Transparency News 2/28/17
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
Eighty-five of Virginia’s 140 state lawmakers signed a letter requesting video of committee hearings in the yet-to-be built General Assembly Building. And if possible, they said, committee hearings in the temporary Pocahontas Building should be recorded on video for the public. Lawmakers will use the Pocahontas Building for several sessions while a new building is constructed in place of the existing General Assembly Building, which will be demolished. The letter also requested transparent vote-recording equipment for all committee and subcommittee hearing rooms. The letter was submitted last week to Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar and House Clerk G. Paul Nardo.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The state is broadening its investigation into the Peninsula Airport Commission, which met for two hours behind closed doors Monday to discuss legal issues and the job performance of an unnamed employee. An hour into the meeting, commissioners asked airport Executive Director Ken Spirito and commission attorney Herbert V. Kelly Jr. to leave the room. The commission took no action after the meeting, which also included a legal briefing on the state audit prompted by its use of taxpayer funds to pay off a $4.5 million TowneBank loan to the startup People Express Airlines. That audit is likely to take longer than expected because the commission is not providing documents investigators have requested, in some cases two or three times, and because commission staff have not made themselves available, said Virginia Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne.
Daily Press
Danville has launched a new utility customer web portal with an interactive map that provides real-time information about power outages. The portal – danvilleutilities.com – allows customers to not only search for or report power outages online, but also to track their utility consumption, view their bills and make payments. The new portal is one of two utilities upgrades now in place to improve customer experience. The other upgrade is the use of a hosted interactive voice - response service that will eliminate busy signals when customers report power outages by telephone.
Register & Bee
It didn’t quite breeze through the General Assembly, but a measure to give the treasurer of Arlington (and others in localities across the commonwealth) more flexibility in publishing lists of delinquent taxes has made it to the governor’s desk. The House of Delegates voted 55-41 and the state Senate voted 34-5 in support of legislation patroned by Del. Rip Sullivan (D-48th) that gives treasurers (or local governing bodies, in the absence of a local treasurer) the ability to publish delinquency lists on an as-needed basis, not simply once a year. “The amendment of this bill was mainly one of clarification, and did not change the meaning or intent of the original bill,” Arlington Treasurer Carla de la Pava said. “The passage gives treasurers throughout the commonwealth another tool in their toolbox, and promotes transparency and fairness in the collection of taxes.”
Inside NOVA
An open house at the Loudoun County Courthouse on Feb. 11 highlighted the century of segregation in Virginia that followed the Civil War and the abolishing of slavery. The Clerk of the Circuit Court’s Office displayed records that document the separate and unequal treatment of African Americans in the county during that time. Documents reveal how segregation pervaded all areas of life, including the education, public services and land transactions. Many of the records pertained to the public schools, from the 1883 purchase of land for the Union Street School in Leesburg to the 1959 sale of that and four other properties that had housed schools for African American children. Clerk of the Circuit Court Gary M. Clemens said that the open house was held during Black History Month to increase awareness of the variety of African American historical records his office maintains and makes available to the public. Board of Supervisors records from 1956 show that the County-Wide League advocated for desegregation of the schools when Sterling Harrison, president of the local chapter of a group called the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, submitted a petition in favor of segregation. Harrison was Loudoun’s Commonwealth’s Attorney at that time. “It’s a real treasure that we have these . . . because a lot of court records in Virginia were destroyed during the Civil War, or otherwise have been lost,” Clemens said.
Washington Post
National Stories
Gun owners' rights advocates are free to publish the home addresses and telephone numbers of California state lawmakers who voted for firearms restrictions, a federal judge decided Monday. It is the second time in a week that judges decided that California lawmakers went too far in protecting the private information of public figures. U.S. Chief District Judge Lawrence O'Neill of Fresno issued a preliminary injunction Monday blocking a state law that lets public officials demand that their private information be removed from the internet if they fear for their safety or the safety of their families. O'Neill ruled that the state law is too broad and violates the advocates' free speech rights. Publishing the lawmakers' personal information "is a form of political protest," he said in a 38-page opinion.
Fox News
A Supreme Court argument on Monday about whether North Carolina may bar registered sex offenders from using Facebook, Twitter and similar services turned into a discussion of how thoroughly social media have transformed American civic discourse. The justices’ remarks, which indicated easy familiarity with the major social media services, suggested that they would strike down the North Carolina law under the First Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan said that President Trump, every governor and every member of Congress has a Twitter account. “So this has become a crucially important channel of political communication,” she said. “And a person couldn’t go onto those sites and find out what these members of our government are thinking or saying or doing.”
New York Times
In Voces De La Frontera v. Clarke, 2017 WI 16 (Feb. 24, 2017), a Wisconsin Supreme Court majority (4-2) ruled that the “immigration detainer” requests that the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office received from the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are “statutorily exempt from disclosure” under state public records law. The majority’s decision reversed lower court rulings, including a three-judge appeals court decision that Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. was required to produce unredacted copies of the immigration detainer requests to an immigrant rights group.
State Bar of Wisconsin
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld federal disclosure rules for political advertising, rejecting an appeal by a Denver-based libertarian think tank that wanted to run an ad without being forced to divulge its major donors. The Denver-based Independence Institute sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the law requiring such disclosure violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court's ruling last year in favor of the commission.
Reuters
There is no law that categorically prohibits all leaks of classified (or unclassified) information. Instead, there is a patchwork of statutes that outlaw some unauthorized disclosures under some circumstances. The various statutes that have been used to punish leaks of classified information are surveyed in a new publication from the Congressional Research Service. "Not every leak to the press is a federal crime," CRS notes. Even when a disclosure is a potential crime, the underlying statutes are not self-activating or self-enforcing. Investigators and prosecutors retain considerable discretion about how to proceed.
Secrecy News
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The state is broadening its investigation into the Peninsula Airport Commission, which met for two hours behind closed doors Monday to discuss legal issues and the job performance of an unnamed employee. An hour into the meeting, commissioners asked airport Executive Director Ken Spirito and commission attorney Herbert V. Kelly Jr. to leave the room. The commission took no action after the meeting, which also included a legal briefing on the state audit prompted by its use of taxpayer funds to pay off a $4.5 million TowneBank loan to the startup People Express Airlines. That audit is likely to take longer than expected because the commission is not providing documents investigators have requested, in some cases two or three times, and because commission staff have not made themselves available, said Virginia Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne.
Daily Press
Danville has launched a new utility customer web portal with an interactive map that provides real-time information about power outages. The portal – danvilleutilities.com – allows customers to not only search for or report power outages online, but also to track their utility consumption, view their bills and make payments. The new portal is one of two utilities upgrades now in place to improve customer experience. The other upgrade is the use of a hosted interactive voice - response service that will eliminate busy signals when customers report power outages by telephone.
Register & Bee
It didn’t quite breeze through the General Assembly, but a measure to give the treasurer of Arlington (and others in localities across the commonwealth) more flexibility in publishing lists of delinquent taxes has made it to the governor’s desk. The House of Delegates voted 55-41 and the state Senate voted 34-5 in support of legislation patroned by Del. Rip Sullivan (D-48th) that gives treasurers (or local governing bodies, in the absence of a local treasurer) the ability to publish delinquency lists on an as-needed basis, not simply once a year. “The amendment of this bill was mainly one of clarification, and did not change the meaning or intent of the original bill,” Arlington Treasurer Carla de la Pava said. “The passage gives treasurers throughout the commonwealth another tool in their toolbox, and promotes transparency and fairness in the collection of taxes.”
Inside NOVA
An open house at the Loudoun County Courthouse on Feb. 11 highlighted the century of segregation in Virginia that followed the Civil War and the abolishing of slavery. The Clerk of the Circuit Court’s Office displayed records that document the separate and unequal treatment of African Americans in the county during that time. Documents reveal how segregation pervaded all areas of life, including the education, public services and land transactions. Many of the records pertained to the public schools, from the 1883 purchase of land for the Union Street School in Leesburg to the 1959 sale of that and four other properties that had housed schools for African American children. Clerk of the Circuit Court Gary M. Clemens said that the open house was held during Black History Month to increase awareness of the variety of African American historical records his office maintains and makes available to the public. Board of Supervisors records from 1956 show that the County-Wide League advocated for desegregation of the schools when Sterling Harrison, president of the local chapter of a group called the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, submitted a petition in favor of segregation. Harrison was Loudoun’s Commonwealth’s Attorney at that time. “It’s a real treasure that we have these . . . because a lot of court records in Virginia were destroyed during the Civil War, or otherwise have been lost,” Clemens said.
Washington Post
National Stories
Gun owners' rights advocates are free to publish the home addresses and telephone numbers of California state lawmakers who voted for firearms restrictions, a federal judge decided Monday. It is the second time in a week that judges decided that California lawmakers went too far in protecting the private information of public figures. U.S. Chief District Judge Lawrence O'Neill of Fresno issued a preliminary injunction Monday blocking a state law that lets public officials demand that their private information be removed from the internet if they fear for their safety or the safety of their families. O'Neill ruled that the state law is too broad and violates the advocates' free speech rights. Publishing the lawmakers' personal information "is a form of political protest," he said in a 38-page opinion.
Fox News
A Supreme Court argument on Monday about whether North Carolina may bar registered sex offenders from using Facebook, Twitter and similar services turned into a discussion of how thoroughly social media have transformed American civic discourse. The justices’ remarks, which indicated easy familiarity with the major social media services, suggested that they would strike down the North Carolina law under the First Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan said that President Trump, every governor and every member of Congress has a Twitter account. “So this has become a crucially important channel of political communication,” she said. “And a person couldn’t go onto those sites and find out what these members of our government are thinking or saying or doing.”
New York Times
In Voces De La Frontera v. Clarke, 2017 WI 16 (Feb. 24, 2017), a Wisconsin Supreme Court majority (4-2) ruled that the “immigration detainer” requests that the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office received from the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are “statutorily exempt from disclosure” under state public records law. The majority’s decision reversed lower court rulings, including a three-judge appeals court decision that Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. was required to produce unredacted copies of the immigration detainer requests to an immigrant rights group.
State Bar of Wisconsin
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld federal disclosure rules for political advertising, rejecting an appeal by a Denver-based libertarian think tank that wanted to run an ad without being forced to divulge its major donors. The Denver-based Independence Institute sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the law requiring such disclosure violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court's ruling last year in favor of the commission.
Reuters
There is no law that categorically prohibits all leaks of classified (or unclassified) information. Instead, there is a patchwork of statutes that outlaw some unauthorized disclosures under some circumstances. The various statutes that have been used to punish leaks of classified information are surveyed in a new publication from the Congressional Research Service. "Not every leak to the press is a federal crime," CRS notes. Even when a disclosure is a potential crime, the underlying statutes are not self-activating or self-enforcing. Investigators and prosecutors retain considerable discretion about how to proceed.
Secrecy News
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