How does the government manage data that was born digital, meaning it was created in electronic form? Organizations as varied as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the White House, open-government groups, and House members have recently offered recommendations for managing the growing volume of such information. Their approaches underscore the differences of opinion about how much responsibility and power various entities should have over future federal recordkeeping.

People who use the Internet to talk to friends, set up free e-mail accounts or buy concert tickets are often unknowingly helping to digitize vast libraries of old books and newspapers.

That's because more than 40,000 Web sites — including popular ones such as Ticketmaster, Facebook and Craigslist — are using a new kind of security program called reCAPTCHA.

The European Commission has urged member states to step up efforts to make Europe's cultural heritage available to citizens at a mouse click.

Plans for a European digital library containing books, paintings, music, film and photographs are already underway but progress on making works digitally available has been slow with funding problems and lack of technical know-how dragging the ambitious project down.

The Library of Congress, the California Digital Library, the University of North Texas Libraries, the Internet Archive and the U.S. Government Printing Office today announced a collaborative project to preserve public United States Government web sites at the end of the current presidential administration ending January 19, 2009. This harvest is intended to document federal agencies' online archive during the transition of government and to enhance the existing collections of the five partner institutions.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is rapidly downsizing its environmental capabilities by forcing scores of Denver-based specialists to go into retirement under threat of layoff, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This massive lame duck restructuring will force the next administration to contract for the eliminated functions.

Reclamation manages millions of acre feet of water, primarily with dams and reservoirs, in 17 Western states. Job reductions are concentrated in its Technical Services Center (TSC) in Denver where nearly one-third of the 500 jobs are now or will soon be eliminated. Among the services being cut are –

• Drinking Water Protection. The Expeditionary Unit Water Purification program creates potable water following disasters, such as the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, but has lost key staff;
• Scientists, Laboratories and Library. The Center’s world renowned library and laboratories are being drained of all employees. In addition, the ax is falling heavily on science positions, such as hydrologists, soil scientists and seismologists; and
• Environmental Studies. Reclamation is rapidly discarding both its capacity to assess environmental effects of its water projects and its ability to analyze impacts on recreation, historical and cultural resources, as well as the social and economic consequences of its actions.

Plans to give local councils and other public bodies the power to monitor e-mail and internet traffic have been branded a "snoopers' charter".

The government wants to make it mandatory for phone and internet companies to store all information on personal web use for 12 months.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday that it had improperly obtained the phone records of reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post in the newspapers’ Indonesia bureaus in 2004.

Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., disclosed the episode in a phone call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, and apologized for it. He also spoke with Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington Post, to apologize.

F.B.I. officials said the incident came to light as part of the continuing review by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into the bureau’s improper collection of telephone records through “emergency” records demands issued to phone providers.

The records were apparently sought as part of a terrorism investigation, but the F.B.I. did not explain what was being investigated or why the reporters’ phone records were considered relevant.

A federal judge on Thursday authorized the F.B.I. to search two public library computers used late last month by Bruce E. Ivins, the Maryland scientist blamed in the 2001 anthrax killings, to read about the investigation into the attacks. . .

. . . Library officials turned over the computers voluntarily to the F.B.I. last week. The Justice Department said it believed it needed a search warrant to examine the contents, and two warrants were approved Thursday by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.

Beginning in 2006, EPA management began a stealth campaign of closing its regional and technical libraries, ultimately eliminating library service in 23 states and scattering invaluable scientific collections. In December 2007, Congress ordered EPA to re-open the libraries, but by this spring it became apparent that EPA would only grudgingly comply, restoring only minimal holdings in small spaces, in some cases no larger than the lavatories in the buildings they occupied.

In February 2008, a Federal Labor Relations Board arbitrator sustained grievances filed by the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 on behalf of all affected agency employees, finding that EPA acted “unilaterally without the benefit of” employee input in reducing access to seven of its ten regional libraries. The arbitrator ordered EPA to bargain with AFGE Council 238 on library conditions.

The two parties reached a Memorandum of Agreement on July 10, 2008 which became final today [August 11th].

This study focuses on the copyright and related laws of Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States and the impact of those laws on digital preservation of copyrighted works. It also addresses proposals for legislative reform and efforts to develop non-legislative solutions to the challenges that copyright law presents for digital preservation.

Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

A new report from the Senate Judiciary Committee examines the use of the state secrets privilege by the executive branch and describes the intent of new legislation to strengthen judicial review of its use in civil litigation.

The 53 page report summarizes the latest legal scholarship on the state secrets privilege, as well as the controversy that has surrounded it.

Candidates for the House of Representatives and President have been filing contribution reports electronically for years, but the Senate still allows candidates to file paper reports with the Secretary of the Senate. After receiving the reports, the Secretary of the Senate delivers the reports in paper to the FEC, who then must input them into their computer databases to be accessed by the public online. As a result of the delay, donors can bundle contributions in the final, critical weeks of a campaign - providing the funds necessary for last minute negative attack ads or push polls - with absolute anonymity.

The Senate is considering a bill, S.233, that would require candidates for the Senate to file reports electronically. The bill is widely supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle.

As Congress heads home for August recess, please considering contacting your House Representative with an urgent request to co-sponsor H.R. 6589, the Charles H.W. Meehan Law Library Improvement and Modernization Act. This bill, which AALL and the American Bar Association have been working toward for years, will authorize a one-time, additional $3.5 million for the Law Library of Congress and its own separate line item in the Federal budget beginning in FY 2010. It will also establish the Charles H.W. Meehan Law Library Support Program, which will allow outside funding to be raised and provided to the Law Library for new enhanced services, such as interlibrary loan and electronic document delivery.

Websites on sensitive subjects such as the bloody crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 were accessible in the Chinese capital yesterday as the authorities lifted more internet restrictions in order to meet their Olympic Games commitments.

However, reporters questioned the International Olympic Committee's claim that the issue had been 'resolved', pointing out that many sites - such as those sympathising with Tibetan groups - could still not be accessed.