Transparency News 6/24/14

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

State and Local Stories

Federal prosecutors have alleged that former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his family accepted an expensive island vacation from a Henrico hotelier with University of Virginia ties andintentionally omitted the gift on his annual state disclosure forms, according to new court filings.
Washington Post

Fredericksburg City Councilman Fred Howe ended the invocation at the council’s last meeting with the words, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” Six weeks earlier, he would have been in hot water for invoking the name of Jesus Christ. But earlier that evening, the council met in a closed session with City Attorney Kathleen Dooley to discuss its prayer policy in the wake of the May 5 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Town of Greece v. Susan Galloway. Members learned that the Fredericksburg council’s policy needed to change to comply with the ruling, which said that the U.S. Constitution’s “establishment clause” was not violated by sectarian prayers at government meetings. So Howe, who was scheduled to give that night’s invocation chose to exercise his constitutional right.
Free Lance-Star

Four days before the next court hearing on the petition to remove Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio from office, an attorney representing hundreds of Delgaudio's Sterling constituents filed a string of motions adding to the complexity of the case. John Flannery, the local attorney for the Citizens of Sterling group, which is seeking to have Delgaudio removed for abuse of public office, filed a motion Friday asking to have the appointed prosecutor dismissed from the case. Additionally, Flannery wants the recent depositions of both Delgaudio and one of his primary accusers, former legislative aide Donna Mateer, made public.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

National Stories

Lifting a veil of official secrecy from President Obama’s decision to authorize the killing of an American citizen without a trial, a federal appeals court on Monday publicly released large portions of a Justice Department memo that deemed it lawful to target Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric accused of becoming a terrorist.
New York Times

Several parking startups that want to make it easier to find a parking spot in busy cities are facing a legal gauntlet in San Francisco, where the city attorney sent one company a cease-and-desist letter and is warning two others. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter to MonkeyParking, which offers an app that allows people to post information about the spot they are about to leave.
Wall Street Journal

Seeking to speed up government rule-making about the use of drones in newsgathering, CNN and the Georgia Institute of Technology said Monday that they would jointly study how to operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) safely and effectively. In a press release, the partners called it a "research initiative" and said they will share data with the Federal Aviation Authority "as it considers regulations that will allow for the safe and effective operation of UAVs by media outlets."
CNN Money

If you spent any part of Monday checking SCOTUSblog for the Supreme Court orders, you’re not alone — about 10,000 people were on its live blog around 10 a.m., Editor Amy Howe wrote. But SCOTUSblog’s indispensibility has not yet translated into a credential to cover the court. The Senate Press Gallery granted it a credential — usually a prerequisite for Supreme Court credentials — but it later revoked the credential. SCOTUSblog’s appeal has failed.
Poynter

A district court in Wisconsin denied a motion to unseal documents last week in a lawsuit attempting to end an investigation into Wisconsin Republican campaign finances. On May 1, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, along with four other media organizations, filed a motion to intervene and unseal the entirety of the parties’ filings in the federal court proceeding O’Keefe v. Schmitz et. al.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
 

Editorials/Columns

The Washington Free Beacon, one of several smaller D.C. newspapers that labor in the shadow of The Washington Post, has been enjoying some sunlight lately thanks to its uncovering of sometimes unflattering material about Hillary Clinton from the Clinton archives in Arkansas. It’s usually considered a good thing when enterprising journalists break stories about powerful political figures. But the dean of the University of Arkansas library system doesn’t think so. In a tart letter, Carolyn Henderson recently banned the Free Beacon and its reporter. They are no longer welcome. Henderson claims to be motivated by concerns about intellectual property rights. The fact that she once donated $500 to Hillary Clinton’s political campaign surely has nothing to do with it. Besides, what’s a library for, if not to keep information from the public?
Times-Dispatch