Transparency News 7/28/15
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
State and Local Stories
Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that Virginia state government and the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business will again work together on data re-engineering internships to explore the use of data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state government. In the 2014-2015 school year, the data internship program’s first, 45 graduate students and more than 20 state agencies participated. Those internships have resulted in tangible dollar savings and improved agency processes. Student/agency teams have worked on successful projects, such as improving how the state prices and sells its goods and services, and more efficiently matching citizens to benefits when they enroll.
Augusta Free Press
A request by the father of David A. Masters, the unarmed motorist shot and killed by a Fairfax County police officer in 2009, to see the investigative files and learn why the shooting happened has been denied by Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler. Roessler said that since there is no statute of limitations on murder or manslaughter, he will not release the information and cited the clause in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that Fairfax police use to deny FOIA requests for crime reports in virtually every case, according to a report issued last week by a committee studying Fairfax police communications. But there is no statute of limitations on any felony in Virginia, giving Fairfax police justification to deny all felony crime report requests forever. And Roessler’s denial letter, received Monday by Masters’ father, retired Army colonel Barrie Masters of Sanford, Fla., gives no indication that the Fairfax police ever intend to change their policy of refusing access to police reports in officer-involved shootings, instead discussing “review by an independent auditor” and “a higher level of accountability for all.”
Washington Post
National Stories
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are leading an effort to create a one-stop shop for data sets that would otherwise be lost to the public after the papers they were produced for are published. The goal of the project, called DataBridge, is to expand the life cycle of so-called dark data, said Arcot Rajasekar, the lead principal investigator on the project and a professor in the School of Information and Library Science at Chapel Hill. It will serve as an archive for data sets and metadata, and will group them into clusters of information to make relevant data easier to find.
Chronicle of Higher Education
Analysts at the National Security Agency will no longer be permitted to search a database holding five years of Americans’ domestic calling records after Nov. 29, the Obama administration said on Monday. Legislation enacted in June barred the N.S.A. from collecting Americans’ calling records after 180 days, but did not say what would happen to the data already gathered. Under a new system laid out by the USA Freedom Act, the government will not hold the bulk data, which is used to analyze links between callers in search of terrorism suspects.
New York Times
The House select committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya has said that the State Department pledged to turn over 5,000 documents related to the attack on Tuesday. In a statement late Monday, committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., described the document production as "second largest production the Committee has received and the largest since last summer." In return for the documents, Gowdy said he had accepted a request from Secretary of State John Kerry's chief of staff, Jon Finer, to postpone a scheduled Wednesday hearing at which Finer was due to testify.
Fox News
Editorials/Columns
Wisconsin enhanced its traditional reputation for progressive reform and good government when the state’s Supreme Court struck a forceful blow for free speech — while at the same time humiliating an out-of-control Democratic prosecutor seeking to destroy political adversaries. Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, aided by a special prosecutor, sought to silence conservatives and supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker by using tortured interpretations of already overbearing campaign finance laws. Heavily armed officers staged early-morning raids at the homes of citizens working to champion conservative causes, like lower taxes and smaller government. In some cases, the laptop computers of children were hauled away, presumably with homework assignments and playlists. It’s lucky no one was shot. Under a quirk of Wisconsin law, the victims of the lawless prosecutor were prevented from discussing the raids, even with friends and family. The modus operandi fits nicely with the left-wing fetish for relying on unprincipled prosecutors and bureaucrats eager to abuse arcane statutes to deprive conservatives of First Amendment rights.
Times-Dispatch
“The payments were gifts and were not specifically for anything in particular.” That excuse might sound as if it belongs to one of the McDonnells’ lawyers, after the ex-governor and his wife were convicted on federal corruption charges for accepting lavish gifts from an entrepreneur and “friend” who, coincidentally, was trying to get state business. Bob and Maureen McDonnell argued that there was no quid pro quo associated with the gifts. But this argument for leniency comes from a lawyer defending a former state Department of Juvenile Justice administrator who accepted “gifts” from a vendor and then steered contracts toward that vendor. In the meantime, she not only cheated the taxpayers but also helped put a rival vendor out of business.
Daily Progress
