Transparency News 6/12/15
Friday, June 12, 2015
State and Local Stories
A federal audit released Wednesday found the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office followed all rules in the reporting, accounting and spending of asset forfeiture funds received by the agency as a result of its participation in drug and cigarette smuggling prosecutions. The audit, conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General from February through May, covered fiscal years 2013 and 2014. It provided the closest scrutiny the Sheriff’s Office has received from an outside agency of how asset forfeiture money is being managed. Sheriff Timothy C. Carter said he had no knowledge of the audit before it began in February. Carter said no reason was given for the audit, but he speculated that the millions of dollars the Sheriff’s Office has received in asset forfeiture money in recent years may have caught the eye of someone in the Justice Department.
Northern Virginia Daily
National Stories
Little Rock Metropolitan Housing Alliance Executive Director Rodney Forte was charged last November with violating Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Last Thursday, Forte was found guilty and convicted of a Class C misdemeanor. Judge Alice F. Lightle described Forte’s actions as a “negligent violation of the FOIA” and sentenced him to pay a $100 fine and an additional $140 in court costs. Although the “requests were numerous and may have been burdensome,” Lighte said, the Arkansas FOIA puts the responsibility on the head of an agency to ensure full compliance of the law. Therefore, Lightle found Forte, as executive director, guilty, and concluded that, “any other result would defeat the purpose of the FOIA.”
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
A December breach of government systems containing personal information of millions of federal employees was worse than originally thought. A union of federal workers said Thursday that the attack, announced last week, had stolen confidential information of every single federal employee, past or present -- far more than was previously revealed. The government disputes those claims. It's the latest in a spree of damaging hacks against the government, including an attack in March 2014 that also involved federal employee records.
CNET News
Bryan Johnson signed a confidentiality agreement. But the New York immigration lawyer, retained as a legal consultant for negotiators locked in high-level talks with Department of Justice officials over the fate of the Obama administration’s family detention program, now risks being found in contempt for violating a federal judge’s order after he released her tentative ruling against the government. U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee’s April 24 tentative ruling, which has been kept secret for months, is a scathing rebuke of the Obama administration’s decision to significantly increase its use of family detention in response to a surge of mothers and children fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. Johnson said the reason he’s releasing the draft ruling is because he feels ethically obligated to defend his clients’ rights under the law. McClatchy published the ruling Thursday. The ruling was not binding, he said, but it was very clear in what the judge believes is the interpretation of the law.
McClatchy
On Monday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously denied an effort to overturn a lower court’s ruling that cleared the way for a lawsuit to obtain records on the botched execution of Clayton Lockett. Ziva Branstetter, an Oklahoma-based reporter for The Frontier, and Tulsa World filed the lawsuit in December against Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson for withholding public records requested under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. Oklahoma’s open records law, unlike other states and the federal FOIA, does not specify how many days a government agency has to respond to a request for records. But it does require public bodies to “provide prompt, reasonable access.” Branstetter and Tulsa World filed suit more than seven months after making their first request for records relating to the Lockett execution. They have argued that this months-long delay violates the open records law, and authorizes judicial relief.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Grand jury testimony from a 1942 Espionage Act investigation of the Chicago Tribune will be unsealed after a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of an effort for access to the information led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Naval historian Elliot Carlson sought the grand jury documents in conjunction with a book he is writing about the investigation, which stemmed from a June 1942 article by a Tribune correspondent aboard a Navy ship in the Pacific. Reporter Stanley Johnston's dispatch about the battle of Midway included news that the Navy knew the Japanese would attack from the sea – revealing highly classified information that the U.S. had broken the Japanese code. The Justice Department investigated whether publication of the leaked information violated the Espionage Act, but the grand jury declined to issue an indictment.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Editorials/Columns
Jeff Schapiro, the best political columnist in Virginia, unearthed a staggering statistic the other day: Out of 600 state elections since 2003, only 19 incumbents have been defeated. The figure testifies to the power of gerrymandering. A Thursday news story provided another staggering stat. With 140 seats in the General Assembly, Virginia could have seen as many as 280 major-party nomination contests. How many actually took place? Eighteen. And only half of those involved a challenge to an incumbent. Turnout, as usual, was dismal too: less than 8 percent of eligible voters. Those figures create a negative feedback loop. With so few voters going to the polls, party insiders find it easier to control the outcomes. Lawmakers draw districts designed to guarantee that seats don’t change hands. Noncompetitive districts dissuade challengers, leading to one-candidate races. With no real contests to speak of, most voters don’t waste their time going to the polls.
Times-Dispatch
State and Local Stories
A federal audit released Wednesday found the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office followed all rules in the reporting, accounting and spending of asset forfeiture funds received by the agency as a result of its participation in drug and cigarette smuggling prosecutions. The audit, conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General from February through May, covered fiscal years 2013 and 2014. It provided the closest scrutiny the Sheriff’s Office has received from an outside agency of how asset forfeiture money is being managed. Sheriff Timothy C. Carter said he had no knowledge of the audit before it began in February. Carter said no reason was given for the audit, but he speculated that the millions of dollars the Sheriff’s Office has received in asset forfeiture money in recent years may have caught the eye of someone in the Justice Department.
Northern Virginia Daily
National Stories
Little Rock Metropolitan Housing Alliance Executive Director Rodney Forte was charged last November with violating Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Last Thursday, Forte was found guilty and convicted of a Class C misdemeanor. Judge Alice F. Lightle described Forte’s actions as a “negligent violation of the FOIA” and sentenced him to pay a $100 fine and an additional $140 in court costs. Although the “requests were numerous and may have been burdensome,” Lighte said, the Arkansas FOIA puts the responsibility on the head of an agency to ensure full compliance of the law. Therefore, Lightle found Forte, as executive director, guilty, and concluded that, “any other result would defeat the purpose of the FOIA.”
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
A December breach of government systems containing personal information of millions of federal employees was worse than originally thought. A union of federal workers said Thursday that the attack, announced last week, had stolen confidential information of every single federal employee, past or present -- far more than was previously revealed. The government disputes those claims. It's the latest in a spree of damaging hacks against the government, including an attack in March 2014 that also involved federal employee records.
CNET News
Bryan Johnson signed a confidentiality agreement. But the New York immigration lawyer, retained as a legal consultant for negotiators locked in high-level talks with Department of Justice officials over the fate of the Obama administration’s family detention program, now risks being found in contempt for violating a federal judge’s order after he released her tentative ruling against the government. U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee’s April 24 tentative ruling, which has been kept secret for months, is a scathing rebuke of the Obama administration’s decision to significantly increase its use of family detention in response to a surge of mothers and children fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. Johnson said the reason he’s releasing the draft ruling is because he feels ethically obligated to defend his clients’ rights under the law. McClatchy published the ruling Thursday. The ruling was not binding, he said, but it was very clear in what the judge believes is the interpretation of the law.
McClatchy
On Monday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously denied an effort to overturn a lower court’s ruling that cleared the way for a lawsuit to obtain records on the botched execution of Clayton Lockett. Ziva Branstetter, an Oklahoma-based reporter for The Frontier, and Tulsa World filed the lawsuit in December against Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson for withholding public records requested under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. Oklahoma’s open records law, unlike other states and the federal FOIA, does not specify how many days a government agency has to respond to a request for records. But it does require public bodies to “provide prompt, reasonable access.” Branstetter and Tulsa World filed suit more than seven months after making their first request for records relating to the Lockett execution. They have argued that this months-long delay violates the open records law, and authorizes judicial relief.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Grand jury testimony from a 1942 Espionage Act investigation of the Chicago Tribune will be unsealed after a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of an effort for access to the information led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Naval historian Elliot Carlson sought the grand jury documents in conjunction with a book he is writing about the investigation, which stemmed from a June 1942 article by a Tribune correspondent aboard a Navy ship in the Pacific. Reporter Stanley Johnston's dispatch about the battle of Midway included news that the Navy knew the Japanese would attack from the sea – revealing highly classified information that the U.S. had broken the Japanese code. The Justice Department investigated whether publication of the leaked information violated the Espionage Act, but the grand jury declined to issue an indictment.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Editorials/Columns
Jeff Schapiro, the best political columnist in Virginia, unearthed a staggering statistic the other day: Out of 600 state elections since 2003, only 19 incumbents have been defeated. The figure testifies to the power of gerrymandering. A Thursday news story provided another staggering stat. With 140 seats in the General Assembly, Virginia could have seen as many as 280 major-party nomination contests. How many actually took place? Eighteen. And only half of those involved a challenge to an incumbent. Turnout, as usual, was dismal too: less than 8 percent of eligible voters. Those figures create a negative feedback loop. With so few voters going to the polls, party insiders find it easier to control the outcomes. Lawmakers draw districts designed to guarantee that seats don’t change hands. Noncompetitive districts dissuade challengers, leading to one-candidate races. With no real contests to speak of, most voters don’t waste their time going to the polls.
Times-Dispatch
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