Transparency News 10/10/14
State and Local Stories
The FOIA Council issued an opinion in late September thattracks the dates of an Alexandria woman’s six FOIA requests to the City of Alexandria and finds some of them later than what the statute dictates. The office offers no opinion on enforcing violations saying “enforcement of FOIA is left to the court.”
FOIA Council opinion on VCOG’s website
Virginia state senators quietly met with FBI officials for a private briefing on how not to run afoul of federal corruption laws shortly after a jury found former Gov. Bob McDonnell guilty of selling the influence of his office, lawmakers told The Associated Press this week. Senate Democratic Leader Richard Saslaw said Wednesday that leaders from both party caucuses helped organize a meeting with FBI officials to ask questions about federal law shortly after the conviction. Saslaw said each caucus met separately with the FBI, but he declined to provide details about the Capitol meeting with his caucus because he said it was a closed session.Saslaw said that he thought the FBI’s presentation was helpful and that his members asked several questions. “It explained to us what’s kosher and what’s not,” he said. Matthew Moran, a spokesman for House Speaker William Howell, said House Republican leaders found out about the Senate briefings and thought they were a good idea. Moran said that House GOP leaders have sought a similar briefing but that it hasn’t yet occurred because of scheduling issues.
Roanoke Times
A federal jury began deliberations Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two former members of the Front Royal Volunteer Fire Department who accuse the department and its former board president of defaming them and violating their rights of free speech. The opposing sides clashed over who was to blame for what Larry Oliver, chief of the fire company, described as the worst infighting he has seen in his career. Fire departments have always had cliques and always will, Oliver testified, "but certainly there was more division than I remember in the 35 years I've been there." Oliver and other witnesses who testified for the defense Thursday portrayed the plaintiffs, Philip A. Charles and David M. Ellinger, as polarizing malcontents determined to get their way while sowing mistrust and bitterness throughout the department. Charles was banished as a member of the department and Ellinger was suspended in 2013. They contend the department retaliated against them for stirring up controversy on issues involving an aging fire truck and the distribution of funds from ambulance fees among Warren County fire departments.
Northern Virginia Daily
Republican members of Congress from Virginia areconsidering whether to appeal Tuesday’s decision by a panel of judges that declared the state’s congressional maps unconstitutional. Several of the state’s Republican congressmen held a conference call with their attorneys Wednesday, but they have not made a final decision whether to appeal. Republicans say privately that an appeal is likely because of the importance of the case. “The Republicans need to appeal this case so this will not just be precedent in Virginia but across the country,” said Tom Davis, a Republican who once represented Northern Virginia’s 11th District in Congress. The delegation was granted the right to intervene in the case, giving members as a group the right to appeal just like the other defendant, the state Board of Elections, which is represented by the attorney general’s office.
Washington Post
National Stories
The CIA need not give a physicist its radar analysis related to the crash of TWA Flight 800, or the names of eyewitnesses, the 1st Circuit ruled. Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800 exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean just 12 minutes after it took off from New York City on July 17, 1996, bound for Rome. All 230 people on board were killed. Several witnesses described a streak of light rising up to the plane just before it exploded, giving rise to the theory that a terrorist missile might have caused the crash.
Courthouse News Service
When the Justice Department was hunting for government leakers in 2011, it said that Mike Levine, a Fox News reporter, must reveal his sources because the universe of people who knew the secret information — analysts, prosecutors, agents, press aides and more — was too vast to narrow any other way. Court documents unsealed on Thursday reveal a lengthy court fight between Mr. Levine and the Justice Department over whether he could be forced to reveal his sources for an article about Somali terrorism. The government issued a subpoena, which was upheld by a judge, but prosecutors never called him before a grand jury.
New York Times
A report to Congress on authorized disclosures of classified intelligence to the media — not unauthorized disclosures — is classified and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Agency said. The notion of an authorized disclosure of classified information is close to being a contradiction in terms. If something is classified, how can its disclosure be authorized (without declassification)? And if something is disclosed by an official who is authorized to do so, how can it still be classified?And yet, it seems that there is such a thing.
Secrecy News
The United States is falling behind other countries in bringing government into the age of the Internet.
That was the conclusion of a panel of experts at POLITICO’s “Outside, In: eDiplomacy” event on Thursday. “Most people in government generally think of technology as a slice of the pie, only one slice to be considered,” said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Media. “They don’t realize that technology is actually the pan that supports all kinds of activities today that’s changing the way people interact with each other … the problem is that government is not part of the conversation and, in some ways, it’s actually trying to fight that.” While Rasiej argued that the U.S. government is “really, really, way behind” in eGovernment, Alec Ross, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a former State Department staffer, said the question isn’t whether America is behind, but what can be done about regulating technology.
Politico
Editorials/Columns
This autumn, stories about deficiencies in government transparency and financial management seem as numerous as leaves falling from the trees. So we were delighted to see some well-deserved recognition for the Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority, until recently known as RMA. The authority — a cooperative effort by Chesterfield, Henrico and Richmond — operates the Powhite Parkway, the Downtown Expressway and the Boulevard Bridge. Last week, the Government Financial Officers Association presented its Distinguished Budget Presentation Award to RMTA. Government works best for the people when it brings openness and clarity to its handling of the public’s money.
Times-Dispatch
The great Greek mathematician Archimedes supposedly declared “give me a place to stand and I shall move the world.” He was referring to the principle of the lever. Today, it’s more like: Give me a computer and some census maps and I can rule the world. Or, at least draw district lines so cleverly and precisely that they rig the election in advance. We don’t use the word “rig” lightly, because it conjures up images of, well, you know what it conjures up.However, the way state legislatures — more accurately, the majority parties in state legislatures — redraw district lines effectively amounts to rigging elections.Maybe not for a specific candidate (although incumbents of the majority party always get favored treatment) but for specific parties.
Roanoke Times
Did the political class in Richmond learn nothing ... absolutely nothing ... from the guilty verdicts in the McDonnell corruption trial? Sadly, given the latest bit of ethics news out of the state capital, we have to say no. On the very day Gov. Terry McAuliffe was announcing the formation of an ethics reform panel with a wide-ranging mandate to recommend changes to state laws, The Washington Post broke news that, according to sources, the governor’s chief of staff had dangled a possible state job for the daughter of state Sen. Phil Puckett to keep him from resigning his seat. In a recorded message. This is the type of monkey business the average Virginian is sick and tired of. Cynics would say it’s just politics as usual, that it’s been going on since the beginning of time. Perhaps it has, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.
Daily Progress
One thing is crystal clear: Partisan redistricting, whether done by Republicans or Democrats, is a mortal danger to democracy. The result, more often than not, is the dilution of the power of all voters. Legislators can select their own voters, effectively creating incumbent-protection districts. In election after election, the incumbent only has token opposition, if he is challenged at all. Voter participation drops because, quite simply, people believe their opinions won’t count for much anyway. We’ve urged before — and we urge again — that Virginia adopt a nonpartisan approach to redistricting. It can be done, and it has been done: Our legislators simply rejected much fairer, more representative districts in favor of protecting their own self-interests. But in doing so, they harmed the vital interests of everyday Virginians.
News & Advance
Every year the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are faced with about 7,500 writs of certiorari seeking appellate review of lower court decisions, granting only 75 to 80. It takes four justices to grant a writ, though amazingly that rule is nowhere written down and the justices could change it at any time. When the Supreme Court votes on whether to grant a writ of certiorari, it doesn't reveal which individual justices voted in favor of or against hearing the case (unless a justice writes a dissent, which is highly unusual). This secrecy is totally unnecessary and inconsistent with democratic aspirations of public transparency and open government.
Eric J. Segall, McClatchy
