Transparency News 7/17/13

 

Wednesday, July 17, 2013
 

 

State and Local Stories

 

A new privacy law to protect the identities of Virginians seeking concealed weapons permits covers past applicants as well as new applicants, according to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Circuit court clerks, who maintain records of CWPs in Virginia, must “withhold from public disclosure” the names and other details of permit applicants, even those filed before the July 1 effective date of the new law, Cuccinelli said.  Clerks also must block access to court orders granting permits, whether maintained electronically or in “Order Books,” according to the AG’s opinion.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly

The city of Suffolk may have breached state law by refunding erroneous real estate taxes beyond a three-year limitation without a court ruling. Nansemond Cold Storage was reimbursed $329,866.39 for erroneously paid taxes and interest on March 19, city Treasurer Ron Williams confirmed. The payment involved erroneous assessments for two commercial parcels on the corner of East Washington and County streets, according to records obtained under Virginia’s open-records law, as well as the city’s explanation.
Suffolk News-Herald

Isle of Wight School Board member Herb DeGroft, who is embroiled in a controversy over emails he sent to county officials containing racist and sexist jokes, on Tuesday led the school board's adoption of an updated ethics code. The board unanimously approved DeGroft's motion to adopt the ethics code that the Virginia School Boards Association provides to state school divisions annually. The code calls for members to attend board meetings, make policies based on fact, to not use the seat for "personal or partisan gain" and "avoid the appearance of impropriety."
Daily Press

For the second time since his May nomination as the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor,E.W. Jackson has failed to properly disclose donations to his campaign by the deadline set by state law, according to state election officials. By 5 p.m. Monday, the filing deadline, Jackson had reported $118,608 in contributions for May 30 to June 30. As required, he also provided an itemized list of donors. But topping the list of donations was a contribution of $48,155 attributed to Jackson for Lt. Governor, his own political action committee. In essence, his campaign made the list’s largest one-time contribution to itself, suggesting that the donation may be made of numerous smaller contributions by undisclosed donors.
Times-Dispatch

The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted to send out a request for proposals for a firm todesign a new web page for county economic development and to update the county’s web page. Most counties and cities in Virginia receive web design and maintenance from professional web design companies, said County Administrator Dan Sleeper, during the board’s regular meeting Tuesday night.
Register & Bee

Food, trips and gifts from lobbyists are among the items that Sen. Tommy Norment, R-James City, Del. Brenda Pogge, R-James City, and Del. Mike Watson, R-James City, must report each year. In addition to reporting gifts, state lawmakers receive $18,000 a year for their work and another $15,000 a year for their offices. While Norment said the current system was working fine, he repeated what he told the Gazette's sister publication, the Daily Press, in April: "Disclosure laws are necessary to ensure the public's confidence. I believe at a minimum a comprehensive study should be undertaken by JLARC to do a comparative analysis of Virginia's disclosure lawsto determine what changes are appropriate. And, reporting rules should be expanded to include gifts to family members."
Virginia Gazette

National Stories

What is America’s favorite freedom?  It’s freedom of speech by a wide margin, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey. About 47% of those polled in the First Amendment Center survey said freedom of speech is the most important right, almost five times the number citing second-choice freedom of religion, named by 10%. Next came freedom of choice (7%), the right to bear arms (5%), the right to vote (5%) the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (3%) and freedom of the press (1%).
First Amendment Center

In a survey released today by the Newseum Institute, 34% of Americans say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, up from 13% in last year’s survey. This is the largest single-year increase in the history of the State of the First Amendment national survey.
First Amendment Center

The FBI has barred the Orlando medical examiner from releasing the autopsy report on a friend of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects who was shot dead by an agent during questioning in May. Although the autopsy on Ibragim Todashev was completed July 8 and "ready for release," the FBI "has informed this office that the case is still under active investigation and thus not to release the document," Tony Miranda, forensic records coordinator for Orange and Osceola counties, wrote in a statement Tuesday. The statement cites a Florida statute that bars the release of autopsy reports during criminal investigations.
USA Today

Nine out of Alabama's 132 public school districts have reported parents petitioned school officials to ban certain books from classrooms and libraries. The Anniston Star and journalism students from the University of Alabama collected book challenge forms from the past five years from each of the state's public school district's to determine how many books were being banned. Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, says the number of book challenges is likely vastly underreported because librarians and other school officials are afraid of losing their jobs.
AL.com

A man whose motion for attorney’s fees was denied by a district court has won an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involving his case against the IRS. After being audited in November 2006 by the IRS, appellant Mark Batton filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the IRS. Nearly a year later, in September 2007, Batton sued after not receiving any response. Subsequently, the Open Government Act took effect, allowing for awards to be issued for attorney’s fees when parties “substantially prevailed.” The district court decided that Batton was not eligible to get his attorney’s fees covered because he did not “substantially prevail” in his FOIA lawsuit and because he filed a FOIA request before the Open Government Act took effect in December 2007. The appeals court disagreed, stating that Batton did substantially prevail and is eligible for attorney fees under the Open Government Act.
Louisiana Record

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels pledged to promote academic freedom when he became president of Purdue University in January, but newly released emails show he attempted to eliminate what he considered liberal “propaganda” at Indiana’s public universities while governor. Emails obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request show Daniels requested that historian and anti-war activist Howard Zinn’s writings be banned from classrooms and asked for a “cleanup” of college courses. In another exchange, the Republican talks about cutting funding for a program run by a local university professor who was one of his sharpest critics.
Politico

Lovers of streaming video and hypnotists alike are out of luck if they travel with Amtrak.The rail service blocks hypnotising.org, a social network for amateur hypnotists, along with video streaming websites Netflix, Hulu and YouTube on its Wi-Fi. Documents released to government transparency group MuckRock showed a list of websites blocked by Amtrak also includechatroulette.com, last.fm and about 100 Netflix domains. In a letter to MuckRock co-founder Michael Morisy, Freedom of Information Act officer Sharron Hawkins said the list is updated by a third-party contractor. "It is not possible for Amtrak to review all websites or to identify new websites as they are created," Hawkins wrote, "so we have engaged a third-party content filtering service, which updates its URL and keyword lists each night."
US News & World Report

America’s research universities, among the most open and robust centers of information exchange in the world, are increasingly coming under cyberattack, most of it thought to be from China, with millions of hacking attempts weekly. Campuses are being forced to tighten security, constrict their culture of openness and try to determine what has been stolen.
New York Times

A Georgia law prohibiting the release of information about the drugs used to execute the state's death row inmates may be unconstitutional, a judge indicated earlier this week. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan on Monday agreed to stay an execution for convicted prisoner Warren Lee Hill until Thursday when she hears arguments from Hill's attorneys that the law violated the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. But if the judge fails to strike down the law, First Amendment and media lawyers said the law's broad disclosure prohibitions could also be challenged by news organizations seeking to report on executions.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Asiana Airlines said on Wednesday it has scrapped a plan to sue a U.S. television station that incorrectly reported in a racially offensive manner the names of pilots of the flight that crash-landed in San Francisco this month. "Asiana Airlines has decided not to proceed with the case since KTVU has issued a formal apology and in order for us to focus all our efforts on managing the aftermath of the accident," the South Korean company said in a statement.
Reuters

Editorials/Columns

Times-Dispatch: If you have been following the stories about the embezzlement charges against former Executive Mansion chef Todd Schneider, then you might have noticed that the lawyers in the case aren’t saying much. There’s a reason for that. As numerous news articles have mentioned, Circuit Court Judge Margaret Spencer has issued a gag order. Attorneys are supposed to keep mum, except when both the prosecutor and the defense agree to correct public misinformation.

Gene Policinski, First Amendment Center: The just-released 2013 State of the First Amendment survey by the First Amendment Center gives us reason to worry about the future because of a repeating threat to our core freedoms: fear. In this year’s survey, conducted in May – about a month after the Boston Marathon bombing – 34% of Americans said the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, up 21 points from the 13% recorded in the 2012 survey. The increase is the largest one-year rise in the survey’s history, and more than double the point increase seen in the wake of 9/11 – when those fearing too much freedom went from 39% to the all-time high of 49%.