From InformationWeek: "In its effort to uphold the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. Its widely reported issuance of subpoenas to Internet search companies AOL, MSN, Google, and Yahoo is just the tip of the iceberg: The government has demanded information from at least 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms."
"The Sunshine in Government Initiative is a coalition of media groups committed to promoting policies that ensure the government is accessible, accountable and open. Public oversight is the ultimate safeguard of democracy. This is not an issue just for the media. It is the inalienable right of citizens to examine and judge their government; and that right is served when news media act on behalf of the public to gain access to information."
In a letter sent March 27, 2006 to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a bipartisan group of Senators called for an investigation into the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) to weaken regulations that require polluters to inform the public about toxic releases.
http://lautenberg.senate.gov/~lautenberg/press/2003/01/2006327A41.html
From the Toronto Star: "Tim Berners-Lee, chief architect of the World Wide Web, says his world-changing invention would no longer be an "open information space" if broadband providers abandoned the principle of Net neutrality."
From Wired News:
National Security Agency could have legally monitored ordinarily confidential communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients, the Justice Department said Friday of its controversial warrantless surveillance program.Responding to questions from Congress, the department also said that it sees no prohibition to using information collected under the NSA's program in court. . .
The department also avoided questions on whether the administration believes it is legal to wiretap purely domestic calls without a warrant, when al-Qaida activity is suspected. The department wouldn't say specifically that it hasn't been done.
"Interception of the content of domestic communications would present a different legal question," the department said.
Library Juice has posted a letter from the American Federation of Government Employees regarding the impending closure of the EPA libraries. Among many notable aspects in the letter is fact #4. In addition to EPA Region 5's immediate plans for the library closure, the letter notes:
On March 9, 2006, Lynda F. Carroll, Assistant Administrator for Management, Region 6, sent to Forrest John, President AFGE Local 1003, a memo with the subject “Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6 Library Closing”. This memo indicated that, “Region 6 library will be closing effective on the close of business September 30, 2006.”
From InfoToday: "Congressional Quarterly’s CQ Press Professional Division is enhancing its Congressional Staff Directory. The print/Web directory lists nearly 20,000 contacts along with in-depth biographies and committee assignments. However, now added to the free searchable Web access that all subscribers receive will be complete votes and bill information and complete Congressional Record information for each member of Congress. The product is designed to provide a thorough understanding of each member’s political record and behavior—not just their contact information.
Users can now search and analyze each member’s voting history or the results of any particular bill. Information can be searched by member, vote, date, and keyword. Links within the directory take you straight to each member’s specific history, or users can click on to the main votes site and do in-depth analysis of any vote, analyzing voting trends by party lines, state, and vote type. Congressional Record information for each member of Congress lets users find who said what and when on the House and Senate floors. Links in the directory take you to each member’s history. Users can search by keyword and date to quickly get specific comments on any topic addressed by Congress on the floor.
The new content is available in March with the latest release of the Congressional Staff Directory. Subscriptions last an entire year and include all results of the 2006 elections."
Managing Sensitive Information: DOE and DOD Could Improve Their Policies and Oversight
"In the interest of national security and personal privacy and for other reasons, federal agencies place dissemination restrictions on information that is unclassified yet still sensitive. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have both issued policy guidance on how and when to protect sensitive information. DOE marks documents with this information as Official Use Only (OUO) while DOD uses the designation For Official Use Only (FOUO). GAO was asked to (1) identify and assess the policies, procedures, and criteria DOE and DOD employ to manage OUO and FOUO information; and (2) determine the extent to which DOE's and DOD's training and oversight programs assure that information is identified, marked, and protected according to established criteria. . .
While DOE and DOD have policies in place to manage their OUO or FOUO programs, our analysis of these policies showed a lack of clarity in key areas that could allow inconsistencies and errors to occur. For example, it is unclear which DOD office is responsible for the FOUO program, and whether personnel designating a document as FOUO should note the FOIA exemption used as the basis for the designation on the document. Also, both DOE's and DOD's policies are unclear regarding at what point a document should be marked as OUO or FOUO and what would be an inappropriate use of the OUO or FOUO designation. For example, OUO or FOUO designations should not be used to conceal agency mismanagement. In our view, this lack of clarity exists in both DOE and DOD because the agencies have put greater emphasis on managing classified information, which is more sensitive than OUO or FOUO. In addition, while both DOE and DOD offer training on their OUO and FOUO policies, neither DOE nor DOD has an agencywide requirement that employees be trained before they designate documents as OUO or FOUO. Moreover, neither agency conducts oversight to assure that information is appropriately identified and marked as OUO or FOUO. DOE and DOD officials told us that limited resources, and in the case of DOE, the newness of the program, have contributed to the lack of training requirements and oversight. Nonetheless, the lack of training requirements and oversight of the OUO and FOUO programs leaves DOE and DOD officials unable to assure that OUO and FOUO documents are marked and handled in a manner consistent with agency policies and may result in inconsistencies and errors in the application of the programs."
In fall 2001, before the ink had dried on the nation's new anti-terrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, University of Vermont librarian Trina Magi was analyzing how the federal measure would affect the civil liberties of library patrons. The news, Magi concluded, was not good. . . Since then, the UVM librarian has traveled across the country, publicly fighting the law that opponents say infringes on free speech and abuses Americans' rights to privacy.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060326/NEWS02/603260308/1007&theme
From Networking Pipeline: FCC Chair Kevin Martin told a Las Vegas conference "that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment."
A Spanish court has addressed Creative Commons licenses in a case on whether the major collecting society in Spain could collect royalties from a bar that played CC-licensed music. The court ruled in favor of the bar, since the music was not licensed by the collecting society and the CC licenses permitted public performance of the work. Coverage at http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5830.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) conducted a harvest (i.e., capture) of Federal Agency public web sites as they existed prior to January 20, 2005. This harvest was intended to document Federal agencies' presence on the World Wide Web at the time that the Presidential Administration term ended in early 2005.
Freedominfo.org, sponsored by the National Security Archive, has introduced "a new, comprehensive country-by-country section that gives users access to resources about FOI laws in more than 60 countries—including background, legal texts, links to government bodies and organizations, and current news about the FOI movement in the country. As more countries move towards adopting FOI laws everyday, freedominfo.org provides vital tools for researchers, advocates, journalists, government officials, and members of the public to stay informed about the progress of the right to information, around the world and in their own backyards."
For the first time, the National Archives and Records Administration has made available online more than 400,000 State Department telegrams and other records for 1973 and 1974. Central Foreign Policy Files, 1973-1974: This series, popularly known as the "State Department Cables" or the "State Department Telegrams", consist of telegrams, and an index to airgrams, memoranda, correspondence, reports, diplomatic notes, and related material.
The NY Times reports on librarian John Doe's inability to accept an intellectual freedom award from the American Library Association (Registration required):
"The new law does establish the recipient's right to challenge the nondisclosure orders that typically accompany national security letters and Section 215 requests. But the recipient would have to wait a year before raising the question anew if the government continued to assert the need for secrecy. 'If you're a business that has resources to challenge it every year, you can,' Ms. Beeson [the civil liberties union lawyer representing the organization that brought the suit in Connecticut] said. But she said a judge would be hard pressed to rule against a government request to keep the information secret for reasons of national security. In the Connecticut John Doe's case, she said, 'nothing in the new law permits John Doe to disclose his identity.'"
Conservative think tank the CATO Institute has released a new study that concludes that the DMCA hinders innovation. Entitled Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the study expresses deep concern with the government interference into digital rights management techniques.
Executive Summary: "The courts have a proven track record of fashioning balanced remedies for the copyright challenges created by new technologies. But when Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, it cut the courts out of this role and instead banned any devices that "circumvent" digital rights management (DRM) technologies, which control access to copyrighted content.
The result has been a legal regime that reduces options and competition in how consumers enjoy media and entertainment. Today, the copyright industry is exerting increasing control over playback devices, cable media offerings, and even Internet streaming. Some firms have used the DMCA to thwart competition by preventing research and reverse engineering. Others have brought the weight of criminal sanctions to bear against critics, competitors, and researchers.
The DMCA is anti-competitive. It gives copyright holders—and the technology companies that distribute their content—the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates."
From Federal Computer Week: The Defense Department has removed from the DOD inspector general’s Web site a critical report that states that the network that links radar systems, missile sites and command centers for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) ground-based defense system has serious flaws in the security technologies, policies and procedures needed to protect the integrity, availability and confidentiality of information on the network.
Both FCW and Free Government Information have harvested the report.
"Saudi Arabia released on Tuesday an Islamist activist who was arrested earlier this month after criticizing a cabinet minister in an Internet article, a colleague said. Mohsen al-Awajy was taken into custody on March 10 after penning and posting an article in which he also said a liberal clique of ministers and officials had become the real power behind the scenes with a direct line to King Abdullah."
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to marketers and data brokers. The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the American Library Association’s Washington Office, and the 32nd National Library Legislative Day! Join hundreds of library supporters from across the country visiting Members of Congress to share stories about libraries in your communities and to talk about the needs and accomplishments of libraries in your area.
Can’t go to Washington? You can still participate in Legislative Day. On May 1st and 2nd call, fax, or email your Members of Congress and tell them how important libraries are to you, your family, and your community. “Virtual Library Legislative Day” communicates the needs of libraries to Congress and increases the impact of the National Library Legislative Day in Washington D.C.
To organize your own Virtual Library Legislative Day complete with handouts and issue briefs visit:
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/vertld.htm.
In California, you can also join the California Library Association in Sacramento for Library Legislative Day on Wednesday, April 26th.
The U.S. Copyright Office is holding hearings to examine exemptions to the prohibition on circumventing copyright protection systems for access technologies. The Copyright Office will determine whether there are particular classes of work that should be exempt from the prohibition because users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing uses. The hearings will be held in Palo Alto on March 23 and 24, and in Washington, D.C. on March 29 and 31, and April 3 and 4. Requests to testify must be received by March 10, 2006.
The Memory Hole has recovered content from the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) website, apparently removed from public access within the past month.
From Secrecy News: 'All persons who have authorized possession of classified information, and persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into possession in an unauthorized way of classified information, must abide by the law. They have no privilege to estimate that they can do more good with it.'
'So, that applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever. They are not privileged to disobey the laws, because we are a country that respects the rule of law.'
"Thus spoke Judge T.S. Ellis, III, in a January 20, 2006 sentencing hearing (pdf) for former Defense Department official Lawrence A. Franklin, who was convicted of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. Judge Ellis' statement was extraordinary because it appeared to endorse the new Bush Administration theory that not only leakers but also unauthorized recipients of classified information can be prosecuted for retaining or disclosing such information to others. This reading of the law, which has never prevailed before, could now be used against academics, lawyers, newsletter writers, newsletter readers, whatever."
From American Libraries Online: "The National Archives and Records Administration declined March 14 to give a House of Representatives oversight subcommittee details on a seven-year-old program that resulted in the reclassification of thousands of previously public documents, because the Pentagon has ruled that the reasons for the program should remain secret."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Midwest Regional Library serving universities, the public and its own staff, according to a memo released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The agency is acting without waiting for Congress to approve the proposed budget cuts that are the basis for dismantling EPA's entire library network. The affected library located in the Chicago regional headquarters serves the six-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
According to a post on GOVDOC-L, "the plan to slash library funding is among the $300 million in EPA budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration. As originally proposed, the plan would also have de-funded the electronic catalog maintained by the EPA Headquarters library. When it was pointed out that eliminating the electronic catalog would make it impossible to find any holding within the network, EPA announced last week that it would restore the $500,000 reduction to its headquarters for the catalog. Unfortunately, EPA indicated that it would compensate for this action by spreading even deeper cuts cut among the other libraries."
The Government Printing Office is making available the text of H.R. 3199 (USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005) through GPO Access. Also available through GPO Access is President Bush's "Statement on Signing" this piece of legislation, as reported by the March 13, 2006 issue of Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.
Free Government Information has an analysis of the signing statement, declaring that the "President clearly intends to ignore language in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization intended to keep Congress informed of the Administration's use of the Act."
"A federal judge Friday denied a Justice Department demand for access to some Internet search queries of Google Inc. users in a closely watched case testing the limits of online privacy. The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose was a victory for Google, which argued that handing over the records would violate the privacy of people who might scour the Internet with terms as diverse as "best-actor nominees," "third trimester abortion" or "pipe bomb." Although Ware required Google to reveal some information about the websites in its database, he ordered the government to reimburse the Mountain View, Calif., company for the time and expense required to comply."
"A spoof John Howard website that featured a soul searching "apology" speech for the Iraq war has been shut down under orders from the Australian Government. Richard Neville, an Australian futurist and social commentator was "mystified" to discover his satirical website johnhowardpm.org had been blocked on Tuesday with no explanation from either his web hosting company, Yahoo or the domain name registrar, Melbourne IT. He said that after two days of silence, a customer service representative from Melbourne IT today informed him by telephone that the site had 'been closed on the advice from the Australian Government'."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/government-orders-spoof-site-shut/2006/03/17/1142098638843.html
"BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese dissident was jailed for 10 years over an essay he posted on the Internet, a US-based rights body said, as China continued its crackdown on people who express anti-government views."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17032006/323/chinese-cyber-dissident-jailed-10-years.html
FAS.org is making available the prepared testimony from a March 14 House Government Reform subcommittee hearing titled "Drowning in a Sea of Faux Secrets" that addressed overclassification, reclassification, and the use of the "sensitive but unclassified" control marking.
Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike DeWine yesterday introduced Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006 (pdf) that would authorize warrantless intelligence surveillance for up to 45 days, after which it could be renewed upon review by the Attorney General.
News.com reports: A Judge in San Francisco is requiring Google to hand over all the emails of a specific gmail user, even the deleted emails. Since Google stores deleted emails for an undisclosed amount of time, the number of emails that can be used against the plaintiffs, AmeriDebt and founder Andris Pukke, could be "tens of thousands."
LISNews reports: "A friend from a nameless military library in a nameless country has leaked that they are getting NO dollars for new materials. Books, magazines, etc. ZILCH. Apparently this is true for the military libraries worldwide.
'This year, because of cut-backs (even though the Defense budget was increased again), the library's portion of AFLIS (Air Force Libraries & Information Services)funds has been reduced severely. Or rather, completely. AFLIS still pays for the databases (with some cutbacks there) and reference materials, but is not providing any money for subscriptions. Except, we are allowed to fund the core collection of subscription titles out of the Office accounts. Our total subscription costs is just a little over $8K, but we are not getting any of that. Normally we get around $8-12K and that just covers us, and allows us to purchase some needed non-fiction items to support the education efforts. Some, but not all. This year, we don't get any of the $8K. And the offices get $20K total. (Amounts vary for each base, depending on its size and number of office accounts, so the smaller bases will have it even worse, and may not have any money available to even pay for the core subscriptions.)'"
Guardian newspaper campaigns to free public sector information
"The Guardian newspaper is demanding that public sector information should be made freely available to British citizens. The Free our data campaign argues that the current restrictions on government funded information restrict innovation, the number of services, and the variety of information services available."
Chinese premier defends nation's Internet policy
"China's premier Tuesday offered a defense of his nation's Internet censorship and exhorted private companies to 'exercise more self-discipline' if they want to operate in the huge market here. Premier Wen Jiabao, meeting the press in a once-a-year news conference, said sites available to China's 111 million Internet users 'should be able to convey the right message and information.'"
Online Disputes Expose Publishers' Copyright Vulnerability
"When book publishers rallied against Google's library book scanning project last year, they accused the tech giant of stealing. In a lawsuit filed in New York federal court, the publishers claimed that if Google Inc. made digital copies of library books available online for search purposes, the tech company would be committing massive copyright infringement. But then one book publisher, HarperCollins, tried to steal a page from its antagonist's playbook, announcing that it would make its entire backlist, about 20,000 titles, including such classics as "Charlotte's Web," available online. Publishers didn't have a problem -- but book authors and their lawyers did a double take."
Ten Facts About The Pending Librarians' Internet Index Budget Cut
"LII is facing a fifty percent budget cut to its primary funding as of July 1, 2006. Here are ten basic facts to help you understand what's going on."
Government Health Researchers Pressed to Share Data at No Charge
"Political momentum is growing for a change in federal policy that would require government-funded health researchers to make the results of their work freely available on the Internet."
The latest issue of U.S. News and World Report (March 20) features an interview with Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, to discuss his relentless push for greater freedom of information. For 15 years, Aftergood has fought for open records and accountability in government.
A sidebar takes a look at Freedom of Information Act policy. See "Finding out what Uncle Sam has on you".
The First Amendment Center's Kevin Goldberg summarizes federal legislation in 2005 that involved Freedom of Information issues and comments on the status of the proposals.
Schiff, Flake Introduce Bipartisan bill, the “NSA Oversight Act”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two members of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ), introduced legislation today to address the NSA’s surveillance program.
"Sensitive But Unclassified" Information and Other Controls: Policy and Options for Scientific and Technical Information (PDF; 408 KB)
"Providing access to scientific and technical information for legitimate uses while protecting it from potential terrorists is complex and poses difficult policy choices. Federally funded, extramural academic research (basic and applied) is supposed to be 'classified' if it poses a security threat; otherwise, it is to be 'unrestricted.' Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, controls increasingly have been placed on some types of unclassified research and scientific and technical information, including information used to inform decision making and citizen oversight. These controls include 'sensitive but unclassified' (SBU) labels; restrictive contract clauses; visa controls; controlled laboratories; and the widening of legal restrictions on access to some federal biological, transportation, critical infrastructure, geospatial, environmental impact, and nuclear information. On December 16, 2005, President Bush instructed federal agencies to standardize procedures to designate, mark, and handle SBU information, and to forward recommendations for government-wide standards to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Federal agencies do not use uniform definitions of SBU information or have consistent policies for safeguarding or releasing it. This lack of uniformity and consistency raises issues about how to identify SBU information, especially scientific and technical information; how to keep it from those who would use it malevolently, while allowing access for those who need to use it; and how to develop uniform nondisclosure policies and penalties."
I'm quite frankly speechless. The Weekly Standardreports: The first batch of captured documents from pre-war Iraq and Afghanistan are now available online.
"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has created a website where it will post documents captured in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq. The website is hosted by the Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center at Fort Leavenworth and will be updated continuously with new documents.
The first batch of materials, released late Wednesday, includes nine documents captured in connection with Operation Iraqi Freedom and 28 documents previously released on February 14, 2006, in conjunction with a study of those documents conducted by analysts at West Point. Sources on Capitol Hill and within the intelligence community tell The Weekly Standard that hundreds of new documents will be made available in the coming days, including 50-60 hours of audiotapes from the Iraqi regime."
"There are still outstanding process questions that must be answered, too. Who determines which documents will be released and which ones will be kept secret? And what are the criteria for blocking the release of material thought to be sensitive?"
Abstract: "Documentary motion pictures constitute a crucial part of contemporary public debate, because in today’s highly consolidated mass media environment, documentaries offer the kinds of independent voices that the First Amendment was designed to protect. However, current intellectual property practices are chilling speech by forcing documentary filmmakers to tailor their films to accommodate new, strict licensing practices. When filmmakers are compelled to edit their work to meet insurance requirements, it harms the interests of not just the filmmaker, but also the public. Thus, the “clearance culture,” in which anything and everything that could possibly lead to a lawsuit must be cleared, is choking speech by hindering or preventing production of documentaries about important issues."
Paige Gold, "Fair Use and the First Amendment: Corporate Control of Copyright Is Stifling Documentary Making and Thwarting the Aims of the First Amendment" (February 12, 2006). ExpressO Preprint Series. Working Paper 950.
http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/950