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National Stories
Dianne "DD" Barker is fighting for her rights — specifically, the right to perform cartwheels at public meetings. The Phoenix resident has received a letter from an attorney for the Maricopa Association of Governments demanding that she "immediately cease performing cartwheels at MAG meetings." She has been known to show off her gymnastic skills at the planning agency's regular gatherings. "You have from time to time suggested that MAG cannot prevent you from performing cartwheels during your comments," the letter states. "That position is incorrect."
USA Today
A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn Tuesday when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them. The surprise move by the U.S. Marshals Service stunned the ACLU, which earlier this year filed a routine public records request with the Sarasota, Florida, police department for information detailing its use of the controversial surveillance tool. The ACLU had an appointment Tuesday morning to review documents pertaining to a case investigated by a Sarasota police detective. But marshals swooped in at the last minute to grab the records, claiming they belong to the U.S. Marshals Service and barring the police from releasing them.
Wired
When the Federal Communications Commission released its proposed Net Neutrality regulations, Chairman Tom Wheeler said the founding fathers were likely looking down on the public outcry over the draft rules and smiling. They must be laughing hysterically now. The FCC's online public-comment system stumbled under heavy traffic Monday after comedian John Oliver capped a 13-minute segment about Net neutrality — the concept that all Internet content should be delivered without preference or discrimination — with a rallying cry to the Internet's trolls to visit the FCC's website and "focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction."
CNET News
Disparate regulations currently in place have tended to frustrate information seekers. The inter-agency discussions are meant to develop a common set of practices that would make navigating the system simpler for information requesters, in addition to helping the government update its regulations with greater ease. A coalition of transparency advocates — consisting of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the National Security Archive — recently developed its own set of recommendations. Below are some highlights of the group’s proposals:
Washington Post
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