Transparency News 10/3/13

 

Thursday, October 3, 2013
 
State and Local Stories

 

A motion to not allow the names of witnesses to be published was granted Wednesday in a double homicide case. "Frankly, the court would expect to see such a motion in writing rather than at the end of a hearing," Judge Thomas W. Carpenter told Senior Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Robin Farkas. Carpenter continued by saying that he understood the potential safety issues in the case and granted the motion. The oral motion also extended to the court transcript, requiring only the first initials and last name of the witnesses. The motion came at the end of the hearing after the witnesses had given their names on the record.
Daily Press

Will it be trout tenders or chicken chunks? Nachos or pizza? Anyone wondering what’s for lunch in Henrico County Public Schools can now get an answer in the palm of his hand courtesy of a new smartphone app that offers each day’s lunch and breakfast menus for county schools. The app includes photos and descriptions, as well as ingredients and nutritional information.
Times-Dispatch

National Stories

When the encrypted e-mail service reportedly used by NSA leaker Edward Snowden suddenly closed its doors in August, its founder mysteriously said he'd "been forced to make a difficult decision: tobecome complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit." Ladar Levison couldn't provide further info, he said, because "Congress has passed laws that say otherwise." On Wednesday, however, the mystery was solved. Drawing from newly unsealed court records, Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports that the FBI had, in its desire to trace a single Lavabit user, and in the face of resistance from the company on that score, obtained a search warrant demanding that Levison turn over the keys to the encryption that protected data for all the service's users.
CNET News

In the latest revelation kicked up by the privacy brouhaha surrounding leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, it's come to light that the US National Security Agency tested its systems' ability to handle bulk data on the location of Americans' cell phones (and thus oftentimes, of course, on the location of Americans themselves). The information comes not from the Snowden documents, but from an answer written out by Director of National Security James Clapper in preparation for potential questions at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the NSA and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The New York Times obtained a copy of the text prior to the hearing, and NSA Director Keith Alexander subsequently delivered at least some of the remarks at the event, according to blog Politico.
CNET News

Texas prison officials disclosed Wednesday that they are using a compounding pharmacy to obtain the drug used during executions. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, responding to a Freedom of Information request from The Associated Press, released documents showing the purchase of eight vials of pentobarbital last month from a compounding pharmacy in suburban Houston. Such pharmacies custom-make drugs but aren't subject to federal scrutiny.
New York Daily News

The U.S. Justice Department has told a secret surveillance court that it opposes a request from technology companies to reveal more about the demands they receive for user information, according to court papers released on Wednesday. Negotiations between the federal government and companies such as Google Inc have gone on for months, and while U.S. spy agencies said they plan to be more transparent, they have opposed company requests to disclose more detailed data.
Reuters

Tourists, leaf-peepers and rambunctious World War II veterans weren’t the only people inconvenienced by the partial government shutdown that began Tuesday: Journalists who deal with government data found themselves in a tough spot when they couldn’t download files or pull the most up-to-date data for their projects.
Poynter

As the federal trial court in Washington works to correct years of clerical errors, dozens of unsealed court documents that were not easily accessible in the past are being published online for the first time. The court began a review earlier this year into how unsealed documents remained hidden from the public. U.S. District Senior Judge Royce Lamberth, who is leading the inquiry, said today the court is still reviewing cases dating back to 2005. In the meantime, he said, the court will make documents and other information available online as the information is discovered.
Blog of Legal Times

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-of-its-kind state law criminalizing what has become known as revenge porn, the distribution of private, explicit photos of other people on the Internet, usually by ex-lovers or spouses, to humiliate them. The measure, which passed both houses of the Democratic-led state legislature almost unanimously last month, makes it a misdemeanor for individuals to take and then circulate without consent such images online with the intent to harass or annoy.
Reuters

A legislative task force in Connecticut charged with finding ways to balance victims' privacy with the public's right to know is holding a hearing in Hartford to gather public comment. The Task Force on Victim Privacy and the Public's Right to Know has scheduled its first hearing for Tuesday, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the Phillips Metropolitan CME Church in Hartford. Task force leaders want to gather public opinion on how information relating to victims and their families should be shared with the public and the media. The task force was part of a new law exempting the release of photographs, film, video and other images depicting a homicide victim if those records are considered an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
The Day

Editorials/Columns

Register & Bee: As chairman of the sometimes dysfunctional Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, Marshall Ecker led the board in some good directions but also took the county down some dead ends. On balance, though, Ecker was a breath of fresh political air, a mature, smart and confident man who was willing to work with the best of the past and tried to build a better future for his adopted hometown.  Because of his unexpected death, though, Ecker’s stint as chairman has left a lot of unfinished business: » On the ACLU prayer lawsuit, Ecker recently said, “I felt all along we should appeal this case. That’s what I voted for tonight, because I want to take a stand for Jesus.” That “stand for Jesus” has now cost the county more than $50,000 in legal fees, and if the appeal — and the New York cases supervisors think will break their way — doesn’t work out, the county’s taxpayers will have to pay even more legal fees.