Public records requests are an important tool for journalists and other investigators to obtain information to check public employees' for episodes of wrongdoing. Today there are two alarming trends. 1. Politicians with deep pockets and plenty of attorneys find ways to make sure the records are not made public. 2. Scientists that do not have deep pockets and attorneys are seeing abuse of the system for elaborate witch hunts, expeditions that find no evidence of wrongdoing, yet result in potentially career-damaging manufactured narratives. In other words, when you teach a scientific topic or do research that some find objectionable, your records can be used to harm your career. It has been seen by researchers in climate, vaccines, animal research, genetic engineering, and most recently, fisheries . Last year my institution received a Public Records Request from Vani Hari, The Food Babe. It was indeed curious, and it didn't take long to realize that this was re