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Tips Toward A Safer Old Dominion
by Maureen Sirhal
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on Monday accepted the latest recommendations made by a state committee to enhance security around schools and transportation and healthcare facilities. The Secure Virginia Panel, a committee tasked with creating blueprints for improving security around the state, released the recommendations.
The panel suggested that college and university police be eligible for federal funding to "first responders" to emergencies and that the state's safety officials develop a plan with university police to respond to natural disasters or terrorism. Campus police would be able to integrate communications systems with local police and other emergency-response groups.
The panel also recommended that education leaders work with Virginia's Public Safety secretary to establish a system for reporting violent crimes.
To ensure that personal information is protected, the panel suggested that Virginia's Education secretary, in conjunction with the state attorney general, create a task force for determining what and how student information should be shared in the event of a serious crime or attack. The panel also asked that officials evaluate school security and that their findings be exempted from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Under the panel's recommendations, Warner has directed the state's Transportation and Public Safety secretaries to integrate state aircraft-licensing data into a new fusion center that will be part of a new Emergency Operations Center and Criminal Intelligence Center. The data will be able to be crosschecked with databases developed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Warner also asked the Transportation secretary to expand the Airport Security Certification Program in order to help state airports develop or enhance security.
Warner plans to request a review of the federal Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard to determine if it should remain as a mandate for terrorist events involving weapons of mass destruction. The standard mandates the type of personal protective equipment and training for such emergencies, as well as procedures necessary to decontaminate patients and protect the environment.
Floridians Ponder Privacy Of Public Records
Florida's Senate Judiciary Committee on Public Records met last week in Tallahassee in the fourth of a series of meetings to examine privacy concerns about the online accessibility to court records. The committee is tasked with information gathering and determining a proper balance between the right to access public records and concern over privacy protection.
At issue is whether Florida's legislators should further amend access rules in order to enhance privacy protections for public records. "Obviously, the Internet has been the catalyst," a committee staffer said. "It sort of has brought to light how much information is gathered and is available to the public to access."
Florida enacted a law in 2001 that requires court clerks to post official records on the Internet, but the staffer said "more than just official records were being posted [as a result]. That raised concerns [about] some information on official records that are publicly accessed."
To address the concerns, state legislators later passed laws that would exempt things like bank-account numbers and Social Security numbers from official court documents. The information sometimes comes in a form that is not easily protected, the staffer said, so the committee is studying methods for screening court records.
The committee, composed of lawmakers, private-sector groups and a gubernatorial appointee, plans to issue a report in January to the state legislature. The report likely will contain recommendations for addressing privacy concerns in public records. Two more sessions are scheduled in Orlando on Dec. 2 and in Miami on Dec. 19, staffers said.
A Gamble That Did Not Pay
Federal authorities in Wisconsin announced late last month that they have charged a 56-year-old Winter Springs, Fla., resident with conspiracy to violate the Wire Wagering Act. David Hampton Tedder was indicted Sept. 12 for participating in the operations of Gold Medal Sports, a sports-betting firm located on the island of Curacao.
According to the indictment, Tedder created shell corporations and offshore bank accounts for Gold Medal subsidiaries in order to create Internet gaming software, including sports-betting software. Tedder also was charged with conspiracy to launder money by moving Gold Medal profits from U.S. bank accounts to offshore bank accounts. Internal Revenue Service and FBI agents arrested Tedder at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on Oct. 21.
The indictment ends a three-year probe into illegal offshore sports betting and handicapping telemarketing services in Wisconsin, Las Vegas, Florida and elsewhere. Tedder has become the eighth defendant charged with a felony offense in the investigation.
Gold Medal Sports pleaded guilty to racketeering on Dec. 4, 2001, and has agreed to suspend operations and forfeit more than $3.3 million in criminal earnings. Its main owners, Duane Pede and Jeff D'Ambrosia, also pleaded guilty to filing false income-tax returns and violating the Wire Wagering Act. Each received a five-year prison term. Pede and D'Ambrosia also paid more than $1.4 million in back taxes and fines of $100,000 each.
If convicted, Tedder faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for gambling conspiracy. The money-laundering counts each carry maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
New Jersey Governor Outlines Tech Vision
New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey reiterated his commitment to pushing more state services online in a speech to technology workers at a digital government conference last week.
"This administration has a new vision for technology," McGreevey said. "We want to make government accessible to all our citizens -- in living rooms, in classrooms and in boardrooms across this state. By effectively employing state-of-the-art information technology, we will give government back to the people."
So far, New Jersey has allocated nearly $540 million this year, or 9 percent of the state's budget, for information technology projects, including hiring workers and procuring equipment. The state's chief information officer, Judith Teller, said the McGreevey administration" believe[s] that creating a digital government will enable us to improve service delivery or otherwise improve quality of operations."
McGreevey unveiled several new initiatives. The state's Division of Motor Vehicles plans to incorporate the self-service approach for more of its functions, employ new technologies to identify fraudulent claimants and purchase new technology to produce accident reports electronically, thereby reducing the time it takes to complete reports at accident scenes. The change is designed to benefit both motorists and insurance companies.
And McGreevy this week signed into law a bill, A.B. 1374 that enables meeting notices of certain public bodies to be available on the Internet.
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