Transparency News 8/13/18

Monday
August 13, 2018

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state & local news stories

Virginia Beach Council members have decided on the look for the new City Hall: It will have Georgian Colonial architecture, a cupola and four columns at the front entrance. There will be two sets of switchback stairs that lead to the City Council chambers on the second floor. The chambers will have 300 seats and will be designed to expand to at least 350. Currently, there are fewer than 150 seats. The conference room where the City Council holds afternoon meetings before the official Tuesday evening one will also grow. Right now, limited seating is available for the public and staff. Chairs are lined along the walls of the room. The new City Hall will have a 48-seat gallery, a large increase. “We would like to see more public participation in meetings,” Public Works facility engineer Tom Nicholas said.
The Virginian-Pilot

How do you build Interstate 73? How would you expand U.S. 220 in either direction? The Virginia Department of Transportation is open for suggestions, for these or any other road projects in the commonwealth. To do that, the department is holding a series of “hack-a-thon” events throughout the commonwealth, setting up one in each region. There are some guidelines that people need to follow, in order to compete. First, you must be 18 years old or older. Second, if you're working as part of a group, at least one member of that group has to be at the event Friday and Saturday to present your idea. Your project also has to use data from VDOT's SmartRoads Portal. You can find that by going to SmarterRoads.org. All data about traffic numbers for your presentation has to come from this location. The projects will then be judged on originality, impact, polish and presentation, as well as the approach used.
Martinsville Bulletin

Communications on the Warren County Sheriff’s Office’s and the Front Royal Police Department’s new radios will be fully encrypted, with Sheriff Daniel McEathron and Chief Kahle Magalis citing officer safety as the primary reason for the decision. When communications become encrypted – with the sheriff’s system expected to be installed this month and the police department’s by year’s end – the public will not be able to hear communications on devices such as scanners. Gerry Boyd, a Motorolla technician, said encryption is a service offered but it is up to the customer whether to enable it. McEathron and Magalis said their concerns do not lie with the general public but with criminals who listen to officers communicate. Magalis said this “100 percent, absolutely” occurs and poses a threat to officer safety. 
The Northern Virginia Daily
Citizens tuning into the communications of the Warren County Sherriff’s Office and Front Royal Police Department via scanners will soon have quieter houses.  Both departments plan to move to fully encrypted radio systems, which will make those scanners unable to capture that communication. Wayne Sealock, a retired Strasburg police officer and Front Royal resident, has had a household scanner all his life. He said encryption is a double-edged sword and while it enhances officer safety, citizens with scanners would like to help if possible.
The Northern Virginia Daily

stories of national interest

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 11 media organizations are asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate a broad gag order barring parties, attorneys, witnesses, potential witnesses and courthouse personnel in 26 related civil cases in North Carolina from speaking to the press. The cases involve lawsuits against Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods that contracts farmers to raise hogs, by neighbors who allege that the company's hog farms create a nuisance. 
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Political “robocalls” — which, like commercial calls, increasingly target consumers’ phones — may be annoying, but a Wyoming law to prohibit political operatives from using them is overly broad and unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson ruled that a Michigan-based polling firm, Victory Processing LLC, should be allowed to gather information on voters and do polls in Wyoming by way of automatic telephone calls. Johnson said the Wyoming law banning political robocalls was “overinclusive” in that it “completely prohibits political speech through robocalls while allowing commercial speech under certain circumstances.”
Governing

A dozen classified programs that involved research on human subjects were underway last year at the Department of Energy. Human subjects research refers broadly to the collection of scientific data from human subjects. This could involve physical procedures that are performed on the subjects, or simply interviews and other forms of interaction with them. Little information is publicly available about the latest DOE programs, most of which have opaque, non-descriptive names such as Tristan, Idaho Bailiff and Moose Drool. But a list of the classified programs was released this week under the Freedom of Information Act.
Secrecy News
 

"Little information is publicly available about the latest DOE programs, most of which have opaque, non-descriptive names such as Tristan, Idaho Bailiff and Moose Drool."

editorials & columns

ook to see if Randolph Romero has had a recent criminal case brought against him and you’ll be met with the official response “no such records exist.” That is a lie perpetrated by one of the many Colorado judges who have proved themselves far too willing to seal court cases, even cases where there is a legitimate public interest. In this case, Romero is a former Denver Sheriff Department sergeant who was charged with misdemeanor assault and acquitted by a jury last week. Without the Denver District Attorney’s Office publicizing the charges and the case’s outcome, we would never have known Romero was flagged for bad behavior. And now we’ll never know what evidence may have swayed the jury to find Romero not guilty of the charges. This is just one more case among thousands of sealed records that would have remained obscured without the work of reporters at The Denver Post.
The Denver Post