Transparency News 4/16/19

Tuesday
April 16, 2019

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state & local news stories

“This site features data available for search or download, as well as maps that come to life at the click of a mouse.”

The policy banning cameras — hence, cell phones that contain cameras — from the Henry County Courthouse might be modified in coming months. That policy apparently dates to 1996 and specified cameras, and in the past 23 years there has been no update to accommodate for the emerging personal use of cellular smart phones because they include cameras. There are three signs to alert courthouse entrants are posted before you start to empty your pockets. The question about the viability of this policy emerged last month when a man told the Henry County Board of Supervisors that this policy violated his rights. David V. Williams, chief judge of the 21st Judicial Circuit, said he expects that policy will be reviewed after the upcoming  judicial conference. Williams said there are reasons for the policy. “You can’t record things in the courtroom for various reasons …. like divorce, custody, some types of sexual abuse cases,” Williams said. “There’s a ton of personal information in the clerk’s office. Certainly you could go in and write it down, but it makes it a little more difficult to do than if you take a picture of it.”
Martinsville Bulletin

The city of Danville last week announced the launch of a new geographic information website for the public, the Danville Geographic Data Hub. This site features data available for search or download, as well as maps that come to life at the click of a mouse. The Data Hub can assist residents with something as simple as parcel identification, points of interest, or even find where to vote by viewing precincts and polling locations.
Register & Bee

stories of national interest

As part of the 2020 state budget deal, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature agreed on legislation to curb the release of booking photos by police agencies. How those changes to the state’s Freedom of Information Law will play out remains to be seen. “This is just another government overreach, usurping authority from local, elected county officials,” said Orange County Sheriff Carl DuBois, who has no plans at this point to change his office’s police of releasing booking photos, in keeping with the Freedom of Information Law. “Right now, it’s going to be business as usual,” DuBois said.
Times Herald-Record

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a curious case in which no one dared say the word at the heart of the dispute, which was the brand name of a line of clothing that had been denied federal trademark protection. Malcolm L. Stewart, a lawyer for the federal government, had come prepared with an elaborate circumlocution, calling the word “the equivalent of the past participle form of the paradigmatic profane word in our culture.” Erik Brunetti, the owner of the clothing line, has sometimes said that its name, FUCT, stood for “Friends U Can’t Trust.” But the justices seemed persuaded that the term amounted to a vulgarity. An official at the Patent and Trademark Office denied Mr. Brunetti’s application for federal protection for the term under a 1905 federal law that allows the office to refuse to register trademarks that are “immoral, deceptive or scandalous.” The justices seemed equally troubled by the law, which several said was both vague and inconsistently applied, and by the consequences of ruling in Mr. Brunetti’s favor, which some said would encourage the use of swear words and the most charged racial epithets.
The New York Times

Attorney General William Barr is set to release on Thursday morning a redacted version of the report special counsel Robert Mueller submitted at the conclusion of his two-year Russia probe.
Politico

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues specialized debit cards to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits recipients. Although the data that USDA gathers under SNAP are not quite so rich and revealing as those collected by private credit- and debit-card issuers, they do include commercial information about the retail grocery stores at which SNAP recipients purchase their groceries. The Argus Leader newspaper (based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota) requested this data under the Freedom of Information Act to further its investigative reporting into SNAP-related fraud. Its appeal of USDA’s denial of its request landed twice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit before reaching the Supreme Court, where the justices will hear oral argument on April 22.
SCOTUSblog
 

“The owner of the clothing line, has sometimes said that its name, FUCT, stood for ‘Friends U Can’t Trust.’ But the justices seemed persuaded that the term amounted to a vulgarity.”

editorials & columns

“We are firm believers in sunshine in public matters, but this legislation — which seems to be taken from the national teachers union playbook on how to kneecap charter schools — is not designed to benefit the public or help students.”

THE DISTRICT’S charter school sector has been largely untouched as charter school opponents across the country have waged an increasingly relentless campaign against them. That is mainly due to the enormous popularity of the schools that enroll nearly half of the District’s public school students and the effective oversight provided by the Public Charter School Board. Unfortunately, though, there are troubling signs of an effort to undermine the city’s charter schools by imposing requirements that would threaten the independence that is central to their success. The opening volley in this effort is legislation being promoted as a well-meaning effort at transparency and accountability. Sponsored by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), the measure would subject the independent nonprofit charter schools to the open-meetings and Freedom of Information Act requirements that apply to D.C. government entities. We are firm believers in sunshine in public matters, but this legislation — which seems to be taken from the national teachers union playbook on how to kneecap charter schools — is not designed to benefit the public or help students.
The Washington Post

Not having high-speed internet access in 2019 is like not having phone and electrical service 80 years ago. People who don’t have it get left behind. As if the high-handedness of Verizon and Comcast in refusing to reveal who does and doesn’t have broadband isn’t enough, there’s also this: On the bills these companies send every month, there is a thing called the Federal Universal Service Charge, sometimes called the Universal Connectivity Charge. Telecom companies are required by the FCC to contribute to a fund that goes toward offering affordable internet service to underserved areas. This isn’t a huge imposition for the big boys, however, because they just pass the charge on to their customers in the form of the aforementioned Federal Universal Service Charge. So the big internet service providers can’t or won’t get everyone connected, despite the fact that they are forced to contribute to a fund created to do just that. They then tack on a charge to customers’ bills to help pay for it. And when the state asks for their coverage maps in order to try to do what the telecoms aren’t doing, Verizon and Comcast refuse to help. If there are worse corporate citizens out there, we’d like to know who they are.
Free Lance-Star