Transparency News 2/4/14

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and wife Maureen were givenstrict orders Monday not to discuss anything “substantive” about their upcoming trial on corruption charges with potential witnesses, including family and close friends. Magistrate Judge David J. Novak reminded the former first couple multiple times that the punishment for breaking those rules could be jail time. “If you do that, the government is going to find out,” Novak said.
Free Lance-Star

Federal prosecutors pursuing a corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife said Monday theyshould not have to turn over grand jury instructions, casting defense attorneys’ effort to obtain the materials as something of a publicity stunt. In a strongly-worded filing, prosecutors wrote that such proceedings are secret and that the defense used its request, which asserts the couple’s innocence, “to castigate the Government on the day the grand jury returned the Indictment, all without so much as articulating the legal standard for the relief they purport to seek.”
Washington Post

The city of Richmond’s director of public works is on leave until mid-February, but city officials will give no explanation for his absence. James Jackson, who was hired in February 2011 to oversee the Department of Public Works, is out of the office until Feb. 17, department spokeswoman Sharon North said Monday in an email, adding that Jackson is still a city employee.
Times-Dispatch

A majority of Virginians support ethics reform and expanding Medicaid, a new poll from Christopher Newport University shows. The poll found 73 percent of Virginians surveyed want an ethics advisory commission and 63 percent favor a $250 cap on gifts.
Daily Press

Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Louisa County, saw a bill defeated Monday on a mostly party-line vote that he didn’t think was a coincidence. Garrett’s Senate Bill 121 would have prohibited government officers and employees from using their jobs to retaliate when they disagree with someone who expresses “views on matters of public concern.” Members of the Senate Courts Committee, who may have remembered some of Garrett’s comments last summer when he actively supported Ken Cuccinelli’s Republican campaign for governor, sent the bill down on an 8-5 vote.
News & Advance

Personal information of hundreds of Fairfax County public school students was mistakenly posted on the school system’s Web site, exposing their student identification numbers, birth dates, home addresses and phone numbers in what parents described as a breach of privacy. The data, for 685 students who participated in a county arts enrichment program in July, was posted in a single document listed as “Sample Schedule” on the summer program’s Web site. A parent who discovered the document last week told The Washington Post about it Friday. The document was removed from the Web site Saturday morning, according to county school officials.
Washington Post

National Stories

Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google on Monday began publishing details about the number of secret government requests for data they receive, hoping to show limited involvement in controversial surveillance efforts. The tech industry has pushed for greater transparency on government data requests, seeking to shake off concerns about their involvement in vast, surreptitious surveillance programs revealed last summer by former spy contractor Edward Snowden.
Reuters

Court hearings involving children whose parents are accused of neglect or abuse would be open to the public under a bill headed for a hearing Tuesday. Family Court cases in Hawaii, as in most states, are closed to protect the confidentiality of the children involved and to avoid stigmatizing them. But a growing number of states have opened them to the public while giving individual judges discretion to close hearings if it would be in the best interest of the child and the community.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
 

Editorials/Columns

Times-Dispatch: Henrico has a reputation as one of the best-run counties in Virginia, if not the nation. But the county is putting that reputation at risk through its truculent refusal to open up its court records, as every other locality in the state has done. The county’s Circuit Court Clerk, Yvonne Smith, has offered no reason for the refusal to join the rest of the state in taking this basic good-government step. That’s likely because no good reason exists. The courts are public bodies, paid for by taxpayers, and they ought to be subject to public review. Chesterfield had been the other holdout. Its records will go online soon thanks to a request from Circuit Court Clerk Judy Worthington. Worthington is willing to make criminal, but not civil, court records accessible on the Internet. The distinction is questionable, but at least Worthington makes a coherent case for it: Individuals caught up in personal disputes deserve more privacy than those who break the public law.