As we celebrate this year's Sunshine Week, a weeklong media observance emphasizing the importance of "sunshine" laws to maintain government transparency, primarily the federal Freedom of Information Act and its many state-level variations, public record request numbers are hitting record highs.

While the majority of requests deal with serious topics like national security, civil liberties, and climate change, others are quizzical, deeply unserious, the kind that make you think, aw, humans. These four fall into that category.  

No One Out-Pizzas the Military

Though Italy is famous for its pizza, some people are devoted fans of the ready-to-eat rations the U.S. military provides, devoted enough to want to learn more. Because nothing says culinary delicacy like a 5 to 7 year shelf life.

In 2018 the US Army received a request for "any comment cards, development notes, and distribution records of the pizza meal, ready-to-eat (MRE)." As of 3/13/2026, MuckRock is still following up on this request, so who knows, maybe the development of shelf-stable pizza is a national security secret that must be protected at all costs.

Oh Fudge!

It seems the federal government is particularly protective of culinary secrets, the military’s and employee’s extended families.  

After Mike Pompeo finished his first year as President Trump's CIA director in 2017, investigative reporter Jason Leopold sent a FOIA request for all the memos Pompeo had sent to his staff. It took the agency seven years to produce the records and when Leopold got his hand on them, he found that they had some quizzical redactions. Our favorite is a redacted email from Pompeo sharing his mom’s “secret” fudge recipe. The CIA redacted the entire recipe, claiming it was protected from disclosure under federal law. We’re sure Pompeo’s mom appreciated them keeping her culinary secret safe.  

There's No Place Like Home

In 2019, one Minnesotan got a case of the Wicked Witch of the West and had to know where the famous ruby red slippers had gone.

The famous slippers from the 1939 film were stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum, sparking a 13-year investigation that our requester wanted in on. But unlike our classic green villain's search for her sister's shoes, they did not deploy an army of flying monkeys or defy gravity. They submitted a FOIA request to the FBI, asking for "any case files, investigation findings, memos, or communications referencing the investigation into the 'Ruby Slippers' stolen from the Judy Garland Museum, located in Grand Rapids, Minnesota."

The slippers were finally returned in 2025. Maybe it was the requestors at-home investigation that brought them back.

A Ruff Day for Public Records  

MuckRock Foundation is a nonprofit and collaborative news site that provides tools and support to make the record request process easier — a lot of these silly FOIA examples are courtesy of their site. They take government transparency seriously but also like to have some fun with public records. For an article titled MuckRock's Dog or Hot Dog Challenge," they submitted record requests to six different U.S. cities asking for "any and all photos of the current mayor with a dog(s)" and or "any and all photos of the current mayor with a hot dog(s)."  

They compiled and chopped the produced photos into a challenge where readers had to guess whether the mayors were being photographed “with man’s best friend, or man’s worst food.”

Examples like this are funny, but they also take precious time away from government workers, a problem that's only made worse when agencies don't have the right tools to handle the volume of requests they receive. With Logikcull, government agencies can easily search across their entire dataset using ASK GenAI for the word "dog," pull any photos of dogs, fluffy or food, and produce them within just a few clicks.  

That way, the fun stays fun, instead of becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back.