Transparency News 6/7/17

Wednesday, June 7, 2017



State and Local Stories

After taking a public lashing over quietly negotiating Superintendent Dana T. Bedden's early exit behind closed doors, the Richmond School Board on Tuesday sought to restore trust and stability by naming his interim replacement. And they did, just after 3 a.m., prompting fresh transparency concerns of a different kind. By that hour community members had gone home, leaving only media, a security guard and a former school board member to stand vigil under the flickering lights of the 17th floor of City Hall. It was not the first time a closed session meeting of the board lasted well past midnight, and likely will not be the last. That's a problem, said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Peninsula Airport Commission's looseness with taxpayer money didn't extend only to its decision to pay People Express's $4.5 million debt owed to TowneBank — airport staff were treated to plenty of high living, a recently completed state audit found. They were also pretty casual about what they told the board of commissioners who were supposed to be making sure the airport was doing business properly, a supplemental report contained in the recent 300-plus-page state audit shows. The auditors also found that then-Executive Director Ken Spirito neglected to tell the commissioners about a 3 percent pay raise he had just given himself as the board considered, and approved, a 3 percent raise for him in spring 2015. The audit found that Spirito used credit card points and airline travel miles benefits for himself when the commission paid for his travel expenses, by using his personal credit card and claiming reimbursement, rather than by using the commission credit he had been issued, as commission policy required. 
Daily Press

The biography page for Virginia’s state inspector general is blank, save for two words: “Under construction.” The page has been that way for months, ever since the General Assembly opted in early February to fire State Inspector General June Jennings over her office’s handling of an investigation into the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, a mentally ill man who died behind bars in Portsmouth. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was angry at the General Assembly for blocking Jennings’ reappointment, promoted Michael Westfall, then a deputy inspector general, to serve as acting inspector general. When asked recently about the status of the inspector general appointment, McAuliffe seemed to be caught off guard. “Have we not made it official yet?” McAuliffe asked an aide standing nearby.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

You’re a police officer rolling up to a group of young people standing on a street corner. You ask what they’re up to. They say it’s none of your business. Then they curse at you. What can you do? A) Arrest them B) Nothing C) Scream obscenities back at them D) Warn them The right answer, according to a new online training course on constitutional rightscreated for Virginia law enforcement officers, is nothing. To build the optional course, which incorporates graphic-novel style illustrations, videos and audio to re-create real-world scenarios, state officials turned to the so-called father of the U.S. Constitution: Virginia’s own James Madison. Representatives from Montpelier, the historical and educational center at Madison’s home in Orange County, joined state leaders Tuesday at the Capitol to announce the launch of the training program, a public-private collaboration .
Roanoke Times



National Stories
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House Democrats are escalating their battle against a Trump administration directive instructing federal agencies not to respond to oversight requests issued by Democratic lawmakers. The White House acknowledged the new policy last week, backed by a Justice Department legal opinion that says individual members of the House and Senate don't have a special right to obtain executive branch information beyond the way members of the public can through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Politico

Lawyers for Twitter users blocked by President Trump after they criticized or mocked him are asking him to reverse the moves, arguing that the Constitution bars him from blocking people on the social media service. The request raises novel legal issues stemming from Mr. Trump’s use of his Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, to make statements about public policy. In a letter sent to Mr. Trump on Tuesday, lawyers for several users he has blocked argued that his account was a “public forum” from which the government may not constitutionally exclude people because it disagrees with views they have expressed. The letter implies that if the Trump administration does not comply, a lawsuit may follow. The blocked Twitter users are represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, whose executive director, Jameel Jaffer, said in a statement that Mr. Trump did not have a right to exclude his critics from engaging with his posts.
New York Times

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assault on the USS Liberty, and though it was among the worst attacks in history against a noncombatant U.S. naval vessel, the tragedy remains shrouded in secrecy. The question of if and when Israeli forces became aware they were killing Americans has proved a point of particular contention in the on-again, off-again public debate that has simmered over the last half a century. The Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation proceedings following the incident were held in closed sessions, and the survivors who had been on board received gag orders forbidding them to ever talkabout what they endured that day.
The Intercept

Federal charges against 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner, a contract employee for the National Security Agency who had access to sensitive documents, beg the question: What does it take to get a security clearance? Security clearances aren’t that rare, according to an October report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. The government trusted about 4.3 million people with various levels of security clearance as of October 2015, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. These included nearly 2.9 million people at the “confidential” or “secret” level and nearly 1.4 million at the “top secret” level. Even at the lowest level – confidential clearance – unauthorized disclosure of the information would “cause damage to the national security.” A secret clearance means disclosure would cause "serious damage.” And top secret means disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage.”
USA Today


Editorials/Columns


When my kids were teenagers and itching to stay out late on Saturday nights, I reliably trotted out the same tired cliche: Nothing good ever happens after midnight. That goes for politicians, too. When local elected bodies manage to drag their meetings into the early hours of the morning, long after weary members of the public have given up and gone home, and when reporters are struggling to stay awake, they’re violating the spirit of the commonwealth’s open meeting laws. Whether they intend to or not.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot