Transparency News 3/11/15

A panel of experts assembled to offer advice on transparency issues in Tennessee is not subject to the state's open meetings law. At least that's the opinion of Ann Butterworth, who heads the Comptroller's Office of Open Records Counsel. She made the finding in response to an email activist Ken Jakes requested for more information about a recent teleconference held by the 14-member Tennessee Advisory Committee on Open Government. "Is that not ironic that the very office that holds the responsibility of seeing that the citizens have access is involved in blocking access?" Jakes said. Jakes wanted to know more about the school board association's representative on the panel urging support of legislation seeking to allow agencies to charge for records searches taking longer than an hour. Current law allows charges for copies, but not for the time spent collecting and redacting documents. Butterworth said the panel doesn't fall under open meetings laws because it "is not a governing body."
Times Free Press

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered copies of 55,000 pages of emails from her personal email system to the State Department in printed form in "quite a few boxes," State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in her March 9 press briefing. This small detail in the larger story points to one of a problematic issue in records management – the use of the "print-to-file" methodology of records capture. Printed emails aren't searchable and don't retain all of the associated metadata. They also aren't necessarily threaded or nested in a way that gives a chronological account of an ongoing email exchange. These factors make printed emails difficult for archivists to use. The Obama administration sought to fix this print-to-file problem in 2012 with a policy requiring that all email records be retained in electronic format by the end of 2016. This update, while it occurred before the end of Clinton's tenure as secretary of State, did not apply to her emails.
FCW

Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday she should have used a government email account as U.S. secretary of state, though she said she violated no rules, in her first public remarks over a controversy that could cloud her expected bid for the White House. Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has come under fire for using a private email account for official business when she was the top U.S. diplomat because of concerns that she hid important facts about her tenure and put her correspondence at a security risk. "I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two," Clinton said at a press conference at the United Nations in New York. "Looking back, it would've been better if I'd simply used a second email account and carried a second phone."
Reuters

The House Select Committee on Benghazi is going to seek private emails from as many as 10 of Hillary Clinton's top lieutenants at the State Department, CNN has learned. During her press conference on Tuesday, the former secretary of state said she was turning over emails that had to do with official business, but House Republican investigators contend some of that business may have been conducted on private-to-private email accounts and therefore not captured elsewhere. "That's great when you email other people on the .gov it would be captured by the .gov server, but if you're talking to people private to private that will never be captured," Rep. Trey Gowdy, the committee chairman, told CNN on Tuesday. "We are going to seek any private email that relates to official business, and I don't care about wedding cakes, but any work that could have been done on private-to-private accounts for those State Department employees we know had private accounts," the South Carolina Republican said.
CNN

With the State Department's handling of Freedom of Information Act requests suddenly in the spotlight due to the flap over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email account, a watchdog group has ranked the agency dead last among 15 agencies which receive a large volume of public records requests. Openness advocates at the Center for Effective Government gave the State Department an 'F' grade and 37 percent rating for its handling of FOIA requests. The diplomacy-focused agency came in just behind the Department of Health and Human Services, which also received an 'F,' but with a slightly better numerical score of 57 percent. The State Department was "dead last in both processing the requests which is the biggest piece of our scorecard. And they also had the worst regulations, old, outdated and insufficient regulation," the center's Sean Moulton said. "In terms of processing, I would say they are abysmal in their timeliness."
Politico

The Supreme Court of South Carolina has dissolved a prior restraint against a small-town newspaper reporter covering the ongoing legal battle for the estate of singer James Brown. The reporter, Sue Summer, had received an anonymous package containing the diary of Tommie Rae Hynie Brown, who was recently recognized by a South Carolina court as the widow of James Brown. The diary, which was filed under seal with the court, contained passages that seemed to imply that Ms. Brown was not, in fact, married to Mr. Brown. Summer posted some passages from the diary on a Facebook page, until Judge Doyet Early III granted Ms. Brown’s motion for a temporary restraining order against Summer. Judge Early wrote that Ms. Brown “may suffer irreparable harm” if Summer was not restrained from publishing. The court ordered Summer not to disseminate or publish “the contents of any diary or document belonging to Mrs. Tommie Rae Brown or any portion thereof.” Summer’s lawyers appealed the order and sought additional relief directly from the Supreme Court of South Carolina.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

The Wikimedia Foundation announced Tuesday that it is suing the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice, challenging the NSA’s mass surveillance programs. “We’re filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, in a statement on Wikimedia’s blog. “Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, names NSA Director Mike S. Rogers, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as their respective offices. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing Wikimedia in the lawsuit, along with eight other organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, Global Fund for Women, The Nation magazine, The Rutherford Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Pen American Center and the Washington Office on Latin America.
Politico

Editorials/Columns

In the earliest days of the American republic, Virginia mounted the most rigorous and vocal defense of individual liberty and personal privacy. Such provisions are prominent in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and it was Virginians who authored and advocated for the protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Today, Virginia betrays its historic defense of those noble principles. It is a place where Hampton Roads law enforcement collects and shares mountains of cellphone data without warrants, and where government officials use license plate readers and high-definition cameras to track citizens' movements from the mountains to the coast. This year, the General Assembly made some strides toward restoring its reputation as a place that respects personal privacy. Several bills which will help rebalance the scales in favor of individual liberty now await the governor's signature. But lawmakers balked at several other needed measures that would allow Virginia residents to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects as the founders intended. The commonwealth once led the way on this issue. So it should again.
Daily Press

Could Hillary Rodham Clinton get away with using a private email account if she were a public official in Virginia? She wouldn’t have to bother. As a recent article in The Daily Progress pointed out, Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act exempts from public disclosure the “working papers” of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, city and county leaders and the heads of public colleges. “Working papers” include records prepared “by or for” such individuals for their “deliberative use.” That covers emails, too. When reporters asked to see U.Va. emails in the wake of the Rolling Stone scandal, they were able to obtain those from rectors, board members and other administrators. But not from president Teresa Sullivan. Citing Virginia’s FOIA exemption, she refused. Clinton has lamely tweeted her desire that the State Department release her emails for all the world to see. Sullivan, who prefers to tweet about U.Va. sports, hasn’t even gone that far.
Times-Dispatch

To all the members of Congress complaining about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address while Secretary of State, here’s an idea: pass a law so it can never happen again. Whether you’re a Republican in Congress trying to capitalize on the controversy, or a Democrat trying to put an end to it, why not quickly vote on robust Freedom of Information Act reform in both the House and the Senate?
Trevor Timm, The Guardian

What's a guy got to do to get noticed in Norfolk? Charter a private plane and take the mayor for a ride? Sheriff Bob McCabe said all he hoped to do in early December was put the city's 53-year-old jail on the city of Norfolk's "radar." He wanted to tell the officials responsible for approving the city budget that the jail – which floods every 10 days or so – needs some critical attention. According to a story in Tuesday's Pilot, the sheriff emailed City Manager Marcus Jones in December to schedule a time for him to address the City Council to outline the problems. Three months later, Jones still hadn't complied with the simple request. Gee, I wonder if the city manager treats developers like this?
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot

When government makes decisions, large and small, it should be done in front of the public. That's a simple, straightforward and reasonable expectation — but one that we see ignored time and again in Loudoun County and throughout the commonwealth. Private meetings to discuss how taxpayers’ money is spent. Straw votes behind closed doors. Private dealings with or about developers. Limitations on public input at hearings. Proceedings to keep citizens at a distance. These are the ways our elected officials believe they best represent your interests. As we’ve come to know, public officials don’t have to listen to us. Nor do they think they have to conduct all the people’s business in public. In Virginia, governmental bodies can find an exception to openness for, well, just about any situation. If ever you wondered why Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is so important, it really couldn't be clearer. Local decisions about land use, transportation, the economy, public policy, public safety and the ethics of public officials are important to residents. They impact every part of their lives, including taxes and costs. The intention of FOIA is to prevent elected officials from making decisions behind closed doors, only to dress them up in public. Citizens ought to be able to pull back the curtain and see the naked truth.
Loudoun Times-Mirror