From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political interference in their work over the last five years. The study, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), follows previous UCS investigations of the Food and Drug Administration, [...]
Archive of entries posted on April 2008
Hundreds of EPA Scientists Report Political Interference Over Last Five Years
Oregon claims state law copyrighted
From the Washington Times:
Lawyers for Oregon are accusing a legal publisher of breaking the law for posting the state code on its Web site.
Oregon’s Legislative Counsel Committee earlier this month issued a cease-and-desist letter to Justia.com, accusing it of copyright infringement for publishing the Oregon Revised Statutes.
Justia publishes laws, regulations and legal decisions where they [...]
AALL and Others Urge Public Comment on Guidance for Sensitive But Unclassified Information
From AALL’s Washington Blawg:
Last week, AALL signed onto a letter to the White House asking for a public review of proposed new rules governing the designation of Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information.
Sensitive But Unclassified information, sometimes referred to as “Pseudo-Classified Information” or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), describes unclassified information that is governed by a varying [...]
Secrecy in case of financier in dispute; Cunningham figure’s plea deal was sealed
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:
More than a year ago, a New York financier pleaded guilty to laundering bribe money for former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in a deal that was kept secret for months.
That closed-door bargain triggered a battle between federal prosecutors and public-access advocates that took secrecy to unprecedented heights.
National Archives and Records Administration Web Harvest Background Information
NARA outlines in detail the reasons why it will not conduct an end of administration web snapshot or harvest of Executive Branch websites nor require agencies to do so:
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) issued a memorandum to agency records officers on March 27, 2008, stating that NARA would not conduct an end of [...]
NARA and the web harvest: a discussion of the issues
From the ArchivesNext blog:
As I wrote last Thursday, the National Archives has decided not to conduct a harvest of Federal web sites at the end of this Presidential administration. In my post, I referred to this as a “public relations error.” It looks like I was right. . .
. . . After my post went [...]
A costly 2008 Domesday Book
From the Guardian:
After seven years of legal wrangling, an official, complete and constantly updated list of addresses in England and Wales is about to become available for commercial use. The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), compiled from data supplied by local councils, is being promoted as the best list of property addresses since the [...]
GAO *did* sell exclusive access to legislative history to Thomson West
From Free Government Information:
A few weeks ago, Daniel had a great post, GAO/Thomson-West Contract Raises Questions” in which he expanded on a Boing Boing post “Did the US gov’t sell exclusive access to its legislative history to Thomson West?” and analyzed the Thompson-West contract with the GAO for digitizing 20,597 legislative histories of most public [...]
New CREW Report Finds Federal Government Electronic Record Keeping Practices Abysmal
From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:
Based on months of research and the results of an on-line survey, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released a report today, Record Chaos: The Deplorable State of Electronic Record Keeping in the Federal Government, concluding that the federal government is severely mismanaging its electronic [...]
Record-Keeping Bill Is Criticized As ‘Anemic’ by Watchdog Group
From the Washington Post:
Citing “significant deficiencies” in the preservation of e-mail by the White House and federal agencies, House Democrats yesterday introduced legislation to strengthen and modernize electronic record-keeping requirements. But a private watchdog group called the bill inadequate and issued a report describing federal record-keeping as antiquated and chaotic.
The group chided the government for [...]