[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, November 29, 2006

Wed Nov 29 22:09:16 PST 2006

Freedom of Information

Citing Security, Army Tightens Reins On Science Board Research

"The Army has greatly restricted public access to Army Science Board reports out of concern that past releases contained sensitive information with "greater significance than what [was] initially thought," an Army spokesman told Inside the Army."

http://defense.iwpnewsstand.com/insider_special.asp?issue=11132006sp

Intellectual Freedom

Carl T Bergstrom and Theodore C Bergstrom, The Economics of Ecology Journals, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, November 2006

"Over the past decade, scientific publishing has shifted from a paper-based distribution system to one largely built upon electronic access to journal articles. Despite this shift, the basic patterns of journal pricing have remained largely unchanged. The large commercial publishers charge dramatically higher prices to institutions than do professional societies and university presses. These price differences do not reflect differences in quality as measured by citation rate. We discuss the effect of price and citation rate of a journal on library subscriptions and offer an explanation for why competition has not been able to erode the price differences between commercial and non-profit journals."

http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/BergstromAndBergstrom06.pdf

Public Policy

EPA official tries to allay library fears

"Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock is promising that EPA library material will be available digitally in the near future. His announcement comes amid concerns that library documents will become inaccessible as the agency shuts down many physical library facilities."

http://www.fcw.com/article96704-11-03-06-Web&RSS=yes

EPA is Hastily Disposing of its Library Collections - Orders to Trash Library Holdings Stirs Protests

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is frantically dispersing its library collections to preempt Congressional intervention, according to internal emails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary to promises by EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock that all of the former library materials will be made available electronically, vast troves of unique technical reports and analyses will remain indefinitely inaccessible. Meanwhile, many materials formerly held by the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA's Washington D.C. Headquarters, were directed to be thrown into trash bins, according to reports received by PEER. This month, EPA closed the OPPTS Library, its only specialized library for research on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides, without notice to either the public or affected scientists."

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=786

Nuclear plant info available to public

"What if an airplane were to crash into a nuclear plant? How long would it take terrorists to penetrate security barriers outside nuclear facilities? What are the most vulnerable parts of a nuclear plant to attack in order to inflict maximum damage? The answers to all those questions, and many more, are available to the public, as NBC News discovered in a recent hidden-camera investigation. Accessing that very information - along with thousands of other sensitive documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - is as easy as walking into a public library, finding the right files, printing them out and walking out with the documents in hand, no questions asked. . . E-mails and letters obtained by NBC News show that after 9/11, the NRC did, in fact, compile a list of sensitive documents to be pulled from public collections. But in early 2002, the agency made the decision not to pull the information, so the request, and that list, were never passed on to libraries. The documents were never removed."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15922717/

George W. Bush seeking record amounts for presidential library

"The half-billion target is double what Bush raised for his 2004 reelection and dwarfs the funding of other presidential libraries. But Bush partisans are determined to have a massive pile of endowment cash to spread the gospel of a presidency that for now gets poor marks from many scholars and a majority of Americans. The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Bush's institute will hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider said."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/475052p-399492c.html

Dick Cheney's mission to expand -- or 'restore' --the powers of the presidency

"A close look at key moments in Cheney's career -- from his political apprenticeship in the Nixon and Ford administrations to his decade in Congress and his tenure as secretary of defense under the first President Bush -- suggests that the newly empowered Democrats in Congress should not expect the White House to cooperate when they demand classified information or attempt to exert oversight in areas such as domestic surveillance or the treatment of terrorism suspects. Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor, predicted that Cheney's long career of consistently pushing against restrictions on presidential power is likely to culminate in a series of uncompromising battles with Congress."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/11/26/hail_to_the_chief/?page=full

Digital History

The Digital Ice Age

"The documents of our time are being recorded as bits and bytes with no guarantee of future readability. As technologies change, we may find our files frozen in forgotten formats. Will an entire era of human history be lost?"

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4201645.html

Orwellian

Republicans propose last-minute spy bill

"The outgoing Republican chairman of a key U.S. Senate committee has made a last-minute attempt at giving the Bush administration what he calls the necessary "resources" for carrying out its phone call and Internet surveillance within the law, but critics remain unconvinced."

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6136026.html

EFF Fights to Shield Email from Secret Government Searches

"The government must have a search warrant before it can search and seize emails stored by email service providers, according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of civil liberty groups. EFF filed the brief in support of a landmark district court decision finding that the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing secret, warrantless searches and seizures of email stored with a third party."

http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_11.php#005022

Newly disclosed documents show U.S. Defense Department tracked anti-Iraq war activities

"An anti-terrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks on military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations, newly disclosed documents show."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/21/news/dissent.php

International Outlook

Protection of Privacy Legislation Proclaimed

"Legislation to ensure that Nova Scotians' personal information is not disclosed under the U.S. Patriot Act was proclaimed today, Nov. 15. The new Personal Information International Disclosure Protection Act outlines a series of requirements and penalties that protect personal information from inappropriate disclosure."

http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20061115005

Japan sets up panel to study Net neutrality 

"The Japanese government on Wednesday set up a panel to discuss Internet network neutrality -- a concept that has stirred heated debate in the United States -- and study how the surging popularity of free file-sharing services such as YouTube.com is impacting the infrastructure."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/tc_nm/japan_web_dc_1

Poddies copyright crooks

"New copyright legislation is likely to cause more problems than it solves, lawyers have warned. The Government has failed to fix problems with the old Act, they say. The lawyers dispute claims by the internet industry that common acts such as singing Happy Birthday or filming a rock concert with a mobile phone would suddenly become a crime, but they say the legislation is too hard on consumers."

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20792269^27317^^nbv^15306-15319,00.html

Egypt arrests another blog critic 

"Police in Cairo have detained a blogger whose posts have been critical of the Egyptian government. Rami Siyam, who blogs under the name of Ayyoub, was detained along with three friends after leaving the house of a fellow blogger late at night.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6164798.stm

Web Tool Said to Offer Way Past the Government Censor

"Deep in a basement lab at the University of Toronto a team of political scientists, software engineers and computer-hacking activists, or "hactivists," have created the latest, and some say most advanced tool yet in allowing Internet users to circumvent government censorship of the Web."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/technology/27censorship.html

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