Two quick items I came across while browsing through the FARA database: the first is the articles of incorporation of the Alexander Strategy Group, the lobbying firm run by former Tom DeLay staffer Edward Buckham, which was implicated in the Jack Abramoff scandals. In January 2006, Buckham told the Washington Post that the firm was […]

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A while back, we reported that the disclosures filed under the Foreign Agent Registration Act were about to go online. Until now, these detailed disclosures–which require those paid to attempt to influence U.S. policies for foreign governments and some government-controlled entities to list their meetings with government officials, including members […]

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Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have asked for help identifying “mystery PACs” — political action committees that are probably tied to an individual member. Members of Congress form leadership PACs to raise money for other candidates, mostly, enhancing their status within the caucus. There’s no requirement for a member to disclose a […]

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Here are the two Federal Communications Commission spreadsheets, converted from PDF to excel. The first one is for January and February and the second for March.

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Luckily, Bill’s computer still has a floppy drive so we could read the word document sent to us on a 3.5-inch diskette by the Department of Transportation. Responses to our FOIA request for congressional correspondence logs from Transportation have been trickling in slowly because each agency within the department has been replying […]

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Anupama’s on the phone with yet another FOIA officer clarifying the nature of our request for correspondence logs listing letters from and responses to members of Congress, in an electronic format. It’s amazing how many responses we’ve gotten that miss the mark of the request. Agencies send us actual letters rather than logs, or handwritten […]

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On May 4, federal prosecutors charged Rep. Vic Kohring, an Alaska state lawmaker, and two former statehouse colleagues, Bruce Weyhrauch, and Pete Kott, for conspiracy to commit extortion and bribery. Three days later, two top officials from the oil services firm Veco Corp., CEO Bill Allen and Rick Smith, vice president for community and government […]

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We received a response from the Air Force yesterday for the congressional correspondence logs, both for our first request, for logs in January and February, and the second, for March.
After reading the list, I emailed the Air Force and asked for copies of some of the letters and responses for some […]

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The Coast Guard responded to one of the first Freedom of Information Act requests I made (described here) for an SF-LLL–the disclosures that contractors have to file when they lobby the government in connection with a contract. I asked for any SF-LLLs filed in connection with Deepwater, the multi-year contract to design a new generation […]

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