To track what a high-profile lawsuit about government transparency is costing the city of Richmond, activists and journalists have been filing Freedom of Information Act requests for billing invoices filed by private law firm Ogletree Deakins. However, the firm has gone roughly four months without filing a new invoice, making it impossible for outsiders to use those documents to monitor how the costs to the city are adding up. The missing invoices mean that — at least for now — officials can’t provide an up-to-date number for how much the city is spending to fight a lawsuit claiming there’s been a lack of transparency at City Hall. Both lead Ogletree attorney Jimmy F. Robinson Jr. and the city attorney’s office say the lack of timely invoices was caused by a technical issue on the law firm’s end. Robinson’s previous invoices were marked “PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL,” even though the city has to release them as public records detailing how public money is spent. Without invoices, it’s not clear what kind of updates the city has been getting about the time and resources spent on a high-profile case that could span several years.

A special called, public meeting of the Southampton County Board of Supervisors is set for Thursday, Oct. 2, during which attorneys from the Troutman Pepper Locke law firm will be reviewing the findings of its Southampton County Public School System Investigation Report. Troutman Pepper Locke’s investigation was initiated by the Board of Supervisors (BOS). School Board Counsel Pamela O’Berry, of Sands Anderson PC, had noted in a Sept. 19, 2024, letter to the county that “a forensic audit is an examination of financial records to derive evidence to prosecute a party for fraud, embezzlement or other financial crimes.” In that same letter, O’Berry indicated that there exists no legal authority for the Board of Supervisors’ desired forensic audit of the school division. Troutman Pepper Locke began to submit a series of Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to Southampton County Public Schools (SCPS) in December. BOS Chair, Dr. Alan W. Edwards, provided insight on what citizens can expect from the content of the report. “Unfortunately, (SCPS) did not respond to the FOIAs on a lot of the financial things that we asked, so that in itself maybe sends up a red flag,” he said.

The Augusta County School Board will be changing how it livestreams its monthly meetings beginning with the Oct. 2 meeting. The school board used Facebook Live to previously stream its meetings, but Facebook announced this year that live videos will only be kept on the Facbook profile for 30 days after they’re published. After that, videos will be automatically removed. “We will be moving this service to our Google Workspace accounts through YouTube, which allows us to host the videos indefinitely,” the school division recently announced. “The School Board meetings will still be available to the public, live.”

Court rulings in Denver and El Paso County this month rejected arguments from public utilities that water usage records for large data processing centers are confidential under the Colorado Open Records Act. In separate decisions, judges ordered the Denver Water Board and the city of Colorado Springs to turn over records to Business Insider and its senior editor for investigations, Hannah Beckler. “The results in both cases were absolutely clear from the outset,” said Steve Zansberg, the news organization’s attorney. “Like eight other public utilities in Colorado who freely provided the same records to Business Insider, nothing prohibited Denver Water or Colorado Springs Utilities from doing so.”

Attorneys representing the administration of [New York City] Mayor Eric Adams have acknowledged that the City possesses records that have been sought for decades, concerning what the municipal government knew about environmental health risks in weeks and months following the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This new development arises from multiple Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) filings requesting these documents, and the unanimous enactment by the City Council earlier this year of Resolution 560, which compels the City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) to open a formal probe “to ascertain the knowledge possessed by mayoral administrations on environmental toxins produced by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and to submit a report to the Council thereon.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is quietly building up its ability to spy on Americans’ phones. Earlier this month, the agency activated a $2 million contract with Paragon, a service that offers the ability to remotely hack into someone’s phone. Last week, ICE entered into an $11 million contract for Cellebrite devices, which allow agents to break into a locked phone in their physical possession. And they don’t want you to know why. The justification for the no-bid contract states that ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center “has a need for Universal Forensic Extraction Devices (UFEDs) and related services for investigative purposes. Specifically, the Government requires the capability to perform logical, file system, physical, and password data extraction for mobile electronic devices.” Every other substantive paragraph in the document is redacted, to an almost comical degree.