From the BBC:
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.
From the Queensland University of Technology:
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.
From the Guardian:
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.
From the Guardian:
China has lifted blocks on several long-barred websites after criticism of their censorship.The move, which followed overnight talks with the International Olympic Committee, means that sites including those of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the BBC Chinese language service are accessible in Beijing, Shanghai and possibly further afield.
The ban had been deeply embarrassing for the IOC, which had said that journalists would have the same internet access they had enjoyed at previous Olympics.
From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Internet censorship in China is now being allowed during the Olympic period on the basis that the blocked websites are not related to the Games.The stance is a backdown on earlier promises made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Chinese Olympic organisers.
From the Guardian UK:
The information commissioner today expressed concern at a proposed government database recording the entire country's telephone and internet use, calling it "a step too far for the British way of life".Richard Thomas, who heads the government's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), said there was a grave danger of the police and security services prying into "more and more aspects of our private lives".
From the Times Online:
The rock dinosaurs of the 1960s are in line for a spectacular windfall after the EU announced plans yesterday to extend musicians’ entitlement to retrospective royalties from 50 to 95 years.Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard and Roger Daltrey have all campaigned for what the record industry calls “the Beatles extension”, which will guarantee most artists royalties covering their entire careers.
Posted on Library Juice:
I have read Mr. Sousa’s letter to Mr. Mark Greene, President of the Society of American Archivists (dated 06-06-08), Mr. Al-Jaberi’s statement (dated 27-04-08) and the article published by Stanford University’s official site regarding the illegally seized documents of the former Iraqi state and the archive of the Ba’ath Party (dated 18-06-08).As the national archivist of Iraq, I would like to clarify several points regarding the issue of the illegally seized documents of the former Iraqi state and the archive of the Ba’ath Party.
From the Toronto Star:
Last week's introduction of new copyright legislation ignited a firestorm with thousands of Canadians expressing genuine shock at provisions that opposition MPs argued would create a "police state." As opposition to the copyright bill mounts, the most common question is "why"? . . .. . . While Prentice has responded by citing the need to update Canada's copyright law in order to comply with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties, the reality may be that those treaties have little to do with Bill C-61.
Instead, the bill dubbed by critics as the Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act (after the U.S. version of the law) is the result of an intense public and private campaign waged by the U.S. government to pressure Canada into following its much-criticized digital copyright model.
From the Globe and Mail:
Canadians caught downloading illegal copies of music and movies online could be slapped with a penalty of $500 under new federal legislation to overhaul the Copyright Act of Canada, which was last updated in 1997, four years before the introduction of the iPod.The long-anticipated amendments, which Industry Minister Jim Prentice said are needed to bring Canada up to date with the rest of the digital world, triggered a flurry of heated reactions among consumers, artists and the entertainment industry yesterday. They also raised the question of who will have to play the role of copyright cop on the Internet.
From the BBC:
Sweden's parliament has approved controversial new laws allowing authorities to spy on cross-border e-mail and telephone traffic.The country's intelligence bureau will be able to scan international calls, faxes and e-mails.
The measure was passed by a narrow majority after a heated debate in the Stockholm parliament.
Critics say it threatens civil liberties and represents Europe's most far-reaching eavesdropping plan.
From Stanford:
After five years of storage in a Baghdad home and a U.S. government facility, millions of records from Saddam Hussein's regime may soon be available for review at the Hoover Institution.The Iraq Memory Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based group that collected about 7 million documents from Hussein's Baath Party headquarters just after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, is entrusting the records to Hoover, which has agreed to hold the documents for five years and then help arrange their return to Iraq.
Parts of the collection—which promise insight into how Hussein ran his dictatorship—may be open by the end of the summer, said Richard Sousa, Hoover's senior associate director.
From the European Commission:
An agreement on copyright was signed today by libraries, archives and right holders, in the presence of Commissioner Viviane Reding. The Memorandum of Understanding on orphan works will help cultural institutions to digitise books, films and music whose authors are unknown, making them available to the public online.
European Ombudsman Press Release:
The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has called on the European Parliament (EP) to defend the European Union’s commitment to transparency and the citizens’ right of access to EU documents. This follows the European Commission’s recent proposals to revise the law on public access to documents. In his contribution to today's public hearing in the EP's LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs), the Ombudsman said:"The Commission's proposals would mean access to fewer, not more, documents. This raises fundamental issues of principle about the EU's commitment to openness and transparency."
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
Bell Canada Inc. is facing another challenge to its internet throttling practices as Quebec's consumer watchdog, L'Union des consommateurs, has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company.The suit, filed Thursday in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of Montreal resident Myrna Raphael, seeks certification for all subscribers in the province. The lawsuit alleges that by deliberately slowing internet speeds, Bell has misrepresented its service and raised concerns over privacy.
From The Australian:
The State Library of New South Wales has received $10 million to digitise its catalogue of some of its oldest and most valuable works.The budget funding, allocated over the next three years, would give libraries across the state online access to digital versions of some 18th century manuscripts.
From Discovery News:
A technology normally used in reconstructive surgery to create prosthetic limbs is now being applied to create reproductions of Iraq's precious and fragile cuneiform clay tablets, according to an Italian team of researchers.
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
The NDP [New Democratic Party of Canada] has followed through with its promise to introduce legislation to the House of Commons that seeks to keep the internet open and free from control by service providers. . .. . . The private member's bill, C-552, is in reaction to moves by some of Canada's largest internet service providers (ISPs), including Bell Canada Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., to limit their customers' uses of the internet. Bell, Rogers and a few others say a small percentage of customers have been congesting their networks by using peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, so they have slowed the internet down at peak times of the day.
From Information World Review:
MPs are demanding a UK government assurance that supplier Lockheed Martin's involvement in providing systems for the 2011 Census will not risk US seizure of information under its Patriot Act.US-based Lockheed Martin is one of the bidders for systems to support the 2011 Census.
From the Guardian:
First, some very good news. Civil servants revealed last week that the British government has begun work on a system to make all the geospatial data it holds on the natural environment available for free inspection and re-use. Now the bad news. In this context, "free" means we will still have to pay to download much key data, especially if it is to be published or otherwise used commercially.
From the Mercury News:
Cisco, Google and Yahoo vigorously defended their business operations in China, but skeptical senators and human rights advocates told the companies Tuesday they need to do more to protect user privacy and combat censorship around the world.
From Yahoo! News:
Iranian authorities have blocked access to several websites and blogs of women's rights advocates and journalists critical of the government, a press report said on Tuesday.The move follows a new directive sent out by a committee tasked with identifying illegal websites to Internet service providers, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper said without giving a source.
From Information World Review:
New government proposals for a database to store details of all phone and VoIP calls, emails and internet usage by UK citizens could force firms to look at their corporate communications policies more closely, according to experts.The proposals are part of the draft Communications Data Bill which has yet to be fully released, and would extend the current requirement for telcos and service providers to store details of phone calls and text messages for 12 months.
From Information World Review:
An Indian man is facing five years in jail for making an "offensive" comment after Google handed his personal data to local police.Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid, a 22 year-old IT consultant, was arrested after posting derogatory comments on Google's Orkut social networking site.
Vaid was posting in a forum called 'I hate Soniya Gandhi' and was identified after the police asked Google to hand over his email address.
European Ombudsman Press Release:
The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has launched a consultation process within the European Network of Ombudsmen on access to information contained in databases. This follows a complaint from a Danish journalist about the refusal of the European Commission to disclose data on beneficiaries of EU agricultural subsidies. The Commission justified its refusal on grounds of confidentiality. Furthermore, it argued that the EU's rules on access to documents apply to databases only if the data can be easily retrieved.The Ombudsman was not convinced by this approach. He therefore contacted his colleagues in the Member States to find out about "best practices" at the national level aiming to ensure maximum public access to databases. This consultation is particularly important given that this issue at stake forms part of the current debate on the reform of the EU's rules on access to documents.
From ResourceShelf:
The National Diet Library of Japan (NDL) has announced the publication of “Ensuring long-term preservation and usability of digital information” on its website. This page describes the needs to ensure long-term preservation and accessibility of digital information, including Internet resources and packaged digital publications such as CDs, DVDs and software.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The decision by a Sydney library to dump an exhibition about Palestinian refugees after a visit by counter-terrorism police the night before it opened has been criticised as an act of censorship.Leichhardt municipal library was to launch the Al-Nakba pictorial exhibition last Friday. A local community group, Friends of Hebron, had developed the display of photos, poems and articles over eight months.
"We set up the exhibition at the library on Thursday night and the librarian … approved the exhibition, and said that it could be seen by children and other people who into the library," said Carole Lawson, a Friends of Hebron member.
But that night, shortly before the library closed at 8pm, officers from the police counter-terrorism operations arrived at the library.
From the Telegraph:
Today the High Court has delivered a damning verdict on the attempt by MPs to keep secret the details of their Additional Costs Allowance claims, which pay for their second homes.I requested details of six MPs’ expenses in January 2005. Earlier this year, the Information Tribunal ruled that I should be given everything I asked for.
The House of Commons appealed, resulting in a one-day hearing estimated to have cost taxpayers at least £100,000. Ably represented by my legal representative, solicitor advocate Simon McKay, I argued my case as strongly as I could and I am delighted by today’s outcome.
From Ars Technica:
China is refusing to guarantee that it won't censor the Internet during this summer's Olympic Games, but insists that the international media will still be able to function normally. Officials from China's Technology Ministry took a somewhat odd opportunity to speak about its censorship plans during a press conference after the Olympic torch relay crossed Mount Everest. They said that while the government would be able to "guarantee as much [access] as possible," there's no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.
From the Ottawa Citizen:
Concerns are growing over whether [Canada's much-anticipated copyright law] will be good for consumers as representatives of the U.S. government and the entertainment industry met last night with a group of MPs studying intellectual property to talk about cracking down on copyright infringements.Caucus members are also planning a trip to Washington before the new law is introduced to meet with congressional leaders and other groups working on copyright and piracy issues.
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
The federal Conservatives have quietly killed an access to information registry used by journalists, experts and the public that users say helped hold the government accountable.The Coordination of Access to Information Requests System, or CAIRS, is an electronic list of nearly every access to information request filed to federal departments and agencies.
Originally created in 1989, it was used as an internal tool to keep track of requests and co-ordinate the government's response between agencies to potentially sensitive information released.
Now, users mine the database to do statistical studies, fine tune phrasing on new requests and discover obscure documents — often using the information against the government.
From the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS):
The European Commission is publishing amendments to Regulation 1049/2001. The new regulation is an exercise more in clarification and codification, rather than more ambitious reform towards genuine freedom of information. The European Parliament and Council will need to look carefully at whether the adjustments reflect a balance between the interests of the public to have greater access to documents and those of the institutions to protect their decision-making processes. This is part of the European transparency initiative, but is transparency moving forward?
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
Iran's culture minister has shared some eyebrow-raising advice with authors seeking to see their work published in Iran: "Censor pages which are likely to create a dispute."Minister Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi made his remarks about book publishing in the Islamic republic at a news conference on Monday, according to a report in Agence France-Presse.
Saying that publishers and writers "are aware of the vetting code" in Iran, Safar Harandi urged self-censorship.
From The Bookseller:
Police forces are requesting information on the library borrowing records of individuals under police surveillance, librarians have reported.The requests are understood to centre on areas with a high Muslim population. John Pateman, head of libraries in Lincolnshire, criticised the development, saying it went against library ethics and could damage community cohesion. “It concerns me. Public libraries are one of the last public spaces where people don’t have to justify themselves,” he said.
From Information World Review:
Records of proceedings at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913 have been put online today.The Proceedings of the Old Bailey has been developed by a group of universities including Sheffield, Hertfordshire and the Open University.
Almost 200,000 cases are on display, mainly as digital images of official documents.
This is an interesting approach to getting old UK government documents freely available online. From Times Higher Education:
. . . So, I've taken it upon myself to start an organisation called MLOP, the "Movement for the Liberation of Old Papers". What I do is hack into restricted websites, download the documents I'm interested in, and then use my favourite open-source paint program to remove the copyright statements from each page. Next I assemble the pages into one single pdf file and upload it to the Internet Archive, where it will become universally available to both researchers and citizens. Yes, it does take a bit of time, but it's a very worthy cause (and I have a hardworking research assistant to help me).I feel strongly about this, and I'm prepared to live with the legal consequences of my actions. This, after all, is the new frontier of civil rights - the right of access to information. How else can corruption be stopped and falsehoods exposed? How else can people in power be held accountable? I'd go to prison for the old parliamentary papers if I had to. Ever after I would proudly brag about having liberated an old House of Commons report from the clutches of market capitalism.
From the Guardian:
After seven years of legal wrangling, an official, complete and constantly updated list of addresses in England and Wales is about to become available for commercial use. The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), compiled from data supplied by local councils, is being promoted as the best list of property addresses since the Domesday Book.Free data it is not. Although prices have yet to be finalised, the commercial firm hosting the service said this week it will cost between £15,000 and £20,000 a year. Profits will be shared among local authorities to help them keep data up to date. . .
. . . Technology Guardian's Free Our Data campaign urges a simple solution - that a taxpayer (or otherwise centrally funded) basic database of addresses be made available to all comers, for free. Despite some advances in the campaign, including the support of the Cabinet Office minister responsible for government IT, we have a long way to go.
From the Beaufort Gazette:
For the 23 years Saddam Hussein reigned supreme in Iraq, the bloodless field of library science wasn't a priority. Preserving authorial manuscripts and ensuring Baghdad residents had access to the latest Pynchon novel sagged at the bottom of the to-do list.When the U.S. military invaded in 2003, things worsened for Iraqi librarians: Their places of work became targets. Libraries were looted, and librarians resorted to sneaky tactics like erecting fake walls to hide books. Even so, rioters delivered a severe blow to the nation's literary history. . . .
. . . With a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, [Harvey Varnet, the new University of South Carolina Beaufort's library director] brought 10 of Iraq's academic leaders to Amman, Jordan in October 2007 to update them on modern library science curriculum, including electronic cataloguing -- a great departure from Iraqi libraries' old-school paper card-cataloguing systems. When Hussein took overin 1979 and dedicated most government money to a war against neighboring Iran, Iraqi library science screeched to a halt. Varnet calls it the "Rip Van Winkle effect."
From Stuff.co.nz:
A bill that brings copyright laws into the digital age was passed by Parliament yesterday.The Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill changes the Copyright Act 1994 to clarify its application in the digital environment and to take account of international developments.
It does not change the balance between protection and access to copyright material, but makes sure the balance can continue to operate when new technologies are involved.
From Information World Review:
A British Library (BL) survey published this morning found that 93% of UK researchers believed, “access to online research material should be the same as for books”. The BL said this means that “those involved in non-commercial research should be allowed to copy parts of electronically published works such as online articles, news broadcasts, film, or sound recordings.The survey forms part of the British Library’s official response to UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) consultation on copyright. The scheme was launched earlier in the year following a year-long examination of copyright and Intellectual Property law in the UK by Andrew Gowers.
From the Institute for War and Peace Reporting:
Political leaders should seek full and open access to tribunal archive rather than debate its final resting place.As the tribunal moves closer to its mandated closure in 2010, a public debate has erupted over the final disposition of the institution’s rich archival collections.
In recent weeks, the three members of the Bosnian presidency have been deadlocked over a chorus of popular demands to house the tribunal’s archive in Sarajevo after the court completes its work.
They have been debating the wrong issue.
New Pew Internet & American Life Project report:
Many Americans assume that China's internet users are unhappy about their government's control of the internet, but a new survey finds most Chinese say they approve of internet regulation, especially by the government.According to findings from the fourth and most recent of a series of surveys about internet use in China from 2000 to 2007,1 over 80% of respondents say they think the internet should be managed or controlled, and in 2007, almost 85% say they think the government should be responsible for doing it.
From Deutsche Welle:
In a blow to Berlin's efforts to boost anti-terrorism measures, Germany's highest court on Wednesday, March 19 blocked parts of a sweeping data-collection law that had prompted large protests by civil liberties.Germany's constitutional court on Wednesday severely curbed parts of a wide-reaching and highly controversial data collection law that requires telecom companies to store telephone and Internet data for up to six months, dealing a setback to government efforts to fight terrorism.
The law which went into effect in January gave the federal government broad access to data including e-mail addresses, length of call and numbers dialed and in the case of mobile phones, the location calls are made from.
From the Mercury News:
Syria is cracking down more on Internet use, imposing tighter monitoring of citizens who link to the Web, as well as jailing bloggers who criticize the government and blocking YouTube and other Web sites deemed harmful to state security.
From the Guardian:
Chinese authorities appear to have stopped blocking the BBC News website, making the English-language version of the site fully accessible throughout the country.The Chinese government has never officially confirmed that it blocked traffic to the site, but for years web users in China have been served an error message when attempting to access the BBC and other western news sites.
Twitter users and BBC staff in China have reported for several days that they can access stories on the corporation's news website which would previously have been blocked, including stories on the unrest in Tibet.
However, the Chinese-language site still appears to be blocked. Users are served a page that says "the connection has been reset" when attempting to access pages, giving the appearance of a technical error with the BBC's site.
From Secrecy News:
Legislation pending in the Russian Duma [parliament] would impose new Russian government controls on online content, according to an analysis of Russian news reports from the DNI Open Source Center.
See “Russia–Increased Attempts to Regulate Internet,” DNI Open Source Center, March 24, 2008.
From News.com:
For the second year in a row, Google shareholders will be asked to hold the Web search giant accountable for protecting free speech, regardless of international borders.One of the proposals to be submitted at the annual shareholder meeting scheduled for May 8, would require Google to create policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and released publicly on Tuesday.
From the Telegraph:
As campaigning slogans go, it isn't exactly blood and thunder. The "Free Our Bills" campaign has as its logo a duck-billed platypus scrambling out under the Westminster portcullis, and as its subtitle: "The Nice Polite Campaign to Gently Encourage Parliament to Publish Bills in a 21st-Century Way, Please. Now."I can't help feeling that the whimsical computer geeks who thought this up - volunteers for the charitable organisation MySociety - are underselling the seriousness of what they're about. What they are trying to do is put pressure on the authorities to publish Bills online in a way that is "compatible with the internet age".
From Yahoo! News:
The Cuban authorities have blocked access from Cuba to the country's most-read blogger, Yoani Sanchez, she said on Monday.Sanchez, whose critical "Generacion Y" blog received 1.2 million hits in February, said Cubans can no longer visit her Web page (http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/) and two other home-grown bloggers on the Web site on a server in Germany.
All they can see is a "error downloading" message.
From the National Security Archive:
In celebration of Sunshine Week, the National Security Archive's Mexico Project publishes today a new study of Mexico's transparency law: "FOI in Practice: Measuring the Complexity of Information Requests and Quality of Government Responses in Mexico."The study represents the first comprehensive analysis of the Mexican freedom of information law: what information requesters have sought and how the government has responded.