From Federal Computer Week:
The Bush administration might leave with a burst of rulemaking, executive orders and appointments, and document destruction, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.
The flurry of activity that tends to accompany presidential transitions could include the possible loss of electronic government records, such as Web pages, e-mail messages and [...]
Archive of entries posted on November 2008
CRS warns against destruction of Web pages, records
Court Rebukes CIA on Freedom of Information, Recognizes Journalists, Not CIA, Determine What Is News
From the National Security Archive:
In a striking rebuke to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday rejected the CIA’s view that it—and not journalists—has the right to determine which Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are newsworthy.
Reconsidering its earlier decision deferring to [...]
Cheney aide to be deposed in lawsuit over records
From the Associated Press:
A group suing Dick Cheney to preserve a wide range of records from his time as vice president can depose one of his top aides, federal courts ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Claire O’Donnell, the vice president’s deputy chief of staff, to make herself available to lawyers from a private [...]
Project Makes Transparency Recommendations for Next President
From OMB Watch:
More than 100 groups and individuals from across the country have been working collaboratively to develop recommendations for the next president on how best to improve federal government transparency. The effort, the 21st Century Right to Know project, was organized by OMB Watch, and it involves organizations and individuals from across the political [...]
7 Best Nonpolitical Jobs for Political Junkies
From U.S. News & World Report:
Ah, election season. There’s nothing like a good battle between the Democrats and the Republicans (and Ralph Nader and Ron Paul) to whet the appetite of a political junkie. But if you’re looking for something less temporal—the kind of work that will let you feed your addiction year-round—you don’t have [...]
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Set Common Voice Abroad
From the Wall Street Journal: (subscription required)
Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. will announce Tuesday that they have agreed to a common set of principles for how to do business in nations that restrict free speech and expression, as the companies seek to combat criticism that they have helped enable censorship in those countries.
The Internet age helps open floodgates on public records
From Providence Journal:
The Transparency Train, produced by the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, and the Money Trail, a project of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition Foundation, are part of a growing number of specialty Web sites across the nation that shine the light on government in a way that was not possible before the advent [...]
Ancestry’s grants to archives: A good deal?
From the LibraryLaw Blog:
Word is slowly spreading about Ancestry.com’s new grant program for state archives. Ancestry is promising to provide $1.5 million dollars in digitization services (though no money) to state repositories. Best of all, it has promised to keep the application requirements simple. The program is described at http://www.ancestrydps.com/programs.htm.
No archives has [...]
Digital Librarian Criticizes Google’s Settlement with Booksellers
From the Mercury News:
When I heard Google had settled its feud with book publishers, I knew exactly whom I wanted to call first: Brewster Kahle, the digital librarian who is the founder of the Internet Archive.
I first talked to Kahle back in 2004, around the time Google launched its Book Search. The program riled publishers, [...]
Harvest time
From Government Computer News:
Five Federal, educational and private archiving organizations have partnered to crawl the Web, gathering data from sites in the .gov domain to create an endof- term snapshot for posterity.
The ambitious Web harvest is an effort to preserve millions of pages of government Web sites that are in danger of disappearing, or at [...]