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“Who loves FOIA? Everyone should love FOIA.”
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In a victory for privacy advocates, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled Thursday that a lawsuit challenging a Northern Virginia police department’s practice of keeping data from automated license plate readers for a year can move forward. Last year, a judge dismissed a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Fairfax County, ruling that a license plate doesn’t contain personal information. But the state’s highest court reversed that ruling and sent the case back down to circuit court to determine whether the record-keeping process provides police with a “readily made” link to the vehicle’s owner. The court said if that link exists, then storage of the data is not exempt from Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act because the police “collected and retained personal information without any suspicion of criminal activity.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Danville Register & Bee obtained copies of communications between city officials, including emails and text messages, in the hours following the shooting. Police shot an unarmed Jones shortly after 1 a.m. at a wooded area along Sunset Drive following a call from a woman complaining of a domestic assault at a North Main Street business. Police body-camera video shows officers firing at Jones as he abruptly whirls toward them with arms outstretched by his chest. Discussion in the officials’ messages involve the atmosphere at SOVAH Health-Danville where Jones was transported, use of grammar as a news release on the shooting was being prepared and reasons for releasing the police body-worn camera video of the shooting.
Register & Bee
Interlacing true horror stories of elected officials violating the Virginia Freedom of Information Act the head of the state’s FOIA council presented the facts to Rappahannock County officials Wednesday afternoon. Alan Gernhardt, the executive director and senior attorney for the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council presented a nearly four-hour discussion on how officials can stay out of trouble. “Think how you would feel as a regular citizen,” Gernhardt told all five members of the county’s board of supervisors along with members of the planning commission and board of zoning appeals, constitutional officers, the school board and the county administrator, school superintendent and mayor of the town. “[Thomas] Jefferson wrote “Government by consent of the government,” and [Abraham] Lincoln talked of “Government of the people,” Gernhardt said before asking the crowd “Who loves FOIA?” He noted some in the audience didn’t raise their hands and added “Everyone should love FOIA.”
Culpeper Star-Exponent
Two years ago, Montgomery County supervisors cut $21,770 from Circuit Court Clerk Erica Conner’s annual pay. Now the county has been ordered to pay $22,993.36 to cover her legal bills from a removal petition fight that reached the Virginia Supreme Court earlier this year. Conner, whose last name was Williams when the removal fracas began, offered no comment on the order this week. Her attorney, Jennifer Royer of Roanoke, noted in an email that Virginia law obligates a locality to pay defense costs for an elected official who defeats a removal effort.
The Roanoke Times
The law library at the University of Virginia has changed its access policy after two appearances from the main organizer of last summer's white nationalist rally and the arrest of a protester. The Daily Progress reports law students, faculty and staff must now present university identification to gain access to the library. Anyone without identification won't be able to enter during the school's exam period.
The Daily Progress
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