Transparency News, 12/13/21

            

A review by the Richmond Times-Dispatch found that the state agency that recommended other agencies no longer release individual state employee spending did so at the request of Bank of America, the state's credit card vendor. The advice directly contradicts the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, which says the public cannot be denied access to records of any government employee's allowances or reimbursements for expenses. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit that encourages access to public meetings and records, said that to prevent abuse of public money, it's important for the public to be able to know which individuals in government spent what. “How the government is spending taxpayer money is kind of the most basic window into government operations, and the most basic element of accountability," she said. "Because expenditures reflect budgeting and priorities, and we as citizens are always going to be interested in and have an interest in knowing if those priorities still align with our own so that we can make a decision whether or not this is how we want to be governed.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
 

The New York Police Department’s use of a controversial Virginia-based tech company for criminal investigations remains in effect more than a year after City Hall announced the arrangement was terminated. The privately-owned Parabon NanoLabs uses DNA samples to create “virtual mugshots” of crime suspects using “Snapshot DNA Phenotyping,” with criminal defense advocates questioning its reliability. Mayor de Blasio’s office, in a statement late Wednesday, confirmed the NYPD maintained a relationship with the company despite an announcement in September 2020 that the police would not be working with Parabon and had “no plans to do so.” The NYPD issued a statement saying the department would use the technology “responsibly and transparently.” NYPD Deputy Chief Emanuel Katranakis, head of the Forensic Investigations Division, extolled the virtues of investigative genetic genealogy last week, saying the technique has proved vital when cracking cold cases. Terri Rosenblatt, head of the city's Legal Aid Society’s DNA unit, questioned the state’s certification process, which seemingly paved the way for the NYPD to dodge City Hall’s directive. “If you are a private lab, you are subject to less transparent scrutiny than a public lab,” said Rosenblatt. “DOH reviewed whatever they reviewed from Parabon. They have not been transparent. It’s unsettling.”
Governing

It was a gift of “inestimable value” from “one of the most important legal figures of this century,” proclaimed William & Mary College President Timothy Sullivan. A unique “collection of a lifetime,” added William & Mary University Library Dean Nancy Marshall, which now placed William & Mary “among a select group of research libraries which have been the recipients of major manuscript collections.” And what was this rare gift? It was the donation of the Chief Justice Warren Burger’s personal papers to William & Mary, 600 boxes and 2 million documents in total. When the Burger family donated the papers, they stipulated that the collection would not be shared with the public until 10 years after the death of the last Supreme Court justice with whom the late chief justice served. That last justice is Sandra Day O’Connor, who is 91 years old and living in an Arizona nursing home. This stipulation means that the earliest the papers can be open is the fall of 2031, more than three decades after William & Mary received the documents. Until then, the only person who can access the papers is Burger’s authorized biographer, who has yet to publish anything about the late chief justice. I urge William & Mary to reach out to the Burger family and ask them to reconsider the restrictions placed on the personal papers. 
Todd C. Peppers, The Virginian-Pilot

When it comes to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense doesn’t appear to want the public to know what it already has shared. In addition to recently purging its websites of most content about Afghanistan published before 2014 — think photos, videos and press releases — DOD’s Freedom of Information Act process also routinely uses a loophole to slow requests. That seems to be the case for our requests for once publicly available information regarding Afghanistan. In October, the Express-News Editorial Board made separate FOIA requests for everything purged from DOD websites, the reasoning for veiling this information, file management plans, media response info and a specific press release from 2005. We received interim response form letters within days but have heard nothing since.
San Antonio Express