Transparency News 9/25/13

 

Wednesday, September 25, 2013


State and Local Stories

 

State Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico is going to court in his fight with the Virginia Attorney General's Office over a Freedom of Information Act request regarding its contacts with Star Scientific and CEO Jonnie Williams Sr. McEachin, charges that the Attorney General's Office has failed to provide communications related to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's contact with Star Scientific and Williams, a Cuccinelli acquaintance and the central figure in the gift scandal engulfing Gov. Bob McDonnell. The timing of the litigation -- just six weeks before Election Day -- has also raised partisan suspicions. Speaking outside of his personal injury law firm in eastern Henrico, McEachin said that while he understands the partisan criticism, the real issue behind his FOIA request is transparency, not who is asking for the information.
Times-Dispatch

Secretary of Education Laura Fornash is leaving the McDonnell administration to lobby for the University of Virginia, a school she currently oversees. Fornash, who was a lobbyist for Virginia Tech when she joined the administration, will start in November as executive assistant to the president for state governmental relations. Under state law, Fornash will be prohibited from lobbying the governor’s office for a year, though she may lobby legislators.
Times-Dispatch

Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford has filed a protection order in a Missouri court against a prominent St. Louis attorney with whom she said she recently had rekindled a romantic relationship. Neither Lunsford nor the lawyer representing David Cosgrove would comment on the allegations. Cosgrove formerly served as chief legal counsel to Missouri’s governor and is the managing member of St. Louis-based Cosgrove Law. The court documents, whichnormally would be made available through Missouri’s online records system, were not online Tuesday. Cosgrove’s attorney said those records would not be posted until an order was fulfilled by a Missouri judge. A St. Louis County Circuit Court clerk said the case documents were unavailable to the public Tuesday afternoon because the paperwork was in the judge’s chambers.
Daily Progress

The legal fine print tied to the city of Bedford reverting to a town in July will require all seven seats on Town Council to be up for election in November 2014. State law called for a census of the areas of Bedford County annexed into the town. If it was determined the town population increased by more than five percent of the city's 2010 Census count of 6,222, the election would be held.
News & Advance

A Baptist group has filed a brief in a public–prayer case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the practice of opening municipal meetings with prayer. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, filed the friend-of-the-court brief Monday in the Supreme Court in the case of Town of Greece (N.Y.) versus Galloway, a public-prayer case that the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors is closely watching. “We don’t think it’s government’s role to officiate the holy act of communicating with God,” Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said during an interview Tuesday. “Why can’t we just have a moment of silence? Why is that so difficult?”
Register & Bee

Virginia Tech says the driver’s license numbers of more than 16,000 job applicants may have been accessed when a computer server was hacked. Virginia Tech said Tuesday in a news release the server in its Department of Human Resources was illegally accessed on Aug. 28, exposing information from job applications. More than 144,000 people used the school’s online employment application process between 2003 and 2013. Virginia Tech says 16,642 people provided their driver’s license numbers in response to a question regarding professional licenses or certificates. Virginia Tech says it has notified these applicants about the potential exposure of their driver’s license numbers.
Southwest Times

Some Virginia cities and counties like to spend your tax dollars more than others. A new ranking released by the Charlottesville-based Free Enterprise Forum lists the top-spending localities per-capita in the Old Dominion, with results that surprised even Free Enterprise Forum President Neil Williamson. It’s not just rich, densely populated cities and counties in Northern Virginia that are spending wads of dough per person. Plenty of rural, small-population cities and counties made the list, too.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau

National Stories

After a former FBI agent agreed to plead guilty Monday to divulging details of a foiled terrorist plot to the Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged that its subpoena of reporters' phone records enabled it to identify the leaker as Donald John Sachtleben. Sachtleben faces a 43-month sentence for disclosing to a reporter in May 2012 information regarding a thwarted Yemen-based plan to bomb a U.S.-bound airplane. After the AP and other media outlets covered the plot, the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the phone records of more than 20 AP telephone lines for April and May 2012.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

The Obama administration on Tuesday sought dismissal of a lawsuit by a Tampa, Fla., businesswoman whose complaint to the FBI led to Gen. David Petraeus' ouster as CIA director. If a federal judge allows the lawsuit by Jill Kelley to proceed, the case could delve into the roles played in the Petraeus scandal by the FBI, the Pentagon and other parts of the Obama administration. Kelley wants to find out who in the U.S. government leaked her name and some of her emails to the news media amid the uproar over Petraeus' affair with Paula Broadwell, author of a biography on Petraeus. The leaks placed Kelley in the middle of an avalanche of unfavorable publicity and as a result, she shouldered the blame as the villain in the downfall of Petraeus and Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, the lawsuit states.
Fox News

Cloud storage locker Dropbox has joined Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Facebook in their quest for permission to publish the number of data requests they have received from the U.S. government, and the number of users affected by those requests. Dropbox filed a brief with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking for confirmation that it has the right to report the number of national security requests it receives, if any, Dropbox said in an update to its transparency report page.
PC World

On Tuesday, the biggest city in the United States said it will also join a database of procurement information on public contract prices. New York City will follow Florida, Virginia, Miami, San Diego County, Fort Lauderdale and about 2,200 other cities, states, counties, school districts and federal agencies who are already using the database's website. Called SmartProcure, governments share data about the goods and services they buy, allowing them to get better deals and broaden their network of vendors.
Reuters

A federal judge is expected to decide this week whether the public has a right to see videos showing prison guards tossing chemical grenades and pumping pepper spray into the cells of mentally ill inmates. California Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration wants the videos kept from public view. Administration attorneys argue they could provide a misleading view of events and violate the privacy of both inmates and guards.
Los Angeles Daily News

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered words of support to his Moreland Commission after the state Legislature refused its request for enhanced disclosure of lawmakers' sources of outside income. Speaking Monday at the New Baltimore travel plaza on the Thruway, the governor said that while the next move was up to the Moreland panel, he was confident it had the power to take the matter a step further and issue subpoenas to compel disclosure. "This effort is all about restoring the trust, and restoring people's faith in government," Cuomo said of the panel, which he appointed in July, "and I think the more information the better, especially when there are real questions that people have been asking."
Albany Times Union

What would you do if you went to the library in search of "The Adventures of Captain Underpants" for your child, or to re-read Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Beloved" only to find that the book had been pulled from the shelves because another patron objected to its content? It happens in the United States more often than many realize. At least 464 formal complaints were filed in 2012 seeking to remove books from libraries or schools, according to the American Library Association, a sponsor of Banned Books Week, which runs September 22-28. Its mission is to celebrate the freedom to read and highlight the pitfalls of censorship.
CNN

For all the public scrutiny of military sexual assault this year — from hearings to heated Senate debates — congressional efforts are only just beginning to challenge the Pentagon’s overarching strategy on the issue for the past 25 years: secrecy. From tracking the extent of the problem to showing how cases are resolved, the military has consistently and forcefully resisted fully airing details.
Politico

Editorials/Columns

Roanoke Times: Christiansburg Mayor Richard Ballengee isn’t seeking re-election in November. Yet he’s not quite ready to give up a seat at the table at town council meetings. Councilman Mike Barber is running unopposed for mayor, meaning his council seat almost certainly will be vacant come Jan. 1. Appointing a replacement for the two years left on his term will be among a new town council’s first tasks — and Ballengee has let it be known he’d be willing to serve. Reshuffling the seat assignments might appear a tad too cozy on a board that, until a few years ago, discouraged civic engagement and held decision-making as close as possible to its collective vest. In its new mode of open engagement, it should advertise for candidates and publicly interview all of them. Members’ questions can make their own priorities clearer. And council is certain to get a broader perspective on what is important to the community it serves.

Virginia Gazette:  During a work session Tuesday, James City County's Board of Supervisors pondered the merits of a $9,000 a year annual service that promises to collect what the Gazette's Last Word has provided free for nearly 30 years – public comment. California-based Peak Democracy offers a platform known as Open Town Hall. The premise is simple: Ask the public a question, post it online, then wait for the feedback. While the pitch is to conduct an online version of a traditional town hall, there's one thing missing: the town. That's intentional. Peak Democracy says the concept promotes civil discussion, free of intimidation, bullying and the sometimes tense atmosphere of a public meeting. To make sure that happens, Peak Democracy uses staff and software to monitor comments. Those deemed "uncivil" are "reconciled." That notion is frightening to advocates of free speech. Who decides what is civil and what isn't? And what does "reconciling" a comment entail?