Virginia Coalition for Open Government

Transparency News 12/19/14

Friday, December 19, 2014

 

State and Local Stories

Have you heard about FOIA Machine? It’s an online portal for submitting and tracking FOIA requests. And it’s crowd sourced. What does that mean? If you’re filing a request in state or local government, you can add the contact information for that office and that contact information will be added to the Virginia resources page for others to use in the future. It was originally designed for journalists, but citizens can make use of it, too.
Give it a look: https://www.foiamachine.org

Personal information for about 2,800 current and former James Madison University employees may have been compromised in a hacking incident, the university announced Thursday. As a result, JMU shut down its website Wednesday for data maintenance before bringing it back online at about noon Thursday. According to university spokesman Bill Wyatt, JMU’s Information Technology, law enforcement and private security consultants have been looking into the incident since October, but it’s not clear when the hacking occurred. On Dec. 11, university officials concluded that a file containing personal information of JMU employees was accessed, but Wyatt said he did not know who accessed the file or when.
Daily News Record

Independent John Vihstadt was sworn in for a full four-year term to the Arlington County Board of Supervisors Dec. 17, promising reforms to increase transparency and public participation in large county decisions. “We need to reform our bonding practices and ballot wording,” Vihstadt said, “to ensure that big-ticket spending items are given the sunshine that they deserve and that costs for any county project or initiative are highlighted from the start and not just as an afterthought.”
Sun Gazette

The holiday greeting “Merry Christmas” was a source of contention at the Powhatan County School Board’s recent meeting. Seven county residents spoke during the Dec. 9 meeting in support of a request to put “Merry Christmas” on the marquees in front of Powhatan’s six schools instead of, or in addition to, phrases such as “Happy Holidays” or “Winter Break.” At the Dec. 9 meeting, resident Christopher Smith spoke again and presented a petition he said had 248 signatures of Powhatan residents in support of putting “Merry Christmas” on the marquees and said the list was “growing very rapidly.” “No, we do not have all 28,000 residents’ signatures, but guess what, they are still being signed and a lot of people just don’t know enough about it yet,” he said.
Times-Dispatch

National Stories

The ACLU is supporting news organizations challenging a gag order in an ex-coal executive's criminal case. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia Foundation filed a brief supporting the media's motion. The brief wasn't available under the gag order. Outlets are asking U.S. District Judge Irene Berger to drop or modify the order. It restricts parties or victims from discussing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's case with reporters or releasing court documents. The Associated Press, The Charleston Gazette, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting are involved. Blankenship is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. A 2010 explosion there killed 29 men.
News & Advance

The computer files of more than 40,000 federal workers may have been compromised by a cyberattack at federal contractor KeyPoint Government Solutions, the second breach this year at a major firm handling national security background investigations of workers at federal agencies, the government confirmed Thursday. Concerned that some data might have been exposed, the Office of Personnel Management has begun notifying the workers that their files were in jeopardy. Nathalie Arriola, speaking for the personnel office, said it will offer credit monitoring at no cost to those affected by the breach.
Fox News

Michigan's Supreme Court took a firm stand for the public's right to public information byunanimously affirming that video surveillance tapes obtained by police are fair game under the Freedom of Information Act. In a memorandum signed by all seven justices, the court clarified FOIA's reach includes "pictures, sounds, or combinations thereof." The action was brought by James Amberg, an attorney who was seeking copies of surveillance tapes made by private businesses but held by the Dearborn Police Department. Amberg believed the tapes would aid the case of his client, who faced misdemeanor criminal proceedings. Dearborn police had collected the tapes as evidence to justify issuing a citation. Dearborn initially refused the request, claiming recordings are not public records and thus not subject to FOIA. It later argued that because the tapes were made by private businesses, and not the police, they did not belong to the public. A Wayne Circuit Court judge agreed and the state Court of Appeals upheld that decision.
Detroit News

The Associated Press announced Thursday it will create “a team of state government specialists” in an effort to bolster coverage of statehouses across America: The new team will “be a resource to our statehouse reporters looking for help broadening the scope of their reporting,” Brian Carovillano, AP’s managing editor for U.S. news, wrote in a brief Q and A accompanying the announcement. They will also work with a projects team that will turn out “ambitious enterprise” journalism on state government.
Poynter

The U.S. Department of State has blocked the publication of a long-awaited documentary history of U.S. covert action in Iran in the 1950s out of concern that its release could adversely affect ongoing negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The controversial Iran history volume, part of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, had been slated for release last summer. ("History of 1953 CIA Covert Action in Iran to be Published," Secrecy News, April 16, 2014). But senior State Department officials "decided to delay publication because of ongoing negotiations with Iran," according to the minutes of a September 8, 2014 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation that were posted on the Department of State website this week.
Secrecy News
 

Editorials/Columns

Our wordsmithing was less than clear in our Thursday editorial, when we urged Newport News' city manager to post the capital improvement plan on the city's website. And since we're sticklers for transparency, we must apologetically note the proposed capital plan has been available since October on the city website at http://www.nngov.com/168/Capital-Improvement-Plan. What we meant to say is that we'd like citizens to have access to department heads' original, complete list of capital requests, so that they can see which items were deferred or cut in the proposed capital plan.
Daily Press

And then there was light. An independent counsel’s review of the University of Virginia’s sexual assault policies, practices and procedures will be a public record once complete, Rector George Keith Martin declared Wednesday. That revelation followed days of stonewalling by university officials in response to repeated questions from The Daily Progress about the subject. We viewed this as a fundamental question of transparency at a time when it is sorely needed. When a reporter initially posed the question about whether the finished report would be made public, we thought the answer would be affirmative and automatic. It was anything but. Nonetheless, even if it took him longer than we either expected or preferred, the rector took the correct step Wednesday in settling the matter, and we commend him for it.
Daily Progress