The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Freedom of Information Act" ...
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The Deadliest Place in Mexico
The Juarez Valley, a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande, was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the Juarez cartel moved in to set up a lucrative drug smuggling trade. “The Deadliest Place in Mexico” explores untold aspects of Mexico’s drug war as it has played out in the small farming communities of this valley. The violence began in 2008, when the Sinaloa cartel moved in to take over the Juarez cartel’s turf. The Mexican government sent in the military to quell the violence — but instead the murder rate exploded. While the bloodshed in the nearby City of Juarez attracted widespread media attention, the violence spilling into the rural Juarez Valley received far less, eve as the killings began to escalate in brutal ways. Community advocates, elected officials, even police officers were shot down in the streets. Several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. By 2009, the valley, with a population of 20,000, had a murder rate six times higher than Juarez itself. Newspapers began to call the rural farming region the “Valley of Death.” This investigation uses extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, and difficult-to-obtain interviews in Spanish and English with current and former Juarez Valley residents, Mexican officials, narcotraffickers and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, to reveal that many of these shocking deaths were perpetrated with the participation of Mexican authorities. It shows scenes of devastation — households where six members of a single family were killed, without a single police investigation. It uncovers targeted killings by masked gunmen of community activists and innocent residents for speaking out against violence and repression facilitated by corrupt military and government officials. And it gathers multiple witnesses who describe soldiers themselves, working in league with the Sinaloa cartel, perpetrating violence against civilians. "The cemeteries are all full. There isn't anywhere left to bury the bodies," one former resident said. "You'll find nothing there but ghost towns and soldiers."
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Untangling FOIA: a Test of Obama's Transparency Pledge
Bloomberg News filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 57 federal agencies in June to test President Barack Obama's 2009 promise that his administration would be the most transparent in U.S. history. The series revealed how few departments complied with the law by disclosing the travel costs of top officials in a timely manner. Overall, only eight agencies met the 20-working-day deadline. After six months, nine of 15 cabinet offices and about a third of the agencies overall still had yet to release the documents.
Tags: Freedom of Information Act; FOIA; federal agencies; Obama
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Addressing 911
It all started with a tip from people on the front lines, and quickly unraveled into a story that has sparked much needed oversight of Ingham County's new consolidated 911 center. The center merged two 911 dispatch centers into one back in June of 2012. In October, a group of first responders approached Reporter Ann Emmerich with alarming concerns about problems within the system. They believed at least two deaths could be connected to delayed response times because emergency crews were sent to the wrong address. They also believed county officials were trying to "cover up" the problems. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Ann Emmerich began digging into records from the 911 Dispatch Center. She obtained documented complaints from the Lansing Fire Department, call logs from the dispatch center, and time stamped recordings of 911 calls. Just days after Emmerich made those FOIA requests, Lansing's Mayor announced he would form a task force to investigate concerns with the County's 911 Center. At the time, there was no advisory board in place to oversee the center. Once officials went public with the formation of a task force, the original board that worked to establish the 911 center was brought back together to begin oversight.
Tags: broadcast; 911; FOIA; 911 center
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Justice in the Shadows
Although immigration is one of America’s most divisive, visceral, and hotly debated issues, the public rarely gets a close look at the vast law enforcement network that every year detains more than 400,000 suspected illegal immigrants. Courts often operate inside prisons, far from view. Immigration officials play by rules that would not be permitted for the police or the FBI. Here is a system heavily shielded from public scrutiny. Reporting even routine activities is a challenge. Boston Globe reporters Maria Sacchetti and Milton J. Valencia, however, penetrated the wall of secrecy. Their three-part series, “Justice in the Shadows,” revealed a dysfunctional and largely unaccountable system that locks up people who pose little threat while releasing dangerous criminals back to US streets because their home countries won’t take them back. The results, Sacchetti and Valencia showed, at times can be deadly for Americans and foreigners alike. The reporting was anything but quick or easy. Sacchetti and Valencia filed more than 20 Freedom of Information Act requests to federal agencies that comprise the immigration system. Nearly all of them were partially or wholly denied, purportedly to protect the privacy of the immigrants. With the federal government blocking the way, Sacchetti and Valencia found other avenues to document what was happening inside this Byzantine system, investing a year to do so. The effort to shed light on the immigration system continues: The Globe has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to force the agency to reveal the names of more than 8,000 criminal foreigners released in the US because they couldn’t be deported.
Tags: security; Department of Homeland Security; illegal immigrants; FBI
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Grave Mistakes
Most people have never heard of the Social Security Administration's so-called "Death Master File"- a database of deceased Americans created in 1980 under the Freedom of Information Act as an anti-fraud tool. But each year, many Americans discover that they are listed as deceased by the federal government. Identity thieves have learned to use the Death Master File to commit hundreds of thousands of acts of identity theft for tax fraud, including taking Social Security numbers of recently deceased children.
Tags: Social Security; Fraud; Death Master File; deceased Americans
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Islamophobia
In July 2011, WIRED.com ran a story about anti-Islam instructional material at the FBI from 2009 and earlier based on results of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The FBI told WIRED.com that the material had been removed from the FBI curricula. That statement prompted sources within the FBI with first-hand experience of ongoing anti-Islam teaching material to come forward to WIRED.com.
Tags: Islam; FBI; American Civil Liberties Union; anti-Islam; Islam
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Grave Mistakes
An investigation showing how the database of deceased Americans created in 1980 under the Freedom of Information Act accidentally lists thousands of Americans as deceased, suffering frozen bank accounts, refused credit cards, denied student and mortgage loans, or arrests for suspected identity theft. It also exposes how identity thieves have learned to use the filed to commit numerous acts of identity theft for tax fraud.
Tags: identity theft; deceased; federal records; tax fraud
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Revolving Regulators
The Project on Government Oversight filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all post-employment statements filed by former SEC employees and analyzed the statements and other documents.
Tags: SEC; employment; FOIA
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Sex Offenders
State and federal authorities have lost track of 100,000 of the nation's 700,000 convicted sex offenders. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, the reporter found that only four states have complied with a law requiring states to keep uniform records on sex offenders.
Tags: sex offender; records; FOIA; sex
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Your Right to Know
A reporter for the Columbus Dispatch began publishing a blog designed to educate Ohioans about their rights to access public records and meetings. The blog is also used as a bully pulpit to point out government abuses in withholding records from the public and news media.
Tags: blog; open records; Sunshine Laws; FOIA; Freedom of Information Act; public records