Transparency News 11/18/15
State and Local Stories
A libertarian think tank says George Mason University failed to conduct an adequate FOIA search for employee emails that allegedly ask the Obama administration to prosecute climate change skeptics. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit describing itself as public policy group that supports free market enterprising, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the university on Sept. 24, 2015, requesting any emails that contained such terms as "RICO," "racketeer," "Racketeering," "DOJ," "prosecute" or "prosecution." In a complaint filed in the Richmond City circuit court on Nov. 13, the group says it later worked with a university official to narrow the request to the emails of two faculty members, Jagadish Shukla and Edward Maibach.
Courthouse News Service
The battle over a freedom of information act request in Franklin County continued Tuesday. The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and Preserve Franklin, two anti-pipeline groups, want internal emails to and from representatives of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and any notes about meetings or interactions with them. Mara Robbins of the BREDL filed the request August 31 and Robbins and the county have not been able to come to an agreement on a cost and scope of the request since. The groups feel the county is "dragging its feet," and protested in downtown Rocky Mount Tuesday to show their general displeasure with the board and the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline slated to run from West Virginia, through Franklin County, and terminate in Pittsylvania County. After the downtown protest, the group attended the regularly scheduled Board of Supervisors meeting and proceeded to stand up one-by-one each reciting rehearsed lines about the pipeline and the board, against the wishes of the board chairman and the clerk of the board. Chairman Cline Brubaker repeatedly told the group they needed to stop, but they ignored those requests.
WDBJ
Election workers across the state didn’t understand Virginia's new photo ID law when voters cast their ballots earlier this month – even Gov. Terry McAuliffe was delayed by a worker who misunderstood the law and questioned his address. Other election problems were reported in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, among other areas.
Virginian-Pilot
Come February, Confederate symbols will be banned from student apparel and vehicles in all of Montgomery County’s public schools. The Montgomery County School Board voted 4-2 Tuesday night in favor of an amendment to the countywide student dress code that would ban apparel, including decals, “that would cause a disruption to the learning environment in any school.” The new code, effective Feb. 1, specifically includes any item that denotes the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, white supremacy, Black Power, Confederate flags or articles, neo-Nazi or any other hate groups. The code also states the examples are not meant to be all inclusive. The decision came after close to 30 minutes of debate over the timing of the new policy and one failed motion to pass the policy with a Jan. 1 effective date.
Roanoke Times
National Stories
A ruling from the Texas attorney general’s office has just made it more difficult to access information about the kinds of crimes undocumented immigrants have committed in Dallas County — and whether local officials turned those offenders over to federal authorities. In a ruling on Friday, the attorney general’s office determined that because the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department’s booking system is maintained for use by the court system, it is not subject to the Texas Public Information Act. The ruling was in response to a request from The Texas Tribune for booking information on all “non-U.S. citizens” placed in the Dallas County jail since 2007. The Sheriff’s Department did not provide the booking information to the Tribune. Instead, it asked Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to weigh in on the matter, arguing that booking records are maintained for the court system, not the jail itself. “Based on your representations, we conclude the submitted information is information collected, assembled, or maintained by or for the judiciary,” Joseph Keeney, an assistant attorney general, wrote in response to the sheriff’s request. “Thus the submitted information is not subject to the Act and need not be released under the Act.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Child sex offenders are the largest category of inmates in U.S. military prisons, yet a full accounting of their crimes and how much time they're actually locked up for is shielded by an opaque system of justice, an Associated Press investigation has found. Of the 1,233 inmates confined in the military's prison network, 61 percent were convicted of sex crimes, according to the latest available data, obtained through the federal open records law. Children were the victims in over half of those cases. The military justice system operates independently of state and federal criminal courts. The U.S. Constitution mandates a presumption of openness in civilian courts — trials are open to the public, as are court filings, including motions and transcripts, with exceptions for documents that have been sealed. Anyone can walk into a county or U.S. courthouse and ask to read a case file, on demand, without providing a reason. That openness is designed to provide accountability. But visibility into military trials is minimal. Court records are released only after many Freedom of Information Act requests, appeals and fees, and often months of waiting. While military trials are technically "open," as are civilian trials, they take place on military bases, which are closed to the public.
ABC News
Officials from the U.S. government's personnel agency unexpectedly refused on Tuesday to attend a closed-door congressional briefing on their handling of a massive computer breach that affected more than 22 million federal workers. The breach last year at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) underscored Washington's online vulnerabilities amid threats from perpetrators ranging from foreign governments to terrorist groups and various amorphous hacktivist collectives. OPM, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget all declined to appear at the classified meeting due to concerns that the conversation would be transcribed, according to the House Armed Services Committee.
Reuters
In order to be transparent, many on-campus groups are required to comply with the Open and Public Meetings Act, a Utah law that consists of seven key provisions. Five of these groups affect the majority of campus — students and faculty. While these bodies are required to receive annual training on the act in order to ensure compliance, none of the groups are completely compliant with the provisions.
The Utah Statesman
On Monday, the site Accountable Journalism launched, with more than 400 searchable codes of ethics from media outlets around the world. According to the site, “it is important to recognize the value of media codes not just for traditional reporters, but for anyone using the mass social media tools and who are regularly committing acts of journalism.”
Poynter
Editorials/Columns
If the three-year review of Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is to produce substantive reform, then Wednesday must be a moment of reckoning for the group charged with conducting this process. For nearly two years, the commonwealth's Freedom of Information Advisory Council has gone line-by-line through the text of the law, examining and discussing the more than 170 exemptions it contains. Ideally, its approach would be one of skepticism, questioning the need for each caveat and loophole. But instead members have taken the opposite view and assumed that each is necessary. The council has put the burden of proof on openness advocates lobbying to strengthen the law. The result has been predictable. If the members of this council will not stand up now, then they should abandon this process altogether. Either they should do their job and do it well, or not at all. That decision is needed today.
Daily Press
