Part-Time Policy Wonk

Tuesday March 27th retired British Columbia Legislative Librarian Joan A. Barton spoke movingly to forty members of the Victoria Librarians Association of the long history of the Legislative Library, now threatened with closure. The library was established in 1863, with Dr. Helmkin's private collection at its core, as Thomas Jefferson's was for the Library of Congress. (Dr. Helmkin was British Columbia's first doctor, who married a daughter of Sir James Douglas, the first governor.)

The Legislative Library is part of the national and international network of libraries which serve not only as sources of information, but as a repository of recorded knowledge in a way the ephemeral Internet does not.

Ms Barton urges that those outside British Columbia protest this closure, with most of the collection being boxed and stored. It is important that the Premier and Speaker realize that this action is a blow to the reputation of the Province nationally and internationally.

Protests may be addressed to the Premier: Premier Hon. Gordon Campbell: premier@gov.bc.ca

and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly: Speaker Hon. Bill Barison: toll free number and feedback form http://www.leg.bc.ca/speakers-message.htm.

Those within British Columbia might wish to address their protests to their own Members of the Legislative Assembly: http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm.

It is particularly important that MLAs from the interior hear from their constituents.

Article in the local paper, The "Times Colonist":
Dark day for legislature library

Posted by Anne at 08:18 PM | Permalink

From the Mercury News:

Sensing a revolution in the way Internet traffic is managed, rock and roll musicians find themselves in the unusual position of defending the status quo.

Independent, lesser-known musicians and smaller record labels have launched a nationwide campaign Tuesday to support the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally, which they said is under fire from Internet providers who want to charge a fee to have some Web sites load faster than others.

Posted by Anne at 08:16 PM | Permalink

From News.com:

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday said secret "national security letters" are invaluable in unearthing telephone and e-mail logs and blamed computer snafus for deceiving Congress about how often the technique is used. . .

. . . The FBI once used 3x5 index cards to track use of the letters but then switched to a more modern database operated by the bureau's general counsel. But that database has never been linked to the FBI's home-brewed "Automated Case Support," a famously archaic system with IBM terminals as a front-end that has been the subject of a series of devastating internal critiques.

What that means is the only way to transfer information from one FBI database to the other is to manually retype it--a technologically backward approach that invites delays and errors.

Posted by Anne at 08:15 PM | Permalink

Oh, to live in DC. . .

Public Forum co-sponsored by Center for American Progress and OpenTheGovernment.org: CLASSIFIED: Ensuring Congressional Access to National Security Information

March 30, 2007, 12:30pm – 2:00pm

The Constitution gives Congress broad authority to oversee and investigate the activities of the executive branch. If Congress is to carry out that authority, it must have access to many kinds of government information, including classified or sensitive national security information which government agencies may be reluctant to reveal.

How do Congress and the executive branch strike a proper balance between the congressional need to have such information and the government's duty to protect it? What options does Congress have when the government refuses to provide the information it requests? When is it appropriate for Congress to make national security information available to the public and the press?

Posted by Anne at 08:13 PM | Permalink

From Library Journal:

Virginia has become the second state to pass a state version of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), joining Utah in requiring libraries to use filters to block child pornography and obscenity, and, for minors, "harmful to minors" material. Unlike the 2000 federal law, which ties filters to receipt of E-rate telecomm discounts, and the 2004 Utah law, the Virginia law is not an unfunded mandate; it allots $190,000 in the first year for filters, then $133,000 in each of the next two years. The state estimated that software would have to be upgraded every three years.

Posted by Anne at 08:09 PM | Permalink

New LLRX Column:

Basically, all of my suggestions come down to agency accountability. If agencies are held accountable for their failures in FOIA operations then they will improve FOIA operations.

Posted by Anne at 07:39 PM | Permalink

Altenhöner, Reinhard (2006) Data for the Future: the German Project "Co-operative Development of a Long-term Digital Information Archive" (kopal). Library Hi Tech 24(4):pp. 574-582.

One of the open problems of the global information society is to ensure the long-term accessibility of digital documents. kopal tackles this problem head-on: In a three-year project, financially supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, kopal's objective is the practical testing and implementation of a cooperatively created and run long-term archival system for digital resources. The solution is based on DIAS (Digital Information and Archiving System), jointly devised by IBM and the National Library of The Netherlands in The Hague, and will be adopted to the project needs with several extensions. The system will be implemented in accordance with international standards for long-term archiving and metadata within the OAIS framework (Open Archival Information System). The project partners, Die Deutsche Bibliothek (DDB), Göttingen State and University Library (SUB Göttingen), IBM Deutschland GmbH and the Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen (GWDG), will establish a cooperatively reusable solution for cultural heritage institutions, as well as for business and industry. Additionally, the project partners DDB and SUB Göttingen develop within the project a software for the input and the access of data, which will be released under an open-source license.

Posted by Anne at 07:37 PM | Permalink

From the New York Times:

Last week, Viacom asked a federal court to order the video-sharing service YouTube to pay it more than $1 billion in damages for some 150,000 videos that Viacom claims it owns and YouTube users have shared. “YouTube,” the complaint alleges, “has harnessed technology to willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale,” threatening not just Viacom, but “the economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy.”

Yet as federal courts get started on this multiyear litigation about the legality of a business model, we should not forget one prominent actor in this drama largely responsible for the eagerness with which business disputes get thrown to the courts: the Supreme Court.

Posted by Anne at 07:36 PM | Permalink

From The Hill:

Jim Harper’s twin interests in government transparency and the Internet may give lobbyists another way to influence the political process.

Harper, a former counsel to the Senate Governmental Reform Committee, developed a website in his spare time designed to make it easier for the public to track legislation.

Now his site, WashingtonWatch.com, has added a “wiki” feature to enable users to edit information on legislation before Congress. Harper said it will be the first wiki exclusively dedicated to legislation.

“The blogosphere is mostly about politics,” he said. “This is about policy.”

The idea is to make it easier for the public to learn about legislation, and in a more user-friendly and interactive way than currently offered by THOMAS, the legislative site maintained by the Library of Congress.

Posted by Anne at 07:34 PM | Permalink

From the Washington Post:

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Posted by Anne at 07:33 PM | Permalink

The Library of Congress public roundtable copyright transcripts are now online.

Posted by Anne at 09:22 PM | Permalink

From Digital50.com:

Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project announced today that Stanford University Acting Professor of English Carol Shloss won the right to publish her scholarship on the literary work of James Joyce online and in print based on a settlement agreement with the Joyce Estate.

Posted by Anne at 09:17 PM | Permalink

EPA Press Release:

EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data is available this year earlier than ever before for local communities and national analysis. Facility-specific data was released last September and the full national data released today.

"EPA is getting quality data out to the public faster through electronic reporting which is good for the environment, good for states and good for our partners in industry," said EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information Molly O'Neill.

TRI Data for 2005

Posted by Anne at 09:14 PM | Permalink

I was idly trying a search on "roads" to see what sort of a literature would turn up for the period of my dissertation research, 1740-1850. I didn't expect much. I've spent the last two years wandering through the Yale, Harvard, and California libraries, the British Library, Britain's National Archives, and the immense reserves of North American Inter Library Loan reading every book on London, pavement, or travel I could get my hands on. Surprise. In a single idle search I just added twenty extra full-text books to my list.

Jo Guldi is a PhD student and political activist.

Posted by Anne at 09:11 PM | Permalink

From Information World Review:

In a momentous century for the UK, one which saw the beginnings of the industrial revolution, the loss of the American colonies and the abolition of slavery in an era often considered as the golden age of parliament, has now seen a wealth of legislative documents and records from the period digitised and catalogued. Papers, bills and journals from the halls of Westminster palace are to be made available online today at an unveiling held at the House of Commons . The scheme is part of the latest stage of the British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service (BOPCRIS) project to digitise British Official Publications dating from 1688 to 1995.

Posted by Anne at 09:08 PM | Permalink

From News.com:

The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that it will study whether stronger language is necessary in its policy on protecting Net neutrality, but consumer groups and Democratic commissioners criticized the move for not being bold enough.

At its monthly open meeting in Washington D.C., the FCC voted to issue a notice of inquiry on "broadband industry practices" that will include a discussion of an open Internet. A notice of inquiry allows people to file public comments about a particular issue.

Posted by Anne at 09:06 PM | Permalink

From News.com:

Congress' efforts to muzzle pornography on the Web were dealt another serious setback on Thursday, when a federal judge ruled a 1998 law was unconstitutional and violated Americans' First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed in Philadelphia permanently barred prosecutors from enforcing the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, saying it was overly broad and would undoubtedly "chill a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech for adults." The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Posted by Anne at 09:05 PM | Permalink

From Discovery News:

France became the first country to open its files on UFO’s Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.

The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

The database will supposedly be available from CNES's Web site, but good luck getting into it this week. Traffic is very heavy and the servers are crashing. Those tubes are plugged!

Posted by Anne at 07:37 PM | Permalink

Terrible news from Secrecy News:

In what is being characterized by subordinates as an act of "managerial dementia," the Director of the Congressional Research Service this week prohibited all public distribution of CRS products without prior approval from senior agency officials.

"I have concluded that prior approval should now be required at the division or office level before products are distributed to members of the public," wrote CRS Director Daniel P. Mullohan in a memo to all CRS staff. "This policy is effective immediately."

A copy of the March 20 memorandum from Director Mullohan, entitled "Distribution of CRS Products to Non-Congressionals," was obtained by Secrecy News.

As bad as this news is, I have to admit I was almost expecting it. Once I saw more articles about how people manage to get their hands on CRS reports, I thought there might be a backlash. I'm usually not so sad to be right. . .

Posted by Anne at 07:31 PM | Permalink

From Library Journal:

In testimony Tuesday before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Librarian of Congress James H. Billington described efforts by the Library of Congress (LC) to maintain access to vital "born-digital" material and web-based information, and urged Congress to restore support for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the subject of a $47 million cut in the past fiscal year. LC had until then remained quiet about the cut—$47 million of a $100 million program announced in 2000—which was proposed in January and approved in mid-February to help resolve federal budget gaps.

Posted by Anne at 07:28 PM | Permalink

NEH Press Release:

The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress today announced that "Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers" is debuting online with more than 226,000 pages of public domain newspapers from California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Virginia, and the District of Columbia published between 1900 and 1910. The text of the newspapers is fully searchable, and search terms can be limited to a particular state, a specific newspaper, by year or years of publication and even by months. The new site is available at www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica.

Posted by Anne at 07:27 PM | Permalink

From PC World:

Companies from across IT face criminal sanctions, including prison time for employees, if their networks, software programs or online services are ever used to carry illegally copied material such as music or film, according to a draft law from the European Commission supported Tuesday by a committee of the European Parliament.

The proposed directive switches the onus from end users to the technological conduits, which could include ISPs (Internet service providers), mobile phone operators, instant-messaging services, video- and music-sharing Web sites such as YouTube, as well as open-source software producers.

Posted by Anne at 07:26 PM | Permalink

From News.com:

The FBI's illegal use of secret methods to obtain confidential information, including telephone and e-mail records, on American citizens, drew criticism from a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday.

But the committee's senior members stopped short of calling for a repeal of the portion of the Patriot Act, which Congress hastily approved after September 11, 2001, that awarded the FBI broad and nearly unchecked powers to use the so-called national security letters, which are written requests for confidential information that do not require a judge's signature and cannot legally be disclosed by the recipient.

Posted by Anne at 07:25 PM | Permalink

The EPA is once again acting on Bush's proposed budget without waiting for Congress to act. Exactly who holds the purse strings these days anyway? I thought Congress held appropriations authority.

From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Without waiting for congressional approval, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving this month to significantly downsize its Office of Inspector General (IG), according to agency memos released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The cutbacks will reduce the ability of the IG to audit Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contracting, investigate EPA enforcement actions and review allegations of political manipulation of agency science.

Posted by Anne at 06:06 PM | Permalink

From The Scientist:

You'd think that the agency responsible for, say, all clinical information on the effects of pesticides would do anything to keep those systems of information fully operational and to modernize. But in fact, the greatest environmental disaster of this decade may be the amnesia that the White House and EPA seem hell-bent on causing.

Posted by Anne at 06:05 PM | Permalink

From CBC News:

Those who maintain New Brunswick's provincial archives are concerned that much of the digital content produced today is not going to make it into the future. . .

. . . Archivists say the domestic digital formats available to the average consumer, such as standard CDs and DVDs, are not stable and were never intended to be used for long-term storage. . .

. . .Farrell says a digital black hole is looming over the information age, because most of the material the provincial archives receives comes from the public. He says if we're not looking after our digital records properly, there won't be anything for the archives to save.

Posted by Anne at 06:03 PM | Permalink

From the Department of Justice:

Nearly two weeks ago, the Attorney General commended the work of the Inspector General in uncovering serious problems in the FBI's use of National Security Letters (NSLs). The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI agreed that such mistakes would not be tolerated, and the Attorney General ordered the FBI and the Justice Department to put in place safeguards to ensure greater oversight and controls over the use of NSLs.

Since that time, the FBI and Justice Department have moved expeditiously to implement the recommendations of the Inspector General’s report and to create additional safeguards to ensure that NSLs are used properly. Below are some of the actions that the FBI and Justice Department have taken to date and will be taking in the near future to address these shortcomings.

Posted by Anne at 06:02 PM | Permalink

From News.com:

Widespread abuse of the FBI's authority to secretly obtain Americans' telephone, Internet and financial records drew pointed questioning on Tuesday from a key U.S. House of Representatives panel.

As promised by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel chided U.S. Department of Justice Glenn Fine and FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni about an internal audit released earlier this month that detailed the FBI's missteps and illegal use of an investigative tool known as national security letters.

Posted by Anne at 06:00 PM | Permalink

From Yahoo! News:

Google announced on Monday that it would provide free online communication services such as e-mail and Internet telephone calling to universities in Kenya and Rwanda.

The Mountain View, California-based Internet search engine giant said it had partnered with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure and the Kenya Education Network to deliver hosted Google Apps software applications.

Posted by Anne at 05:59 PM | Permalink

From the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School:

Mary Wong of Franklin Pierce Law Center joins Berkman Center guests, fellows, and staff to discuss the growing discourse around such topics as “the commons,” “free culture,” and “open content.”

The program runs 63 minutes.

Posted by Anne at 05:58 PM | Permalink

From Library Journal:

It sneaked under a lot of people's radar, but the Library of Congress (LC) has lost $47 million in promised federal funds for digital preservation efforts, and it's unclear how many projects and programs will be affected. After the February 15 passage of P.L. 110-5, $47 million "of the unobligated balances available for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program" (NDIIPP) was rescinded.

Posted by Anne at 05:56 PM | Permalink

Thanks to The FOIA Blog for pointing out this post from the Daily Kos:

I am sick and tired of Congress blaming Federal agencies for FOIA delays instead of structuring the system in a way that minimizes these delays. Congress should

1. Establish in every agency subject to FOIA an office that is responsible for not only tracking and assigning FOIA requests, but actually doing the work in collecting responsive records, assessing the application of FOIA exemptions (with help from agency legal offices where appropriate), formally responding to the requests, and collecting fees. In many agencies the records will be kept by the various offices responsible for those records, and those offices will still need to spend time working with the FOIA office to respond to the request. But the efficiencies of having professional, knowledgeable FOIA staff working on every request will greatly decrease the response time and increase the quality of the response.
2. Include in each agency’s appropriations adequate funds to fully staff those offices so that they may efficiently process the FOIA requests received by that agency.

In my opinion, failure to make these fundamental changes in how FOIA is implemented will mean that delays, incorrect responses, and plain old wasted time will continue to be rampant.

Posted by Anne at 08:15 PM | Permalink

Secrecy News reports:

Behind closed doors at the National Archives, an acrimonious debate has unfolded over whether and how to dispose of records generated by Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) at executive branch agencies.

What is at stake is the proper identification and preservation of historically significant government financial records, some of which have already been lost.

Posted by Anne at 08:12 PM | Permalink

The March 2007 issue of SLA's Information Outlook magazine features an article on SLA's advocacy to address concerns about the EPA library network downsizing. Members can read the article online.

"SLA Seeks Study on EPA Library Cutbacks" by John T. Adams III

Posted by Anne at 07:08 PM | Permalink

From the Washington Post:

This site, washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database, is a deep database of every vote in the United States Congress since the 102nd Congress (1991). It lets you browse votes in a variety of ways -- both in aggregate and for individual members of Congress.

Browse the database by drilling down to a particular Congress (e.g. 109th Congress) or particular member (e.g. 109th Congress senators).

This site publishes an RSS feed of recent votes by each member of Congress, and a feed of the most recent votes in both chambers. See the RSS page for full details.

This site is updated several times a day. However, there is a short delay between a vote in Congress and its appearance on the official Congress Web sites, and that delay is reflected on this site.

Posted by Anne at 07:03 PM | Permalink

From NPR:

But against all odds, an institution that collects books and documents is being rebuilt just down the road. It's the Iraq National Library and Archive.

The library is literally rising from the ashes and being turned into something that goes far beyond what it was before.

Saad Eskander is the head of the National Library. When he took it over in late 2003 it had been looted and burned, a few plastic chairs were all that remained.

Now it's a spotless hive of activity which he's proud to show off. One room is filled with state-of-the-art computer systems.

Posted by Anne at 07:02 PM | Permalink

From the National Security Archive:

The U.S. Air Force today won the third annual Rosemary Award, which recognizes the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency. Given annually by the Emmy-and George Polk Award-winning National Security Archive, the Rosemary Award is named after President Nixon's secretary Rosemary Woods and the backwards-leaning stretch which she testified resulted in her erasing eighteen-and-a-half minutes from a key Watergate conversation on the White House tapes.

Today’s Rosemary Award citation quotes the U.S. District Court finding in 2006 that the Air Force had “failed miserably” to meet FOIA deadlines. The Award also cites Air Force’s status as an “E-Delinquent” in the latest National Security Archive audit of agency compliance with the Electronic FOIA, which found 139 broken links on the Air Force FOIA Web sites. Air Force performance over the last year has also included losing records while ostensibly processing FOIA requests, and featuring a FOIA contact fax number that actually rang in a patient’s room at the hospital at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Ohio.

Posted by Anne at 07:00 PM | Permalink

Momentum for public access to publicly funded research reached a height last month with the celebration of a National Day of Action by students across the U.S. and the presentation of over 21,000 individual and organizational signatures to the European Union's Commissioner for Science and Research.

To build on this momentum, several leading American organizations - representing libraries, health groups, students, and consumers - are jointly supporting a Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States.

This petition, which is open to supporters around the world, will demonstrate clearly to U.S. policymakers the depth and breadth of support for access to federally funded research in the United States. As U.S. lawmakers consider policies and legislation to advance public access, it is critical that supporters step forward and be counted. . .

. . . The Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States is open to individuals and organizations of all types. If you are a researcher whose work is funded by the federal government, your signature is especially important since it shows that you want your work to be shared and used.

Posted by Anne at 08:42 PM | Permalink

From the Washington Post:

In a bipartisan confrontation with the White House over executive branch secrecy, the House ignored a stern veto threat and overwhelmingly passed a package of open-government bills yesterday that would roll back administration efforts to shield its workings from public view.

Even top Republicans supported three bills that would streamline access to records in presidential libraries, expand safeguards for government whistle-blowers, and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which guides public requests for government documents. All were approved with veto-proof majorities.

Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 1309 - Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 2007

The Administration shares the goals of H.R. 1309 of increasing the timeliness of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) responses and ensuring a customer-oriented approach to FOIA processing. The Administration has been pursuing these goals, and will be continuing to pursue them, through the strong management review and reforms that the President directed 15 months ago in the first-ever Executive Order on FOIA -- Executive Order 13392, “Improving Agency Disclosure of Information” -- which he signed on December 14, 2005.

However, the Administration cannot support H.R. 1309.

Posted by Anne at 08:36 PM | Permalink

From Government Executive Magazine:

The White House Office of Management and Budget published some information on spending earmarks to the Internet late Monday -- a departure from the detailed disclosure that OMB outlined earlier this year.

Posted by Anne at 08:30 PM | Permalink

From the Mercury News:

The federal government is urging an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, warning that disclosure of such activities could compromise national security.

Posted by Anne at 08:29 PM | Permalink

From Yahoo! News:

China will tighten controls on Internet blogs and webcasts in a response to new technologies that have allowed cyber citizens to avoid government censorship efforts, state press reported Tuesday.

Following a call from President Hu Jintao in January to "purify" the Internet, the ruling Communist Party will introduce new regulations targeting blogs and webcasts, one of the nation's chief censors was cited as saying.

Posted by Anne at 08:25 PM | Permalink

From the National Security Archive:

National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs today testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in support of a FOIA reform bill introduced yesterday by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). The OPEN Government Act of 2007 is “critical for improving the functioning of FOIA,” according to Ms. Fuchs’s statement.

Posted by Anne at 08:23 PM | Permalink

From USA Today:

More than 1 million pages of historical government documents — a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol — have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by the Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.

In some cases, entire file boxes were removed without significant review because the government's central record-keeping agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, did not have time for a more thorough audit.

Posted by Anne at 07:40 PM | Permalink

From Open Access & Science Publishing:

Researchers’ overall attitude toward Open Access publishing is very positive. Open Access publishing means providing access to scientific publications at no charge and exempt from most copyright and licensing restrictions to everyone. Up to 91% of the 688 participants in a study conducted jointly between researchers at the University of Munich and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock describe their attitude toward Open Access publishing to be positive or very positive. However many show reluctance to use these new means of distributing their research work. While about two-thirds of the respondents indicate to have accessed Open Access literature before, only one third has published work in Open Access outlets.

Posted by Anne at 07:38 PM | Permalink

From Information World Review:

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has backed a petition calling on the European Commission to give the public open access to taxpayer-funded scientific research.

Posted by Anne at 07:37 PM | Permalink

From the Seattle Times:

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which gives citizens access to federal government files, turns 40 this year. Born during Lyndon Johnson's presidency, FOIA came of age after the Watergate scandal and is a vital tool for individuals, journalists, corporations and academics seeking information that the government may be reluctant to release.

This week, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) observes Sunshine Week to celebrate FOIA and promote the need for open government and freedom of information. This comes amid the Bush administration's drive to withhold documents, records and other information from public view.

Posted by Anne at 07:37 PM | Permalink

From Search Engine Land:

Google has announced that it will now anonymize the server log data that it collects after 18 to 24 months, as a way to better protect the privacy of its users. Until now, Google has retained server log data in its original form indefinitely, which made it possible for anyon