Transparency News 7/27/17

Thursday, July 27, 2017



State and Local Stories

A Nottoway County judge dismissed writ against county manager for failure to respond to a FOIA request, but a Richmond-area woman is awarded reimbursed costs. Eileen McAfee filed a petition against Ronnie Roark after Roark told her a record didn’t exist. McAfee, however, knew the document existed because she had received a copy of the record through a request of another entity. Only at the trial hearing this week did Roark say that the record was exempt from disclosure as a personnel record.
Courier-Record (via VCOG website)

Loudoun County Chairwoman Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) acted “under the color of state law” in maintaining her “Chair Phyllis J. Randall” Facebook page and banning Lansdowne resident Brian Davison from the page overnight, yet Randall violated Davison's First Amendment right under the U.S. and Virginia constitutions in doing so, U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris has ruled in a complex case about free speech in the digital age. Over the last two years, Davison has filed three separate civil rights lawsuits against the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and Randall, Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman (R) and the Loudoun County School Board for either blocking him from their Facebook pages or deleting critical comments he posted.  Last February, Davison was blocked from Randall’s Facebook page for roughly eight hours overnight after the Lansdowne resident made critical comments of the Loudoun County School Board and their family.  But the next morning, Randall said she decided to unblock Davison and says she has not blocked him or deleted any comments from him or any other person since that time.  Judge Cacheris, in a ruling today, stated that although Davison’s actions were "relatively inconsequential as a practical matter,” Randall’s action did in fact violate his First Amendment right to free speech.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Libre by Nexus sued Buzzfeed and its editor-in-chief Ben Smith for $5 million in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week. The complaint is over a story Buzzfeed published in July 2016. Nexus claims in the lawsuit that the article is "replete with false and defamatory statements concerning Nexus’ business practices, including, but not limited to, the assertion that Nexus was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (hereinafter 'ICE') for 'targeting undocumented immigrants in custody and fraudulently charging them a fee for services.' As BuzzFeed and Smith were aware, this statement was demonstrably false." Matt Mittenthal, spokesman for BuzzFeed News, said this entire lawsuit is based on one sentence in the article that was backed up by public, government documents. The story made it clear, he says, that investigations into Nexus were closed.
News Leader

Our General Assembly isn’t quite as much of a millionaire’s club as Congress, but the latest round of statements of economic interests legislators file show some aren’t doing too badly for themselves: a dozen have investment holdings of more than $1 million.
Daily Press



National Stories
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The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office has renewed its request that a judge dismiss a public records lawsuit citing, in part, an argument that a state agency cannot be sued for violating the state’s public records law. A lawyer in Attorney General Josh Stein’s office, representing the North Carolina Department of Revenue, has made the argument in multiple filings on the department’s behalf. WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner filed a lawsuit against the Department of Revenue in December 2016 after the department refused to fulfill a public records request related, in part, to Ochsner’s tax records. The request was submitted in June 2016.  According to the complaint, the request sought communication records from department employees, certain collection notices sent by the department and a copy of Ochsner’s tax file.
WBTV

A Texas House committee chairman, sued by a woman who was forcibly removed from a March hearing at the Capitol, cannot bar her from videotaping future committee meetings, a Travis County judge ordered. District Judge Lora Livingston’s temporary injunction bars Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, from following his longstanding policy of limiting filming to reporters and photographers who have a Capitol media credentials — but only as it applies to Amy Hedtke, who sued Cook after she was forcibly removed from a State Affairs hearing in March for continuing to record the event using Facebook Live.
Austin American-Statesman

In the five days since he was named White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci has vowed to hunt down leakers and fire anyone he catches. By the end of his fifth day, he was on the receiving end of what he called a leak about himself. The financial disclosure form that Mr. Scaramucci filed with the government appeared on Politico’s website on Wednesday night, showing that he has assets worth as much as $85 million. He made $5 million in salary and another $4.9 million from his ownership stake in his investment firm SkyBridge Capital in the first six months of this year, according to the filing. Mr. Scaramucci responded angrily. “In light of the leak of my financial disclosure info which is a felony,” he wrote on Twitter, “I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept.”
New York Times

The Defense Department does not have to produce records related to its handling of classified material allegedly disclosed in a bestseller about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Tuesday’s ruling stem from a Freedom of Information Act dispute between the department and the James Madison Project, a Washington-based government watchdog. It arises from the publication of “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden,” a memoir by Matt Bissonnette, under the pen name Mark Owen, who participated in the mission.
Courthouse News Service


Editorials/Columns


For 17 years, Maria Everett has run the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Everett’s tenure, lauded by lawmakers, lawyers and open government advocates, ends Aug. 1. She’s retiring after 17 years with the Virginia FOIA Council, and 33 years in all working in state government.
Roanoke Times