Transparency News 6/17/15

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

State and Local Stories


A group of Pittsylvania County residents is accusing the county’s agricultural development board of violating their rights under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The residents say board members escorted and locked them out of the building on April 8 after they ended their open meeting and announced they were going into closed session to “discuss a ‘personnel matter and a couple of other things,’” according to the petition. Deborah Dix, Phillip Lovelace and Karen Maute claim board members locked Dix and Lovelace out of the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex — where the meeting took place — during a thunderstorm. Maute was not at the meeting. “Petitioners went into their respective cars in the parking lot and waited for some signal from respondents that the closed meeting had ended,” the petition states. “Receiving no notice from respondents after approximately 30 minutes, petitioners drove home.” The petition says the board has not maintained written minutes of its open meetings since it formed in 2007, which goes against FOIA requirements.
Register & Bee

Nine years ago, hundreds of state employees had a choice: join the workforce of Northrop Grumman, the new private manager of Virginia’s sprawling government information technology networks, or become privately managed state workers. On Tuesday, the remaining 51 of the employees who chose to stay at the Virginia Information Technologies Agency were laid off — technically by VITA but at the judgment of Northrop Grumman. The affected employees represent about 9 percent of the 580 staff and contractors under the IT deal. But the sudden layoffs at Northrop Grumman’s data center in Chester and other locations across Virginia came as a surprise to key state legislators who are working with Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration to decide the future of the multibillion-dollar contract that will expire in mid-2019.
Times-Dispatch

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia did not disclose that a nonprofit with close ties to a lobbying firm paid for a three-day stay at a seaside luxury resort in southern Spain until The Associated Press asked about the omission on his personal disclosure form. Kaine helped organize and attended a conference in Malaga, Spain, in September hosted by the U.S.-Spain Council. The regular conferences are designed to strengthen relations between the two countries. The conference last year took place at a five-star resort and spa and featured a dinner with Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia at an auto museum.
News Leader


National Stories
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As Americans' personal information continues to move online, everything from medical records to mothers' maiden names, Social Security numbers and fingerprints are increasingly up for grabs. And the states and the federal government are at odds on how to respond. Since California first began enforcing data breach reporting requirements in 2003, 46 other states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have implemented varying degrees of regulation, including requirements to provide free credit monitoring to victims, quickly notify consumers of a breach and tell state attorneys general or other agencies about compromised records. States are toughening their laws by broadening the definition of "personal data," requiring timelier reporting and expanding the number of people or agencies companies must notify of a breach. In contrast, Congress is just now coalescing around federal standards. Pending legislation would preempt the collage of state laws and enforce a definition of personal information that is narrower than what many states use.
Governing

Still unknown about one of the largest hacks of government personnel records two weeks after it was revealed: how many of the millions of records pilfered belonged to people working for the military or the country’s intelligence services. The Office of Personnel Management acknowledged in a statement Tuesday that the hack may have compromised information from background checks into current, former and potential government employees. But during an appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta was reluctant to address publicly the question of how many of those were in sensitive positions. She offered to discuss the issue in a closed-door meeting. Archuleta promised that her agency would notify the people who may have had their information stolen. But she said investigations are ongoing and it still isn’t clear exactly what information was taken or who was responsible for the attack.
McClatchy

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which has publicly disclosed three serious laboratory accidents during the past year involving Ebola, anthrax and a deadly strain of bird flu — says it will take three more years before it will release copies of all incident reports for the agency's labs in Atlanta and Fort Collins, Colo. On Jan. 6, in an effort to determine the extent of lab accidents at the agency, USA TODAY filed a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking copies of all incident reports at CDC labs during 2013 and 2014. The CDC granted the request "expedited" processing status because USA TODAY had demonstrated there is a compelling public need for the information. The agency initially said it anticipated responding by June 4.
USA Today

Editorials/Columns

Next time you complain about not having gotten a raise since, oh, 2008, consider this: Virginia lawmakers haven’t gotten raises since 1988. That should change, says the Commission on Integrity and Public Confidence in State Government — otherwise referred to as the Virginia ethics commission. Because the discussion emanated from a group trying to prevent corruption in government, it’s tempting to focus on the prospect that better pay might deter ethics lapses. Although he wasn’t a legislator, the case of former Gov. Bob McDonnell raises similar questions. It’s hard to know what was going on in the governor’s mind, but money problems might have provided a temptation to succumb to gifts from an entrepreneur seeking to do business with the state. But how does Virginia hit upon the “right” level of compensation to deter corruption? The threshold of temptation varies from person to person. Besides, voters should be seeking public servants who are, as much as humanly possible, incorruptible. Lawmakers shouldn’t be for sale — at any price. No, the best reasons for increasing legislator pay are much more straightforward, as two adages remind us. “The worker is worth his hire” — that is, it’s only right to give fair pay for hard work. “You get what you pay for” — meaning, if we want good people in politics, we’ll pay enough to attract them.
Daily Progress