ABSTRACT:
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 [...]
Archive of entries posted on July 2006
Questioning Copyright in Standards
Israeli Destruction of Public Documents in Lebanon
First, Destroy the Archives
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 [...]
House Passes DOPA
H.R. 5319: Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006
Official Title: To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.
Jul 26, 2006: This bill passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The vote was [...]
New GAO Report Finds FOIA Backlog
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 [...]
Administration Seeks Wiretap Changes
From the Washington Post:
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.
Justice Department sues to block Missouri from getting phone records
From USA Today:
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 [...]
Chicago Judge Dismisses Lawsuit On AT& T Data Handover
From the Washington Post:
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 [...]
Seeking Transparency in Federal Funding
From Secrecy News:
A new legislative initiative (S. 2590) would require the government to disclose and to publish online all federal contracts, grants, and other forms of spending.
“I like to think of this bill as ‘Google for Government Spending’,” said Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).
“The concept behind the bill is really quite simple: Put information on government [...]
Sen. Specter preparing bill to sue Bush
From MSNBC:
A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush’s signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.
“We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will…authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of [...]
New GAO Report on the Costs of Accessing Government Information
Paperwork Reduction Act: Increase in Estimated Burden Hours Highlights Need for New Approach
Americans spend billions of hours each year providing information to federal agencies by filling out information collections (forms, surveys, or questionnaires). A major aim of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) is to minimize the burden that responding to these collections imposes on the [...]