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Topics
Flock, FOIA and Surveillance in Virginia
The 2025 General Assembly passed House Bill 2724, creating a state-level regulatory framework for Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). The law limits their use to specific law-enforcement purposes and mandates annual reporting on use, but importantly exempts much of the resulting system and audit data from Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. Despite these reforms, plenty of questions remain: What Flock-related information is truly public under Virginia FOIA? What is “system data”? Absent access to data, how else can ALPR use be monitored by the public and press? This panel will explore what is and isn’t accessible to the public, which categories of Flock and ALPR records should be presumptively open under FOIA, and how current Virginia law affects journalists and members of the public seeking records that spotlight government surveillance practices.
Featuring: Kunle Falayi, Jeff Schwaner
FOIA Requests on Display
Virginia FOIA embraces the idea that records released to one requester are, in theory, records available to all. Now, some local governments are translating that concept into online FOIA libraries, repositories or previous requests, government responses and released records are proactively posted for the general public to access. Panelists will consider questions such as who decides which requests get posted, and why. How do technological capacity, cost, storage and redaction challenges affect what actually makes it into a FOIA library? When does proactive disclosure cross the line into “turning the tables” by exposing requesters’ interests, strategies or perceived motives? The discussion will also consider whether FOIA libraries have a chilling effect on journalists who are reluctant to tip their hands by having a competitor scoop materials they’ve worked hard to unearth and whether posting requests and responses risks reframing FOIA as a tool to scrutinize the requester rather than the government.
Featuring: LaDonna Seely
VCOG at 30, Part I
When Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act was written, public records lived in filing cabinets, not cloud servers. When VCOG got its start 30 years later, that was still largely the case, but after 30 more years, we all operate almost entirely in a digital space. We’ll examine recurring flashpoints that define today’s access battles: retrieving public records from private devices and personal accounts, persistent challenges with databases and proprietary systems, the rise of online request portals, and the growing use of ephemeral or disappearing messaging apps. Panelists will also confront a more mundane but no less consequential problem: governments and requesters alike are drowning in email, attachments, and poorly organized digital records. The discussion will dig into the practical stumbling blocks that frustrate access, and whether those obstacles result from a shift in attitudes or because the law designed for paper records just hasn’t kept up with technological advances. And what role do the practical realities of legacy systems, limited budgets, metadata gaps, searchability failures and uneven records management practices play?
Featuring: John Edwards; Maria Everett
VCOG at 30, Part II
VCOG was founded in 1996 in large part to push back against a persistent misconception among lawmakers: that FOIA was a special privilege for journalists rather than a fundamental right belonging to those lawmakers’ constituents. Thirty years later, does that perception still ring true? Panelists will reflect on whether FOIA in Virginia is understood, and defended, as a citizen’s law, a press law, or whether the dominant public discourse views access as a niche concern, a nuisance or even a threat. We’ll examine how lawmakers, government officials and the public talk about FOIA now compared to the debates that shaped its early years. The panel will also explore whether the policy arguments and political dynamics surrounding FOIA have meaningfully changed, or whether today’s fights are simply old wine in new bottles. Concerns about cost, workload, bad motives, harassment and abuse of the law may not be new, but the scale of records, the speed of information and the intensity of polarization around transparency, trust in institutions and the media is. By looking back at VCOG’s origins and the recurring themes in FOIA debates, this session will consider what lessons still apply and what assumptions may need revisiting.
Featuring: Maria Everett
Short Takes on the Intersection with Federal Law
Immigration enforcement. FERPA. Copyright. These federal functions and statutes are often used as a shield against Virginia FOIA requests, sometimes as a procedural block, and other times as an exemption or prohibition. But do they actually apply? Experts in these substantive areas of practice will share with us when the federal laws trump the Commonwealth, and when they are instead used to discourage requesters.