of Soul was no exception.
The lawsuit argues the new law will chill protected First Amendment activities and keep media and the public from holding police accountable.
Reinforcing the FBI's suspicions was the whole point of that document, which is likely to remain sealed.
Civil liberties groups oppose the law, saying it will impede First Amendment–protected activity and protect bad cops.
After community outrage and the mayor saying he wasn't told about Timothy Loehmann's policing background, the officer withdrew his application.
"The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children."
Transparency advocates say police could invoke a notorious loophole that allows them to hide records of deaths in custody and police killings.
They shot and killed a man they were trying to evict. Doesn’t the public have the right to know who they are?
New SIGAR findings shine a light on America’s dysfunctional efforts to train the Afghan National Police, which “actually contributed to increasing criminality” in Afghanistan.
The judicial conference endorses making PACER searches free for non-commercial users.
The ACLU of Northern California is suing to overturn the ordinance.
Irvington Township says it's being bullied by 82-year-old Elouise McDaniel and is asking a court to block her from filing public records requests.
Lack of participation from police departments has stymied the FBI's national use-of-force database for the past three years, but FBI Director Christopher Wray said a required threshold has finally been met.
Three years since it launched, an FBI data collection program on police use-of-force incidents has yet to gain enough participation to release any statistics.
All of this is a transparent effort to stop lawsuits from those who have been tortured.
In a program separate from the ones disclosed by Edward Snowden, we see more mass secret domestic data collection.
New administrations usually issue memos on transparency. The Biden administration has ignored calls to do so.
Defense lawyer Amy Phillips is suing over what she calls the department's "watchlist policy."
