Transparency News, 8/9/21

 

Monday
August 9, 2021
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state & local news stories
 
The Virginia House and Senate are back in session today. Click here for the legislative information system website, which includes links to for the video feeds of both chambers.

A former New York Times journalist is fighting a subpoena in a federal Unite the Right rally lawsuit after alleging that Verizon improperly sent her phone records to a defendant. Jessica Bidgood was among more than a dozen people not named in the Gilmore v. InfoWars lawsuit whom defendant Jim Hoft attempted to subpoena this past spring.
The Daily Progress
 
stories from around the country
 
The National Freedom of Information Coalition and 23 other organizations joined a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press amicus brief supporting the release of police internal affairs records in New Jersey. In July 2019, a retired New Jersey police officer submitted a New Jersey Open Public Records Act request seeking access to police internal affairs records, related to an investigation into workplace misconduct of the former director of the police department. The prosecutor’s office denied the request, and the police officer sued for access. The trial court held the records were available, but an appeals court reversed.
NFOIC

State health departments across the country are taking various approaches to how they keep records on COVID-19 breakthrough cases, with 15 states deciding not to publish any data on the rare incidents. An analysis by The Hill found that 35 states have disclosed some data on fully vaccinated people who later contracted COVID-19. The information ranged from a one-time percentage of residents who experienced a breakthrough infection to weekly detailed overviews broken down by demographics such as age, sex and race. Figures on breakthrough cases are not available on the health department websites, social media or other publicly accessible sites for the other 15 states: Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.
The Hill

Craig Mauger is a state government reporter for The Detroit News based in Lansing. He says he has a request in for state documents related to Michigan nursing homes during the pandemic that he submitted in July 2020 — over a year ago. He still does not have those documents. He also requested emails from Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel from the day she started in that position. Mauger says it’s a serious issue in a state that has for years scored among the lowest states in the country for government transparency. And he says the problem is only getting worse since the beginning of the pandemic. “This is how we uncover stories that change laws and shine light on areas of darkness that we would not get to see,” he says. “And in some ways this goes back to all of the conspiracy theories we’re hearing and all of the misinformation that’s out there in this void of honest and accurate, detailed information. Conspiracy theories can come in and fill the void with stuff we can’t prove or disprove because we don’t have the information.
WDET
 
 
 
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