"Meet FOIA Machine, an integrated web platform developed by veteran investigative reporters and technology pros. It's sponsored by the award-winning nonprofit The Center for Investigative Reporting. It’s like TurboTax for government records. We’re streamlining the complicated process of filing and tracking public record requests, putting all of the steps, rules, exceptions and best practices in one place and allowing users to track requests on dashboards, receive alerts, share request blueprints and get social support and expertise from the FOIA Machine community. This new platform is open and free for anyone, from citizen groups to reporters, the public, commercial media and educators. And it can be used to extract documents no matter the issue – human rights, the environment, political reform, public safety, privacy and more." - × × ×

http://www.instapaper.com/text... — The Freedom of Information Act Machine, an open online platform that automates Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, launched on Kickstarter two days ago and has already surpassed its funding goal. At the time of publication, it had cleared $20,000 in funding from over 600 backers. - × × ×