Transparency News 8/7/17

Monday, August 7, 2017



State and Local Stories

The gasoline tank inside the gates at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport has pumped more than 36,000 gallons of fuel for the airport's fleet of cars, trucks and vans since early 2015. For about 10 percent of that usage, the airport has no records of who used the gas or what vehicle they filled up. A Daily Press examination of the monthly meter reading sheets show that 36,197 gallons flowed out of the tank for the airport's vehicles between January 2015 and July 2017. But the related usage logs add up to only 32,658 gallons. That means 3,539 gallons — about 122 a month on average — are unaccounted for. (These calculations exclude two and a half months when the meters were out of service.)
Daily Press

National Stories
​

Michigan State University police spent more than four months interviewing more than 100 witnesses in an extensive investigation into a January sexual assault allegation made against three members of the football team. Details of the investigation were made public in a police report released on Tuesday by the school, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The report provided is heavily redacted, with witness statements, names and other information blacked out.
MLive

Government officials and employees in South Carolina often use private email accounts to conduct business, effectively shielding their dealings from public inspection. The state’s Freedom of Information Act makes such communications public record, but there is no easy way to fetch them, giving elected leaders and lower-level workers a way to skirt the law, open-government advocates said. Disclosure of the messages typically relies on those people handing them over. “The law already says it’s public, but how do you enforce it?” said Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association. “It’s very much an issue from the highest level of government on down to the floorboards. We have a shadow government being conducted in secret through private emails."
Post and Courier

A PAIR OF NORTH CAROLINA sheriff’s offices, in Ashe and Union counties, have a couple things in common. Each is on the receiving end of open records requests from an investigative TV reporter named Nick Ochsner, who asked for copies of text messages sent by law enforcement officials. And each office is pushing back against those requests to different degrees. The FOIA disputes—between these rural sheriff’s offices and an urban reporter in this southern state—have made nightly newscasts and boiled over in behind-the-scenes legal correspondence. The dispute in Union County carries some of the anti-media posturing we’ve seen trickle down to the local level from Washington, including a mention of “fake news.”
Columbia Journalism Review

On Friday, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that a criminal defendant may not waive his or her right to obtain information about their case under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The court’s decision in Price v. U.S. Dept. of Justice Attorney Office provoked a dissent and appears to be at odds with the decisions of several other courts, although no other circuit court has squarely addressed this question in a published opinion.
Washington Post

Kansas City's mayor has threatened to file ethics complaints against his city council colleagues if he learns they have revealed information from closed council meetings. The Kansas City Star reports that Mayor Sly James made the threat during a closed session. Council members say the threat is part of a culture of secrecy among city officials, particularly as it relates to the effort to build a new $1 billion terminal at the Kansas City International Airport. Some council members say some of their closed-session discussions about the project don't qualify as exceptions to Missouri's public meetings law and should be discussed openly.
McClatchy

Idaho's Secretary of State Lawerence Denney has sent President Donald Trump's commission investigating alleged voter fraud an official public records request form and a bill for $20. Denney has maintained he will treat the commission's request for detailed voter information as a public records request, meaning Idaho's Public Records Law — included in the "Transparent and Ethical Government" section of state code — will guide his response. Denney said Friday that commission officials will need to pay $20 for the state's voter rolls, fill out the public records request form and sign a disclaimer promising not to use the data for commercial uses.
McClatchy


Editorials/Columns


PUBLIC CONFIDENCE is the most valuable currency government officials can possess. With it, they can act on behalf of citizens knowing that mistakes will be forgiven. Without it, their every action will be viewed with skepticism and their intentions questioned. In that scenario, proven charges of corruption are akin to bankruptcy, an indication that something in City Hall is rotten. Restoring those bonds of trust is a painstaking process, one requiring that every city official err on the side of transparency and stand up for accountability at every turn. This is where Norfolk finds itself, eight months after the downfall of former Treasurer Anthony Burfoot. . . . The city said it was within its rights to destroy the documents that were shredded. In a press release issued last week, officials say they “have been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney and their request for records for services at the jail. … All records destruction took place in accordance with state law.” Still, it seems that some Norfolk officials have forgotten that their every action is under a microscope, because of Burfoot’s misdeeds, and that they must go above and beyond at every turn to demonstrate transparency and rebuild the public’s trust.
Virginian-Pilot

Be careful before you invite Brian Davison to become a Facebook friend. You shouldn’t expect warm and fuzzy posts from a tenacious rabble-rouser who wages personal campaigns for free speech, accountability and freedom of information. Over the last two years, Davison has filed three separate civil rights lawsuits against the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and Chairwoman Phyllis Randall (D), Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman (R) and the Loudoun County School Board. They have at times blocked him from their Facebook pages, deleted critical comments he posted and attempted to ostracize him. One needs only to read Davison’s online comments to understand why he gets under their skin. Davison’s cases may provide a legal precedent. A federal judge ruled Chairwoman Randall violated Davison's First Amendment rights because she briefly banned him from her personal Facebook account. You may not like Brian Davison or the democratizing platform of social media that he uses, but how one feels about either is wholly irrelevant. Our leaders should not worry about whether Davison is a pain. They should consider whether he is right. 
Loudoun Times-Mirror

For Internet trolls, last week may as well have been Christmas. On July 25, Judge James Cacheris of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down a decision stating that public officials may not “block” their constituents on social media. Although it is difficult to contest that Randall was acting in her official capacity, the court’s conclusion that a social media platform is analogous to a public forum is ill-conceived.
Thomas Wheatley, Washington Post

When we talk about the importance of a free press, what we’re really talking about is how important it is for the press to serve as a watchdog on the government. The highest responsibility of journalism is to supply the people with information about what their government is doing, so that the people can hold the government accountable, and make the best possible decisions when they vote. But if you’re not a journalist (full disclosure: I am not), you may not give a lot of thought to how journalists get that information in the first place. Official government press releases and briefings aren’t really the place to find information about government misconduct. Obviously, leaks are a much better source when it comes to getting the real information. But the recent emphasis on prosecuting leakers is likely to have a major chilling effect on that source of information. But there is a way that journalists can get their hands on FBI records, secret military policy memos and NSA email exchanges without having to worry about their sources getting arrested or fired. They can ask the government for them. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law that requires the government to hand over its records if someone asks for them. The act applies to federal government agencies, but every state has laws that allow the public to access its government records. Anyone can request information, whether they’re a U.S. citizen or foreign national. And anything can be requested.