News & Commentary

Significant strides were made this year in the legislature around a number of civil liberties issues. Check out our quick rundown of the high points (as well as some disappointments). Details for each bill can be found on our full legislative report.

In an important ruling for government transparency and accountability, the Vermont Supreme Court said Friday that the public has the right to see internal investigations of police officers suspected of misconduct. Shame and embarrassment aren't grounds to deny the public access to records that can shine a light on oversight and management of public employees, the court said.

That's the response journalist Justin Elliott got when he filed a FOIA request with the NSA. Eliot was trying to get information about the agency's public-relations efforts in connection with a documentary on the NSA aired by the National Geographic Channel. "There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately," the NSA FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) officer, Cindy Blacker, told Elliott. The system is apparently "a little antiquated and archaic," she said.

Last year, in an interview with the news weekly Seven Days, the director of operations at the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles said a new high-tech facial recognition system bought with a $900,000 grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security would not be used for law enforcement purposes. Well, a year later, the director, Michael Smith, says "things have changed" and the high-tech drivers' license photo system is indeed being utilized to help police departments in police investigations.

Edward Snowden, a former undercover CIA employee, has stepped forward as the person who provided documents to the Washington Post and The Guardian detailing the National Security Agency's broad telecommunications surveillance. The acknowledgement came as criticism of the NSA program continued, despite arguments by government officials that all legal requirements had been followed.

Reporters at VtDigger.org and other Vermont news outlets have faced a raft of criticism for reporting on Gov. Shumlin's property dealings in the town of East Montpelier. In 47 other states, this wouldn't have happened. That's because financial disclosure -- including reporting of property holdings -- is required of statewide candidates and office-holders.

Plates of interest. Hot lists. Geo-fences. Intelligence resource. Never heard of the Vermont Justice Information Sharing System, either? Get to know the acronym, for VJISS is working with local, county, state, and federal police agencies "to deploy a first in the nation statewide License Plate Reader (LPR) data sharing system."

Two years after the arrest of an African-American man in his own home, the ACLU-VT has won Anne Galloway of the investigative online news site VtDigger.org the right to access information for a story on possible racial profiling by the Hartford Police Department.

A Vermont superior court has ruled in favor of a Franklin woman who challenged her town's inclusion of prayer in town meeting proceedings.