Good morning, City Desk readers. It's Friday, Jan. 9, which means we'll have a new president in 11 days. Psyched? You totally should be--your City Paper is hard at work on a mind-blowing inauguration issue. Another reason to be psyched is that I've been mainlining coffee since 5 a.m., which means this roundup is gonna be a mutha-f'ing doozie. And now some news:

• According to the Washington Post, Big Brother the Department of Homeland Security is moving to Anacostia: "After years of battling historic preservationists, the federal government won approval yesterday to build a massive headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security on a 176-acre hilltop site east of the Anacostia River." (I'm going to take this as an opportunity to plug Snitch Jacket, 9/11-Truther Len Bracken's anarchist/dystopian District novel!)
• On the flip side, And Now, Anacostia has some positive planning news about the restoration of the house at 1312 U Street SE.
• Fr33 Agents (a new political website based in Arlington) reports that Liberty Tavern, a favorite watering hole of NoVa libertarians, "has voluntarily gone smoke-free." It then went on to hosted a press conference at which Va. Gov. Tim Kaine pledged to make all of Virginia's bars smoke-free. Word on the (libertarian) street is that Liberty Tavern just lost a few patrons.
• Michael Perkins (whose tiff with WMATA we blogged about yesterday) posted a great roundup of proposed transportation legislation in Va. The appallingly-statist standouts are HB 1659, which "would prohibit all non-emergency use of wireless devices while driving (even a bike), even while using hands-free devices"; HB 1698, which "requires people who are selling scrap copper and other nonferrous metals like catalytic converters (which contain platinum) to provide documentation that they actually own the scrap metal being sold"; and HB 1661, which "converts Virginia's "cents per gallon" tax on gasoline and diesel fuel into a percentage tax."
• While we're on the topic of transportation, WMATA is threatening to sue Flex Your Rights (we wrote about Flex Your Rights' event at the Dupont Circle Metro back in October) over a servicemark violation--FYR used Metro's "M" symbol on its fliers advising passengers to boycott the bag searches. FYR's response? Bring it on.

That's it for me. Look for an afternoon roundup of weekend events, and I'll see y'all next Friday.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Wrote.

"The websites [infosnack.org and greatergreaterwashington.org] do not serve to provide information to the general public, therefore we find that you are not a representative of the news media."

So says WMATA's chief of staff, Shiva Pant, in a letter denying my appeal of their October decision that blogs aren't "news media." I asked for reduced information request fees under the "Member of the News Media" and "Public Interest" sections of WMATA's Public Access to Records Policy, or PARP. The PARP derives from the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and according to the letter, "WMATA interprets and applies the PARP consistent with federal FOIA law and practice."

I request information from WMATA to write articles about their activities. Most of my articles come from their press releases, board and RAC meeting reports, and information posted on wmata.com. I also request information from staff contacts. More recently, WMATA staff have initially declined some of my requests, and directed me to use PARP. For example, I recently analyzed bus reliability data. I originally asked the press office, who directed me to the PARP office. This process can take months, and if the information requires extensive searching, can be expensive. Ordinarily, the person requesting the information must pay WMATA's costs.

Perkins based his argument on the Open Government Act of 2007, which established the criteria for using FOIA, "and thus PARP" as "any person or entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience."

Perkins is an informative read, both at Infosnack and GGW, for people interested in transportation issues. But he's also keen as hell, and WMATA is unknowingly setting itself up for a citizen-blogged headache by stonewalling him.