The First Amendment Coalition today announced a new partnership with MuckRock to extend the reach of FAC’s “Asked and Answered” resource, an extensive database of legal expertise on freedom of information laws and the First Amendment.
Through the collaboration, users of MuckRock—a nonprofit that provides sophisticated but easy-to-use online tools to help people submit public records requests—will now have direct access to FAC’s vast “Asked and Answered” database on the MuckRock website. The searchable database, available in full on FAC’s website, is a compendium of questions submitted over FAC’s free Legal Hotline, followed by answers provided by FAC’s attorneys, all first amendment and government access specialists at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, LLP, a global law firm.
“FAC’s Asked and Answered database has helped thousands of people with their First Amendment questions over the years, and we’re thrilled to be able to bring it directly to MuckRock’s vibrant and extensive community of users,” said FAC Executive Director David Snyder. “MuckRock is providing a fantastic 21st-century solution to ensure anyone can simply and easily file public records requests. Hopefully, our resource will make it even easier for people to solicit information from their government.”
In addition to their online tools for seeking public records, MuckRock also provides a repository of hundreds of thousands of pages of original government records, which are used to create original investigative reporting and analysis. “We are grateful to have the expertise and knowledge that’s jam-packed into FAC’s “Asked and Answered” database available to our users,” said MuckRock Co-Founder Michael Morisy. “Although getting records from your government should be easy, unfortunately, it often is not — both MuckRock and FAC aim to simplify and demystify this process, so people can get the information they’re entitled to.”
For more information, contact:
David Snyder
Executive Director
First Amendment Coalition
dsnyder@firstamendmentcoalition.org
Michael Morisy
Chief Executive
MuckRock
Michael@MuckRock.com