Raids were carried out across the state Wednesday, including one at the Alto Grocery in Habersham County, shutting down the store.

Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a statement that 50 warrants were issued as part of the sting, which involved several agencies including the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and police in Gwinnett County and Lawrenceville. 

Authorities say many of the suspects are gas station owners or tobacco wholesalers. Officials say many of them were able to obtain counterfeit tax stamps for cigarettes and cigars. 

ATF Atlanta Special Agent In Charge Scott Sweetow said the case involves “pure and simple organized crime.” 

Those officials executed an arrest warrant Wednesday afternoon at Alto Grocery in Alto, shutting down the store.

“This investigation, we have a total of seven search warrants and 50 arrest warrants that we executed today,” said Special Agent Richard Coes, public information officer for the ATF. “Many of these are facing racketeering charges as well because they’re loosely organized.”

Those warrants involved the illegal possession, sale and distribution of contraband cigarettes and followed a more than three-year investigation to help the state deter criminals from defrauding the state out of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

Coes said those arrested are “individuals defrauding the state and the U.S. government by avoiding excise tax on tobacco products. They are using false state tax stamps. Ultimately, they are defrauding the government of could be millions of dollars.”

“Those engaged in the manufacturing and distribution of contraband tobacco products are able to reap substantial profits by avoiding payment of federal and state taxes,” said ATF Atlanta Field Division Special Agent in Charge Scott Sweetow in a statement. “Using a wide variety of sophisticated techniques, ATF disrupts and eliminates criminal organizations by identifying and arresting offenders who traffic illegal tobacco products. It remains ATF’s goal to ensure that all tobacco businesses are competing on a level playing field. The defendants that were arrested today made it nearly impossible for legitimate businesses to compete and are accused of defrauding the state out of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Those funds could have been used for the betterment of our communities.”

“Today’s successful operation is the result of a strong collaborative effort among federal, state and local law enforcement,” said State Attorney General Sam Olens in a press release. “By working together as a cohesive unit, our law enforcement partners were able to identify and apprehend individuals participating in racketeering activity, which included defrauding the state and federal governments of revenue by evading cigarette and cigar excise taxes. These arrests send a strong message that if you do not play by the rules in Georgia, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“I have no information other than it was Lawrenceville and ATF,” said Alto Police Chief Tim Vaughan Wednesday afternoon. Vaughan’s department and the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office learned of the operation after the warrant in Alto had been executed.

(AccessNorthGa.com’s Rob Moore contributed to this story.)

By Jeffry Scott , The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“From my perspective, the issue here is not whether they redacted two sentences,” Olens said in an interview with Ledger-Enquirer editors and reporters, referring to blacked out passages of the contract city officials claim are protected by attorney-client privilege. “It shouldn’t take the attorney general’s office to say, ‘Here’s the request. You’ve got three days or we’re going to take the appropriate legal action.’ The public has a right to those records in and of itself without my office’s assistance.”

Olens’ remarks came two days after city officials relented to an Open Records request filed this summer by local hotelier Tracy L. Sayers. The attorney general’s office last week asked Columbus to produce the contract or risk potential legal action.

  Before ultimately releasing the contract, city officials had balked at the request and sought court intervention to withhold the document under attorney-client privilege.

Sayers said he is unsatisfied with the contract because of the redactions. But Olens suggested his hands were tied on the omissions, and said his office decided to close the file on Sayers’ complaint after the city released “the vast majority” of the requested information.

“In order to compel the full documents, you have to go to a court. You have to aver that it’s not attorney-client privilege and that you have a good-faith basis for saying that, and then have the judge look at the document in camera,” Olens said. “In order for me to comport with ethics, I can’t tell the court that I have a good–faith basis to know that that’s not attorney-client privilege.”

Before the city released the contract, City Attorney Clifton C. Fay sent an email to city councilors in which he referred to Olens’ intervention as “outrageous.” Olens, in the interview Wednesday, responded to a comment Fay made to the newspaper in which he invoked their days together at Emory University School of Law, and said that if Olens were city attorney, “he would guard the attorney-client privilege to the full extent of the law.”

“We’re not in a political campaign mode here, and I think the attorney general should be giving legal answers rather than political answers,” Olens said. “The fact of the matter is yes he does represent the city, but he also tells the city what the law is and to comply with the law.”

Fay, in an email Wednesday, said he appreciated the attorney general’s comments.

“We have always enjoyed a good working relationship with his office,” he wrote.

Fay also pointed to an observation made by a Georgia State University College of Law professor, who told the Ledger-Enquirer this week that a city’s contract with an outside law firm is protected by attorney-client privilege.

“We certainly agree with Professor (Paul) Milich,” Fay added, “but in the interest of transparency, members of the Columbus Council urged release of the attorney fee arrangement in the Expedia case, and that is what occurred.”

The controversy over the city’s delay in releasing its contract with Pope, McGlamry, Kilpatrick, Morrison & Norwood comes at a time when Olens is seeking to strengthen the state’s sunshine laws. The attorney general supports legislation that aims to make the law easier to understand and increase penalties for violators.

Olens, who is a former Cobb County Commission chairman, addressed the Rotary Club of Columbus on Wednesday about his efforts to reform the Open Records Act.

“Keep in mind I was elected in local government for 12 years — I’m very familiar with the sunshine laws,” he told rotarians. “I’m also familiar with how they’re abused, and I think the citizens deserve transparent government.

“I think the citizens deserve to make timely requests and to get timely submissions,” Olens added. “I think if you attend a meeting and they cover 15 topics in 20 minutes, then you weren’t at the real meeting.”

Read more: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/10/13/1775976/georgia-attorney-general-in-visit.html#ixzz1ahCP76qW

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Georgia must receive approval from the federal government before any changes in election practices or procedures are implemented. States can seek that approval from the U.S. Department of Justice or the District Court for the District of Columbia.  

We have worked closely with the General Assembly to ensure that Georgia’s growing population is fairly represented, and we are confident that the maps drawn will meet the requirements necessary for federal approval.

Like several other states, including Louisiana, Virginia and Alabama, Georgia will also submit the plans to the Department of Justice for administrative approval. If Georgia obtains administrative preclearance of the three plans, the state will dismiss the lawsuit.

Georgia is challenging the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), finalized by the EPA this summer. The rule requires unprecedented reductions in certain emissions in a very short period of time, and will cause major changes to the way electricity will be produced in the state starting January 1, 2012. 

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule gives Georgia only five months to essentially overhaul the way electricity is generated in our state. The rule also puts Georgia at a disadvantage relative to neighboring states by giving other states far more emission credits.

If implemented, this latest federal enforcement effort by the EPA will severely damage our struggling economy and will stifle job creation. This new rule disproportionally harms Georgia and the federal government should not have the power to choose which states are given economic advantage over others.

Last month, Chairman Stan Wise of the Public Service Commission of Georgia testified before lawmakers on Capitol Hill about numerous regulations coming from EPA, including CSAPR. Chairman Wise told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that “From the proposed [CSAPR] rule to the final rule, there were very significant changes. For Georgia, the state lost substantial emissions allowances (thus making it harder for the state to comply). Thus [...] any actions taken by the utilities in Georgia based on the proposed rule would have likely been inadequate …”

Georgia joins Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia in filing suits to challenge the EPA’s CSAPR rule.

Gainesville Times Editorial Board
September 25, 2011

Some may roll their eyes at the discussion of open government and open records laws, believing them to be the concerns of only the media and advocacy groups.

But a transparent government is an important piece in the foundation of our republic. The representatives we elect work for us, and it’s important that they conduct our business in the open. Secret government meetings are for politburos and despots, not a nation founded on the principals of government of, by and for the people.

Yet with increasing and alarming frequency, elected officials try to circumvent that idea by meeting behind closed doors and finding new ways around open government laws designed to protect the public from such clandestine dealings.

Elected officials are allowed by law only to discuss matters involving personnel, litigation or land acquisition behind closed doors. They are not allowed to vote or conduct other official business in secret. Nor can they keep official documents and communications hidden from view.

The idea behind this is simple: Those who govern take actions that directly affect our taxes, public safety, schools and other public concerns. This is not their private club or boardroom; they work for us and we have a right to observe every move they make and word they speak on the job.

Fortunately, Georgia’s open meeting laws may get a boost next year. House Bill 397 received a committee hearing during the August special session of the General Assembly and will come before the body when the legislature convenes in January. The bill would strengthen the state’s sunshine laws by increasing fines and penalties to government agencies that violate the laws of public access.

It is a timely bill meant to address a growing problem. State Attorney General Sam Olens, who helped craft the bill, said his office is on a pace to receive around 400 complaints this year of illegal closed meetings, nearly double the usual number. 

The new proposal would double the fine to $1,000 for open meetings violations, with an extra $2,500 for each additional violation in a 12-month period. Violations of record requests would result in increased fines as well. The bill also would clarify what electronic records and documents must be made available to the public, another complicating factor in the digital age.

The difficult part in enforcing such laws is how many elected officials work to find ways around them. For instance, a group of commissioners or council members can meet without a quorum to discuss certain issues, then put the results of that discussion to action in a vote in public, even if the bulk of the decision-making was done outside the public’s view.

This is what many feel happened on the Hall County Board of Commissioners when three members voted to dismiss several county employees and hire a temporary law firm at their first meeting of the year. All the discussion and debate over that move had already been held in private meetings that the public was not privy to.

This cloak of secrecy that some officials hide behind just further widens the gulf of public trust that continues to breed skepticism of government at all levels. Officeholders from both parties are to blame, from the White House all the way down to all local governments. 

The proposed state bill isn’t perfect, and could go much further. One provision would allow governments to continue to discuss hiring of top-level managers and senior supervisors in secret. The Georgia Press Association has advocated that those meetings be made public, since those leaders involved carry the power and responsibility of elected officials and should be held equally accountable. 

A bigger problem is the fact that any new law must be passed by elected officials who themselves are protected from public scrutiny. While open meetings laws affect your county and city governments, the General Assembly is exempt. Its members can meet in secret and discuss any issue they like without you knowing about it. 

A case in which this recently came to light occurred last summer. A racial discrimination suit brought by a state Senate staff member was not made public, though it was later learned that the Senate paid a law firm more than $80,000 of your tax money to handle it. 

The money was designated as a “personnel issue,” and members who took part in the decision signed an agreement to keep the matter confidential. Their motivation seemed to be to protect those involved from public embarrassment.

We don’t think those empowered to spend the public’s money at any level should have the authority to decide on their own that their actions will remain confidential. If $80,000 in state money is to be spent, there should be accountability for the decision. That accountability cannot exist without the public being made aware of what happened and why.

So is this what we elect public officials to do, cover their tracks for their own benefit and tell us it’s none of our business? Let us suggest this as possible reform: Lawmakers can make any decision they want outside public review, as long as any money spent as a result of such a decision comes from their own pockets and not from the taxpayers. 

Now the concern is that the same legislators, many of whom don’t seem to believe in open government, will be allowed to amend the laws already in place. That has some advocates concerned that any changes could take the laws in the wrong direction.

“In Georgia, our laws are really not that bad,” said Hollie Mandheim, executive director off the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. “I’m afraid we’re going to end up with something worse.”

Worse is not an option. Olens’ goals to strengthen the laws are shared by those of us who seek to share what public officials are doing with your money and your governments with those who put them in office. Anything less takes us further from the ideal of a people’s government and should not be tolerated.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/227/article/56588/