The growing number of threats and assaults against employees of federal land agencies in the West is certainly the public's business. But efforts to document it by High Country News using the Freedom of Information Act have been thwarted by the Bureau of Land Management's central FOIA office.

Veteran journalist Ray Ring tells the sad tale in HCN. The publication had originally filed FOIAs with dozens of BLM offices around the West. BLM's central FOIA office urged HCN to consolidate its requests. HCN did so, but Ring writes: "Its response to our request for public records can only be described as dysfunctional."

You can read more details of this saga in HCN.

• "Opinion: The BLM Fails To Provide Public Records," [2] High Country News, October 30, 2014, by Ray Ring.