A private company that sells surveillance technology to law enforcement is telling police departments that they are being targeted and attacked by transparency groups that request public records. Vigilant Solutions, the country’s largest vendor of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), has accused the non-profit groups Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Muckrock of running a campaign in order to evoke fear (and ultimately donations), in a letter sent to law enforcement agencies across the country.
Motherboard
After an Upstate (South Carolina) solicitor directed authorities to withhold names of officers involved in shootings — unless they’re criminally charged — law enforcement officials and prosecutors in the Lowcountry say they have no plans to adopt such restrictions. The decision by 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins to protect officers’ identities is among his guidelines for how law enforcement in Greenville and Pickens counties handle officer-involved shootings, The Greenville News reported this week. Police deserve the same rights to privacy as regular citizens, he reasoned, saying officers have been threatened after their names were released. In the greater Charleston area, where agencies typically release names of officers within a few days of a shooting, authorities questioned whether such a policy would hold up under the state’s open records laws designed to give citizens access to public information. At a time when officer-involved shootings and excessive force complaints are being scrutinized across the nation, Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon said he expected Wilkins’ policy to be looked at “under a microscope.” “I appreciate the position he’s taken, but I think the final analysis probably turns on the question of what the Freedom of Information Act says on this issue,” said Cannon, who added that his office addresses what information to release on a case-by-case basis.
The Post and Courier
In December, the day before the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal its net neutrality rules, the agency’s chairman, Ajit Pai, appeared in a video for conservative news website The Daily Caller. The video was a riff on the “Harlem Shake” videos that had become popular on the internet, and showed Pai downplaying the impact that undoing net neutrality rules would have on the internet and people’s’ lives. The origins of the video, however, weren’t entirely clear. Whose idea was it? Who wrote the script? Did the other FCC commissioners know about it? So Muckrock, a nonprofit organization that helps request and analyze government documents, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC four months ago for agency emails about the video, a request that would seem relatively innocuous. The request was denied this week. The organization is now appealing the denial and considering a lawsuit.
NBC News
The New York Post has settled a landmark lawsuit charging that the city Department of Education routinely violated the state Freedom of Information Law. Under the settlement, the DOE not only turned over public records it had withheld for up to 20 months, but agreed to reform what The Post called a “pattern and practice” of endless delays and stonewalling. After lengthy negotiations with Post lawyers, the DOE agreed to revise its FOIL rules to halt the indefinite postponements — and stick to reasonable deadlines. New guidelines were approved in November.
New York Post
Citing a growing threat that terrorists will use drones for surveillance or as weapons, the Trump administration is asking Congress to give the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice the power to track, reroute or destroy the devices, according to a copy of the legislative proposal obtained by The Washington Post. The legislation would free safety and security officials from those agencies, and their contractors, from laws against intercepting electronic communications that officials say have hamstrung their ability to protect sensitive facilities from increasingly cheap and powerful unmanned aircraft, which already number in the millions. It would also give wide discretion to those working for the government, outside observers said. The full picture of which facilities would fall under the new authorities remains unclear. Those facilities would be subject to what the proposed legislation calls a “risk-based assessment” as well as regulations and guidance that would be shielded from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Washington Post
“He said that some parts would not be a risk to release because they have already been made public.”
“…accused the non-profit groups of running a campaign in order to evoke fear (and ultimately donations).”
“He’s concerned about perceptions that the council itself needed to do better listening to all sides.”