Transparency News 11/3/14
Monday, November 3, 2014
State and Local Stories
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has denied a Right-to-Know Law request seeking documents related to the Freeh report that the former secretary of the state Department of Education had received. On Oct. 31, a five-judge panel of the court denied a request by Ryan Bagwell, the plaintiff in Bagwell v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, which sought documents that Louis Freeh and several Penn State University board members sent to former Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and his assistant between November 2011 and July 2013. The majority opinion, written by Judge Robert Simpson, affirmed a determination from the state Office of Open Records, which denied access to the documents based on attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. Freeh had led an internal investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky and Penn State's alleged failure to report the abuse. His findings were released in the Freeh report in July 2012.
Legal Intelligencer
The federal government has spent at least $20 billion in taxpayer money this year on items and services that it is permitted to keep secret from the public, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team. The purchases, known among federal employees as “micropurchases,” are made by some of the thousands of agency employees who are issued taxpayer-funded purchase cards. The purchases, in most cases, remain confidential and are not publicly disclosed by the agencies. A sampling of those purchases, obtained by the I-Team via the Freedom of Information Act, reveals at least one agency used those cards to buy $30,000 in Starbucks Coffee drinks and products in one year without having to disclose or detail the purchases to the public.
NBC Washington
Police won a court injunction blocking the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times from obtaining a list detailing complaints against city police officers. The Wednesday injunction came one day after the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge No. 7, petitioned the Cook County Circuit Court for relief. In its petition, the union cited a provision in its contract with the city that sets a five-year limit on Chicago's retention of "all disciplinary investigation files," and certain other records. After five years from the date of the incident, or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer, the files must be destroyed, the union said.
Courthouse News Service
While Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for the Senate and the Obama Administration to lay bare the alleged abuse of detainees in Central Intelligence Agency custody, his Justice Department is going to unusual lengths to impose a complete black-out on details about the investigations he supervised into those same incidents. In public remarks Wednesday, Holder spoke out forcefully in favor of giving the public a thorough understanding of the Bush-era CIA interrogation program, which subjected terror suspects to techniques like waterboarding that the attorney general and others have described as torture. Speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum, Holder said he wants an in-depth Senate study of the program made public with minimal deletions. However, in federal court in New York City, Justice Department lawyers seem headed in precisely the opposite direction.
Politico
The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests. On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area — but ban others. “They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.
Martinsville Bulletin (AP)
The IRS employee who mistakenly disclosed personal information on more than 20,000 employees and contractors was found not guilty of criminal charges last week in a case that showed how easily confidential government information can turn up on the Internet. A federal jury in Maryland found Carl Sheerer not guilty of misdemeanor charges, rejecting prosecutors’ effort to punish someone for a breach discovered by a private security firm last year.
Washington Times
There’s nothing a politician loves more than a poll. Now throw in some political wagering with cold, hard cash. That is the concept behind PredictIt, an online political stock market that the operators say will go live Friday after clearing regulatory hurdles and receiving a no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees such exchanges.
Politico
Privately owned license-plate imaging systems are popping up in upstate New York — in parking lots, shopping malls and, soon, on at least a few parts of the New York state Thruway. Most surprisingly, the digital cameras are mounted on cars and trucks driven by a small army of repo men. Shadowing a practice of U.S. law enforcement that some find objectionable, records collected by the repo companies are added to an ever-growing database of license-plate records that is made available to government and commercial buyers. At present that database has 2.3 billion permanent records. On average, the whereabouts of every vehicle in the United States — yours, mine, your mother's — appears in that database nine times.
USA Today
Megan Rhyne, Virginia Coalition for Open Government
With little more than 70 days until the 2015 General Assembly convenes, the newly created Commission to Ensure Integrity and Public Confidence in State Government faces a tight turnaround for crafting substantive proposals to achieve its eponymous mission. But the Republican and Democratic commission members, who met for the first time last week, appear largely in agreement on the principles of necessary reform. As The Pilot's Bill Sizemore reported, the members affirmed an approach to redistricting that elevates communities' and voters' interests over political parties'.Virginians can, and should, provide suggestions through the commission's website,https://governor.virginia.gov/integrity-commission/submit/. Then they should press for legislators to make serious, comprehensive reform that favors good government - through the drawing of compact, contiguous districts that foster competitive elections, and through stringent regulations that prevent elected officials from using public service to enrich themselves - in Richmond and across the commonwealth.
Virginian-Pilot
As Richmond and Chesterfield voters head to the polls, chances are that they aren’t thinking much about the election for circuit court clerk. But out of all the officials being elected, there’s a pretty good chance that their circuit court clerk is the one who has the most ability to affect the openness of government. Circuit court clerks are independently elected constitutional officers in Virginia, charged by statutes with various duties, including keeping both land and case records. A circuit court clerk who wants to promote openness can provide opinions for free online, make documents from particularly high profile cases available proactively, allow & promote electronic transactions, enable interaction with the clerk’s office by email and other modern methods, implement systems that allow online public access to land and case records, and, last but not least, influence other clerks in a pro-openness way. On the other hand, a circuit court clerk who has bizarre ideas about privacy in records that are public by constitutional and statutory right – like outgoing Chesterfield Clerk Judy Worthington or Henrico’s Yvonne Smith – can single-handedly ensure that the circuit court experience never leaves the decades-old era of phone trees and paper records.
Open Virginia Law
Ah, but it’s a dangerous thing to allow liberty free rein in a society. All kinds of things might happen. People may question government. Get all up in arms about what city councils want to do. Think for themselves. Discover the truth. Look, I understand this issue is sensitive. You and I may never personally agree on gender issues, along with abortion, premarital sex, dog breed bans, whiskey, HOA covenants, and/or the Redskins. But the day government tries to shut you up, the day it uses the power of the courts to intimidate you and keep you from expressing your beliefs, on that day I will advocate for you. Because when we lose the First Amendment, we’ve lost America.
Linda J. White, Free Lance-Star
State and Local Stories
The time to register for VCOG’s conference is NOW. Did you know…
- William Fralin will talk about PPTA disclosure guidelines?
- Chris Piper will give an update on the Ethic’s Commission’s work?
- Panelists will guide us to open data sets AND fire off an easy app derived from one set?
- We’ll get to the root of disputes over fees in FOIA cases?
- Panelists will review the highs and lows of local and state websites?
That’s a lot to talk about, but you have to be there to do it.
NEW: Only want to attend one or two sessions? Sign up for an "a la carte" option for just $10. Follow the "register" link below.
Click here to register (or donate -- we like donations, too!)
The Virginia attorney general's office is asking for more information about a program by five Hampton Roads police departments to share telephone records gathered during criminal investigations. A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring shed little light last week on what Herring thinks of the agreement between the agencies — in Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Suffolk — to share electronic phone log records. But the AG's office wants to know more, even as it points out it has "no direct oversight role" over local police departments.
Daily Press
National Stories
Pulaski County, Arkansas, Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said he will issue an arrest affidavit today (Friday) against Rodney Forte, the executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Alliance in Little Rock, for a violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The action comes after the Metropolitan Housing Alliance sent an invoice to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette late Tuesday, charging more than $16,000 to hire outside workers to help the agency comply with a records-release request -- a practice the Little Rock city attorney and other Arkansas Freedom of Information Act experts say is illegal. Jegley said that in his 23 years with the prosecutor's office, he has never before authorized an arrest affidavit for a Freedom of Information Act violation. The violation is a Class C misdemeanor.Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has denied a Right-to-Know Law request seeking documents related to the Freeh report that the former secretary of the state Department of Education had received. On Oct. 31, a five-judge panel of the court denied a request by Ryan Bagwell, the plaintiff in Bagwell v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, which sought documents that Louis Freeh and several Penn State University board members sent to former Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and his assistant between November 2011 and July 2013. The majority opinion, written by Judge Robert Simpson, affirmed a determination from the state Office of Open Records, which denied access to the documents based on attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. Freeh had led an internal investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky and Penn State's alleged failure to report the abuse. His findings were released in the Freeh report in July 2012.
Legal Intelligencer
The federal government has spent at least $20 billion in taxpayer money this year on items and services that it is permitted to keep secret from the public, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team. The purchases, known among federal employees as “micropurchases,” are made by some of the thousands of agency employees who are issued taxpayer-funded purchase cards. The purchases, in most cases, remain confidential and are not publicly disclosed by the agencies. A sampling of those purchases, obtained by the I-Team via the Freedom of Information Act, reveals at least one agency used those cards to buy $30,000 in Starbucks Coffee drinks and products in one year without having to disclose or detail the purchases to the public.
NBC Washington
Police won a court injunction blocking the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times from obtaining a list detailing complaints against city police officers. The Wednesday injunction came one day after the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge No. 7, petitioned the Cook County Circuit Court for relief. In its petition, the union cited a provision in its contract with the city that sets a five-year limit on Chicago's retention of "all disciplinary investigation files," and certain other records. After five years from the date of the incident, or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer, the files must be destroyed, the union said.
Courthouse News Service
While Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for the Senate and the Obama Administration to lay bare the alleged abuse of detainees in Central Intelligence Agency custody, his Justice Department is going to unusual lengths to impose a complete black-out on details about the investigations he supervised into those same incidents. In public remarks Wednesday, Holder spoke out forcefully in favor of giving the public a thorough understanding of the Bush-era CIA interrogation program, which subjected terror suspects to techniques like waterboarding that the attorney general and others have described as torture. Speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum, Holder said he wants an in-depth Senate study of the program made public with minimal deletions. However, in federal court in New York City, Justice Department lawyers seem headed in precisely the opposite direction.
Politico
The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests. On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area — but ban others. “They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.
Martinsville Bulletin (AP)
The IRS employee who mistakenly disclosed personal information on more than 20,000 employees and contractors was found not guilty of criminal charges last week in a case that showed how easily confidential government information can turn up on the Internet. A federal jury in Maryland found Carl Sheerer not guilty of misdemeanor charges, rejecting prosecutors’ effort to punish someone for a breach discovered by a private security firm last year.
Washington Times
There’s nothing a politician loves more than a poll. Now throw in some political wagering with cold, hard cash. That is the concept behind PredictIt, an online political stock market that the operators say will go live Friday after clearing regulatory hurdles and receiving a no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees such exchanges.
Politico
Privately owned license-plate imaging systems are popping up in upstate New York — in parking lots, shopping malls and, soon, on at least a few parts of the New York state Thruway. Most surprisingly, the digital cameras are mounted on cars and trucks driven by a small army of repo men. Shadowing a practice of U.S. law enforcement that some find objectionable, records collected by the repo companies are added to an ever-growing database of license-plate records that is made available to government and commercial buyers. At present that database has 2.3 billion permanent records. On average, the whereabouts of every vehicle in the United States — yours, mine, your mother's — appears in that database nine times.
USA Today
Editorials/Columns
Megan Rhyne, Virginia Coalition for Open Government
With little more than 70 days until the 2015 General Assembly convenes, the newly created Commission to Ensure Integrity and Public Confidence in State Government faces a tight turnaround for crafting substantive proposals to achieve its eponymous mission. But the Republican and Democratic commission members, who met for the first time last week, appear largely in agreement on the principles of necessary reform. As The Pilot's Bill Sizemore reported, the members affirmed an approach to redistricting that elevates communities' and voters' interests over political parties'.Virginians can, and should, provide suggestions through the commission's website,https://governor.virginia.gov/integrity-commission/submit/. Then they should press for legislators to make serious, comprehensive reform that favors good government - through the drawing of compact, contiguous districts that foster competitive elections, and through stringent regulations that prevent elected officials from using public service to enrich themselves - in Richmond and across the commonwealth.
Virginian-Pilot
As Richmond and Chesterfield voters head to the polls, chances are that they aren’t thinking much about the election for circuit court clerk. But out of all the officials being elected, there’s a pretty good chance that their circuit court clerk is the one who has the most ability to affect the openness of government. Circuit court clerks are independently elected constitutional officers in Virginia, charged by statutes with various duties, including keeping both land and case records. A circuit court clerk who wants to promote openness can provide opinions for free online, make documents from particularly high profile cases available proactively, allow & promote electronic transactions, enable interaction with the clerk’s office by email and other modern methods, implement systems that allow online public access to land and case records, and, last but not least, influence other clerks in a pro-openness way. On the other hand, a circuit court clerk who has bizarre ideas about privacy in records that are public by constitutional and statutory right – like outgoing Chesterfield Clerk Judy Worthington or Henrico’s Yvonne Smith – can single-handedly ensure that the circuit court experience never leaves the decades-old era of phone trees and paper records.
Open Virginia Law
Ah, but it’s a dangerous thing to allow liberty free rein in a society. All kinds of things might happen. People may question government. Get all up in arms about what city councils want to do. Think for themselves. Discover the truth. Look, I understand this issue is sensitive. You and I may never personally agree on gender issues, along with abortion, premarital sex, dog breed bans, whiskey, HOA covenants, and/or the Redskins. But the day government tries to shut you up, the day it uses the power of the courts to intimidate you and keep you from expressing your beliefs, on that day I will advocate for you. Because when we lose the First Amendment, we’ve lost America.
Linda J. White, Free Lance-Star
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