Transparency News 6/5/17

Monday, June 5, 2017



State and Local Stories

Peninsula Airport Commission board members' and executives' lack of concern about People Express Airlines' several failed promises about finances and their failure to check state law led to the unauthorized use of taxpayer funds to pay off the failed start-up's debt, state auditors said Friday. The auditors called for Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport to reimburse the state the $4.5 million it spent. The auditors blasted the commission's lack of transparency about the deal, and reported that they had received two separate reports that former airport Executive Director Ken Spirito had shredded and destroyed documents after they asked for records about the payment. They also received a report that he removed documents from the airport.
Daily Press

Ken Spirito was feeling frustrated. It was two weeks after the Peninsula Airport Commission kicked in $565,000 toward the multimillion-dollar cost of what would become People Express Airlines' third failed effort to start flying, this time out of Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. "Continued lack of support from NN behind the scenes. Why can't anyone be positive?" Spirito, now the airport's former director, complained in an email to airport commissioners. The failed effort to launch a start-up airline would involve a tight-knit, secretive circle of some of the Peninsula's most important power brokers, according to documents uncovered by a state audit, sparked by Daily Press reports that the commission used public funds to pay off a $4.5 million People Express debt owed to the politically connected financial powerhouse, TowneBank.
Daily Press


National Stories
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Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., moved this week to retrieve copies of the committee's 2014 secret report on the CIA's brutal detention and interrogation program from federal agencies and return them to Congress. By late Friday, most of the copies known to have been distributed had been returned to the committee, including by the CIA and its inspector general's office, the director of national intelligence, and the State Department. At least one remains sealed in federal court, while Justice and the Defense Department each retain a copy. A copy is also held by the National Archives among former president Barack Obama's papers. While a 500-page, redacted summary was eventually released, the bulk of the report remains classified. Burr's order to collect copies of the 6,700-page document came weeks after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union for the executive branch to release the full report, ending a two-year legal battle.
Laredo Morning Times


Editorials/Columns


Clearly, with People Express, a decision was made that this deal would get done, no matter what it took. The commission was apparently so determined to land a new tenant for the airport that it was willing to wager way too heavily on a long shot. Perhaps they were willing to place that bet because they were playing with "house money" — unwittingly staked to them by the taxpayers they represent. This is why a public body needs to do its work in full view of the public. If our money is being risked, we need to know about it and have a say in it. Instead, there was a deliberate effort to deceive the public before, during and after the deal.
Daily Press

While the Richmond-based 4th Circuit’s ruling against the Trump administration’s travel ban sopped up all the coverage, the court recently issued another decision in another case of even more profound import. Overturning a district court, the judges reinstated a challenge brought against domestic spying by the National Security Administration. Another court, which oversees intelligence activities pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also has weighed in. The particulars get rather technical, but boil down to this: The NSA has been conducting so-called upstream surveillance of internet communications, collecting data on American citizens without a warrant or probable cause — and the Obama administration hid the fact.
Richmond Times-Dispatch