Virginians Want Ethics Investigations Made Public

According to a poll of 506 likely voters conducted by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University between October 8 - 13, more than 80% of likely voters say an appointed citizens review panel for ethical complaints against legislators should be made public.

Under current law, the five-member panel investigates in private.  If the panel determines a violation has occurred, the compliant is made public.  If the panel dismisses the panel, the complaint remains private unless the legislator chooses to make it public.  The October poll showed less than 10% of the likely voters polled support the current law.

For more information, click here. 

First Eight Months of Obama White House Visitor Logs Still Guarded

The White House settled a lawsuit with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and announced last month that it would voluntarily publish White House visitor logs on its website beginning December 31.  So one might except that the Obama administration would release similar records to other public interest groups in the meantime.

Not so.  Through the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service said White House visitor logs fall under the Presidential Records Act, and thus are not subject to disclosure under the FOIA because they don't originate with a federal agency.  The Secret Service denied the request of judicial watchdog group, Judicial Watch, for visitor log records from January 20  - September 15.

Judicial Watch issued a press release expressing its intent to continue to seek release of the records in question.  

More here.  

Congress Expected to Pass Bill Permitting Defense Department to Suppress Evidence of its Misconduct

Congress is expected to pass an amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill this week that will allow the Defense Department to suppress evidence of its own misconduct.  The amendment has passed the House and is headed to the Senate floor for a final vote.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) proposed the amendment in response to an appellate court decision requiring the Defense Department to release photos of Afghan and Iraqi prisoner abuse, stemming from a 2003 FOIA request filed by the ACLU.  

More from the LA Times here.

Update: U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Release of Referendum 71 Petitioners

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked Washington state officials from releasing the Referendum 71 ballot petitions.  Referendum 71 is a ballot initiative asking Washington voters to approve or reject the state's law that grants domestic partners the same legal rights as married heterosexuals.   

Kennedy's order will remain in effect while he considers a request by a pro-marriage group that asked him to reverse the appellate court ruling, which had order the names released.  

Get more information here. 

Follow-Up: Nearly 3,000 PIN Messages Released in Florida

Following the revelation that public service commission aides had given their PIN access codes to a Florida Power & Light attorney, the Herald/Times obtained email records and instant messages of staff and commissioners at Florida's utility regulator. PIN messages allow the senders to bypass state servers.  

 Of the nearly 3,000 messages obtained, more than 2,400 are from Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano.  Argenziano's seemingly stream-of-consciousness messages reveal her distrust of fellow commissioners.  Because Argenziano has been an outspoken critic of the PSC, Associated Industries of Florida has questioned her impartiality in a rate case and have called for the agency's inspector general to investigate her.  

Get more details here. 

Bad Obama -- Health Care Negotiations Taking Place Behind Closed Doors

Despite campaign promises to reform health care in the sunlight of public scrutiny, Obama's allowing health care legislation negotiations to take place behind closed doors.  Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) as well as top White House aides are trying to merge competing versions of the legislation into one bill.

Republicans and open government advocates are upset by the secretive process.

More here.

FOI at Work: The Washington Post Investigates AIDS Organizations in DC

Check out this investigation undertaken by The Washington Post:

"Over ten months, the Washington Post analyzed the spending, services, and finances of every specialized AIDS organization funded by D.C.'s HIV/AIDS Administration from 2004-2008, an estimated 90 groups, building a database from tax returns, audits, lawsuits, real estate records, D.C. Council records, and corporate and police reports. The Post also obtained grant agreements, invoices and government correspondence for about 60 of these groups. The newspaper interviewed dozens of people with HIV or AIDS patients, their families and service providers, and visited more than a dozen offices across the city."

Take Two - Texas Public Officials Will Try to Challenge Texan Open Meetings Act

At least 20 Texas public officials are expected to file a suit in federal court in the West Texas city of Pecos, asserting the state's Open Meetings Act violates their right to free speech.  

The open meetings act prevents a quorum of government officials from deliberating in secret and carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a similar lawsuit for lack of standing as the plaintiffs were no longer in office.  The  attorney for the anticipated suit says they've cured the standing problem because the 20 officials who will be plaintiffs are current public officials.

Get more info here. 

No Right to Access Judicial Records or Investigations in Washington

The Washington Supreme Court ruled that state open records laws do not extend to judicial records or investigations into allegations of judicial misconduct.  

The case centered on a February 2008 public records request seeking records and correspondence related to the resignation of Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Colleen Hartl. While the city provided some documentation, it refused to release the correspondence of the presiding judge relating to the investigation.   

For more on this decision, click here. 

Florida State Releases Academic Fraud Investigation Files

Following a favorable ruling for The Associated Press and other news-media organizations, Florida State released a 695-page transcript on an N.C.A.A. hearing regarding an academic fraud case spanning 2006 and 2007 and involving 61 athletes across 10 sports.   

The transcript included the testimony of the university president, T.K. Wetherell, as well as university professors and administrators, and Brenda Monk, a learning specialist hired to work with Florida State athletes with learning and physical disabilities.  In the transcript, Wetherell apologized for the actions of a "rogue tutor" and an instructor.  Wetherell also minimized the blame placed upon the athletes, who were found to have received answers to test questions and allowed tutors to type and write their papers.  Monk has since left the university and has filed a defamation suit against Florida State.  

As a result of the investigation, the N.C.A.A. put Florida State on probation, reduced scholarships, and revoked the record of all wins in which the affected athletes participated.  The school is appealing the vacating of the wins, but has accepted the remaining sanctions.  

Get the NY Times article here, which includes a link to the transcript of the N.C.A.A. hearing.  

Follow Up: Ninth Circuit Orders Release of Referendum 71 Petitions in Washington

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision of a Thurston County Superior Court judge granting a temporary restraining order against Sam Reed concerning compliance with a public records request for copies of past initiative petitions, saying that order relied upon an incorrect legal standard.  That means the Washington's Referendum 71 petitions must be released pursuant to a public records request.   

Referendum 71 is an effort to overturn a Washington bill granting state registered domestic partners all rights, responsibilities and obligations granted or imposed by state law on married couples.

Click here for the Ninth Circuit's order.  

Reaction to Lessig's "Against Transparency" Argument

Responses keep coming to Lessig's New Republic article, "Against Transparency: The perils of openness in government." 

Carl Malamud urges caution and a measured response to the title of Lessig's article.  Malamud argues Lessig isn't against transparency per se, but against transparency "with no broader and deeper aims, [which] will no automatically produce good results, and may indeed produce randomness in our government or far worse."

Other commentators agree that the title to Lessig's article misses the mark, arguing that Lessig is truly against accountability and "that the subject of his concern is not openness in government; it is openness in politics."

Release of Washington Referendum 71 Initiative Signatures Stayed Pending Appeal

Until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hears the dispute over Referendum 71, an effort to overturn a bill granting state registered domestic partners all rights, responsibilities and obligations granted or imposed by state law on married couples, state election officials cannot release the signatures and addresses of the people who signed 11 statewide initiatives ruled Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks.

The Olympian reports:  "Hicks said there is a clear conflict between the state Supreme Court's likely interpretation of state public-records law and what U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle ruled last month in the dispute over releasing names and signatures of voters who signed Referendum 71."

Get the full report here. 

Michigan Coach Backs Off Best-Ever Boasts, Citing No Data

Earlier this year, Michigan coach Rich Rodriquez had boasted that the football team would break a record for the highest overall team GPA for a semester this year.  But he's had to back off those claims after the Free Press requested details under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, saying that the all-time GPA record isn't know to him or anyone at the university because the university doesn't maintain any such records.  

Rodriquez said his earlier comments were based upon an estimate of the all-time record team GPA, not an actual calculation.  Rodriquez blamed unnamed academic advisers within the athletic department for not telling him the numbers were estimations.

Click here for more. 

Bush Administration Document Evidencing 2007 "Endangerment Finding" Released

The Environmental Protection Agency released a 2007 report called the "endangerment finding" written by Bush administration officials that concluded that the government should begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions because global warming posed serious risks to the country.  The Bush administration refused to make the report public because it opposed new governmental efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

The report was released pursuant to a FOIA request by the environmental trade publication Greenwire.   

Get more information here. 

They Say He's the Most Secretive Texas Governor (Hint: It's Not George Bush)

Texas Governor Rick Perry is being called the most secretive modern-day governor Texas has seen.  

The Dallas Morning News reports on Perry's latest public records squabble -- his refusal to release documents he reviewed before the July 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.   Perry has also fought to keep his itinerary private under the guise of security concerns and has his staff on a tight document retention schedule wherein e-mails are destroyed every seven days. 

For more on the Willingham case and its political implications for Perry, click here.  

Poof! Making Virtual Information Disappear

A team of University of Washington computer scientists have developed a system to make electronic communications, like e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages, automatically self-destruct and become irretrievable.  Much better than any "delete" button, the program would remove content from all websites, inboxes, outboxes, backup site and home computers. 

The prototype is called Vanish, and it would place a time limit on text uploaded to any website through a web browser.  

Get more details about the project here. 

Stimulus Money Spent on Low Priority Projects for the FAA

The Federal Aviation Administration keeps track of its priority projects through a national priority rating system, but records show that more than $270 million in stimulus grants awarded by the FAA have gone to low-priority projects.  Among the low-priority projects receiving stimulus money: a $1.85 million terminal expansion project at Idaho's Pocatello Regional Airport, $2.5 million for mobile firefighting training equipment in Virginia, and $1 million to improve baggage handling at an Illinois airport that services cargo planes.

Get more information here. 

Virginia Coalition for Open Government Award Winners

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government announced its awards earlier this week.  

Carol Lindstrom of Christiansburg won the Laurence E. Richardson award for individual contributions resulting from her work to create a website for the town of Christiansburg based upon documents she obtained through FOIA requests.  Lindstrom also posts audio and video recordings of Town Council, Planning Commission, and other meetings.  

For a full list of the winners, click here. 

An Argument Against Transparency

Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig brings us this really interesting article about transparency, and specifically about his concerns about the long-term consequences about transparency.   

Lessig argues "pathological transparency" or "naked transparency" alone will doom our democracy, much as it has our music industry as well as print and investigative journalism organizations.  The result of "naked transparency," writes Lessig is:  "The most cynical will be the most salient.  Limited attention span will assure that the most salient is the most stable.  Unwarranted conclusions will be drawn, careers will be destroyed, alienation will grow."

Read the whole article here.