Transparency News 5/15/18

Tuesday
May 15, 2018

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state & local news stories

A new mobile application allows users to access four centuries of Virginia history. The 2019 Commemoration's Virginia History Trails app includes 20 themed trails and 400 detailed site descriptions that address what happened, who was involved and why each site is important to Virginia and American history. Users can immerse themselves in a themed trail that winds across the state or use the app's GPS feature to find nearby historical sites.
The News & Advance

stories of national interest

Expressing sympathy for her plight, a federal judge nevertheless turned down a request by the National Rifle Association to keep the identity of a 19-year-old Alachua County woman secret in a challenge to a state law that raised from 18 to 21 the minimum age to purchase rifles and other long guns. Lawyers for the NRA late last month asked U.S. District Judge Mark Walker to keep the identity of "Jane Doe" secret, based in large part on a declaration filed by the gun-rights group's Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer, who detailed threatening emails she had received featuring derogatory words for parts of the female anatomy. "If it were entirely up to this court, this court would not hesitate to grant the NRA's motion. One need only look to the harassment suffered by some of the Parkland shooting survivors to appreciate the vitriol that has infected public discourse about the Second Amendment. And this court has no doubt that the harassment goes both ways; Ms. Hammer's affidavit proves just that," wrote Walker. But based on precedent, "this court finds that mere evidence of threats and harassment made online is insufficient to outweigh the customary and constitutionally-embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings," Walker wrote. "This is especially true where the targets of such threats and harassment are not minors and where the subject at issue does not involve matters of utmost intimacy."
Tampa Bay Times

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point was among the victims of a computer hacker who was arrested in California on Thursday. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Billy Ribeiro Anderson 41, of Torrance, Cal., used special computer skills and knowledge to hack important U.S. military and government Web sites and more than 11,000 other Web sites around the world. The New York City Comptroller's Office also was among the victims.
Governing

"Mere evidence of threats and harassment made online is insufficient to outweigh the customary and constitutionally-embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings."

editorials & columns

"Thanks for coming to town, Sen. Warner. But next time, don’t close to door to the public."

We have some praise and some criticism for U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D.-Va., in connection with his May 4 visit to Abingdon for an economic roundtable at the Washington County Government Center. The praise comes for his initiative to travel to Southwest Virginia to meet with dozens of local business and government leaders to discuss, among other things, life after coal in the Mountain Empire, and ways we can create jobs and rebuild the economy. What we didn’t like was what came right after the meeting with the local business and government leaders: Warner held a closed-door session with judges from local drug courts to discuss the opioid crisis, according to the Herald Courier report. There was absolutely no reason that meeting should have been held in private. As the senator rightly pointed out, those judges are on the front lines, and what they do in response to this monumental crisis in our communities most likely will go a long way toward helping eliminate the problem. Thanks for coming to town, Sen. Warner. But next time, don’t close to door to the public on what might well have been the most important part of your visit.
Bristol Herald Courier