[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, September 18, 2006

Mon Sep 18 20:16:25 PDT 2006

Freedom of Information

New Open Government Guide

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has just released the 5th edition of the 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."

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

DHS Lists "Sensitive Security Information" Titles

"In an attempt to limit unnecessary controls on unclassified information, Congress last year required the Department of Homeland Security to identify by title all DHS documents that were marked as "Sensitive Security Information" (SSI) that may not be publicly disclosed. In response, the first DHS report to Congress listed approximately one thousand titles that had been marked as SSI between October 1 and December 31, 2005. A copy of that report has just been released with minor redactions in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists."

See "Department of Homeland Security Documents Designated in Their Entirety as Sensitive Security Information (SSI), October 1 Thru December 31, 2005" (3.5 MB PDF).

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dhs/ssi-titles.pdf

After holds dropped, Senate clears database bill

"Legislation to create a central database that will track all sorts of federal spending passed the Senate last night, ending a dizzying turn of events in which a handful of senators placed and removed opposition to the bill since it cleared a committee in late July."

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/41929-1.html

Wyden, colleagues take on 'secret holds'

"Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Trent Lott (R-MS) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) launched a new offensive Thursday against the Senate's practice of secret holds, under which a single senator can block legislation or a nominee without revealing his or her identity. Wyden has worked with Grassley for more than a decade to end the practice of secret holds. Their amendment requiring a senator who places a hold to make it public within three days was included in the Senate version of lobbying reform legislation."

http://www.ktvz.com/story.cfm?nav=news&storyID=16628

CIA backtracks on its power to judge 'newsworthiness'

"The CIA has promised to stop judging the individual newsworthiness of the FOIA requests of the National Security Archive, a private research organization, in a move that could affect groups that have been charged higher fees under a recent change in CIA policy."

http://www.rcfp.org/news/2006/0914-foi-ciabac.html

Orwellian

Spy agencies have discretion on reporting

"The directors of U.S. intelligence agencies have discretion over which of their activities are reported to Congress, according to newly disclosed guidelines. The law governing the 16 agencies and departmental offices that are called the U.S. Intelligence Community by insiders requires them to keep both the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities," except so-called covert actions "including any significant anticipated intelligence activity and any significant intelligence failure." But guidelines from the new Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte say that it is up the directors of each agency to decide what programs or other activities are covered by the requirement."

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060903-081726-8834r

Hidden Depths to U.S. Monitoring 

"As Americans consider whether they are more safe or less five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one thing is certain: They are being monitored by their own government in ways unforeseen before terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-surveillance11sep11,1,6532077.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

N.J. prosecutors defend bid for phone company records 

"New Jersey has the right to obtain information about a federal domestic surveillance program because that program is no longer a secret, the state argued in response to federal efforts to quash its investigation."

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/15493848.htm

Digital History

Unable to Repeat the Past

"Storing information is easier than ever, but it's also never been so easy to lose it -- forever. We could end up with a modern history gap. . . No one has compiled an inventory of lost records, but archivists regularly stumble upon worrisome examples. Reports detailing the military's spraying of the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam, needed for research and medical care, were obliterated. Census data from the 1960s through 1980s disappeared. A multitude of electronic voting records vanished without a trace. Records considered at risk by the National Archives include diagrams and maps needed to secure the nuclear stockpile and policy documents used to inform partners in the war on terror. Much like global warming, the archive problem emerged suddenly, its effects remain murky and the brunt of its effect will be felt by future generations. The era we are living in could become a gap in history. "If we don't solve the problem, our time will not become part of the past," said Kenneth Thibodaux, who directs electronic records preservation for the National Archives. "It will largely vanish.""

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-archive13sep13,1,5985915.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Public Policy

National Archives Issues Progress Report on Declassification Initiatives

"The Archivist gave the group a status report on the progress on the audit items. Professor Weinstein stressed that since the ISOO audit report was issued, notwithstanding the ongoing Department of Energy review pursuant to 'Kyl-Lott Amendment, "The practice of withdrawal of documents from the open shelves has been stopped in its tracks. Today, withdrawals are extremely rare and must demonstrate a compelling case." Only seven new documents have been withdrawn since April 26. All of these withdrawals have been carefully noted in the opened files so that their removal is transparent to researchers and all have been handled in accordance with the audit protocol. One of the documents has been declassified and is now back on the shelf. Agency decisions are still pending on the other items."

http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2006/nr06-137.html

Post-9/11 privacy and secrecy: A report card

"That incident highlights what has become an unmistakable trend in the five years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: The federal government is concealing more information about its own activities, while engaging in more surveillance of Americans' private lives."

http://news.com.com/Post-911+privacy+and+secrecy+A+report+card/2100-1028_3-6113518.html

Nine Legislative Efforts that Must Be Stopped in 2006

Several of these are linked to government information policies: "As Congress mounts its final push before the midterm elections, a number of bills that threaten the bedrock of Internet privacy and civil liberties could either come up for votes or worm their way into larger legislative packages that end up being rushed into law. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) compiled the Internet Watch List so that lawmakers, journalists and Internet activists can keep close tabs on the dangerous legislative efforts that cannot be allowed to succeed in the so-called "silly season" at the end of the 109th Congress."

http://www.cdt.org/legislation/2006watchlist.php

FCC study opposing rule was destroyed

"The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says."

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stcharles/story/6332DB949FC2CA04862571EA000F8D7E?OpenDocument

Top GPO Executive Credited With Improving Public Access to Government Documents to Retire

"The official most responsible for working with the library community on establishing an authentic digital collection of published Government information, has announced she will be retiring from the Government Printing Office early next year. Judy Russell has been with the GPO for nearly a decade, most recently as Superintendent of Documents. Russell has been key in designing the Federal Depository Library Program of the future, creating GPO Access, and developing innovative plans for the publications sales program."

http://www.gpo.gov/news/2006/06news25.pdf

Intellectual Freedom

Demand for open access 'low'

"A year-long experiment in open access publishing by the Oxford University Press has concluded that the level of uptake for an author-pays system remains "generally quite low", and that the new model is not sufficient on its own to support the requirements of different research communities."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2163737/demand-open-access-low

New Journal of Physics breaks the 1,000,000 barrier

"We are delighted to announce that in July 2006 New Journal of Physics (NJP) saw its 1 millionth article download since its launch in 1998. Co-owned with the German Physical Society, NJP was the first journal to publish across the whole of physics using the open-access model, a format which Editor in Chief Eberhard Bodenschatz attributes to NJP's success: "New Journal of Physics is all about serving the whole physics community by publishing free-to-read, cutting edge research of the highest quality. Reaching this milestone shows that we are doing just that." The journal's success is also reflected in its rapid growth - in the last five years NJP has grown by more than 900% and is now accessed in more than 180 countries. NJP is completely free to read at njp.org and is funded by article publication charges."

http://ej.iop.org/pdf/insider/2006_librarian_insider_8.pdf

Citations boost for New Journal of Physics

"New Journal of Physics (NJP) has recently been identified by Essential Science IndicatorsSM as having the highest increase in total citations out of all journals in the field of physics. Giving the journal 'Rising Star' status, their latest analysis reveals that 829 NJP papers have now been cited a total of 3187 times. NJP also recently saw its Impact Factor rise for a fourth consecutive year to 3.585."

http://www.iop.org/EJ/news/-topic=1173/njp

APS extends open access to all its journals

"Even archived content from 1890s can be made open access retrospectively. Physics research promoter and publisher the American Physical Society (APS) is to extend open access to all its journals."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2164046/aps-extends-open-access

Internet Access

Infopeople Webcast - Internet, CIPA, and Sexual Harassment

"It's been three years since the Supreme Court upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires libraries with certain federal aid to "protect against access" to visual depictions of child pornography, obscenity, and material "harmful to minors". Should the library block MySpace? This webcast will fill you in on important post-CIPA developments that may affect your library's Internet use policies - including what the courts have said about the clash between the public's rights of free speech and employee rights to be free from sexual harassment."

http://infopeople.org/training/webcasts/webcast_data/184/index.html

Net neutrality bill may die this year

"A rift over Net neutrality is the No. 1 issue holding up a massive communications bill and could cause it to be derailed this year, the chairman of a key U.S. Senate panel said Tuesday.  The less-than-sunny prognosis from Sen. Ted Stevens at a committee event here indicates a departure from the position he held before Congress left town for its August recess. At that time, the Alaska Republican suggested he was confident he would be able to drum up the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster on the sweeping proposal, which includes everything from changes to the way the government subsidizes rural telecommunications to a revival of the controversial "broadcast flag" copy protection."

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6115016.html

U.S. likely to keep control of Internet name system

"A U.S. State Department official on Wednesday said that the United States should retain control of the Internet domain naming system and not relinquish it at the end of September when the current agreement ends. "It won't happen on my watch," said Ambassador David Gross of the State Department's Bureau of Economic Affairs."

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-09-13T214939Z_01_N13460161_RTRUKOC_0_US-INTERNET-ICANN.xml

Take Action!

Support the Orphan Works Act of 2006

"SLA, in collaboration with the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), continues to participate in a dialogue with members of U.S. Congress expressing support of legislation that will alleviate the problem of orphan works. We encourage you to write a letter in support of  H.R. 5439, the "Orphan Works Act of 2006," to the U.S. House Committee on Judiciary.  This legislation, once enacted, will tremendously assist in making cultural heritage more broadly available to the public.

Go to SLA's Legislative Action Center at http://capwiz.com/sla/home/ to write a letter now.  You can identify instantly if you have a representative on the Judiciary Committee by entering your zip code. 

Background information on Orphan Works can be located at: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/.

SLA comments are located at: 
http://www.sla.org/pdfs/032505orphanworks.pdf

http://www.sla.org/PDfs/PublicPolicy/orphanworks.pdf

Communicating with Congress Course

Just in time for Congress' return to Washington, D.C, and designed for both veteran library advocates and those who are new to Capitol Hill, the three-part online course "Messaging and Talking with Congress: An Interactive Workshop" will help library supporters build or hone effective messages and successfully communicate library needs to Congress. 

This course guides you through every step of the process for effective communication -- from background research, to developing and delivering your message, to effective follow-up. You'll gain practical insights, such as how to use the Internet effectively to answer critical questions, the secrets to getting someone in a government office to listen to your concerns.

The ALA Washington Office is making this course available free to ALA members! "Messaging and Talking with Congress" guides users through the process of developing messages, teaches users to communicate effectively with Members of Congress and other elected officials, and offers strategies on building lasting relationships with Congressional staff. Users may navigate the course at their own pace and download and print helpful worksheets.

Visit their site to access the course. Click on the blue "course catalog" tab at the top of the screen. Select the first class "ALA Advocacy Classroom." Click "Add to cart". ALA members can take the course free of charge by entering "library" into the coupon code field and then clicking "Apply code."

http://www.advocacyclassroom.com/homepage.cfm

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