Muh Freeze Peach

This is kind of unbelievable. An unknown employee controlling the Twitter account for the Charlottesville Police Department "liked" a tweet in reply to me from a Virginia resident who offered to file Freedom of Information Act requests by proxy on my behalf. The tweet was "liked" on March 15, 2019. It seems logical that Tyler Hawn would have been controlling the departments Twitter account during this timeframe. I sought comment from the Charlottesville Police Department yesterday as to who might have been controlling the account when the post was "liked".  Predictably, the "spokesperson" for the Charlottesville Police Department was at a loss for words.  I followed up with questions regarding the legality of the requirements made of me by city officials to verify circulation of my online magazine within the Commonwealth. According to multiple media organizations in Charlottesville, none have

Twitter has locked me out of my account, allegedly for violating their terms of service. I posted the following three screenshots in a tweet this evening which have the journalists name and phone number redacted. Intact was a mailing address to the Washington Post. Twitter provided no specific details about why my account was locked, but I am assuming it is because of the Washington Post mailing address.  Here is all Twitter provided to explain the locking of my account.  I appealed this decision. Twitter's decision to lock my account makes no sense. A simple search for the address on Twitter yields countless tweets containing the same information. There was nothing threatening about my tweets. This is just a sampling. I did not screenshot all of the countless tweets containing the same address. Twitter has some splaining to do. Twitter m

On May 8, 2019, I submitted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to the Charlottesville Police Department. That evening, the Public Information Officer for the city of Charlottesville denied them all. Although the requests were submitted under the name Tom Nash, the denials were addressed to me. Oddly enough, on March 15, 2019, the unknown person running the Charlottesville Police Department Twitter account liked a tweet in which a Virginia resident offered to submit FOIA requests by proxy for me, appearing to signal their approval and encouragement.  According to a podcast published on January 10, 2019 by WINA radio, the account was created and is run by Charlottesville Police Department Public Information Officer Tyler Hawn.  It's unclear the rationale of the city of Charlottesville for continuing to deny FOIA requests from Virginia residents. This leaves me in an even worse position as I have no legal right to cha

On April 25, 2019, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for public information to the Charlottesville Police Department. The request was submitted through Muckrock, a website designed to promote greater government transparency and make filing a FOIA request easier for the public. I purchased a Muckrock Professional account for $40, which gives me up to 20 FOIA requests through the site every month and includes a feature which detects if you are filing from out-of-state and then submits the requests through a group of volunteer proxy filers. A proxy filer is someone who takes the place of the actual filer, and in this case, the proxy filer appears to be a Virginia resident who has successfully submitted previous FOIA requests to the Charlottesville Police Department with no issues.  Muckrock also includes a feature where you are able to view the actual email data. The email data for this particular requests appears to

The Charlottesville Transparency Project is now live on Muckrock. The goal is to bring a little sunlight to a city that certainly appears to need it badly. The Charlottesville Transparency Project is a 100 % self-funded, non-commercial investigative journalism project and public service to the residents of Charlottesville and the entire state of Virginia. If you'd like to help or have a question you'd like answered, email me at rblee22468@gmail.com . 

I recently signed up for an account at Muckrock and have submitted 4 trial Freedom of Information Act requests through the site. Muckrock has a cool feature that automatically detects if you requests need a proxy filer. Muckrock has a team of proxy filers in states that bar out-of-state requesters.  Initial responses to these 4 requests are due by tomorrow. We will see how this goes.