Transparency News 2/24/16

Wednesday, February 24, 2016



State and Local Stories

 

Here's a question that was front and center during the 2014 protest in Ferguson, Mo. When someone is shot by a police officer, does the public have a right to know the officer's name? Reformers have been pushing for more transparency ever since. And as NPR's Martin Kaste reports, there's also been pushback from state lawmakers who say releasing names can endanger the police.
NPR

The Winchester City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday allowing John Willingham, in his capacity as council president, to support or oppose legislation pending in the Virginia General Assembly in “real time” on behalf of the panel. Normally, if council wants to weigh in on a bill, the panel publicly discusses the legislation and votes on a resolution opposing or supporting it. But now Willingham can bypass that requirement and communicate directly with the city’s state representatives about pending legislation. The need to call representatives in real time, Willingham said, stems from the fact that many votes in the General Assembly are scheduled before council has an opportunity to meet and provide input on the matter. If a bill is controversial, Willingham said, he would bring it before council, which will continue to consider resolutions of support or opposition. “Ninety-nine percent of issues council agrees on,” Willingham said. The resolution was never discussed during a council work session and was brought up for the first time publicly Tuesday night.
Winchester Star


National Stories

Maryland lawmakers are moving to improve protections for residents who believe they have been mistreated by the police, but critics said Tuesday the changes could end up shielding officers from scrutiny in misconduct cases. At a time when police behavior is under scrutiny nationally, the critics told the General Assembly it needs to bring more oversight, not less, to rogue officers. They objected to changes that would give police chiefs and accused officers a chance to appoint their own representatives to disciplinary panels, thereby stacking the panels in favor of the officers.
Washington Times

An Iowa state board has voted to pursue complaints filed against the Des Moines County attorney for not turning over law enforcement records sought by relatives of a woman killed by a Burlington police officer. The Iowa Public Information Board voted 4-2 at its meeting last week to press the noncriminal action against Amy Beavers, according to the Hawk Eye. Beavers violated Iowa's open records law last year by not giving copies of the records to the attorney for Autumn Steele's relatives, the board said. A Burlington officer accidentally shot Steele to death in January 2015 while responding to a fight between Steele and her husband. The officer was not charged and was returned to duty. Steele's family and the Hawk Eye have waged a months-long battle for access to a number of the case records. They have filed civil complaints against the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the Burlington Police Department and Beavers.
Des Moines Register

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that State Department officials and top aides to Hillary Clinton should be questioned under oath about whether they intentionally thwarted federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington came in a lawsuit over public records brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, regarding its May 2013 request for information about the employment arrangement of Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide.
Washington Post 

The Missouri House has passed legislation restricting public access to some government data on farms and ranches. Lawmakers voted 104-49 Monday to exempt state agency data on animal health and the environmental impact of farms from open records laws. The bill now heads to the Senate. Bill sponsor Rep. Jay Houghton said some farmers are reluctant to participate in a government disease tracking program because proprietary information could become public. He said limiting the access to that data would encourage more producers to take part in the program, which would make the food system safer.
Fox2Now


Editorials/Columns

If there is any comfort to be found in the state Senate passing a bill to conceal the names of law enforcement officials in Virginia, it’s that the House can and should bury it in the coming days. Citizens will not rest easy until the deed is done. Nor should that bill’s eradication be celebrated as a remedy to much more worrisome malignancy in Richmond. One might consider it an attempt to overrule the idea that citizens should know a little more about the folks empowered with their protection and the keeping of the peace. It would be a troubling first step toward a secret police, and to government expenditures beyond citizen questions. That’s not how Cosgrove and his colleagues in the Senate see it.
Virginian-Pilot

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