National Stories
In response to the recent controversy about The Associated Press phone records subpoena, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that would expand the existing shield law for the state's journalists. Under the new law, which takes into effect Jan.1, officials are required to notify journalists at least five days before they subpoena third-party providers, such as telephone companies or cloud-based servers, for their records. The bill gives journalists the opportunity to challenge the subpoena in court or at least request the scope be narrowed.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
First Amendment disputes are at the forefront of the Supreme Court’s docket as it began its fall term yesterday (October 7), after a couple of terms in which other issues ranging from health care reform to same-sex marriage dominated the headlines. Six cases on its docket raise First Amendment issues, including high-profile disputes over campaign finance reform and church-state relations.
First Amendment Center
Delaware State Treasurer Chip Flowers called for an overhaul of the state-issued credit card system used by public employees in a 21-page report released Friday regarding misuse by former Deputy State Treasurer Erika J. Benner. Ms. Benner charged $2,341.58 in non-business-related expenses on a state credit card between Oct. 6, 2011 and Feb. 25, 2013, and resigned her position on Sept. 4, 2013. She later re-paid what was owed, but the treasurer questioned how the system overlooked regular personal charges during a 16-month period.
Delaware State News
With the federal government largely shut down over Republican opposition to the federal health care law, Democratic state senators here are pushing for release of a new study of the cost of insuring the poorest Alaskans. Gov. Sean Parnell has resisted the biggest part of the Affordable Care Act, expanding the pool of people eligible for state Medicaid, a joint state-federal insurance program that serves those with no or low income. Aides say Parnell will decide whether to recommend a Medicaid expansion by Dec. 15, when his budget proposal for next year is due to the Legislature. The state Department of Health and Social Services last year contracted with The Lewin Group, a Virginia-based health care consultant, to perform a nearly $80,000 study to examine the costs of expanding Medicaid through June 2020. Though the final study was delivered to the department April 12, the state has refused to release it. Parnell has yet to be briefed on it by his health commissioner, William Streur, according to his spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow. The document doesn't have to be disclosed because it's in the realm of "deliberative process," an exemption allowed under law, she said.
Anchorage Daily News
The Iowa Department of Transportation is planning to rescind some 3,200 license plates issued to government agencies that have a special confidential status and reissue only those that are justified for sensitive work, a spokeswoman said Friday. Gov. Terry Branstad ordered the DOT in July to conduct a review aimed at reducing the number of such plates, which allow their drivers to avoid tickets from speed and red light cameras. The order came after The Associated Press reported about the widespread uses of the plates, which had been issued to more than 350 local, state and federal agencies.
Muscatine Journal
The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles' commissioner has sent individual letters of apology to about 400 job applicants whose names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and exam scores were posted on the DMV's official website by mistake. The unusual action by Commissioner Melody A. Currey was clearly intended to prevent any strong negative reaction concerning the increasingly sensitive issue of computerized breaches of individual privacy. In this episode, it apparently wasn't an electronic glitch, but a case of human error by those working with the state's computer.
Hartford Courant
In a rare display of contrition coming to a Florida city near you, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration is acknowledging what civil rights groups and local elections officials had already been saying: Last year’s attempted purge of noncitizens from voter rolls was fundamentally flawed. “I accept responsibility for the effort,” Scott’s secretary of state, Ken Detzner, told the Herald/Times. “It could have been better. It should have been better.”
Miami Herald
Ohio’s attorney general’s office plans to start a system later this month to stop former government employees from accessing Ohio’s law enforcement database. Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office is making security changes to the database that includes stricter password standards.
Toledo Blade
The widow of blogger and web publisher Andrew Breitbart is fighting an attempt to make her a defendant in a defamation lawsuit against her late husband. After months of wrangling over Breitbart's role in the case following his death in March 2012, lawyers for the plaintiff have asked the court to substitute Susannah Breitbart as a defendant. Over the weekend, lawyers for Susannah Breitbart, represented by Reed Smith, filed papers opposing that request.
Blog of LegalTimes
A veritable FOIA frenzy ensued in 2013 following a series of leaks about NSA surveillance programs, recently released documents show. From June 6 to September 4, the National Security Agency’s FOIA load increased 1,054 percent over its 2012 intake. In that three-month span, the agency received 3,382 public records requests. For comparison, the NSA received just 293 requests over the same period in 2012. The statistics come from an internal agency email released to MuckRock last week. We requested the NSA’s FOIA logs for this year, as well as any internal communications regarding the agency’s FOIA receipts in 2013. We're still waiting for the most recent FOIA log… probably because the NSA FOIA office is buried under requests.
MuckRock
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