Transparency News 12/24/19

 

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Tuesday
December 24, 2019

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Contact us at vcog@opengovva.org

The newsletter will take a bit of a break. We''ll be back on Monday.

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state & local news stories

 

The widows of two Virginia State Police officers who died on Aug. 12, 2017, will be allowed access to contracts between the department and a helicopter manufacturer. In a recent order, Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Claude Worrell overruled a motion from Dallas Airmotive Inc. that sought to limit the scope of the plaintiffs’ discovery requests.
The Daily Progress

Some people in Newport News say they've lost faith in one of their elected leaders, so much so, a petition to remove her from office is quickly gaining traction. Tina Vick is the vice mayor of Newport News. She's elected to represent South District 3 for the city council, serving Newport News since 2008. David Wilson told 13News Now that 11 years is enough. After launching the Change.org petition with the goal of holding a recall election for Vick, it would appear he's not alone. As of Monday night, the petition has nearly 200 signatures and a handful of supportive comments.
WTKR

Rep. Devin Nunes of California was angered by a story in his hometown newspaper detailing a claim that investors in a winery he partly owns partied with cocaine and prostitutes. So the Republican decided to sue - in rural Virginia. Likewise, actor Johnny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for $50 million in a northern Virginia courthouse, claiming he was defamed in an opinion article in The Washington Post in which she called for support for domestic violence victims such as herself. Both Depp and Heard live in California. Heard, who came to at least one hearing in the case, said in court filings that she had never previously set foot in the state. The suits are part of a string of splashy defamation claims by politicians and the A-list star seeking nearly $1 billion in damages in Virginia courts this year, even though many of the cases have only loose connections to the state. California, where Nunes and Depp might have filed their cases, has one of the nation's strongest protections against lawsuits aimed at silencing critics on topics of public concern, known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP).
The Washington Post

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stories of national interest

A South Carolina university is refusing to release campus police records from a reported sexual assault. Furman University says it doesn't have to comply with South Carolina's open records laws because it's a private institution and not a public one. A South Carolina Press Association lawyer says Furman receives public funding and is subject to the laws.
The Charlotte Observer

Congress adopted numerous new disclosure and reporting requirements in the government spending bill that was signed into law last week. But the Trump White House said that many of them encroach on executive authority and that they may not be implemented as written. Several provisions of the FY2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act "purport to mandate or regulate the submission of certain executive branch information to the Congress or the public, including by mandating the declassification of certain information," the White House said in a December 20 signing statement. Among the provisions that the White House specifically objected to was a requirement to declassify information regarding Saudi government assistance to Saudi nationals in the U.S. suspected of committing crimes (HR 1865, Sect. 902). That provision, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, had passed the Senate by voice vote and was incorporated in the final legislation (with an added exemption for intelligence sources and methods). Now it is unclear whether it will be acted upon at all.
Secrecy News

Many of the hundreds or thousands of reports that are submitted to Congress by executive branch agencies each year may be published online pursuant to a provision in the new Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 1158, section 8092). That provision states that any agency that is funded by the Act shall post on its website any report to Congress "upon the determination by the head of the agency that it shall serve the national interest." The impact of the latter condition is unclear, particularly since no criteria for satisfying the national interest are defined. In any case, reports containing classified or proprietary information would be exempt from publication online, and publication of all reports would be deferred for at least 45 days after their receipt by Congress, diminishing their relevance, timeliness and news value.
Secrecy News
 

 

 

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