[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, September 27, 2006

Wed Sep 27 20:46:47 PDT 2006

Freedom of Information

Searchable Database of Congressional Staff Salaries Debuts

"Based on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, LegiStorm's first information product is a database of congressional staff salaries. The information is provided in a strictly factual, non-partisan fashion. We have no political purpose except to make the workings of Congress as transparent as possible. We expect this resource to be useful to journalists, researchers, and current and would-be staffers - as well as regular citizens who simply want to know how their representatives spend public money. We obtain our data for this site from the official record books: the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House reports. The Senate publishes its data every six months; the House, every three months. It takes several weeks for these offices to publish their data and it takes another few short weeks for LegiStorm to get the data into our database. Therefore, the most recent information is not available on our site."

http://www.legistorm.com/index.php/

Rep. Waxman Releases Internal Commerce Department E-Mails on Climate Change

"Rep. Waxman requests Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez explain emails that appear to show that his office denied a media request to interview a NOAA scientist who had concluded that global warming may lead to more dangerous hurricanes." 

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1107

National Archives Opens "Legislative Treasures Vault" 

"House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) joined Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein today to open the new National Archives "Legislative Treasures Vault." The Legislative Treasures Vault holds records identified by the National Archives, with the input of the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate, as the most significant historical documents of Congress."

http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2006/nr06-140.html

NCSL 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources 

"National Conference of State Legislatures 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources, updated September 2006. The 15 covered topics include: Agriculture & Rural Development Elections, Campaigns & Redistricting, Ethics, Health issues and Transportation."

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/lrl/50statetracking.htm

SEC to Rebuild Public Disclosure System to Make It 'Interactive'

"U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox announced today that the SEC has awarded three separate contracts totaling $54 million to transform the agency's 1980s-vintage public company disclosure system from a form-based electronic filing cabinet to a dynamic real-time search tool with interactive capabilities."

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006/2006-158.htm

The Slow Road: FOIA Litigation

"One of the reasons that FOIA litigation is disfavored by people is the time it takes for the lawsuit to actually result in a decision. Even before a lawsuit has been filed, the requester has usually spent some time waiting for the agency to make a decision on his or her initial request and then more time on an administrative appeal. Then, after a lawsuit is filed, various procedural things occur that can result in years of litigation before a court even reaches a decision on the documents requested in the first place. And even if the court orders the documents released, agencies commonly appeal the release order to an appeals court, resulting in an even longer wait. A number of recent active lawsuits serve as a good example of this."

http://www.llrx.com/columns/foia35.htm

State by State: Ballot Issues and Campaign Finance

"Click where you live to find ballot proposals you'll be voting on this November, as well as a campaign finance disclosure report card for your state (You might be surprised at the number of states with failing grades.)"

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/238/ballot-issues.html

Orwellian

Gonzales calls for law to require ISPs to preserve customer data

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that Congress should require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography."

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/15557367.htm

Intellectual Property Issues

Belgian court brings Google bad news

"Google has vowed to appeal against a Belgian court ruling that represents the first legal blow against its controversial Google News service which has provoked the ire of European publishers. A Brussels court told the world's most popular internet search engine to scrap links to a number of newspapers after ruling that the company had broken Belgian copyright laws by publishing their material without permission. It was told to remove stories from certain publications on its Belgian news website or face a daily fine of ?1m ($1.27m)."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ae106718-474d-11db-83df-0000779e2340.html

Digital Access to Archival Works: Could 108(b) Be the Solution?

"Section 108(b) of the Copyright Law, which deals with unpublished works, is often described primarily has a "preservation" clause, with its primary purpose being to ensure that our manuscript heritage is not lost. A closer look at the legislative history of the section, however, reveals that Congress was primarily concerned with increasing scholarly access to unpublished materials. Limited distribution to other libraries and archives to enhance research access to the original materials, it concluded, does not compete with the copyright owner's right to commercially exploit the work. Under the original section 108(b), there were no limits on the number of copies that could be made for deposit in other repositories. Today digital technologies could provide a means of providing access to research materials without having to distribute physical copies to other repositories (though distribution of copies for preservation purposes would still be desirable)."

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/commentary_and_analysis/2006_08_hirtle.html

Publishers aim for some control of search results

"Global publishers, fearing that Web search engines such as Google are encroaching on their ability to generate revenue, plan to launch an automated system for granting permission on how to use their content."

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6118523.html

Spanish university joins Google book scan plan

"The Complutense University of Madrid is becoming the first library in a non-English-speaking country to join Google Inc.'s bid to scan every book in print, as the controversial project extends its global reach."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/26092006/80-91/panish-university-joins-google-book-scan-plan.html

British Library calls for digital copyright action

"The British Library has called for a "serious updating" of current copyright law to "unambiguously" include digital content and take technological advances into account. In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully recognize digital content. "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass," Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet UK."

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6119043.html

Public Policy

Notification of Closure of the EPA Headquarters Library

Federal Register: September 20, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 182): "The EPA Headquarters Library will close its doors to walk-in patrons and visitors on October 1, 2006. This notice provides information regarding how members of the public can access EPA documents held in the Headquarters Repository Library collection and in electronic format."

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/06-7803.htm

Wyden, Bond, Senators Ask for Review of Classified Information in Senate Intelligence Report, Say Documents Were Overclassified

"A bipartisan group of Senators who serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee today asked an independent board that oversees classification of information to review the documents to determine if in fact too much was kept secret in the recently released Senate Intelligence reports. In a letter to the head of the Public Interest Declassification Board, the Senators wrote, "The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on which we serve, recently released two reports addressing prewar intelligence issues regarding Iraq. We believe that portions of these two reports remain unnecessarily classified. We ask that the Board Review these two documents and evaluate whether any of the currently classified portions could be made public without negatively impacting national security."

http://wyden.senate.gov/media/2006/09192006_Intelligence_Classification_Review.htm

Court Affirms Contra Costa's Worship Ban

"A federal appeals court ruled September 20 that government libraries can bar religious groups from holding worship services in public meeting rooms."

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/september2006a/contracosta.htm

God Forbid the Congress Should Know about Foreign Socks!

Yes socks. Free Government Information reports on another presidential signing statement.

http://freegovinfo.info/node/642

Washington Post Political Ads Database

"About The Political Ads Database: The database includes political advertisements funded by campaigns, parties, committees, and independent advocacy groups. Most of the ads are tied to specific U.S. House, U.S. Senate, or gubernatorial races throughout the country. Some of the ads are more general "issue" or advocacy ads not tied to a particular race or candidate. You can search for ads based on the criteria listed below."

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/politicalads/

Intellectual Freedom

CUP dips 15 toes in the open access publishing water

"Cambridge University Press has made 15 of its journals open access. Contributors will be able to have their paper made freely available online as soon as it is accepted for publication. Authors, their institution or funding body, will have to pay a £1,500 fee to cover costs."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2164573/cup-dips-toes-oa-water

International Outlook

Vatican Opens Secret Archives from Pre-WWII Period

"The Vatican has opened its secret archives of the pre-World War Two papacy of Pius XI. The documents detail the 1922 to 1939 papacy of Pius XI, when his successor - the wartime Pope Pius XII - served as the Vatican's secretary of state."

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-09-18-voa36.cfm

China blogging leaps 30-fold in four years

"The number of blog sites in China reached 34 million last month, a 30-fold increase from four years ago, state media said on Tuesday, despite a series of curbs on media and dissent.  China has more than 17 million people writing blogs and more than 75 million people reading them, Xinhua news agency said."

http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-6119457.html

Internet Access

Tech manufacturers rally against Net neutrality

"Producers of networking hardware and applications gathered around a podium at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday with a single message: Not all "high-tech" companies support so-called Net neutrality legislation."

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6117241.html

Jailed Chinese journalist to file US suit versus Yahoo

"A Chinese journalist jailed in part due to e-mail evidence provided by a Yahoo subsidiary plans to file a lawsuit in the U.S. against the Internet company within the next few months."

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1316513149;fp;4;fpid;1398720840

U.S. to extend pact with Internet oversight firm ICANN

"The U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday it will extend its oversight of the California organization that handles domain name policies, while finding ways to improve the group's accountability and transparency."

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/15565339.htm

Take Action!

Free Government Information is calling for help in collating examples of George W. Bush's use of presidential signing statements.

"In the spirit of sunshine being the best disinfectant, we have decided to collect signing statements where the President appears to state that he will not honor an Act of Congress to provide information. Since the President has used this hidden and untested veto power hundreds of times according to some accounts, we at FGI are hoping that you will send us instances of earlier signing statements that ignore reporting requirements."

http://freegovinfo.info/node/641

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