Transparency News 5/7/19

 

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Tuesday
May 7, 2019

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state & local news stories

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"When asked to explain the charges, [the spokesman] said the city is not required to do so under the Virginia Freedom Of Information Act."

Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney’s calendar appears to show that she had no conflicts during several suggested meeting times with the initial Police Civilian Review Board in May and June, although emails to a board member indicated she was busy. The Daily Progress obtained Brackney’s calendar for the first six months of 2019 through an open records request. According to emails provided by the city in a press release and by board member Josh Bowers, Brackney’s secretary, Jessica Downey, said the “earliest” Brackney could meet this month was May 8 and she offered some one-hour time slots. However, based on the one-hour time slot suggestion, Brackney’s calendar appears to show she was available May 1, May 2 and May 3, three dates that Bowers suggested. City spokesman Brian Wheeler estimated that a separate request for emails between Brackney or her secretary and the City Council or CRB members and emails between CRB members and councilors would cost $3,000 to fulfill. The city said it would require a $700 deposit to begin compiling the information. When asked to explain the charges, Wheeler said the city is not required to do so under the Virginia Freedom Of Information Act.
The Daily Progress

City councilors on Monday reiterated support for Charlottesville’s police chief after The Daily Progress reported that her calendar appears to show no conflicts with proposed meeting times with the initial Police Civilian Review Board despite emails indicating she was busy. Mayor Nikuyah Walker contended that The Progress’ reporting was the issue, not the city’s actions. “Nolan and his reporting would be the problem here.”
The Daily Progress

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stories of national interest

It’s not uncommon for one metropolitan area to be home to dozens of local governments. In lots of those places, mayors and other local officials often lament the difficulties of having to coordinate with so many cities, towns and counties. There’s no agreed-upon definition for this local government "fragmentation," but most researchers measure it by the number of governments per capita. We used that measurement, along with the number of governments per square mile, to see which metro areas and counties are the most fragmented. Our calculations are based on the latest Census of Governments survey, which is conducted every five years and counted 38,779 cities, counties, towns and other general-purpose local governments (excluding special districts).
Governing

A pair of proposed changes to D.C.’s Freedom of Information law is drawing opposition from open-government advocates, who say they could potentially make it tougher for the press and public to request and obtain government emails and other documents. One proposed change says that anyone requesting information under FOIA should “reasonably describe” what they are looking for. Council officials say the purpose of the proposed changes is in part to tamp down on overly broad FOIA requests that can produce tens of thousands of documents that government staffers then have to review to ensure they do not include information that can legally be redacted or kept from public disclosure. But open-government advocates are sounding an alarm over both the purpose of the proposed changes and the way they have been dropped into a budget bill, instead of introduced as a stand-alone measure that would get a public hearing.
WAMU

The Justice Department released a second copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Monday evening, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed and the Electronic Privacy and Information Center. The lightly-redacted version of Mueller's report appears to be identical to the 448-page document that was released in April, except it sheds more light on the redactions by explaining why the blacked-out information is exempted from release under FOIA.
The Washington Examiner

The FBI on Monday released more than 500 pages of heavily redacted tips from the public surrounding the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold. A vast majority of the documents were redacted under FOIA regulations. The tips that were included were largely comprised of messages either supporting or opposing Kavanaugh’s rocky nomination process. Notes written by FBI agents about the unredacted tips showed that the agency considered many of them to be either personal opinions or not presenting a legitimate threat.
The Hill

From checking in at a polling place on a tablet to registering to vote by smartphone to using an electronic voting machine to cast a ballot, computers have become an increasingly common part of voting in America.  But the underlying technology behind some of those processes is often a black box. Private companies, not state or local governments, develop and maintain most of the software and hardware that keep democracy chugging along. That has kept journalists, academics and even lawmakers from speaking with certainty about election security. In an effort to improve confidence in elections, Microsoft announced Monday that it is releasing an open-source software development kit called ElectionGuard that will use encryption techniques to let voters know when their vote is counted. It will also allow election officials and third parties to verify election results to make sure there was no interference with the results.
NPR
 

 

quote_2.jpg"Private companies, not state or local governments, develop and maintain most of the software and hardware that keep democracy chugging along."

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editorials & columns

quote_3.jpg"FOIA would look at communications among staff and decide, based on content, whether they had to be released."

Where FOIA begins with a lofty policy statement that rejects secrecy, mandates interpretation “to promote an increased awareness of . . . governmental activities,” and celebrates the public as “the beneficiary of any action taken at any level of government,” the new rules exist to “protect privacy, confidentiality, the administration of justice and the best interest of the commonwealth” while giving the public “reasonable access.” Where FOIA presumes that records are open, the new rules say the records of judicial officers (judges) “are not publicly accessible.” None of them. Zero. But just to make sure you get the picture, there follows a list 10 types of records that are definitely not open to the public, including “communications among court personnel . . . and among judicial officers.” FOIA would look at communications among staff and decide, based on content, whether they had to be released. But here, communications, including a letter written by a judge with his business card, would not be publicly accessible.
Megan Rhyne, Virginia Mercury

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