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From the BBC:
Scores of writers are refusing to let their works be scanned for an online archive at the National Library of Wales because they are not being paid.A year after a near-£1m project was awarded to digitise modern Welsh writing, a dispute between authors and the library has not been resolved.
From the Government Printing Office:
For almost 150 years, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has been the official disseminator of Government documents and assure users of their authenticity.In the 21st century, the increasing use of electronic documents poses special challenges in verifying authenticity, because digital technology makes such documents easy to alter or copy, leading to multiple non-identical versions that can be used in unauthorized or illegitimate ways.
GPO uses a digital certificate to apply digital signatures to PDF documents. In order for users to validate the certificate that was used by GPO to apply a digital signature to document, a chain of certificates or a certification path between the certificate and an established point of trust must be established, and every certificate within that path must be checked.
From Library Journal:
A Cornell University alumnus has sued the university over a decades-old article now available in the university library's digital collections—and searchable on Internet. According to the Cornell Daily Sun, Kevin Vanginderen, a Cornell graduate and now a lawyer in California, filed a $1 million lawsuit against the University in San Diego County Superior Court in October, 2007, claiming libel, and raising potentially thorny questions about the resurgence of old information in the new world of digital archiving.
From the Washington Post:
They operate in different parts of the government, but both have decided to go digital and phase out their signature paper products.The Office of Management and Budget will not print 3,000 copies of the president's budget to hand out to members of Congress, the Cabinet and their staffs on Feb. 4. Instead, the four books that lay out the president's spending priorities will be put on the Web at http://www.budget.gov.
Across town, the Government Accountability Office, which investigates and reviews federal agency operations and policies, is dropping publication of its famed blue-cover reports for distribution on Capitol Hill, at agencies and at conferences.
From the Washington Post:
When President Bush challenged Congress to cut the number and cost of earmarks by half, the administration's budget chiefs turned to their wiki.That's right, the Office of Management and Budget, where caution and precision rule, has embraced Wikipedia as a model, hosting an online place where federal officials can swap information and ideas outside traditional boundaries.
After hearing the president's challenge last year, the budget officials knew that the White House would need a tally of the pet spending projects that Congress had inserted into the federal budget if they were to measure progress toward the president's goal.
With the wiki, federal agencies compiled a database of 13,496 earmarks in 10 weeks. In the old days, it would have taken six months to get the information to the OMB.
The budget wiki is not as freewheeling as Wikipedia, the sometimes-controversial online encyclopedia. It is the government, after all. For security, federal officials have to ask permission to join; it is not open to the public or Congress.
Still, the earmarks project underscores how technology is helping change the way the government works. The OMB and other agencies used the Web's interconnectivity to more efficiently gather information and draw conclusions.
From the Washington Post:
The U.S. government has been increasing its use of the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosure of classified information in civil lawsuits, prompting legislation in the Senate that would provide more congressional oversight of the practice.Though there have been modest increases in the use of the state secrets privilege every decade since the 1960s, some legal scholars and members of Congress contend that the Bush administration has employed it excessively as it intervened in cases that could expose information about sensitive programs.
Chart of published cases showing how government use of the state secrets privilege has grown over the past 35 years.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Two shipping containers' worth of records created by Iraq's Baath Party that have been stored on an American naval facility for the past 21 months are about to find a new home at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank and library affiliated with Stanford University.Hoover signed a deal on Monday with the Iraq Memory Foundation—a private, nonprofit group that has had custody of the documents since just after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003—for the transfer of about seven million pages of records and other artifacts from Saddam Hussein's tenure as Iraqi president. The deal came despite recent impassioned calls from Iraq's national archivist for the collections' immediate repatriation back to Baghdad.
Saad Eskander, the director general of the Iraq National Library and Archive, argues that the records of the Baath Party—which ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003—are inalienable public property and belong in the national archive without delay.
Officials of the Iraq Memory Foundation say they received the blessing of Iraq's deputy prime minister and of the prime minister's office to carry out the deal with Hoover.
According to the terms of the deal, Hoover has agreed to hold the records for the foundation for the next five years. At the end of that period, the two parties will examine the possibility of repatriating the documents to Iraq.
From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:
CREW has completed an analysis of the national news events that took place on the dates for which there are missing White House email.
• National News Analysis for Missing White House Office E-mail
• National News Analysis for Missing Office of the Vice President E-mail
• National News Analysis for Missing Council on Environmental Quality E-mail
• National News Analysis for Missing Council of Economic Advisers E-mail
• National News Analysis for Missing Office of Management and Budget E-mail
• National News Analysis for Missing Office of U.S. Trade Representative E-mail
From TechCrunch:
Google is said to be preparing to launch a massive repository of science data at research.google.com.The project, known internally as “Palimpsest” will become a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets built on the data visualization technology from Trendalyzer.
According to a Wired report, the storage will be free to all scientists, access to the data will be free for all and the new site will have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features.
Two planned datasets are 120 terabytes of data from the Hubble Space Telescope and images from the Archimedes Palimpsest.
We thought Google knew everything, now it will know even more.
The Wired article:
Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data
Sources at Google have disclosed that the humble domain, http://research.google.com, will soon provide a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets. The storage will be free to scientists and access to the data will be free for all. The project, known as Palimpsest and previewed to the scientific community at the Science Foo camp at the Googleplex last August, missed its original launch date this week, but will debut soon.
Association of American Publishers press release:
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today announced that three universities—Hofstra, Syracuse and Marquette—have reached agreement with the AAP on new copyright guidelines affirming that educational content delivered to students in digital formats should be treated under the same copyright principles that apply to printed materials.The guidelines, which were developed separately by the three universities, govern how librarians and faculty members distribute copyrighted content through library electronic course reserves systems, course management systems, faculty and departmental web pages and other digital formats.
From Secrecy News:
A rising tide of criticism of the use of the state secrets privilege to derail litigation against the government has yielded new legislation introduced in the Senate to define the privilege and to limit its use.The state secrets privilege has been invoked with growing frequency to deflect claims of unlawful domestic surveillance, detention, and torture as well as other more mundane complaints, on grounds that adjudicating them would cause unacceptable damage to national security.
But a new bill sponsored by Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) would provide a mechanism for protecting legitimate secrets while also permitting litigation to proceed. . .
. . . Senator Kennedy introduced the State Secrets Protection Act (S. 2533) on January 22.
From the National Journal's Technology Daily, January 23, 2008 PM edition [subscription required]:
The legislative process could become a lot more exciting if lawmakers get their way in freeing the data inside the Library of Congress' legislative Internet database so that independent Web sites can repackage the information.In November, the House Administration Committee asked the library to explore solutions for supplying the public with raw legislative information from the database, dubbed THOMAS, committee spokesman Kyle Anderson said on Wednesday.
From the Austin American-Statesman:
Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, oppose the administration moving funding for an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act from the National Archives and Records Administration.That was a centerpiece of the legislation sponsored by Cornyn and Leahy that President Bush signed into law last month after it overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate. The law called for funding the Office of Government Information Services at the National Archives so that it would provide independent oversight of requests for government records made under the act.
“Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation — to ensure the timely and fair resolution of American’s FOIA requests,” Leahy said in a little-noticed floor speech on Wednesday.
From the European Research Council Scientific Council:
The Scientific Council of the European Research Council has released its Guidelines for Open Access.
From the Special Libraries Association:
Concern has also been aired that the EPA may not resume physical library operations in all the regions. On 17 January 2008, SLA received clarification regarding the future physical presence of EPA Libraries.Molly O'Neill, Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer, stated: "EPA intends to fully comply with the Congressional instructions included in our FY08 Appropriations Bill. In accordance with the Bill, the Agency will complete a Report to Congress on our plan for reestablishing a physical presence to complement our existing library services in the Regions. We remain committed to improving the EPA library network to enhance access to environmental information."
From the U.S. Department of Justice:
This site has been created in accordance with the Electronic FOIA Amendments of 1996, which specifies that the Attorney General should make annual FOIA reports from all federal departments and agencies available at "a single electronic access point," beginning with reports for fiscal year 1998.
From the Washington Post:
The White House possesses no archived e-mail messages for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President, for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal White House study that was disclosed yesterday by a congressional Democrat.The 2005 study -- whose credibility the White House attacked this week -- identified 473 separate days in which no electronic messages were stored for one or more White House offices, said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).
From Library Journal:
So, most people agree that free access to computers at public libraries is a good thing. But exactly how, and why? The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will work with the University of Washington Information School (iSchool) on a national study of the social, economic, personal, and professional value of such access. The iSchool will partner with the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization. The $1 million project is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
From WashingtonWatch.com:
WashingtonWatch.com delivers the numbers behind proposed legislation and regulation. It is important to understand where these numbers come from and what they mean.WashingtonWatch.com starts with government predictions about the costs or savings from proposed changes to government spending, taxation, and regulation. We take these predictions and calculate their “net present value.” That is the value today of changes to future spending, taxes, or regulation.
Then, we divide that “net present value” calculation by the total number of people in the United States. The resulting figures convey the significance to average Americans — in dollars and cents — of proposed changes to the nation's policies.
From OpenCongress:
Maplight.org, the amazing site that seeks to illuminate the connection between campaign cash and legislative outcomes, just launched a widget that lets you post fundraising stats to your blog or website. With the widget, you can easily monitor the fundraising activities of incumbents and challengers from your state, or of any candidates that interest you.
From OpenCongress:
As Congress returns tomorrow to start a new session, OpenCongress is excited to announce a major update that will put all the bills and votes at your fingertips. It's never been easier to track what's happening with your government.Now you can build a personal profile on OpenCongress of the bills and people you're tracking, network with other users, comment and vote on bills, and much more. To get started, create your own "My OpenCongress" profile, it's free and only takes a minute.
From Government Executive:
In response to a congressional mandate that the Environmental Protection Agency restore closed libraries, the agency said it will proceed with modernizing its library network, leading some people to believe the EPA will not resume physical library operations.Molly O'Neill, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Environmental Information, issued a statement Monday that said, "EPA continues to modernize its library network to enhance access to information for EPA employees and the public."
From Secrecy News:
In a small step that could nevertheless have far-reaching consequences for government information policy, the Department of Defense is preparing to eliminate various markings such as "For Official Use Only" and "Limited Distribution" that regulate disclosure of unclassified documents and will replace them with a new standardized marking.The DoD move (pdf) anticipates near-term Presidential approval of a new government-wide policy on so-called Sensitive But Unclassified information that would streamline and rationalize controls on unclassified information. It could also potentially lead to the public release of a vast amount of currently controlled information.
From Library Journal:
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Kahle v. Ashcroft, brought by Internet Archive and Open Content Alliance founders Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger in 2003, which challenged the constitutionality of the current copyright regime. Although not unexpected, the Supreme Court's refusal comes after a recent ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals raised hopes of a review and lets stand the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' rejection, effectively ending the case.
From Information World Review:
Nature Publishing Group has introduced a Creative Commons licence for articles in scientific journal Nature that publish the primary sequence of an organism’s genome.Nature already makes reports on genome sequences freely available for use by other researchers. The new licence formalises that arrangement, according to David Hoole, head of content licensing for Nature.
From the Library of Congress Blog:
. . . That’s why it is so exciting to let people know about the launch of a brand-new pilot project the Library of Congress is undertaking with Flickr, the enormously popular photo-sharing site that has been a Web 2.0 innovator. If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity. In many senses, we are looking to enhance our metadata (one of those Web 2.0 buzzwords that 90 percent of our readers could probably explain better than me).The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.
From the National Security Archive:
In response to a federal court order issued last week, the White House late last night refused to acknowledge any missing e-mails, instead stating that it “has undertaken an independent effort to determine whether there may be anomalies in Exchange e-mail counts” during the 2003-2005 period. A sworn statement by the Chief Information Officer of the White House Office of Administration filed with U.S. federal court just before midnight admitted the White House had recycled its e-mail back-up tapes before October 2003 and only began retaining the back-ups starting at that point.
From the United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance:
The UN E-Government Survey 2008: From E-Government to Connected Governance assesses the e-government readiness of the 192 Member States of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-readiness based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. ICTs can help reinvent government in such a way that existing institutional arrangements can be restructured and new innovative arrangements can flourish, paving the way for a transformed government.The focus of the report this year, in Part II, is e-government initiatives directed at improving operational efficiency through the integration of back-office functions.
From the Federal Judicial Center:
Most federal judges come into contact with classified information infrequently, if at all, but when they do, they are faced with the dilemma of how to protect government secrets in the context of an otherwise public proceeding. This pocket guide is designed to familiarize federal judges with statutes and procedures established to help public courts protect government secrets when courts are called upon to do so. The guide provides information about the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), information security officers, and secure storage facilities.
From the Association of American Publishers:
The Association of American Publishers today criticized a controversial new NIH research publication policy that was enacted as part of the omnibus appropriations package for 2008, and reaffirmed that journal publishers who have opposed the policy will continue to pursue their concerns with Congress regarding the policy’s negative impact on science publishing and the protection of related intellectual property rights. Publishers will also urge NIH to conduct a rulemaking proceeding, with opportunity for public comment, before implementing the new policy.
From The News Tribune:
. . . With the OK of a little-noticed but influential government committee known as the Civil Applications Committee, those reconnaissance photos were eventually released to scientists.The committee, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Geological Survey, reviews civilian requests for classified reconnaissance information and makes a recommendation to the intelligence community, which has the final say on what is declassified.
The spy data can be helpful to scientists studying volcanoes, forest fires, earthquakes and landslides, climate change, hurricanes, flooding and pollution.
Now the Bush administration plans to abolish the committee and create an office within the Department of Homeland Security to review such requests, along with those from law enforcement agencies. Scientists are concerned their requests could be sidetracked or delayed as security and law enforcement needs take precedence.
From Lewis & Clark Law Review:
In this Article, the author examines the current use, or rather misuse, as she argues, of the State Secrets Privilege. The author begins with a detailed examination of United States v. Reynolds, which defined the privilege and held that a complaint against the United States could proceed despite the invocation of the privilege. The author then examines how the courts have deviated from the holding of Reynolds. The author traces these deviations through six recent cases where the privilege was invoked, and announces four ways in which current State Secrets Privilege jurisprudence has deviated from Reynolds. She argues that the privilege is (1) being used to completely dismiss cases without review on the merits, (2) expanding into the realm of the Totten privilege, (3) interfering with private constitutional and statutory rights, and (4) interfering with public rights. The author concludes by suggesting three explanations for these deviations from Reynolds and argues that returning to the Reynolds doctrine is the best way to balance government and private interests.
From The Hill:
The websites of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are below par, and few are doing anything about it, according to a new report.While the Internet has dramatically changed American politics over the last decade, a “majority of [congressional] websites remain stagnant,” the report states.
The websites of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are below par, and few are doing anything about it, according to a new report.
While the Internet has dramatically changed American politics over the last decade, a “majority of [congressional] websites remain stagnant,” the report states.
Read the Full Report
From the SF Chronicle:
A federal magistrate ordered the White House on Tuesday to reveal whether copies of possibly millions of missing e-mails are stored on computer backup tapes.The order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola comes amid an effort by the White House to scuttle two lawsuits that could force the Executive Office of the President to recover any e-mail that has disappeared from computer servers where electronic documents are automatically archived.
Two federal laws require the White House to preserve all records including e-mail.
Facciola gave the White House five business days to report whether computer backup tapes contain e-mails written between 2003 and 2005.
From the Library of Congress:
The Library of Congress and Microsoft Corp. have signed a cooperative agreement that will change the way Library visitors experience history. The joint technology initiative will electronically deliver the Library’s immense collection of historical artifacts to patrons visiting its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., and will allow unparalleled and immersive interactive experiences that will bring the institution’s vast historical collections and exhibits to life–on-site and online–through the upcoming myloc.gov Web site.
From Law.com:
In recent years, the number of requests the SEC has received under the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. §552, has more than tripled, leaving the agency with a hefty backlog of thousands of requests. According to the SEC, it received 8,961 FOIA requests just in its fiscal year ("FY") ending September 30, 2006, up from 2,834 requests six years earlier. Further, at the end of FY 2006, the agency had 10,403 requests pending compared to only 151 requests when FY 2000 ended.The SEC has publicly attributed this drastic increase in FOIA requests to "commercial requesters" who file over 90 percent of the FOIA requests the agency receives. Commercial requesters include research firms, financial reporters and financial publications, each eagerly seeking access to the treasure trove of public company and investigative information submitted to, and generated by, the SEC staff. Recently, J. Patrick Gavin, the principle of one such research firm called "SEC Insight," ended a three-year legal battle with the SEC over FOIA requests in the case of Gavin v. SEC.
From Secrecy News:
In a report issued today, a Presidential advisory board proposed dozens of steps to promote a more rational, uniform and productive process for declassification of historical records.Declassification policy must "take into account the interest of ordinary citizens in having as 'thorough, accurate, and reliable' a record of their country's history as soon as it is possible to provide it," wrote Martin Faga, acting chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board (and former director of the National Reconnaissance Office) in his transmittal letter.
From the Mercury News:
The Federal Communications Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast Corp. actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday. A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data. Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation's No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.
From Government Executive:
By Feb. 1, the National Archives and Records Administration and the White House must provide congressional watchdogs with an update on preparations for the transition of all presidential records to the National Archives by January 2009. Concerns over progress might be well-founded: Proper handling of electronic documents, the need to identify and centralize pertinent records, and the sheer volume of information all leave the White House with a mammoth project on its hands.
From Free Government Information:
The recent encounter between U.S. warships and Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of depository libraries in the digital age. . .. . . I believe that libraries should be asking these questions in general, not just of the highly-visible items like the Hormuz video. In fact, if anything, the Hormuz video will probably be saved somewhere because, like toothpaste out of a tube, it is hard to put something back once it's been release on the net. But libraries are the only places that will preserve the things that are not high profile today but which will have great value tomorrow. Unless libraries create explicit policies to select, acquire, organize, and preserve digital information, much will be lost -- whether it is "within the scope" of FDLP or not.
From the BBC:
Copying music from a CD to a home computer could be made legal under new proposals from the UK government. Millions of people already "rip" discs to their computers and move the files to MP3 players, although the process is technically against copyright law.Intellectual property minister Lord Triesman said the law should be changed so it "keeps up with the times".
From the University of Pennsylvania Law School:
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the “Global War on Terror” has marginalized the rule of law. From the dragnet detentions in the aftermath of the initial attacks, to novel and secretive surveillance authority under the Patriot Act, to the incarceration and torture of “enemy combatants,” the administration’s “war” has sought to establish zones of maneuver free of both legal constraint and of political oversight. In the first half decade of these efforts, the tripartite constitutional structure which is said to guard against executive usurpation remained largely quiescent. Opponents both inside and outside of the government turned instead to subconstitutional structures to expose this self-avowed “dark side,” and to lay the foundation for a return to the rule of law. This Article examines four case studies of this strategy of transparency. At the center of each account lies the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The studies highlight, however, the crucial roles played by a broader complex of structures of transparency that have come to constitute the framework of national governance during the last generation, the importance of the integrity of the civil servants administering those structures, and the fulcrum of sustained advocacy.
From the BBC:
The head of Iraq's National Library returned from exile to help rebuild the country's secular heritage, a task which he continues today despite death threats and the murder of colleagues.Dr Saad Eskander was interviewed in Radio 4's Taking a Stand at 0900 GMT, 8 January, and a recording can be heard here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/takingastand/pip/0u2j8/.
From the Library of Congress:
Twenty-one states, working in four multistate demonstration projects, are today joining the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in an initiative to catalyze collaborative efforts to preserve important state government information in digital form.States face formidable challenges in caring for digital records with long-term legal and historical value. A series of Library-sponsored workshops held in 2005 and involving all states revealed that the large majority of states lack the resources to ensure that the information they produce in digital form only, such as legislative records, court case files and executive agency records, is preserved for long-term access. The workshops made clear that much state government digital information—including content useful to Congress and other policymakers—is at risk of loss if it is not now saved.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
China is introducing strict regulations to control videos, podcasts and other audio-visual content on the internet, official media reported.From next month, only state websites will be allowed to carry film or radio programs, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said.
Providers will not be able to offer material containing sex, violence or gambling as well as anything against state interests or security or that threatens social morals.
The regulations are mainly targeted at the increasingly popular video-sharing websites.
From Information Today:
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS; www.aaas.org) announced it has reversed its earlier decision to pull its flagship publication, Science, from JSTOR (www.jstor.org), the scholarly electronic journals archive. Officials issued this very brief statement: "AAAS and JSTOR are pleased to announce that we have concluded an ongoing discussion and have been able to reach an agreement to continue what has been a very productive relationship between JSTOR and the journal Science."