Data Sources
Every data point on this site is traceable to a free, public, primary source. No paywalls. No gatekeeping.
Transparency requires verifiability. Below is the complete annotated directory of every data source used across the Black Data hub, organized by category. Each source includes its authentication requirements, data format, and what it provides. All sources are free to access.
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ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data)
Free Account
Real-time conflict event data: battles, protests, violence against civilians. Covers 250+ countries. CSV/JSON exports. Used for dashboard conflict layer.
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GDELT Project
No Auth
Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone. Monitors world broadcast, print, and web news in 100+ languages. Free BigQuery access.
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USGS Earthquake Feeds
No Auth
Real-time earthquake data in GeoJSON. Updated every minute. Includes magnitude, location, depth, tsunami warnings.
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GDACS (Global Disaster Alert & Coordination System)
No Auth
RSS feed of global disasters: earthquakes, floods, cyclones, volcanic eruptions. UN-backed alert system.
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NASA EONET (Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker)
No Auth
Open API for natural events: wildfires, volcanic activity, severe storms. JSON format with coordinates.
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USASpending.gov API
No Auth
All federal contracts, grants, loans, and spending data. Search by agency, recipient, year, amount. REST API with POST endpoints. Key endpoint: /api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ — filter by agency codes (NRO, NGA, DIA) to surface classified-adjacent spending.
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OpenSecrets API
Free Key
Lobbying data, campaign finance, defense contractor political spending. Required for tracking the lobbying-to-budget pipeline.
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ProPublica Congress API
Free Key
Congress member data, voting records, bill tracking. Includes member demographics for representation analysis.
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DoD Budget Materials (Comptroller)
No Auth
Annual Congressional Budget Justification PDFs. Published by DoD, CIA, NSA. Partially redacted but contain program-level spending when not classified.
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Federation of American Scientists — Secrecy Report Card
No Auth
Annual assessment of U.S. government secrecy trends. Tracks classification decisions, declassification rates, FOIA backlogs.
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MuckRock
No Auth
Public database of FOIA requests and responses. Thousands of defense, intelligence, and law enforcement releases. Searchable and filterable.
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GovTrack RSS Feed
No Auth
U.S. legislation tracking. RSS feed of bill introductions, votes, and legislative actions.
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Mapping Police Violence
No Auth
Comprehensive database of police killings in the U.S. Tracks race, armed status, fleeing status, body camera presence, charges filed. Downloadable CSV.
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The Sentencing Project
No Auth
Research on racial disparities in criminal justice. State-level incarceration data by race. Downloadable reports and CSVs.
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Prison Policy Initiative
No Auth
Mass incarceration data, private prison analysis, immigration detention stats. Infographics and downloadable data.
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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
No Auth
Official federal data on crime victimization, incarceration, law enforcement, courts. Breakdowns by race, age, sex, geography.
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ACLU Criminal Justice Data
No Auth
Research on racial profiling, drug enforcement disparities, school-to-prison pipeline, death penalty by race.
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CDC WONDER Database
No Auth
Mortality data, maternal health outcomes, disease rates — all filterable by race/ethnicity. Includes detailed cause-of-death data and infant mortality statistics.
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Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
No Auth
Health insurance coverage, health outcomes, COVID-19 disparities by race. State-level data with visualizations and downloadable tables.
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Human Rights Watch RSS
No Auth
Real-time reports on human rights abuses worldwide. RSS feed for news panel integration.
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Amnesty International RSS
No Auth
Human rights news and campaign updates. RSS feed for automated ingestion.
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Reuters World News RSS
No Auth
Wire service world news. Used for dashboard live news panel.
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Al Jazeera RSS
No Auth
International news coverage. RSS feed for dashboard news panel.
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BBC World News RSS
No Auth
BBC World Service news feed. Used for dashboard news aggregation.
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UN News RSS
No Auth
United Nations official news feed. Covers humanitarian, peacekeeping, and development news.
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The Intercept — Snowden SIDtoday Archive
No Auth
Declassified NSA internal newsletters. Reveals surveillance programs, intelligence operations, and agency culture from the inside.
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National Security Archive (GWU)
No Auth
Declassified government documents obtained through FOIA. Covers intelligence, military, foreign policy. Invaluable for historical black budget research.