This is one for all the Open Data people. Mark Horvit is the director for a non-profit called Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and he gives a quick run down of making effective freedom of information requests to government. His advice is obviously intended for reporters, but is equally applicable to any civics hacker who wants to get some information from government to put together an app or do some quick analysis for a blog post.

Check it out. How to get public information that people don’t want to give you (by communityjournalism)