Transparency News 7/31/15
Friday, July 31, 2015
State and Local Stories
In a 4-1 vote, with at-large member, Eddie Deane, voting “no,” the Greene County Board of Supervisors has adopted a new comment policy clearly intended to kill any dissent at public meetings. Termed “atrocious!” by Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, the new rules closely follow the removal of “Matters from the Public” from Greene County’s July 28 agenda, by board chair, David Cox. Tired of receiving criticism by County residents at public meetings—particularly, condemnation of a sweetheart interest-free loan to county administrator, John Barkley—Cox and Board cohorts, Jim Frydl, Bill Martin, and Davis Lamb, simply erased the right of any citizen to speak critically at board meetings by implementing the following.
Schilling Show
Petersburg Mayor W. Howard Myers is being sued in federal court for allegedly violating a citizen’s First Amendment right to free speech at a City Council meeting in January. The suit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on behalf of Linwood Christian, claims Christian was not allowed to speak during the public discussion portion of the council meeting because of an unpaid fee associated with his failed run for School Board in 2014. The suit claims the decision to keep Christian from speaking was a violation of his rights causing “emotional distress and public humiliation.” The suit also includes emails that reveal an internal clash between city officials over keeping a citizen from speaking to his elected officials at a public meeting.
Times-Dispatch
You may have noticed a slight push on Freedom of Information Act issues from the Daily Press of late. The paper's highest profile fight has been an effort to wrest a statewide database of court cases from the Virginia Supreme Court's Office of the Executive Secretary, which argues that: 1. The records used to build that database, available from every court across the state, are public records, but the database assembled from them is not; and, 2. They're not subject to FOIA anyway. It turns out that, despite attorneys for the state's FOIA Council considering this database and others created by state government employees to be public records, a handful of state agencies don't see it that way. So, when incoming state Supreme Court Justice Jane Marum Roush's appointment was announced at a Monday press conference, it seemed like a good time to ask her opinion on the database issue. As judges typically do, she declined to address specifics, lest a case come before her and the court. But broadly, Roush said the issue is "more difficult than you would think."
Daily Press
The secret testimony made before a Spotsylvania County special grand jury in April is playing an increasingly important role in the cases of two Fredericksburg-area men charged in a killing at a Culpeper Halloween party last fall. Secrecy seems to be the key word in those cases. Two weeks ago, a Free Lance–Star reporter was barred from a hearing in Spotsylvania during which lawyers for defendants Tonie Jones and Donnel Easter were seeking access to transcripts of that grand jury testimony. Even the outcome of that hearing has never been made public. Thursday’s hearing in Culpeper regarding the outcome of the Spotsylvania hearing was shrouded in just as much secrecy, with reporters, the general public and even sheriff’s investigators being barred from Judge Susan Whitlock’s courtroom while Jones testified about his grand jury experience.
Free Lance-Star
The Confederate flag controversy will come to Danville on Friday morning when a federal hearing will be held that could decide the future of Virginia-issued Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates. There are less than 1,700 of the license plates in circulation, with four in Danville and 29 in Pittsylvania County. The Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will appear in federal court to argue if a decision made by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001 — that allowed the Confederate Battle flag to be displayed on SCV license plates — is still valid. Richard D. Holcomb, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, filed a motion on June 26 to vacate the Fourth Circuit’s decision to allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ logo, a square with the Battle flag in the middle, on the SCV license plates.
Register & Bee
As most parts of modern life – including news, art, jobs and entertainment – are highly dependant on a reliable Internet connection, there are still a number of people without access to that service. As evidenced at Monday night’s Board of Supervisors meeting, a lot of those people live in Pulaski County. The board voted Monday to approve a grant application to bring better access to high-speed Internet to the county. It’s a service that the more remote corners of the county lack, and several county residents came before the board to express their concerns about the lack of connectivity. “I’ve seen the county lag behind in technology,” said Tom Wilkinson, who lives in the county’s Ingles district. “I’m looking at property values decrease because of the Internet problems. It’s just awful.”
Southwest Times
National Stories
On Thursday, lawyers representing Gawker Media and Terry Bollea (real name of Hulk Hogan) gathered in the Sixth Circuit court in St. Petersburg, Florida. In a motion, the counsel representing Hulk Hogan accused Gawker of reportedly leaking tapes to the National Enquirer, which published an article reporting that racist slurs were part of the conversations on the tape. “The Enquirer article is very close to the transcripts,” said Hogan’s lawyers. “If National Enquirer quotes court documents that they could have obtained only from three sources, how did they get them?” questioned Hogan’s lawyers. They requested for an electronic forensic investigation to explore if Gawker communicated with National Enquirer.
Poynter
Editorials/Columns
When someone shows up with a bill that promises to help secure America’s online infrastructure, it sounds like something we can all get behind. That was the idea behind the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA), but there are colossal problems with this bill, including significant issues with accountability and transparency. First, CISA carves out the sharing of “cyber threat indicators” and “defensive measures” pursuant to this bill from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Though it should be avoided if at all possible, this isn’t terribly unusual — it’s commonly known as a b(3) carveout (that’s FOIA’s exemption designed to allow bills, like this one, to exempt themselves). Although there’s a real question about the appropriate level of transparency for a bill that allows companies to hand over troves of information to the government (the wisdom of that sharing aside), CISA undoubtedly fails to strike the right balance. And that information could include anything that a company might determine is relevant to cybersecurity. In particular, the terms “cyber threat indicator” and “defensive measures” are defined far too broadly in this bill, and in addition to being almost certainly overinclusive, an agency’s withholding of such information is mandatory. Our biggest fear here is that we simply won’t know to what extent information is being shared, and how well companies are keeping our personal information out of it.
Sunlight Foundation
State and Local Stories
In a 4-1 vote, with at-large member, Eddie Deane, voting “no,” the Greene County Board of Supervisors has adopted a new comment policy clearly intended to kill any dissent at public meetings. Termed “atrocious!” by Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, the new rules closely follow the removal of “Matters from the Public” from Greene County’s July 28 agenda, by board chair, David Cox. Tired of receiving criticism by County residents at public meetings—particularly, condemnation of a sweetheart interest-free loan to county administrator, John Barkley—Cox and Board cohorts, Jim Frydl, Bill Martin, and Davis Lamb, simply erased the right of any citizen to speak critically at board meetings by implementing the following.
Schilling Show
Petersburg Mayor W. Howard Myers is being sued in federal court for allegedly violating a citizen’s First Amendment right to free speech at a City Council meeting in January. The suit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on behalf of Linwood Christian, claims Christian was not allowed to speak during the public discussion portion of the council meeting because of an unpaid fee associated with his failed run for School Board in 2014. The suit claims the decision to keep Christian from speaking was a violation of his rights causing “emotional distress and public humiliation.” The suit also includes emails that reveal an internal clash between city officials over keeping a citizen from speaking to his elected officials at a public meeting.
Times-Dispatch
You may have noticed a slight push on Freedom of Information Act issues from the Daily Press of late. The paper's highest profile fight has been an effort to wrest a statewide database of court cases from the Virginia Supreme Court's Office of the Executive Secretary, which argues that: 1. The records used to build that database, available from every court across the state, are public records, but the database assembled from them is not; and, 2. They're not subject to FOIA anyway. It turns out that, despite attorneys for the state's FOIA Council considering this database and others created by state government employees to be public records, a handful of state agencies don't see it that way. So, when incoming state Supreme Court Justice Jane Marum Roush's appointment was announced at a Monday press conference, it seemed like a good time to ask her opinion on the database issue. As judges typically do, she declined to address specifics, lest a case come before her and the court. But broadly, Roush said the issue is "more difficult than you would think."
Daily Press
The secret testimony made before a Spotsylvania County special grand jury in April is playing an increasingly important role in the cases of two Fredericksburg-area men charged in a killing at a Culpeper Halloween party last fall. Secrecy seems to be the key word in those cases. Two weeks ago, a Free Lance–Star reporter was barred from a hearing in Spotsylvania during which lawyers for defendants Tonie Jones and Donnel Easter were seeking access to transcripts of that grand jury testimony. Even the outcome of that hearing has never been made public. Thursday’s hearing in Culpeper regarding the outcome of the Spotsylvania hearing was shrouded in just as much secrecy, with reporters, the general public and even sheriff’s investigators being barred from Judge Susan Whitlock’s courtroom while Jones testified about his grand jury experience.
Free Lance-Star
The Confederate flag controversy will come to Danville on Friday morning when a federal hearing will be held that could decide the future of Virginia-issued Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates. There are less than 1,700 of the license plates in circulation, with four in Danville and 29 in Pittsylvania County. The Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will appear in federal court to argue if a decision made by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001 — that allowed the Confederate Battle flag to be displayed on SCV license plates — is still valid. Richard D. Holcomb, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, filed a motion on June 26 to vacate the Fourth Circuit’s decision to allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ logo, a square with the Battle flag in the middle, on the SCV license plates.
Register & Bee
As most parts of modern life – including news, art, jobs and entertainment – are highly dependant on a reliable Internet connection, there are still a number of people without access to that service. As evidenced at Monday night’s Board of Supervisors meeting, a lot of those people live in Pulaski County. The board voted Monday to approve a grant application to bring better access to high-speed Internet to the county. It’s a service that the more remote corners of the county lack, and several county residents came before the board to express their concerns about the lack of connectivity. “I’ve seen the county lag behind in technology,” said Tom Wilkinson, who lives in the county’s Ingles district. “I’m looking at property values decrease because of the Internet problems. It’s just awful.”
Southwest Times
National Stories
On Thursday, lawyers representing Gawker Media and Terry Bollea (real name of Hulk Hogan) gathered in the Sixth Circuit court in St. Petersburg, Florida. In a motion, the counsel representing Hulk Hogan accused Gawker of reportedly leaking tapes to the National Enquirer, which published an article reporting that racist slurs were part of the conversations on the tape. “The Enquirer article is very close to the transcripts,” said Hogan’s lawyers. “If National Enquirer quotes court documents that they could have obtained only from three sources, how did they get them?” questioned Hogan’s lawyers. They requested for an electronic forensic investigation to explore if Gawker communicated with National Enquirer.
Poynter
Editorials/Columns
When someone shows up with a bill that promises to help secure America’s online infrastructure, it sounds like something we can all get behind. That was the idea behind the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA), but there are colossal problems with this bill, including significant issues with accountability and transparency. First, CISA carves out the sharing of “cyber threat indicators” and “defensive measures” pursuant to this bill from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Though it should be avoided if at all possible, this isn’t terribly unusual — it’s commonly known as a b(3) carveout (that’s FOIA’s exemption designed to allow bills, like this one, to exempt themselves). Although there’s a real question about the appropriate level of transparency for a bill that allows companies to hand over troves of information to the government (the wisdom of that sharing aside), CISA undoubtedly fails to strike the right balance. And that information could include anything that a company might determine is relevant to cybersecurity. In particular, the terms “cyber threat indicator” and “defensive measures” are defined far too broadly in this bill, and in addition to being almost certainly overinclusive, an agency’s withholding of such information is mandatory. Our biggest fear here is that we simply won’t know to what extent information is being shared, and how well companies are keeping our personal information out of it.
Sunlight Foundation
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