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From News.com:
Google is set to announce Monday that it is working with officials in four U.S. states to make sure all the public information they have online is easily accessible through the company's search engine.As part of a voluntary public-private sector partnership, Google has been helping technology managers in Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia remove technical barriers that prevent the search giant from adding information to its index.
From Wired:
Tread carefully, politicians -- concerned citizens are watching your every move on the web. Their tools? Custom data mashups that use public databases to draw correlations between every vote cast and every dollar spent in Washington. . .. . . Anyone -- from bloggers and students to lobbyists and activists -- can use these sites to quickly drill down into the correlation between a politician's vote and the money he or she received from special interests. The graphs and reports are easily shared or posted on a blog. The sites give access to data by legislator, bill number, bill subject or special interest.
AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress welcome you to Voices of Civil Rights. We have collected and preserved thousands of personal stories and oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement, forming the world's largest archive of personal accounts of civil rights history. The entire collection eventually will be housed at the Library of Congress.This Voices of Civil Rights website features a searchable online archive of selected stories submitted by people from every corner of the country and from all walks of life. In addition, there are interactive features, essays, interviews, and special reports.
From India Times:
The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.
From Information World Review:
Government records from one of history's darker periods made freely availableAn online archive detailing the names of slaves traded by the British has been launched as part of a series of events marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
Ancestry.co.uk documents nearly 100,000 slaves owned by British colonists in Barbados during the early 19th Century and aims to eventually detail three million names.
The site, which is free, has taken the first step in the project by listing the 1834 Barbados Slave Register which has the names of 99,349 slaves, and 5,206 slave owners, working out at an average of 19 slaves per owner.
From the Star-Ledger:
File this under "enough is enough."New Brunswick attorney Eric Weinberg, who represents several hundred clients suing Merck over health problems allegedly caused by the pain-relief drug Vioxx, began requesting information from the Food and Drug Administration nearly three years ago under the Freedom of Information Act.
He is still waiting for most of it, including a Nov. 23, 2004, request he made for materials Merck submitted related to print and television advertisements promoting Vioxx.
Then there's the request he made July 21, 2005. In that letter, Weinberg requested copies of all communications between the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing and Communications and Merck regarding Vioxx.
The FDA sent Weinberg a bill for gathering and providing him the documents. Weinberg said he sent a payment on Sept. 13, 2005, but is still waiting to receive the documents.
So, earlier this month, Weinberg filed a lawsuit against FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and his agency for failing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. He is asking the court to order the agency to produce the information "without further delay."
Secrecy News reviews a new book on Presidential Secrecy:
Presidential secrecy is best understood not as an expression of executive strength but as a sign of weakness and insecurity, according to a provocative new book on the subject."When the president lacks diplomatic or interpersonal skill, he is likely to compensate by shielding his activities -- even shielding his very self -- from the public, relying on secrecy rather than diplomacy," write political scientists Robert M. Pallitto and William G. Weaver in "Presidential Secrecy and the Law."
The authors explore how the growth of executive branch secrecy has transformed the institution of the presidency and the character of American government.
For more information, see "Presidential Secrecy and the Law" by Robert M. Pallitto and William G. Weaver, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
From the New York Times:
The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to impose tighter restrictions on the hundreds of lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the request has become a central issue in a new legal battle over the administration’s detention policies.Saying that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo,” a Justice Department filing proposes new limits on the lawyers’ contact with their clients and access to evidence in their cases that would replace more expansive rules that have governed them since they began visiting Guantánamo detainees in large numbers in 2004.
The filing says the lawyers have caused unrest among the detainees and have improperly served as a conduit to the news media, assertions that have drawn angry responses from some of the lawyers.
The dispute is the latest and perhaps the most significant clash over the role of lawyers for the detainees. “There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country,” the Justice Department filing argued.
From the National Archives and Records Administration:
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) conducted a harvest (i.e., capture) of House and Senate public web sites as they existed prior to December 11 2006. This harvest was intended to document Congressional presence on the World Wide Web during the closing weeks of the 109th Congress (2006). The harvest produced a public reference copy of the web sites for the purpose of continual availability to the public, and also produced a record copy to be retained in the holdings of NARA.
Remarks by Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States to the Annual Freedom of Information Day Conference at the National Press Club, March 16, 2007, Washington, DC:
I have now served as Archivist of the United States for two years and bring you a brief interim report on this process as it applies to today's topic. First, as always, follow the funding. Despite the generosity of the President's 2008 budget for NARA, we need additional resources if we are to fulfill our mission. But even with available funds, there has been visible progress on a number of our strategic goals in the past two years, goals linked to NARA's newly adopted 10-year Strategic Plan.
Four Committee Chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson requesting an update on the Agency's recent activities with regard to its libraries.
With a deadline of May 4, 2007, the inquiry concerns recent reports about the continued disposal/ dispersal of library materials, even after recent testimony from Administrator Johnson that a moratorium on such activities had been put into place.
Read the full letter.
From Heise Online:
At a meeting of the Bundestag's Interior Affairs Committee on Wednesday, the Chancellor's Office admitted that Germany's secret services have been conducting controversial, covert online searches of computers since 2005 after being given an order to do so by then-Interior Minister Otto Schily (SPD). Gisela Piltz, spokesperson for home affairs from the FDP in the Bundestag, made these announcements after the German government was forced to answer her questions concerning the touchy subject of the monitoring of private PCs and storage units on the Internet. The government said that it does not see any breach of the privacy of telecommunications and the basic right to control personal data.
From Secrecy News:
The Department of Defense has asked Congress to enact two expansive new provisions in the FY 2008 defense authorization act to help it restrict public access to information.One of the provisions would create a new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act for certain unclassified information related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The other would establish civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized publication or sale of maps and images ("geodetic products") that the Secretary of Defense has designated for "limited distribution."
From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
A recently revised Commerce Department media policy is not strong enough to curb political interference in climate science at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP). The two groups today sent a letter urging Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez to address specific shortcomings before the policy goes into effect on May 14.
From the Mercury News:
Yahoo has teamed up with Gracenote, an Emeryville company, to offer what it is calling "the largest catalog of legal, licensed song lyrics" on the Web."It fills a huge, gaping hole out there," said Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo Music.
While there are plenty of Web sites offering lyrics, Gracenote is the first company to have gone through the painstaking process of negotiating deals with the thousands of publishers who own copyrights to the lyrics. The catalog offered by Yahoo will include lyrics of 400,000 songs owned by more than 10,000 publishers.
From Jurist:
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a federal lawsuit against the US Department of Justice Thursday, seeking the disclosure and release of DOJ records in accordance with the DNC's March 19, 2007 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request involving the controversial firing of eight US attorneys. The complaint alleges that the DOJ has failed to respond to the Freedom of Information Act request within the twenty working days, as required under the act, and has also failed to provide the DNC "any written notice of any extension of that time limit."
From Government Computer News:
When people search for federal information online, the vast majority reach first for search engines like Google or Yahoo. Only 4 percent of visitors to www.nih.gov, for instance, got there by typing the URL into their browser’s address line, according to a ComScore research study released last year. The rest arrived by typing nih.gov into a search engine — usually Google’s — and then clicking on the results. This has set up an interesting dynamic between search engine companies and the federal government. The feds want their sites to appear high on the list of results delivered. Google, Yahoo and the other search engines want to have satisfied searchers. The more content that is searchable, the better, and the happier everybody is.
From News.com:
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported.With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo--its 24-member inner council--discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls.
From The Hill:
No more 50 cents per copy. No more limited opening hours. And no more flashing ID just to enter the reading room. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) database is expected to go online soon.The Department of Justice database is an exhaustive list of lobbyists representing foreign governments and politicians. For the online project, over 80,000 documents detailing contracts, meetings with public officials, and public-relations campaigns will be put on the Internet. Previously, that information was available only in Justice’s dusty public reading room at 1400 New York Ave.
From News.com:
A Chinese political prisoner and his wife sued Yahoo in federal court Wednesday, accusing the company of abetting the commission of torture by helping Chinese authorities identify political dissidents who were later beaten and imprisoned.The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, is believed to be the first of its kind against an Internet company for its activities in China.
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Ismail Serageldin signed an agreement today at the Library of Congress outlining four areas in which the two institutions will cooperate in building a World Digital Library.Along with other libraries and cultural institutions from around the world, both institutions will contribute content to the World Digital Library. In addition, the two institutions agreed to work together on the design and implementation of the architecture of the World Digital Library and to cooperate in developing mirror sites, to be hosted at the Library of Congress in Washington and at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. They also agreed to work together on the design and implementation of the database, search engine and interface for the project. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina will contribute its particular expertise in the search and display of Arabic texts.
From EUobserver.com:
An EU expert group on digital libraries has agreed to a basic model for handling copyrights for digitalised cultural publications in libraries.The break-through deal is part of the European Digital Library initiative, launched in June 2005, to preserve European cultural and scientific heritage and make it available online in closed networks. . .
. . . The model agreed on Wednesday (18 April) by the parties, which included major stakeholders such as the British Library, the German national library, the Federation of European Publishers and Google, covers only orphan works and out-of print works, but it has also built in elements that could be adopted for commercial publications in the future.
From CBC News:
A new Canadian open-access medical journal is about to be born.Open Medicine, to be officially launched Wednesday, was conceived in the bitter aftermath of the February 2006 firing of the editor and deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
The publication's business model differs greatly from standard medical journals. It will be available online only, will have no subscription fees, and no corporate or medical association ownership.
From Secrecy News:
A federal court this week rejected a government proposal to restrict public access to evidence in the forthcoming trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized receipt and transmission of classified information.
From U.S. Politics Today:
Here's a pop quiz. What do the following statements have in common?"Sensitive but unclassified."
"Sensitive security information."
"Sensitive homeland security information."
What do they have in common?
For one thing they are bogus. No such classifications exist in federal law.
For another thing, stamping documents with these words and claiming that they can not be shown to the public because of their "sensitivity" has become virulent across the entire Bush administration.
A whole lot of documents. Tens of millions of documents.
And a whole lot of classifications. The three listed above are just three of 28 new layers of classification added to an already cumbersome government secrecy inventory since President Bush took office.
It's not just the public and the press being denied access to public documents. Members of Congress increasingly have to fight for the right to see information they need for oversight, budgeting and legislation----raising a very real and vital question. Who owns the government?
From the Wired blog Danger Room:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was fit to be tied the other day. Troops in Iraq were about to get their tours extended by three months. But soldiers and their families didn't hear about the holdover from their commanders. They learned about it in the newspaper, or on TV; someone had leaked word to the press."Some very thoughtless person in this building made the unilateral decision to deny the Army the opportunity to notify unit commanders who could then talk to their troops 48 hours before we made a public announcement," Gates fumed. "And I can't tell you how angry it makes many of us."
An embarrassing situation, to be sure. In bad taste? You bet. But was it a security breach? Gates, for one, never said anything of the sort. It was up to General Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, to make that rather dubious connection.
From the Free Expression Policy Project:
Clearly, we can't depend on judges alone to put the brakes on an overly secretive and gag order-happy government. Only an outraged populace can give judges the necessary support for openness and executive officers the necessary message that it, not secrecy, should be the default setting for democracy. And only a vigilant press can assure that the public knows how much information is kept secret, and how undue secrecy can distort both democracy and history.
For a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, in print or in print and online:
Awarded to Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe for his revelations that President Bush often used "signing statements" to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws.
From France 24:
The centuries-old Library of Congress in Washington is battling to keep up with the Internet age by digitizing millions of books, manuscripts and photos in an operation that could take decades.Two million visitors walk through the doors of the library each year. But in a sign of how times are changing, the same number of people consult its pages on the Internet every single day.
Yesterday, coinciding with National Library Workers Day, the Librarian Incentive to Boost Recruitment and Retention in Areas of Need (LIBRARIAN) Act of 2007 was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1121) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 1877).
This bill amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide for Perkins student loan forgiveness, which will encourage individuals to become and remain librarians in low-income schools and public libraries.
Take Action at http://www.capwiz.com/ala/issues/alert/?alertid=9622316&PROCESS=Take+Action
Please contact your Senators, especially if you have a Republican Senator, and urge them to show their support by co-sponsoring this important piece of legislation. It is important that the bill have Republican support. We have not been able to get a Republican to agree to co-sponsor this in the Senate. Constituents will have a much better chance of getting some support.
From the Center for Democracy and Technology:
Last week, the Administration released a draft bill that would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to permit large-scale warrantless surveillance of Americans. Described as a "modernization" effort, the legislation would result in a huge step backwards in efforts to re-establish reasonable checks and balances on government spying. The dense and complicated draft was over a year in preparation. CDT will be releasing an analysis of the bill by the end of this week.
• Administration press release 2007-04-13 [PDF]
• Draft bill [PDF]
From News.com:
The Internal Revenue Service has been trying for years to upgrade its antiquated mainframe computers, which process Americans' tax returns by churning through millions of lines of assembly code written by hand in the early 1960s.But after more than 20 years and over $5 billion, there's still no end in sight. Not all computer systems can talk to each other, information isn't available in real time, and tax returns filed on paper are often manually entered by typists.
From the Houston Chronicle:
For the first time, the George Bush Presidential Library Center at Texas A&M University is opening its archives to offer the public a way to download major speeches recorded there.The video recordings — accessible through the university's iTunes U Web site at http://itunes.tamu.edu — include speeches by White House press secretary Tony Snow, former first lady Barbara Bush and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. It also will include recent appearances by presidential candidates.
From Information Today:
Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources has launched the Copyright Renewal Database, which enables people to search copyright-renewal records for books published in the U.S. between 1923 and 1963. The database is designed to be a tool for anyone researching the copyright status of books.The group of U.S. works published from 1923 to 1963 is the only one for which renewal is now a concern. According to SULAIR, this has become a pressing issue as libraries and businesses develop plans to digitize materials and make works in the public domain widely available. The Copyright Renewal Database brings all 1923–1963 book-renewal records together in a single database and, more significantly, makes searchable renewal records that had previously been distributed only in print.
From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal.WITHOUT A TRACE covers the following areas:
• Presidential Records Act (PRA): Enacted in 1978, requires the president to preserve all presidential records, which are defined as those records relating to the “activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of [the president’s] constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties. . .”
• Clinton Administration Policy: In 1993, then-Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary John Podesta sent a memo to all presidential staff explaining that the PRA required all staff members to maintain all records, including emails. Podesta stated that the use of external email networks was prohibited because records would not be saved as required. The 1997 White House Manual and a 2000 memo issued by Mark Lindsay, then Assistant to the President for Management and Administration echoed this policy, requiring staff to use only the White House email system for official communications.
• Bush Administration Policy: The Bush Administration has refused to make public its record-keeping policy. A confidential source provided CREW with a 2002 document indicating the use of “non-EOP messaging-enabled mechanisms should not be used for official business.”
• Bush Administration Practice: In the wake of the scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff and the fired U.S. Attorneys, emails were released showing that top White House staffers routinely used Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts to conduct official business. For example, J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, used an RNC account to communicate with the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding the appointments of new U.S. Attorneys. Similarly, Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove, used RNC email accounts to communicate with Abramoff about appointments to the Department of the Interior.
• PRA Violations: 1) The administration failed to implement adequate record-keeping systems to archive presidential email records; 2) two confidential sources independently informed CREW that the administration abandoned a plan to recover more than five million missing emails; 3) White House staff used outside email accounts to conduct presidential business, ensuring that emails were not adequately preserved. In fact, former Abramoff associate Kevin Ring said in an email to Abramoff that Ralston had told him not to send emails to her official White House account “because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc.”
• Hatch Act Excuse: The administration has claimed that Rove, Jennings and other staffers use RNC accounts to avoid violating the Hatch Act. This is untrue. The Hatch Act prohibits White House staff from using official resources for purely “political” purposes. “Political” refers to the president’s role as either a candidate for office or as the leader of his party. Email communications regarding presidential appointments for U.S. Attorney and Interior Department positions clearly fall within the PRA as making appointment is an official presidential function and does not relate to the president’s role as party leader.
From the Center for Democracy & Technology:
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act (S. 236). The bi-partisan legislation would require federal agencies to report to Congress on their data mining activities. "This would be an important first step in setting reasonable limits on data mining," said Jim Dempsey, CDT policy director. "Currently, Congress and the public have no clear picture of what data mining programs are even in operation." S. 236 also would require the Administration to assess the effectiveness of each program. Similar language was included earlier this year in the Senate-passed bill on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.• S. 236
From Legal Times:
Since the day he arrived at the Department of Justice in February 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has “shattered” the department’s tradition of independence and politicized its operation more than any other attorney general in more than 30 years.So says Daniel Metcalfe, a senior attorney at the department who retired in January, before the current controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys erupted. He views the episode as an “awful embarrassment” that has only worsened already-low morale at the department, especially among career attorneys.
Metcalfe, 55, served most recently as director of the Office of Information and Privacy. . .
. . . In interviews in person and by e-mail with Legal Times Supreme Court correspondent Tony Mauro, Metcalfe recently detailed his views about Gonzales and the politicization of the department, as well as information policy.
From Information World Review:
A US petition for access to publicly funded research has been started, building on the momentum of a similar petition circulating in Europe in support of a European Commission proposal that has already gathered over 24,000 signatures.
From Information World Review:
Government plans to tighten freedom of information rules are to be reviewed in the face of widespread criticism that the reforms will curb the release of politically sensitive documents.
From the Washington Post:
A librarian who fended off an FBI demand for computer records on patrons said Wednesday that secret anti-terrorism investigations strip away personal freedoms."Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free," said George Christian, executive director of Library Connection, a consortium of 27 libraries in the Hartford, Conn., area.
From the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression:
Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech ‘cannot be limited without being lost.’Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment.
Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle.
And the winner is. . . .
Wait for it. . .
Oh, you know who it is.
Government Websites and Political Engagement: Facilitating Citizen Entry Into the Policy Process (PDF; 109 KB)
Source: Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, University of California-Irvine
Previous research shows that in the United States, municipal government websites contain both participatory and consumer elements; however, these websites are generally designed to facilitate consumption of government services rather than participation in the policy process. The research presented here, using an original dataset, empirically analyzes how residents use the websites. The evidence indicates that while use of the Internet to facilitate the consumption of government services is more common than participation, there is reason to believe that the Internet could become a vehicle to foster greater participation. The paper concludes with suggestions on constructing municipal government websites to facilitate greater participation.
From the Summit Daily News: (registration required)
It takes a special talent to make the topic of library management controversial, but the Environmental Protection Agency seems to have a real knack for self-inflicted wounds. EPA gave itself a black eye and enraged librarians throughout the country last year, when, without public notice or congressional consultation, it began the process of dismantling its network of 26 technical libraries. . .. . . As its in-house scientific staff shrinks, EPA is relying more and more heavily on corporate research in making health and safety decisions. This self-lobotomy at EPA will leave a public agency that is far less capable and independent, and as we enter the final months of the Bush administration, EPA managers seem determined to accelerate the self-destruction.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked a judge to issue an emergency order requiring the FBI to immediately release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information.
From the California Library Association blog:
Just the idea of talking with legislators can be intimidating. Long-time activist Nancy Amidei takes the confusion and fear out of grassroots lobbying by providing hints and tricks to having a successful, meaningful Library Legislative Day. Nancy recently came to the state capital to share her experiences and secrets to grassroots lobbying. If you missed it, we are providing the podcast, produced by InfoPeople.
Listen to the Podcast
George Christian, Executive Director of the Library Connection and former plaintiff in John Doe v. Gonzales, testified today before a Senate Subcommittee on the harmful effects of receiving a National Security Letter (NSL), a component of the USA PATRIOT Act, from the FBI.
From freedominfo.org:
The World Bank is well on its way to developing a country-by-country database "on various transparency and accountability institutions in developing countries," freedominfo.org has learned.The project came to light in a document about implementation of the Bank's anticorruption strategy, which lays a stress on improving governance and transparency.
The new database, which may be posted online in a month or so, will summarize national laws on asset disclosure, conf