October 2009 Archives

The list of White House visitors is now online and searchable. (Thanks to the FOI Advocate blog for flagging that.)

You might recall that we asked York County congressman Todd Platts for his visitors' list, and he said no.

But Obama's list, through July 31, is available -- although it is only a list of names that were requested. (Here's more on the White House's plans to release lists of visitors.)

Some names you might recognize from the list that's out now:

William Ayers, John Boehner, Newt Gingerich, Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, Denzel Washington, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Jeremiah Wright.

BUT. The Los Angeles Times reports the William Ayers that visited wasn't that William Ayers, and the Jeremiah Wright who visited wasn't that Jeremiah Wright. Same with fellows named Michael Jordan and Michael Moore, the White House told the Times. The White House said it was asked if people with those names visited, so it included those names in its release.

Here's a good Washington Post story about the list, who's on it and what's known about why they visited.

 In York, we've had some go-rounds with city police over access to public records. But, that I know of, we've never gotten to this level (at least regarding fairly routine requests; I do remember a long struggle with the city for us to get access to historical police records related to the 1969 riots, but that's another story):

 The (Baltimore) Sun is suing its city's police department for basically ignoring public records requests and/or assessing high fees for records it is willing to provide. A police department spokesman said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit because he hadn't seen it, but said police "understand the importance of transparency." Hmmmm.

I absolutely loved an anecdote from atop Sean Adkins' story in today's paper. Here it is:

"Every couple of years, Frito-Lay officials stop by the Hanover Borough office to check
out any new building permits filed by Utz Quality Foods.
   "Basically, those officials are searching for any clue to expansion within Utz -- a sign the
potato chip maker could be sharpening its competitive edge within the snack food industry, said Bruce Rebert, Hanover's borough manager."

The reason I love it is because it's easy to think of open records being a media issue, so, for example, a newspaper's fight to increase the public's access to open records can be seen as self-serving.

 But here's a situation where a company uses access to public records as part of its strategy to compete for market share. So businesses, too, have a stake in the effort to maintain and increase access to government records.

In case you were curious, we checked on outgoing District Attorney Stan Rebert's campaign money. (To give credit where it's due, this was actually managing editor Randy Parker's idea -- just to see how or if Rebert would spend whatever money he had left after losing the primary to Tom Kearney. For example, could or would this powerful figure in county Republican politics donate to other campaigns?).

The headline would be that, as you might expect, Rebert spent almost all his money in the primary. Here are the details, thanks to reporter Teresa Ann Boeckel, who paged through the paperwork:

Rebert's committee had $31,179.03 available between May 5 and June 8, and spent $29,437.07, leaving a cash balance of $1,741.96. Much of that was spent on advertising during the primary.

Between June 9 and Oct. 19, the current reporting period, his committee received $737.66 in contributions and spent $730.36 on party expenses, repayment of a candidate loan and a stop-payment fee. That leaves a balance of $1,748.76.

Anything else you want to know? Leave a comment here, or e-mail me at sblanchard at ydr.com.

Bands like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails (that's Trent Reznor at right) aren't happy their music may have been used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and they've filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the song titles. Thanks to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for flagging Washington Post and New York Times stories on that.

 I must say that's the first time I've heard of a FOIA request made by rock bands. It's part of an effort to put pressure on President Obama to follow through on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay.

Unredacted is a "behind-the-scenes" blog just launched by the nonprofit National Security Archive at GWU:

"The Archive's own experience with thousands of Freedom of Information Act and Mandatory Declassification Review requests provides a wealth of data and fundamental lessons that we hope to share with you," says the first entry.

Unredacted will highlight "never before publicly seen" government documents in a "Document Friday" series and post commentary and analysis from NSA experts. Read the news release at the jump.

Can you assess first-responder performance without knowing where units came from or where they went? You'll be able to if a county judge rules in the Daily Record/Sunday News' favor on an open-records appeal; you won't be able to if he rules in York County's favor.

York County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Renn will issue a written decision on the matter. He heard arguments from the YDR's lawyer and the county's lawyer on Wednesday.

The state's open records office ruled that 911 time-response logs must include addresses or geographical identifiers; the county appealed to Common Pleas Court.

 The county's key arguments:

•  The right-to-know law doesn't define time-response log, so the definition should come from the state chapter of the National Emergency Number Association, which defines a time-response log as, basically, when a call came in, when a unit went out, when it arrived and when it cleared the scene.
• The release of addresses or geographical identifiers would amount to an invasion of privacy of people who call 911 for emergencies.

Key arguments from Wednesday's hearing, according to York attorney Niles Benn, who represented the newspaper:

• The county did not cite supporting legal authority in its denial of reporter Ted Czech's request, as required by the right-to-know law;
• A follow-up letter from the county cited the exception to the law in which 911 time-response logs are mentioned. But the exception specifically allows public access to time-response logs.
  
• The county did not argue, in its denial letters or to the Office of Open Records, that addresses are protected by federal or state constitutional right to privacy;
• The right-to-know act addresses safety concerns regarding the release of addresses, but did not attach any qualification when it made time-response logs public.
• The new right-to-know law intended to expand public access, not restrict it; excluding addresses from time-response logs would withhold from the public information it could get under the old RTK law.
• If the county is not required to release addresses, it should be required to release cross-streets.

We'll let you know when Judge Renn rules. Meantime, anyone want to weigh in on either side of this case?

Quick update: A York County judge heard arguments today about whether the county must include addresses, or some kind of geographic locator, with its time-response logs. The judge has not produced a decision yet.

Background for this issue is here. It's an important case because time-response logs were specifically made public in the state's new right-to-know law, but York County is challenging the state Office of Open Records' decision about what a time-response log is.

I will post more about the arguments later.

If you haven't noticed yet, Google maps now has "street view" available on major roads in York County.

This feature is pretty neat. And it means the Google car was in York some time recently. I wish I could have seen it.

I don't mean to make fun of the state's conservation department, because earthquakes -- even small ones -- aren't too terribly funny. But I thought it was interesting, and illustrative, that when the DCNR made public a Columbia University report on Dillsburg earthquakes, it did so with a 500-word disclaimer.

It indicates how skittish government agencies can be even when dealing with what is a public record. They want to make sure that if the ground opens up and someone's house falls in, that person doesn't come back and say, 'According to the report you posted online, you said that wouldn't happen, so now you owe me the cost of my house.'

That scenario seems a little silly. Common sense makes you wonder who would sue a public agency for posting a public document online; and common sense makes you wonder who wouldn't understand that it's an individual's responsibility what he or she does with the information.

But there are lots of lawsuits out there. So it's hard to blame DCNR for uttering, in lilting legal language, "The user shall save the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania harmless and indemnify it from any suits, claims, or actions arising out of the use of or any defect in these Open-File Reports or accompanying documentation."

By the way, our story on the report is here. And just for kicks, here's the "tagcloud" of most frequently used words in the disclaimer:

When I read this Twitter post from the Virginia Coalition for Open Government's annual conference, I immediately thought of Pennsylvania local and state government (though in some cases it would be charitable to say they believe in open government). It might be more accurate to say many government officials in Pennsylvania understand that there is a right-to-know law, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to release information.

 Anyway, based on my own experiences and those of others I know, this post really resonated. Do you agree this applies to Pennsylvania? If so, what can be done about it? Do you disagree? If so, why?

A public official in Washington state produced his phone records as requested, but blacked out 49 calls. The requester was trying to find out if Jefferson County officials had made improper calls to a hearing examiner involved in a lawsuit related to the requester's company, according to the Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader.

Those 49 calls became the requester's target. And when a judge ruled on the case, she determined the records were public and that the requester should get $41,515 in attorney and other fees.

Oh, by the way, the newspaper reported that the official in question hadn't called the hearing examiner, so there was really nothing to hide. Except, apparently, that some of the calls he made were to order pizza.

Since we've been interested in public officials' e-mails for a while here -- thanks mostly to an ongoing issue in York Township -- figured I'd pass this one along:

According to the Boston Globe, as quoted on the blog "Death by e-mail," federal officials subpoenaed e-mails from the mayor's office, and the Boston Globe asked to see the same e-mails from the mayor's office. Apparently a mayor's aide switched computers -- and thus got rid of e-mails -- shortly after the requests. But the city found the e-mails on the hard drive of the old computer and has posted them online.

The blog notes most of the e-mails are "extremely boring." Still, it keeps awareness on the idea that public officials who conduct public business via e-mail are creating public records by doing so.

The federal search warrant in the local human trafficking and slavery case is online at Full Disclosure's Reading Room. (Also, here's a link to reporter Ted Czech's story about who's fighting human trafficking and what they're doing.)

You can look up more documents on this case, or documents on cases in federal court (criminal, civil and bankruptcy) online. Here's how:

Go to the PACER login page. (You'll need to create an account, and PACER will charge you to see documents, but more on that later).

 On the search page, pick what kind of record you want. For this example, let's say we're going to look for documents on that human trafficking story. So, click "Criminal."

 On the "Region" drop-down menu, select "Pennsylvania," then choose "Middle." (That's federal court in Harrisburg).

 In the "Party name" search box, type the name you're looking for -- in this case, "Phan."

Click on the link under "Case No." From the list that comes up you can pick whatever you want, but one easy way to do it is choose "History/documents," then "Sort by" most recent date first, then "Run Query."

When you click on the blue number next to a document, PACER will tell you how many pages it is and what you'll be charged (8 cents a page). If you see documents with a blue 'R' next to them, those are documents that have been downloaded into a public database where you can get the docs for free, thanks to RECAP, a free Firefox download.

In this case, I downloaded several documents in the Phan case, and because I have RECAP on my computer, you can get those docs for free.

The York Daily Record/Sunday News' public records reporting efforts -- including our Full Disclosure web site and this blog -- won the 2009 Public Service Award from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, which was announced today.

On its Web site, PNA says, "Continuing the tradition of the news media as the "fourth estate," the Public Service Award is presented to the newspaper that has helped improve the community through public service leadership."

The contest judge, a retired longtime publisher of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, wrote of his decision to honor the YDR's public records efforts:

 "More than anything else there was a single factor or approach that drove the decision. That, simply, was the localization of the issue, telling the needs of York County citizens for open records.
 
 "I believe all PNA newspapers have devoted a lot of time to the issue but the York Daily Record really brought it home -- right to the kitchen table level."

 You can click on the Full Disclosure link above to see the range of information on the site, including stories, original documents and links that can help you do your own research.

 The judge also recognized YDR reporter Melissa Nann Burke for her investigative series on Angel Food Ministries, a food nonprofit that paid its founding family more than $2 million in 2006. The judge gave the PNA's G. Richard Dew Award, the state's most prestigious journalism award, to another YDR entry, then went on to say:

"But I must say something about the incredible reporting job accomplished by Melissa Nann Burke." Her effort, the judge wrote, "was in the best traditions of our business. ... The digging she did to unearth the facts was nothing short of admirable."

A Lebanon County woman who drew national attention last year for carrying a loaded handgun to her child's soccer game was shot dead Wednesday in what police are calling a murder suicide.

Each year the state police put out a report on firearm trends in the state.

Here's some local info:

Handgun sales

• In York County, where about 420,000 people live, there were more than 17,000 guns sold in 2008. About 45 percent were handguns.
• In Lebanon County, which has about 128,934 residents, there were about 9,100 guns sold, with about 47 percent being handguns.

License to carry

• York County had 5,777 of these permits issued in 2008. As a percent of the county's total population, about 1.4 percent got one of these permits that year.
• Lebanon County had 1,651. That's about 1.3 percent of the population.

(Photo credit: Meleanie Hain sports a holstered Glock at her daughter's soccer practice in September 2008. Lebanon Daily News)

You never know who you'll meet when you start hanging with open records. Examples of open records stuff in the news right now:

• The Project on Government Oversight says in this blog post that an audit of the federal bank bailout asserts that federal officials "were not entirely forthright when explaining their decision to inject over $100 billion in capital to nine major financial institutions last fall." Thus, POGO quotes the report saying, the government has cost itself the confidence of the people who need to support it in its attempts to stabilize the financial system. Click the link above for more. We've blogged on the bank bailout here, including links to ways to track the money.

• The Associated Press got Anna Nicole Smith's FBI file using a Freedom of Information Act. (I saw this first on Scott Hodes' "The FOIA Blog.") The documents show that the FBI investigated "whether (she) was part of a plot to kill her tycoon husband's son, whom she was battling for his late dad's fortune, but prosecutors ultimately decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge" her, the AP reports. Full story here. Sorry, we at Record Tracker haven't blogged previously about Smith. But we do have a bunch of interesting stuff about the FBI, probably the coolest agency ever to FOIA.

Quick update: The York Daily Record/Sunday News' effort to get 911 time-response logs from York County is headed to court Oct. 21.

Background: The state's new right-to-know law made time-response logs public, so that people could assess the performance of their first-responders. But the law didn't define what a time-response log is.

When the YDR/SN asked for logs from the county, we got a list of times. When we asked for geographical identifiers such as block addresses, the county said no. We appealed to the state's open records office, which agreed with us and told the county to add addresses or some kind of geographic locators to the logs. The county appealed to Common Pleas court.

Later this month, oral arguments will be heard. More here.

A Pew Research Center survey on attitudes toward the news media shows, the center says, that "most Americans continue to support the so-called 'watchdog role' for the press. In fact, the percentage of Americans saying that press criticism of political leaders keeps them "from doing things that should not be done" is nearly as high now -- at 62% -- as it was in Pew Research's first poll in 1985 (67%)..." At that time, the center notes, overall views of media were far less negative than they are now.

We hope you'd be among that 62 percent. This blog was created as part of the York Daily Record/Sunday News' watchdog efforts, as was our Full Disclosure open-records page. We also created a tips form you can use to let us know about stories you think we're missing, or ones we should go after.

Education administrators love numbers. And I don't mean 1+2=3. I mean NUMBERS.

The drive to measure every possible kind of academic performance -- as well as the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act -- means that the state education department compiles stacks of data on our schoolchildren and our schools.

That's cool. We know a lot of you like to dive into those numbers. That's why we're regularly creating searchable forms of things like test results and putting them on our web site so you can go through them whenever you want.

Education reporter Nickie Dobo has, on her Education Today site, searchable forms where you can find:

• Your school's average SAT scores for the past five years. This is the first time we've been able to look at SAT scores over time.
  
• Your school's PSSA scores.
• Your school's scores on the PSSA science test.
• Your school's scores on the PSSA writing test.
• And even your school district's property tax rates from 2006-2010.

Nickie's always looking for more to put out there. If you have an idea, leave it in the comments section here or e-mail her at nobo@ydr.com.

One thing we've learned in reporting on these numbers is there are always stories behind them -- why some are high, why some are low, and so on. (See Nickie's stories on the countywide SAT scores, for example).

 It pays not to take the numbers as a final measure, but as a tool toward understanding how your school (or your student) is doing. If you look through the numbers and have questions you want us to answer, by all means get in touch. 

Should public employees' addresses be public? The Commonwealth Court is due to decide that in a case involving public school employees' home addresses. It issued a preliminary injunction stopping the release of addresses, saying that people's right to privacy is protected by the state constitution.

The state's open records office has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the injunction, according to this editorial in The Legal Intelligencer. It patiently explains why the Commonwealth Court would be wrong to extend constitutional protection of privacy to public employees' addresses, and should instead apply the Right-to-Know law's personal security exemption, which says information can be withheld if it "would be reasonably likely to result in a substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to or the personal security of an individual."

The editorial says, among other points, that if addresses are constitutionally protected, "school districts would face constitutional claims for distributing school directories to their students. A person might be able to state a prima facie tort case for publication of private facts if his neighbor tells someone where he lives. Deeds might not be publicly recorded, and property tax assessment records might no longer be publicly available."

 You might recall that York County is citing privacy concerns in denying the York Daily Record/Sunday News' request for 911 response logs, saying that release of such information could endanger crime victims. The county will release only a set of times, which it admits makes it impossible to evaluate first-responder performance.

 That position is counter to what the legislature intended in the new RTK law, which made the 911 logs public and assumed (but did not specify in the law itself) that either addresses or some type of geographical identifier would be part of the logs.

The privacy issue, according to the newspaper's managing editor, Randy Parker, would not play out as envisioned by the county. "Nothing in our analysis would expose a victim of a sexual crime," he said. But an evaluation of response times, he said, "may be able to help identify response times to domestic violence. I think a lot of people would like to know if police respond to domestic violence calls as quickly as they respond to accidents or other crimes."

The open records office agreed with the newspaper, but the county wants the Common Pleas court to decide. Stay tuned.

An independent nuclear experts has recommended that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve Three Mile Island's  bid to run for an additional 20 years.

Since no one has contested TMI's application for license renewal, the NRC will not hold a hearing and instead expects to issue a decision by early November.

The sole concern that the independent board had with the application had to do with a corroding metal liner that prevents vapor from leaving the containment building.

TMI has since replaced the barrier and launched a program to monitor the rate of corrosion.

Click on this link to read the independent board's report:

TMIACRSLetter.9-2009.pdf 

 

In his testimony today, a Luzerne County judge told a county commission that a kids-for-cash scheme (where two county judges allegedly sent kids to a jail in return for kickbacks) was able to go on for so long because the media does not report on juvenile proceedings.

It's an interesting thought. We don't cover or publish the names of minors charged with crimes unless there is an extenuating circumstance. Court proceedings for juveniles are typically closed.

Do you think juvenile court proceedings should be open to the public? Should the media report on it?