Transparency News 1/26/15
State and Local Stories
He's behind bars in a federal prison a good four-and-a-half hour drive away, but the people former Del. Phil Hamilton feels sorry for these days are members of Virginia's General Assembly, Hamilton is in the middle of a nine-and-a-half-year sentence on federal bribery and extortion charges — crimes he says he did not commit — and believes more Virginia legislators could find themselves in the same jam. "I think all 140 members of the General Assembly are at risk of unknowingly violating the law," he said during a telephone interview from federal prison in New Jersey. The Virginia Way of doing business in Capitol Square could leave them dangling, he said. And Hamilton says it's hard to think of an easy fix.
Daily Press
Virginia taxpayers paid nearly $16,000 to cover the travel expenses for two state troopers who provided security to Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and his family on a personal trip to Africa in December. The tab would have been higher, but the governor and first lady Dorothy McAuliffe picked up $2,500 of the security detail’s expenses. That was a first, according to Virginia State Police, who said that no other governor had ever chipped in to cover those costs. The McAuliffes paid for all of the family’s expenses for the Christmas vacation, which came to widespread public attention this week after the governor was hospitalized for injuries suffered in a horseback-riding accident that occurred when the family was on safari in Tanzania.
Washington Post
African-Americans have been disproportionately killed by police in Virginia as a percentage of their population since 2000, but as a group they have committed a disproportionate number of violent crimes and assaults on officers that could lead to deadly encounters with law enforcement, an analysis of state crime data shows. Police from across the state reported killing 31 blacks over the past 14 years, just one less than the 32 whites that were reported killed in confrontations with officers over the same period, according to reported “justifiable homicides” by Virginia law enforcement officers culled from Virginia State Police uniform crime reports. Data obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act show that 130 people have been reported killed by police in “justifiable homicides” in Virginia dating back to 1990 . Of those, 59 were black, or 45.38 percent, and 70 were white, or 53.8 percent. One was Asian. In the early to mid-1990s, Fairfax police reported four people were killed in encounters with officers, earlier records obtained by The Times-Dispatch show. In response to a FOIA request, Fairfax police provided The Times-Dispatch a list of justifiable killings by its officers from 2007 through 2013. There were 13 such homicides, or nearly two a year, that weren’t reported to state police. Fairfax declined to provide the age, gender and race of the individuals killed and the officers involved, saying such records are exempt from mandatory disclosure under FOIA.
Times-Dispatch
Two bills before the General Assembly would change how Virginia’s public school divisions collect and protect potentially sensitive student information. The Virginia Department of Education and local school boards would be prohibited from requiring a student or parent to provide the student’s Social Security number under House Bill 1307. Instead, the state would develop identification numbers that students would retain throughout their enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools. House Bill 1334 would require the Department of Education to notify parents in the event a school division experiences a security breach or hack that might have compromised any personally identifiable student information in violation of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Daily Progress
Until about noon on Friday, Del. Bob Marshall’s campaign website was still accepting donations from supporters – a violation of a state law that prohibits lawmakers from accepting cash while the General Assembly is still in session. Marshall, R-13th, said he was unaware that the contribution link on his site was still live nine days after the current session began Jan. 14 and blamed the mistake on his son, who he said manages his website and forgot to turn off the contribution tab.
InsideNOVA
Lawyers for Fairfax County have turned over an undisclosed, but presumably large, amount of investigative reports, documents and other materials to the lawyers for the family of John B. Geer, who was shot and killed by a Fairfax police officer in Springfield in August 2013. The release came as part of pre-trial discovery in the Geer family’s civil wrongful death lawsuit against the Fairfax police and was ordered last month by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows, over the strenuous objection of the Fairfax County attorney’s office. The county attorneys argued that the case was still under federal investigation, as it has been since January 2014, and that releasing anything to the Geer family would harm the investigation. Bellows didn’t agree with that. But he did limit the information release to only that produced in the four months from the day of Geer’s shooting to the day that the case was shifted from Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh to the U.S. attorney in Alexandria. Lawyers for Geer’s family requested interviews, transcripts, 911 tapes, reports, any videos or photos and many other items typically found in a police investigative file.
Washington Post
National Stories
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, along with 36 news organizations, filed an amicus brief last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals (6th Cir.) arguing that mugshots taken by the U.S. Marshals Service must be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. The brief argues that not only is there no privacy right implicated by releasing photos of persons who have been arrested, indicted, and appeared in open court, but that there is a powerful interest in ensuring the criminal justice system remains open to the public. The United States government has long attempted to impede public access to mugshots of persons arrested by the Marshals Service. Its central argument has been that disclosure of such photographs violates the privacy rights of the arrestees, and therefore the photographs should be withheld under Exemption 7(C) of FOIA.Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Three key congressional Republicans on Friday called on the head of the Federal Communications Commission to release the exact language of his proposed net neutrality regulations publicly before the agency votes on them next month. In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the lawmakers said the strong interest in new rules for Internet traffic meant members of Congress and average Americans should know exactly what's being proposed before it's enacted. The FCC said it received more than 3.9 million comments from companies, advocacy groups and average Americans last year on Wheeler's initial proposal for regulations to prevent Internet service providers from discriminating against traffic flowing through their networks.
McClatchy
Editorials/Columns
News & Advance
State law requires local governments to advertise public notices in newspapers, and for good reason. In most communities, the newspaper represents the best and most comprehensive destination for important local news and information. As the media landscape fragments, and as more people find news online, that reputation persists. Yet some lawmakers have advocated a repeal of the provision, claiming that local governments should have more control of public notices, including permission to simply post notices in public libraries and on municipal websites. But research has shown that many Virginians, especially in rural locales, are unlikely to visit municipal websites for public notices - or they lack access to the Internet altogether.
Virginian-Pilot
Virginia’s FOIA currently has the following enforcement mechanisms and consequences. Any person who believes there’s been a violation of FOIA (that they’ve been “denied the rights and privileges conferred by [FOIA]”) may bring a lawsuit. If that person “substantially prevails on the merits” in the lawsuit, he/she “shall be entitled to recover reasonable costs, including costs and reasonable fees for expert witnesses, and attorneys’ fees from the public body … unless special circumstances would make an award unjust.” Va. Code § 2.2-3713(D). In addition, if that lawsuit is “against any officer, employee, or member of a public body” and the court “finds that a violation was willfully and knowingly made,” it “shall impose upon such officer, employee, or member in his individual capacity … a civil penalty” of between $500 and $2000 for a first offense, or between $2000 and $5000 for a second offense. Va. Code § 2.2-3714. The penalty is paid to the State Literary Fund, not to the FOIA plaintiff.In theory, FOIA’s existing penalties are pretty good. The problem is that it’s too hard to get there.
Open Virginia Law
