Friday, July 18, 2014: 12:00 pm (Serpico): The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a simple but powerful tool that permits any citizen to find out more about what their government does, permitting more informed participation in American society and government processes. This presentation will show how public records released under FOIA have been used to expose questionable surveillance programs, domestic drone programs, and even an exploding toilet. It also highlights the availability of an array of free, public resources to explore millions of pages of government records that have already been released, so you can see the results of your tax dollars at work. This talk will also review ways of overcoming some common agency roadblocks to get the records and data you want. Examples will be drawn from the GovernmentAttic.org and Muckrock.com web sites.

Michael Morisy, Michael Ravnitzky