From: Anne Barker (annenb@hillbillyhermit.com)
Date: Mon Mar 20 2006 - 20:29:17 PST
Message-ID: <003d01c64ca0$06035d80$7601a8c0@annenb> From: "Anne Barker" <annenb@hillbillyhermit.com> Subject: Intersect Alert, March 20, 2006 Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:29:17 -0800
With Michele McGinnis heading back to the green hills of Eastern Tennessee, I am privileged to have been selected as the new Government Relations Chair. I am also very happy to present my first edition of the Intersect Alert. This edition is quite a bit longer than these alerts will be in the future, but it has been a little while since Michele sent one out and I have incorporated some stories she provided to me in this alert. Also, Sunshine Week last week produced a few great items that I wanted to include. I hope you won't find the length overwhelming, and I promise to keep them shorter in the future.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas for current awareness and outreach you would like to see in the future.
And thank you to Michele for reinvigorating this committee during her tenure. She has been a wonderful influence on our Chapter's interest in government relations.
Anne
Sunshine Week Specials
AP Analysis: States Steadily Restricting Info
"States have steadily limited the public's access to government information since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new Associated Press analysis of laws in all 50 states has found. Legislatures have passed more than 1,000 laws changing access to information, approving more than twice as many measures that restrict information as laws that open government books."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060311/ap_on_re_us/sunshine_week
Secrecy Under Scrutiny
The latest issue of U.S. News and World Report (March 20) features an interview with Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, to discuss his relentless push for greater freedom of information. For 15 years, Aftergood has fought for open records and accountability in government.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060320/20qa.htm
A sidebar takes a look at Freedom of Information Act policy. See "Finding out what Uncle Sam has on you".
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060310/10foia.htm
National Security Archive FOIA Audit Identifies Continued Backlog
"The oldest Freedom of Information requests still pending in the U.S. government date back to 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to the Freedom of Information Audit released [March 12] by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB182/press.htm
Open Govt. Is Good Govt., Public Tells Pollsters On The Eve Of The Second National Sunshine Week
"Two national polls conducted on the eve of the second national Sunshine Week open government initiative, March 12-18, show a public that equates open government with effective democracy and is concerned about the rise in official secrecy at the national, state and local levels."
http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/polls06
CIA Wins Award for Worst FOIA Compliance by a Gov't Agency in 2005
"The Central Intelligence Agency has won the second annual Rosemary Award, recognizing the worst performance by a federal agency in complying with the Freedom of Information Act. The Award is named after President Nixon's secretary Rosemary Woods and the backwards-leaning stretch which she testified resulted in her erasing eighteen-and-a-half minutes from a key Watergate conversation on the White House tapes."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB182/rosemary.htm
Freedom of Information
National Archives to Review Removal of Declassified Documents
"Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein has initiated strong measures in response to complaints from historians that, since 1999, more than 55,000 declassified documents have been removed from public access areas in the National Archives by government intelligence and security agencies."
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6312994.html
House Subcommittee Blasts Document Reclassification
"The National Archives and Records Administration declined March 14 to give a House of Representatives oversight subcommittee details on a seven-year-old program that resulted in the reclassification of thousands of previously public documents, because the Pentagon has ruled that the reasons for the program should remain secret."
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/march2006ab/narahearing.htm
Confronting Digital Age Head-On: GPO Aims to Secure All Government Documents Online
"Americans wanted to search for information on the Web and did not want to pay for printed versions of government documents. . . The Future Digital System will respond to that trend by making available online all 2.2 million government documents -- a total of 60 million pages -- by the end of the 2007, tagged by keywords so they can be easily searched. It is a nearly $30 million endeavor and will include documents all the way back to the nation's founding."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/12/AR2006031200938_pf.html
Freedom of Information Audit of the U.S. Government's Policies on Sensitive Unclassified Information
"The first-ever government-wide audit of the ways that federal agencies mark and protect information that is unclassified but sensitive for security reasons has found 28 different and uncoordinated policies, none of which include effective oversight or monitoring of how many records are marked and withheld, by whom, or for how long."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB183/press.htm
Summary and Analysis of Proposed Legislative Changes to FOIA in 2005
The First Amendment Center's Kevin Goldberg summarizes federal legislation in 2005 that involved Freedom of Information issues and comments on the status of the proposals.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=16643
Orwellian
NORAD orders Web deletion of transcript
"In an unusual follow-up to a public event, the Defense Department has ordered that a transcript of an open hearing on aviation restrictions be yanked from the Web." Some of the pilots who attended the meeting suggested that nothing sensitive was disclosed and that the transcripts were deleted because one of the pilots who testified, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Bush, criticized the government's security apparatus.
http://news.com.com/NORAD+orders+Web+deletion+of+transcript/2100-1028_3-6048254.html
American's Awareness of First Amendment Freedoms
The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum recently released a report that details some very unfortunate results of its survey. The report can be found at
http://www.mccormicktribune.org/mccormickmuseum/pdf/Survey_Results_Report.pdf.
Judge Supports New Reading of Law Regarding Classified Information
From Secrecy News: "'All persons who have authorized possession of classified information, and persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into possession in an unauthorized way of classified information, must abide by the law. They have no privilege to estimate that they can do more good with it. . . So, that applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever. They are not privileged to disobey the laws, because we are a country that respects the rule of law.'
"Thus spoke Judge T.S. Ellis, III, in a January 20, 2006 sentencing hearing (available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/franklin012006.pdf) for former Defense Department official Lawrence A. Franklin, who was convicted of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. Judge Ellis' statement was extraordinary because it appeared to endorse the new Bush Administration theory that not only leakers but also unauthorized recipients of classified information can be prosecuted for retaining or disclosing such information to others. This reading of the law, which has never prevailed before, could now be used against academics, lawyers, newsletter writers, newsletter readers, whatever."
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/03/transcript_of_franklin_sentenc.html
Public Policy
EPA Region 5 Closing Its Midwest Library
From a post on GOVDOC-L: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Midwest Regional Library serving universities, the public and its own staff, according to a memo released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The agency is acting without waiting for Congress to approve the proposed budget cuts that are the basis for dismantling EPA's entire library network. The affected library located in the Chicago regional headquarters serves the six-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Read the memo at http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_13_03_EPA_Library_email.pdf.
President Bush's PATRIOT Act Reauthorization Signing Statement
Free Government Information's analysis of President Bush's "Statement on Signing" the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization declares that the "President clearly intends to ignore language in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization intended to keep Congress informed of the Administration's use of the Act."
http://freegovinfo.info/node/435
Government Health Researchers Pressed to Share Data at No Charge
"Political momentum is growing for a change in federal policy that would require government-funded health researchers to make the results of their work freely available on the Internet."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030901960.html
Ten Facts About The Pending Librarians' Internet Index Budget Cut
"LII is facing a fifty percent budget cut to its primary funding as of July 1, 2006. Here are ten basic facts to help you understand what's going on."
http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/budget_cut_facts.htm
Internet Access
California Senator Blasts AOL E-Mail
"Though nonprofit and advocacy groups have loudly opposed AOL's use of Goodmail CertifiedEmail, legislators have been relatively quiet on the issue -- until now. At a news conference yesterday, California state Sen. Dean Florez, a Democrat, criticized AOL's attempt to create a 'two-tiered world of e-mail service.'"
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=36080
U.S. Is Denied Google Queries
"A federal judge Friday denied a Justice Department demand for access to some Internet search queries of Google Inc. users in a closely watched case testing the limits of online privacy. The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose was a victory for Google, which argued that handing over the records would violate the privacy of people who might scour the Internet with terms as diverse as "best-actor nominees," "third trimester abortion" or "pipe bomb." Although Ware required Google to reveal some information about the websites in its database, he ordered the government to reimburse the Mountain View, Calif., company for the time and expense required to comply."
Copyright Issues
Online Disputes Expose Publishers' Copyright Vulnerability
"When book publishers rallied against Google's library book scanning project last year, they accused the tech giant of stealing. In a lawsuit filed in New York federal court, the publishers claimed that if Google Inc. made digital copies of library books available online for search purposes, the tech company would be committing massive copyright infringement. But then one book publisher, HarperCollins, tried to steal a page from its antagonist's playbook, announcing that it would make its entire backlist, about 20,000 titles, including such classics as "Charlotte's Web," available online. Publishers didn't have a problem -- but book authors and their lawyers did a double take."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1140689116012
International Outlook
Chinese Premier Defends Nation's Internet Policy
"China's premier Tuesday offered a defense of his nation's Internet censorship and exhorted private companies to 'exercise more self-discipline' if they want to operate in the huge market here. Premier Wen Jiabao, meeting the press in a once-a-year news conference, said sites available to China's 111 million Internet users 'should be able to convey the right message and information.'"
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14092424.htm
Guardian Newspaper Campaigns to Free Public Sector Information
The Guardian newspaper is demanding that public sector information should be made freely available to British citizens. The Free our data campaign argues that the current restrictions on government funded information restrict innovation, the number of services, and the variety of information services available.
http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2152217/guardian-newspaper-campaigns
Chinese Cyber-Dissident Jailed for 10 Years
"A Chinese dissident was jailed for 10 years over an essay he posted on the Internet, a US-based rights body said, as China continued its crackdown on people who express anti-government views."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17032006/323/chinese-cyber-dissident-jailed-10-years.html
Government Orders Spoof Site Shut
"A spoof John Howard website that featured a soul searching "apology" speech for the Iraq war has been shut down under orders from the Australian Government. Richard Neville, an Australian futurist and social commentator was "mystified" to discover his satirical website johnhowardpm.org had been blocked on Tuesday with no explanation from either his web hosting company, Yahoo or the domain name registrar, Melbourne IT. He said that after two days of silence, a customer service representative from Melbourne IT today informed him by telephone that the site had "been closed on the advice from the Australian Government"."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/government-orders-spoof-site-shut/2006/03/17/1142098638843.html
Take Action!
U.S. Copyright Office to Examine Copyright Protection Systems Exemptions
The U.S. Copyright Office is holding hearings to examine exemptions to the prohibition on circumventing copyright protection systems for access technologies. The Copyright Office will determine whether there are particular classes of work that should be exempt from the prohibition because users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing uses. The hearings will be held in Palo Alto on March 23 and 24, and in Washington, D.C. on March 29 and 31, and April 3 and 4. Requests to testify must be received by March 10, 2006. For more information, see: http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2006/71fr9302.html
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