From Daniel Drezner’s blog, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University:
There’s not a lot to laugh about the politicization of civil service hires at the Justice Department.
OK, I lied. There is one thing that seems pretty funny to me.
If Al Gore invented the Internet, then it [...]
Archive of entries posted on July 2008
The Internet can do what now?
Presidential library bill stalls again
From The News Leader:
House Resolution 1664 once again has reached the U.S. Senate, and voting on the bill once again has been postponed.
Bursting at the seams, the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library has the materials to expand its operations, but the bill it needs to gain funding for that expansion has hit another roadblock.
Though it has [...]
IOC to let China block websites
From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Internet censorship in China is now being allowed during the Olympic period on the basis that the blocked websites are not related to the Games.
The stance is a backdown on earlier promises made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Chinese Olympic organisers.
Coburn gets best of Reid on ‘omnibus’ package
From The Crypt:
Sen. Tom Coburn is used to being a lonely “no” vote on overwhelming Senate votes, but on Monday afternoon, his GOP colleagues came to his defense.
Coburn (R-Okla.) prevailed in blocking a massive package of generally non-controversial bills that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brought to the floor, angering Democrats and some Republicans while [...]
Magistrate Judge Affirms Recommendation that Court Order White House to Preserve E-mails on Workstations and Portable Media
From the National Security Archive:
Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court today denied a motion by the White House to reconsider his earlier recommendations and reaffirmed his recommendation that the court order the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to search individual workstations used between March 2003 and October 2005 and preserve [...]
Why Is It So Hard to Get Documents from the National Archives About the National Archives?
From the History News Network:
While researching my book on the history of presidential libraries, I discovered a shocking but perhaps not surprising situation: the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is improperly withholding its own records. Theoretically a non-partisan as well as non-political agency, NARA is at the center of some of the most controversial [...]
Key Internet Censorship Law Struck Down Yet Again
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The ACLU, EFF, and a coalition of plaintiffs achieved yet another victory for online free speech this week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision granting a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), a federal law [...]
Open the Doors to Congress
From the Hawaii Reporter:
. . . A natural follow up question is, shouldn’t the Congress that is approving the Smithsonian’s budget also be subject to greater disclosure laws under FOIA? Because the Congress writes the laws, they conveniently left themselves (and the courts) out of FOIA and this recent bill.
So if you want to find [...]
Bill would ban kids from Facebook, MySpace in libraries
From USA Today:
Congress is considering a bill that would bar children who use computers in public libraries from accessing Facebook and other social networking websites without parental permission.
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, the Illinois Republican who sponsored the measure, says the proposal would keep sexual predators from contacting minors who are using a library computer.
But the [...]
EPA and Union Agree on Process for Reopening Libraries
From OMB Watch:
In response to a federal arbitrator’s decision in February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) establishing procedures for the reopening of recently closed EPA libraries and bringing the union to the planning table for any future changes to [...]