Transparency News 3/24/15

 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015  

State and Local Stories


The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine WDBJ (Channel 7) in Roanoke $325,000 for showing sexually explicit material in a 2012 newscast. It is the largest penalty the FCC has ever levied for a single indecent broadcast at a station. The FCC announced its ruling Monday after an investigation that stemmed from a WDBJ news story about a former adult film star who had joined a local volunteer rescue squad. During the report, which aired on WDBJ’s 6 p.m. newscast on July 12, 2012, the station showed an image of a sexually explicit video taken from a website, the FCC said in a news release. The FCC determined that WDBJ violated federal law by airing “indecent programming from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience,” according to its statement.
Roanoke Times

Following our investigative series about a bizarre government lending program, the Small Business Administration threatened Watchdog.org with Department of Justice legal action — for misuse of the SBA logo. “By federal law, the official seal of a federal agency cannot be used in a news publication, online or in print. Neither can our SBA logo be replicated,” June Teasley, the SBA’s communications director in Kansas City, Missouri, said Thursday in an email to Watchdog.org. “Please remove the seal from your website. This happens frequently enough that we usually just email when an infraction is noticed, rather than turning cases over to the Department of Justice. Most offending companies comply.” Watchdog.org reporters have revealed that so-called small-business loans in several states – including Vermont, Mississippi, Virginia, Wisconsin – went to large financial institutions, luxury golf courses and major hotel chains, and that all were hidden from public inspection.
Watchdog.org

The county attorney for Amherst County has warned Sweet Briar College to ensure its endowment is properly spent and to preserve all documents as the potential for legal action looms over the planned shutdown of the campus.
Times-Dispatch

On Nov. 20, the day after Rolling Stone published an account filled with allegations so lurid they ignited a national controversy, a college woman’s phone rang. It was the Charlottesville police calling. They wanted to talk to an allegedly traumatized woman named “Jackie.” The University of Virginia student agreed to discuss her story that multiple Phi Kappa Psi frat brothers raped her. But two weeks later, she clammed up, declining through a lawyer to answer any questions. That was the last time the cops had any real contact with Jackie. So for the next five months, they did their investigation the hard way, checking bank accounts, phone records and photographs. It ultimately produced a report that methodically challenged every one of Jackie’s allegations, providing the first official undermining of the contested article. It would likely play a significant role in any potential litigation brought by Phi Kappa Psi against Rolling Stone or the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely. A lawsuit appears to be under consideration. “Phi Kappa Psi is now exploring its legal options to address the extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone — damage both to the chapter and its members and to the very cause upon which the magazine was focused,” the chapter said in a statement, calling the article “defamatory.” Protesters in front of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia last November.  Indeed, the chapter, if not the wider campus, was wrongly made the focus of a heated national debate on the issue of campus rape and whether schools are doing enough to combat it. Some on the University of Virginia faculty are already calling for a lawsuit.
Washington Post

A $15 million federal lawsuit filed Monday claims the Sussex County sheriff and a top lieutenant oversaw an illegal cash payment scheme for off-duty deputies and forced a local bar to close because it planned to allow 18- to 20-year-olds inside against the sheriff’s wishes. The lawsuit, filed by Trump Tight LLC on behalf of the bar’s owner, claims that Sheriff Raymond R. Bell and Lt. Vincent B. Givens required the business to hire deputies for security and make all payments in cash after it opened in October 2013. Then, on July 12, 2014, deputies at the entrance of the club refused to allow anyone younger than 21 inside the bar, known as the Trump Restaurant and Lounge. Bell threatened that night to make calls to have the bar’s alcoholic beverage license revoked and to have its lease terminated before showing up and overseeing deputies in clearing every customer from the bar, which never reopened. The move exceeded Bell’s authority as sheriff, the suit claims. Bell, in a brief call Monday, said the allegations against him are untrue and that he had no other comment. Givens could not be reached Monday for comment.
Times-Dispatch


National Stories
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The Society of Professional Journalists and the National Freedom of Information Coalition are joining forces – and legal war chests –  to help citizens and journalists fight for public records. The two groups will band together to help litigants who sue for access to government information. The NFOIC can provide court fees and SPJ help for attorney fees. Both organizations also will use their combined national networks of journalists and citizens to apply public pressure to government agencies that flaunt the law. “This is such an exciting collaborative project, one that will lend significant weight to our collective efforts in preserving our right of government oversight and accountability,” said Barbara Petersen, NFOIC president.  “I’m honored to be part of it.”
NFOIC

Liberals used to love the First Amendment. But that was in an era when courts used it mostly to protect powerless people like civil rights activists and war protesters. These days, a provocative new study says, there has been a “corporate takeover of the First Amendment.” The assertion is backed by data, and it comes from an unlikely source: John C. Coates IV, who teaches business law at Harvard and used to be a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the prominent corporate law firm. “Corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment,” Professor Coates wrote. The trend, he added, is “recent but accelerating.” Professor Coates’s study was only partly concerned with the Supreme Court’s recent decisions amplifying the role of money in politics. “It’s not just Citizens United,” he said in an interview, referring to the 2010 decision that allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations in elections. His study, he said, analyzed First Amendment challenges from businesses to an array of economic regulations.
New York Times

Two lawsuits were filed against the Federal Communication Commission’s new rules for broadband Internet service, the beginning of what is expected to be a flurry of legal challenges to the new regulations. The United States Telecom Association, a trade group that represents some of the nation’s largest Internet providers, filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On the same day, Alamo Broadband, a small broadband provider based in Texas, sued in federal court in New Orleans.
New York Times

During five days of testimony in a federal civil rights case, jurors heard testimony about the fear of leaks that permeated Philadelphia School District headquarters when Arlene C. Ackerman was superintendent. Current and former administrators lamented that almost as soon as they left cabinet meetings, reporters would call with questions about what was discussed. The campaign to plug the leaks intensified after The Inquirer published a Nov. 28, 2010, article reporting that Ackerman had steered a $7.5 million no-bid contract for surveillance cameras to a small minority firm that had not been 
Governing

Nazis, jihadis, racial slurs and even "Mighty Fine Burgers" all made cameo appearances at the U.S. Supreme Court Monday as the justices tackled a case of great interest to America's auto-loving public. The question before the court: When, if ever, can the state veto the message on a specialty license plate? Texas, like many other states, makes millions of dollars by issuing these specialty car tags for a fee. The state, over time, has issued 480 such plates and rejected 12. The plate at the center of Monday's case was proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and featured a Confederate battle flag. The state motor vehicle board rejected the design, finding that the flag was offensive to a "significant portion" of the public. The Confederate Veterans group sued, contending its free speech rights were being violated.
NPR

A New Jersey student’s tweet about a question on new Common Core tests was deleted after it was flagged by a testing company, spurring a national debate about how to balance children’s privacy with test security in the age of social media. Many parents and Common Core critics accused Pearson, the publisher of the new exams, of spying on the nation’s children. But for Pearson and other major test publishers — including ACT and SAT, which administer college entrance exams — watching public conversations on the Web has become a fundamental part of combating cheating and ensuring fairness. “Sharing images of test questions on social media is the 2015 equivalent of a student copying test items and handing them out,” said David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for PARCC, whose new Common Core tests are being administered for the first time this year in the District, Maryland and 10 other states. “Protecting students and teachers from breaches — which are a violation of testing policies — is the right thing to do.”
Washington Post

U.S. intelligence agencies in June will stop bulk collection of data on calls by U.S. telephone subscribers, unless Congress extends a law authorizing the spying, U.S. officials said on Monday. The disclosure that the National Security Agency was collecting metadata generated by domestic telephone users was one of the most controversial revelations made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden nearly two years ago. A spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council said abandoning the mass collection of domestic telephone data would deprive the country of a "critical national security tool."
Reuters

Amid increased scrutiny over police-involved shootings across the country, Arizona lawmakers are poised to pass a bill that would keep secret the names of officers who use deadly force for 60 days. Critics call Senate Bill 1445 an attack on government transparency at a time when American police departments are trying to earn the public's trust after a series of controversial shootings. The bill would prevent law enforcement agencies statewide from releasing the names of police officers "involved in a use of deadly physical force incident that results in death or serious physical injury" for 60 days. This includes when the officer is killed; the next of kin or department can agree to release the name earlier in those cases. An officer's disciplinary history could also be released, but identifying information would be redacted. The name would also be released if an officer is charged.
NBC News

The State Department is facing new questions -- from the National Archives, as well as the union representing America's diplomats -- in connection with Hillary Clinton's exclusive use of personal email while secretary of state.  A senior official with the National Archives and Records Administration wrote to the department earlier this month seeking an explanation of how emails were managed during Clinton's tenure, and even before.  Citing recent news reports, Chief Records Officer Paul Wester, Jr., wrote: "NARA is concerned that Federal records may have been alienated from the Department of State's official recordkeeping systems."  He asked for an explanation, within 30 days, of what steps they've taken to retrieve such records. 
Fox News


Editorials/Columns

Last week, we addressed the problem of the Social Security Administration’s failure to maintain proper records in which some 6.5 million people who would be at least 112 years old are still listed as living. That is impossible: Only 42 people worldwide are known to be that old. The danger is not that SSA is paying out benefits to all those millions; it’s that their Social Security numbers are still active and can be used fraudulently. But what of the opposite problem — when the Social Security Administration declares someone dead who is in fact very much alive?
Daily Progress

We have reached the end of Sunshine Week. This annual observance was first created 10 years ago by the American Society of News Editors in commemoration of James Madison's birthday. Americans are invited this week to celebrate, reflect upon and act in support of openness and transparency in government. Unfortunately, though, there is precious little to celebrate this year. Despite laws requiring transparency and better tools for providing it (including the Internet) than at any time in history, government has been getting more opaque.
Washington Examiner