Transparency News 9/24/15
Thursday, September 24, 2015
State and Local Stories
VCOG's annual conference is
November 12. Click here for details. The federal court overseeing the redraw of Hampton Roads’ 3rd Congressional District picked an expert to assist it in the process Wednesday and gave the state explicit permission to post proposed maps on a General Assembly website. Attorneys tied to the Democratic Party, who successfully sought this redraw during a 2-year federal case, had asked the court to block the postings, arguing that it was inappropriate to invite more public comment into these legal proceedings. Multiple parties have proposed new maps in this case, and the court's decision Wednesday paves the way for the General Assembly's Division of Legislative Services to take the often complex descriptions from those proposals and turn them into maps that the public can view online. Anyone wishing to comment on the process may file a brief with the court by Oct. 7.
Daily Press
Attorneys for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. have obtained subpoenas demanding that nearly a dozen news outlets provide them with copies of stories on the abduction and death of Hannah Graham and the arrest and prosecution of Matthew. The subpoenas were issued Tuesday by the Albemarle County Circuit Court clerk’s office and no service notices had been filed as of Wednesday. According to circuit court records, the defense attorneys have subpoenaed The Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Culpeper Star-Exponent, Orange County Review, The Associated Press, WVIR-TV, WVPT, WTVR, WHTJ, WCAV and its associated channels known collectively as the Newsplex, and C-Ville Weekly. The subpoenas call for “all documents, video and accompanying audio news reports” about Graham from her disappearance to the present-day prosecution of Matthew.
Daily Progress
A group of Virginia Beach parents are upset with a bus driver after a dispute that happened after school on Tuesday. The parents want to see the school bus camera video taken during their middle schoolers' ride home yesterday with the substitute driver. Parents say the school would not show them the video without a subpoena. NewsChannel 3 also asked for the video and beach schools told us we need a freedom of information request. "We can't see a video. Obviously, even if our children are in the wrong, we want to address that," said parent Trisha Fahey.
WTKR
National Stories
Hackers who stole security clearance data on millions of Defense Department and other U.S. government employees got away with about 5.6 million fingerprint records, some 4.5 million more than initially reported, the government said. The additional stolen fingerprint records were identified as part of an ongoing analysis of the data breach by the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Defense, OPM said in a statement.
Reuters
Editorials/Columns
At long last, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s office has released the results of its inquiry into the Martese Johnson incident this past spring. Trying to keep the report under wraps was troubling, but perhaps not as troubling as some parts of the report itself. We learn, for instance, that Johnson had had some drinks in the hours before three ABC agents slammed him to the ground outside a Charlottesville pub. This is a clear attempt to undermine justifiable criticism of how the agents acted. It shouldn’t. Only Johnson’s behavior can excuse theirs.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
VIRGINIA’S SUPREME Court has just handed a ringing victory, and a misguided one, to champions of secrecy in government. In doing so the court has misread the clear intent of state law and signaled its contempt for the public’s legitimate interest in obtaining information about the workings of state agencies. In siding with the state, however, the court went so far overboard as to effectively neuter Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. A majority of the justices said that if the material requested contained even a scrap of information exempt from disclosure under the FOIA, then officials, rather than simply redacting the exempt bits, could refuse disclosure entirely. That’s absurd, as a respected judge, former attorney general William Mims, made clear in a partial dissent. If there is no valid reason to shield the main body of requested information from disclosure, Justice Mims said, then a state agency “must release the requested record, and it may redact the exempt information in its discretion.” The court also erred on the side of secrecy in government — in contravention of the FOIA’s stated purpose — by saying that government officials deserve “deference” about what to exempt from disclosure. Even a passing familiarity with some bureaucrats’ penchant for gratuitous secrecy over-classification — in Washington, as in Richmond — would expose the danger of automatically granting such deference.
Washington Post
That kind of secrecy and childishness [exhibited by Portsmouth City Council] has no place in public offices. Portsmouth residents have a right to expect that their municipal leaders have the courage and fortitude to speak directly and publicly. And they have a right to expect that council members won't discuss public matters in secret and turn around and claim they did no such thing. At Tuesday's council meeting, a resident presented members of the City Council with "an open government tool kit." It consisted of a mounted golden door stop. Moments later, Wright declared himself a "huge fan of freedom of the press," even as he excoriated this newspaper for covering the city's myriad problems. "These last five or six years since I've been mayor of this city, I have never seen such a horrible job of journalism," Wright complained, assailing reporters for their work. "I think it's an irresponsible gesture on their part, misinforming the public," he said. Yet no one has said what, specifically, isn't true in the reporting.
Virginian-Pilot
Curious to see the 10 maps that have been submitted in the 3rd Congressional District lawsuit? I sure am. But if the plaintiffs' lawyers have their way, we'll never see them. The court hearing the case issued an order on Sept. 3 that provided the opportunity for anyone to submit, by Sept. 18, a redistricting plan.
Vivian Paige, Virginian-Pilot
Christiansburg High School is on shaky legal ground to ban students from wearing T-shirts with the Confederate flag and on even shakier legal ground to extend that ban to bumper stickers and decals on students’ vehicles in the parking lot. Whether students should be showing off Confederate symbols – that’s not the question. There’s good reason to believe such emblems are offensive, so this would be a useful teaching moment all around. What some blithely call “heritage” ignores the real heritage of what would have happened if the armies waving that Confederate battle flag had triumphed – a new nation would have been founded in North America dedicated not to the proposition of all men being created equal, but to the proposition of slave ownership. But again, that’s not the question. The question is whether Christiansburg High School has a legal right to do what it’s done.
Roanoke Times
State and Local Stories
VCOG's annual conference is
November 12. Click here for details. The federal court overseeing the redraw of Hampton Roads’ 3rd Congressional District picked an expert to assist it in the process Wednesday and gave the state explicit permission to post proposed maps on a General Assembly website. Attorneys tied to the Democratic Party, who successfully sought this redraw during a 2-year federal case, had asked the court to block the postings, arguing that it was inappropriate to invite more public comment into these legal proceedings. Multiple parties have proposed new maps in this case, and the court's decision Wednesday paves the way for the General Assembly's Division of Legislative Services to take the often complex descriptions from those proposals and turn them into maps that the public can view online. Anyone wishing to comment on the process may file a brief with the court by Oct. 7.
Daily Press
Attorneys for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. have obtained subpoenas demanding that nearly a dozen news outlets provide them with copies of stories on the abduction and death of Hannah Graham and the arrest and prosecution of Matthew. The subpoenas were issued Tuesday by the Albemarle County Circuit Court clerk’s office and no service notices had been filed as of Wednesday. According to circuit court records, the defense attorneys have subpoenaed The Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Culpeper Star-Exponent, Orange County Review, The Associated Press, WVIR-TV, WVPT, WTVR, WHTJ, WCAV and its associated channels known collectively as the Newsplex, and C-Ville Weekly. The subpoenas call for “all documents, video and accompanying audio news reports” about Graham from her disappearance to the present-day prosecution of Matthew.
Daily Progress
A group of Virginia Beach parents are upset with a bus driver after a dispute that happened after school on Tuesday. The parents want to see the school bus camera video taken during their middle schoolers' ride home yesterday with the substitute driver. Parents say the school would not show them the video without a subpoena. NewsChannel 3 also asked for the video and beach schools told us we need a freedom of information request. "We can't see a video. Obviously, even if our children are in the wrong, we want to address that," said parent Trisha Fahey.
WTKR
National Stories
Hackers who stole security clearance data on millions of Defense Department and other U.S. government employees got away with about 5.6 million fingerprint records, some 4.5 million more than initially reported, the government said. The additional stolen fingerprint records were identified as part of an ongoing analysis of the data breach by the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Defense, OPM said in a statement.
Reuters
Editorials/Columns
At long last, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s office has released the results of its inquiry into the Martese Johnson incident this past spring. Trying to keep the report under wraps was troubling, but perhaps not as troubling as some parts of the report itself. We learn, for instance, that Johnson had had some drinks in the hours before three ABC agents slammed him to the ground outside a Charlottesville pub. This is a clear attempt to undermine justifiable criticism of how the agents acted. It shouldn’t. Only Johnson’s behavior can excuse theirs.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
VIRGINIA’S SUPREME Court has just handed a ringing victory, and a misguided one, to champions of secrecy in government. In doing so the court has misread the clear intent of state law and signaled its contempt for the public’s legitimate interest in obtaining information about the workings of state agencies. In siding with the state, however, the court went so far overboard as to effectively neuter Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. A majority of the justices said that if the material requested contained even a scrap of information exempt from disclosure under the FOIA, then officials, rather than simply redacting the exempt bits, could refuse disclosure entirely. That’s absurd, as a respected judge, former attorney general William Mims, made clear in a partial dissent. If there is no valid reason to shield the main body of requested information from disclosure, Justice Mims said, then a state agency “must release the requested record, and it may redact the exempt information in its discretion.” The court also erred on the side of secrecy in government — in contravention of the FOIA’s stated purpose — by saying that government officials deserve “deference” about what to exempt from disclosure. Even a passing familiarity with some bureaucrats’ penchant for gratuitous secrecy over-classification — in Washington, as in Richmond — would expose the danger of automatically granting such deference.
Washington Post
That kind of secrecy and childishness [exhibited by Portsmouth City Council] has no place in public offices. Portsmouth residents have a right to expect that their municipal leaders have the courage and fortitude to speak directly and publicly. And they have a right to expect that council members won't discuss public matters in secret and turn around and claim they did no such thing. At Tuesday's council meeting, a resident presented members of the City Council with "an open government tool kit." It consisted of a mounted golden door stop. Moments later, Wright declared himself a "huge fan of freedom of the press," even as he excoriated this newspaper for covering the city's myriad problems. "These last five or six years since I've been mayor of this city, I have never seen such a horrible job of journalism," Wright complained, assailing reporters for their work. "I think it's an irresponsible gesture on their part, misinforming the public," he said. Yet no one has said what, specifically, isn't true in the reporting.
Virginian-Pilot
Curious to see the 10 maps that have been submitted in the 3rd Congressional District lawsuit? I sure am. But if the plaintiffs' lawyers have their way, we'll never see them. The court hearing the case issued an order on Sept. 3 that provided the opportunity for anyone to submit, by Sept. 18, a redistricting plan.
Vivian Paige, Virginian-Pilot
Christiansburg High School is on shaky legal ground to ban students from wearing T-shirts with the Confederate flag and on even shakier legal ground to extend that ban to bumper stickers and decals on students’ vehicles in the parking lot. Whether students should be showing off Confederate symbols – that’s not the question. There’s good reason to believe such emblems are offensive, so this would be a useful teaching moment all around. What some blithely call “heritage” ignores the real heritage of what would have happened if the armies waving that Confederate battle flag had triumphed – a new nation would have been founded in North America dedicated not to the proposition of all men being created equal, but to the proposition of slave ownership. But again, that’s not the question. The question is whether Christiansburg High School has a legal right to do what it’s done.
Roanoke Times
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