“Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate on Wednesday accused the British Broadcasting Corp. of using taxpayers’ money to build a “digital empire” that would compete with commercial rivals.
The BBC, which receives about 3 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) a year in public funding, has announced plans to relaunch its Web site to incorporate more user-generated content such as [...]
Archive of entries posted on April 2006
BBC is criticized over web site plans
New Lobbying Database
The Center for Responsive Politics has released a new database to track lobbying activities. Find data on expenditures of lobbying firms and lobbyists to Congress and other government agencies. Search by lobby firm or lobbyist name, industry (such as defense or agribusiness), issue (budget, trade, and others), or government agency. Data goes back to 1998.
Democrats lose House vote on Net neutrality
From News.com:
A hotly contested Democratic bid to enshrine extensive Net neutrality regulations in the law books failed Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.
By a 34-22 vote, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected a Democratic-backed Net neutrality amendment that also enjoyed support from Internet and software companies including Microsoft, Amazon.com and Google.
NARA Releases Audit on Reclassification Program
NARA released the results of their audit on reclassification yesterday:
Under the provisions of Executive Order (E.O.) 12958, as amended, “Classified National Security Information” (the Order) and in response to a request from the Archivist of the United States as well as a group of concerned individuals and organizations, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) performed [...]
DoE Intelligence Embraces Discredited Budget Secrecy Policy
Secrecy News reports:
The Department of Energy Office of Intelligence has reverted to a policy of budget secrecy that it rejected more than a decade ago.
For as long as anyone can remember, the small DOE intelligence unit always had an unclassified budget (around $40 million in recent years). . .
. . .In 2004, the 9/11 Commission [...]
CIA mines ‘rich’ content from blogs
From the Washington Times:
President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said.
The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to [...]
Federal Court Finds Air Force Engages in a Pattern or Practice of Violating the FOIA
A federal court yesterday granted partial summary judgment to the National Security Archive finding that the Air Force has violated the Freedom of Information Act and has engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the FOIA. In a suit brought by the Archive in March 2005, seeking to compel responses to 82 FOIA requests [...]
Senator plans Net taxes but no Net neutrality
From News.com:
More Americans would be forced to pay taxes subsidizing broadband service in “unserved” locales, and cities would be free to go into the Wi-Fi business under an upcoming U.S. Senate bill.
Later this week, Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, plans to introduce a legislative package called the Broadband for America Act of 2006, he [...]
States struggling to deal with digital documents
From News.com:
Most state governments are not actively tackling the creeping problem of digital archives and long-term access to public documents, according to the head of an industry group.
Apart from a handful of cases, states have not devised comprehensive strategies for retaining “born digital” documents, said Doug Robinson, the executive director of the National Association of [...]
New Trademark Law Might Restrict Free Speech
From Editor & Publisher:
This is a big wake-up call for defenders of free speech in the United States, an urgent one, and worrisomely little known.
Embedded deep in H.R. 683—“The Trademark Dilution Revision Act,” which awaits what may well be a last look in the U.S. House of Representatives before being signed into law by President [...]