[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, August 1, 2006

Tue Aug 1 20:34:59 PDT 2006

Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information Act: Preliminary Analysis of Processing Trends Shows Importance of Improvement Plans

According to data reported by agencies in their annual reports, the public continues to request and receive increasing amounts of information from the federal government through FOIA; however, excepting one case-the Social Security Administration (SSA)-the rate of increase has flattened in recent years. When SSA's numbers are excluded, data reported by the other 24 major agencies show that the number of requests received increased by 27 percent from fiscal year 2002 to 2005, but by only about 2.5 percent from fiscal year 2004. As more requests come in, agencies also report that they have been processing more of them-25 percent more from 2002 to 2005 (but only about 2.0 percent more than from 2004). Despite processing more requests, agencies have not kept up with the increase in requests being made: the number of pending requests carried over from year to year has been steadily increasing, rising to about 200,000 in fiscal year 2005-43 percent more than in 2002. The rate of increase in requests pending is also growing: the increase from fiscal year 2004 to 2005 is 24 percent, compared to 11 percent from 2003 to 2004.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061022t.pdf

GATT documents digital archive

On 15 May 2006 the General Council decided to make public all official documents issued under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Many of these documents did not exist electronically, and have been scanned to create a digital archive. This is a work in progress - cataloguing is not completed, and refinements to structure and help files will be added at a later date. Of the roughly 88,000 documents issued under GATT, about 51,000 are available through the links below.

http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/gattdocs_e.htm

Lawmakers largely ignore Web at FOIA hearing

Lawmakers who held an oversight hearing to assess the recent presidential executive order aimed at improving disclosure of government information did not emphasize the role that information technology should play in meeting requirements.

http://www.fcw.com/article95460-07-28-06-Web

Reporters Committee Releases Update of State Open Government Guide 

The Open Government Guide is a complete compendium of information on every state's open records and open meetings laws. Each state's section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states. If you're a new user of this guide, be sure to read the Introductory Note and User's Guide.

http://www.rcfp.org/ogg/

House Hearing on FOIA Policy

Secrecy News reports on a July 26 House hearing on FOIA Policy at http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/07/house_hearing_on_foia_policy.html.

Strictly Unclassified: Some Thoughts on Secrecy and Openness

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein has written about government secrecy in NARA's Prologue Summer 2006, Vol. 38, No. 2.

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/summer/archivist.html

Intellectual Property Issues

Questioning Copyright in Standards 

The rise of the information economy has caused copyright law to become a new actor in the intellectual property rights and standards debate because standard-setting organizations (SSOs) increasingly claim copyrights in standards and charge substantial fees for access to and rights to use standards such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) country, currency, and language codes and standard medical and dental procedure codes promulgated by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Dental Association (AMA). This article will consider whether standards such as these, especially those whose use is mandated by government rules, should be eligible for copyright protection as a matter of U.S. copyright law. 

http://repositories.cdlib.org/bclt/lts/22

Orwellian

Chicago Judge Dismisses Lawsuit On AT&T Data Handover

Citing national security, a federal judge Tuesday threw out a lawsuit aimed at blocking AT&T Inc. from giving telephone records to the government for use in the war on terror. "The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities," U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/25/AR2006072501363.html

Justice Department sues to block Missouri from getting phone records

The federal government sued two members of the Missouri Public Service Commission on Tuesday to stop them from seeking information about customer records that telephone companies may have given to the National Security Agency. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, claims disclosure of any information the Missouri regulatory body wants to obtain could cause "exceptionally grave harm to national security."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-25-nsa-lawsuit_x.htm

Administration Seeks Wiretap Changes

The Bush administration pressed Congress on Wednesday to ease decades-old restrictions on surveillance to catch up to Internet-age technology. As lawmakers debate whether the president's domestic spying program is legal, the CIA director said the 1978 law covering such monitoring is behind the times.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072600812.html

Feds appeal loss in NSA wiretap case 

The Bush administration has asked a federal appeals court to halt a lawsuit that accuses AT&T of illegally opening its communication networks to surveillance by the National Security Agency. Permitting the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit to proceed would endanger national security and possibly expose classified information, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a legal brief filed on Monday.

http://news.com.com/2100-1036_3-6100612.html

Internet Access

Chat rooms could face expulsion

Web sites like Amazon.com and MySpace.com may soon be inaccessible for many people using public terminals at American schools and libraries, thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives. By a 410-15 vote on Thursday, politicians approved a bill that would effectively require that "chat rooms" and "social networking sites" be rendered inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the Internet's most ardent users. Adults can ask for permission to access the sites. 

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6099414.html

US government changes stance on future of ICANN

The US government has signaled its intent to loosen its control over internet domain name system oversight body ICANN, after a public meeting was held last week by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the presidential advisory body for internet and other matters.

http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2161326/us-changes-icann-stance

Digital History

Preserving State Government Digital Information: A Baseline Report

The Center for Technology in Government released this new report based on a survey of all fifty states: Preserving State Government Digital Information: A Baseline Report (http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/digital_preservation_baseline)

Six observations about the challenges facing state government digital preservation initiatives emerged from the baseline data: 

1.     Capability for preserving state government digital information is low. 

2.     There is no consistent approach to addressing "at-risk" information. 

3.     Authority for setting standards and responsibility for providing digital preservation services is dispersed. 

4.     Executive, legislative, and judicial agencies operate parallel digital preservation efforts. 

5.     Digital preservation and Enterprise Architecture initiatives are not well-connected. 

6.     Efforts to develop strategic digital preservation programs are hampered by problem focused practices and funding and staffing models. 

A complementary resource to this baseline reports enables you to review the individual profiles from the responding units within the states/territories. 

State Government Digital Preservation Profiles (http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/digital_preservation_profiles)

In Politics, Some Ties Are by Blood

Researchers for Ancestry.com finished the arduous task late last week. The data is now available to paid subscribers and for free at 1,200 Mormon LDS family history centers and U.S. public libraries. "It took 1,500 paleographers six years to read the census manually and to decipher the often unclear 18th and 19th century handwriting," said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com. "The process was not all that sophisticated, but the database search engine that is now in place is."

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/07/03/genealogy_hum.html

International Outlook

Israeli Destruction of Public Documents in Lebanon

Buried and half buried in the ruins of the Ministry of the Interior were hundreds of thousands of file cases and documents--birth and death certificates, identification records, passports and other travel documents, ledgers of hand written information--a heritage of historical information about Nablus residents that covered more than 100 years of successive Palestinian occupations under the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate, the Jordanian kingdom, and the current Israeli regime.

http://www.counterpunch.com/toensing07272006.html

Secrecy ruling by judge on Blair-Bush talk

The public must be prevented from learning the contents of a conversation between Tony Blair and President George Bush about the conduct of the war in Iraq - crucial evidence in a forthcoming official secrets trial - an Old Bailey judge ruled yesterday. Any discussion of an already partially leaked document - in which Mr Bush purportedly said in April 2004 that he wanted to bomb the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera, and Mr Blair expressed concern about US military tactics in the Iraqi city of Falluja - must be heard behind closed doors, Mr Justice Aikens ruled. He also banned the public and the media from hearing the prosecution's arguments on the grounds of national security.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1823628,00.html

British Library to host UK's PubMed Central

The British Library has won the tendering processing to host the UK's PubMed Central (UKPMC) free web resource for scientific research papers. UKPMC will be the British equivalent to the successful PubMed Central service in the US.

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2161445/british-library-host-uk-pubmed

Northern Ireland goes paper free

The Northern Ireland Civil Service is dumping its filing cabinets and going paperless. The Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRM) will standardise systems across the service's 11 departments, including health and social services, education and employment and learning.

http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/2B7B6EAF38F6F916802571B9003CE390?OpenDocument

Keeping Electronic Records Accessible - How The Federal Archives Of Germany Preserves The Digital Heritage Of The German Democratic Republic: A Case Study

The author introduces this case study by generally discussing the issues for the Federal Archives of Germany in the acquisition, preservation, accessibility, authenticity and reliability of electronic records. The case study is then used to illustrate that archivists must be involved early in the record life cycle so to encourage data producers to supply complete and accurate documentation and comprehensive audit trails. The author also concludes that METS may be a good way to preserve records over the long term.

This paper was presented at the 7th European Conference on Archives, Warsaw, 18-20 May, 2006. 

http://archiwa.gov.pl/repository/wz/VII%20Konferencja/Papers/A_Hanger_Keeping_Electronic_Records....pdf

Take Action

Senate DOPA Action Needed

On Wednesday, July 28, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the amended H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), by a vote of 410-15. We believe the legislation will now go to the Senate, which may or may not have time to vote on this before their session ends for the year.

Please contact your Senators about the importance of social networking sites. Share with them personal stories about how you or your library patrons use these sites in educational ways. Let them know what negative impact of DOPA or similar legislation will have on libraries and library users if it passes. 

Background information about this issue can be viewed on the ALA website located at:  http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/techinttele/dopa/DOPA.htm.

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.
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