Transparency News 2/17/16

State and Local Stories

A Newport News Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of the state Supreme Court's Office of the Executive Secretary on Tuesday, denying the Daily Press access to a statewide database of court information. The Daily Press filed a lawsuit under the state's Freedom of Information Act, asking the court to order the OES to release the database it creates and maintains. Judge David Pugh said that the circuit court clerks who give the data to the OES are the sole keepers of that information. The OES, a public entity, provides public access to online court records from 118 of the state's 120 circuit court clerks by creating a database of the information.
Daily Press

Ten bills on public notices were introduced this year. Carried over to 2017 were House Bills 129, 286, 956 and 1078, which would give localities alternatives to newspapers for publication of legal notices. Two similar Senate measures also did not advance. Senate Bill 251 was defeated because it was left in committee. Senate Bill 371 was stricken by the patron. House Bill 1280, which would have removed the newspaper publication requirement for requests for proposals for professional services, also died because it was left in committee.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The regular Petersburg City Council meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. tonight, Feb. 16, has been postponed this evening, according to a notice released by the city Tuesday. The statement said the council received certain threats relating to the meeting. "We have a duty to ensure the safety of our citizens," said the statement.
Progress-Index

Amid accusations of attempts to stifle public dissent, the Charlottesville City Council approved a resolution that alters several meeting procedures. Chief among the measures is a change to the first-come, first-served policy for public speakers at the start of council meetings to a lottery system. Following the council’s discussion of the changes at the second meeting of its retreat earlier this month, some citizens and one councilor are saying the six-month trial period for the amended procedures will restrict dissent and free speech. Instead of stifling speech, several councilors say the changes will make meetings more efficient and orderly while creating a system that could invite a wider degree of civic participation by changing the current policy and making signing up more accessible. As residents now will be required to request one of those speaking slots by 9 a.m. on the day of a council meeting, the city will publicly disclose who will speak at the meeting by noon. Those who sign up will be assigned a number. Numbers will be drawn by the Clerk of Council via random.org, a website that will randomly generate a number within the range of total sign-ups.
Daily Progress


National Stories
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A newly declassified report by the National Security Agency’s inspector general suggests that the government is receiving far less data from Americans’ international Internet communications than privacy advocates have long suspected. The report, obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, was classified when completed in 2015, and it still contains many redactions. But several uncensored sentences appear to indicate how the system works: They suggest that the government supplies its foreign targets’ “selectors” — like email addresses — to the network companies that operate the Internet, and they sift through the raw data for any messages containing them, turning over only those.
New York Times

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away on Saturday in Texas at the age of 79. In 1982, Scalia, who was a professor of law at the University of Chicago at the time, participated in a U.S. News debate about the Freedom of Information Act, explaining why he favored cutting access to government data. New York Times columnist William Safire would later write that the Q&A segment "focused White House attention on" Scalia, helping him get a federal judgeship and aiding what Safire called Scalia's "meteoric rise to contention for the next High Court vacancy."
Why do you feel that the Freedom of Information Act should be cut back?
The Freedom of Information Act – or, more specifically, the 1974 amendments to the act – came out of an era of exuberant, single-minded pursuit of individual objectives. We are now discovering that such tunnel-vision zeal – whether directed toward the environment or automobile safety or freedom of information – is indulged at excessive cost to other important objectives. It is time to remedy the excesses in the 1974 amendments, while not gutting the law or turning away from the desirable goal of freedom of information.
U.S. News & World Report

The public could have a much clearer picture of money in New Mexico politics if a bill adding open data features to the state’s electronic campaign finance system is successful. The proposal was advanced Monday the Senate Rules Committee. The bill (HB 105), would require candidates to go online to submit information about their fundraising and spending. It would also make it easier for the public to verify information in campaign finance reports by adding cross-referencing features to the state’s electronic campaign finance reporting system.
KRWG

Open government advocates are asking Iowa lawmakers this session to change the law so police are required to release information once a case is closed if it doesn’t endanger a person’s life. Senate Study Bill 3088 also would launch a study of the use, storage, public inspection and confidentiality of body camera video.
The Gazette

Editorials/Columns

Having information out in the open isn’t a bad thing. Maybe there isn’t anything wrong going on in a specific case, but it doesn’t hurt to have that reminder in the back of your head, that any meal, any gift, has to be reported. If we truly want better ethics in government, we need access to more information, not less.
Brian Carlton, News-Virginian