The Center for Democracy and Technolgy (CDT) filed an amicus brief (PDF) in the Supreme Court on February 10 in the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) case, supporting the lower court decision (210 F. Supp 2d 401) overturning the requirement that federally funded libraries must filter Internet access to patrons. See also the library of… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2003
Senate Resolution on CRS Reports
According to Mary Alice Baish, Associate Washington Affairs Representative, American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), there are more than 30 organizations who support providing public access to all CRS reports on the Internet. Please see Senate Resolution 54, submitted by Senators Leahy, Lieberman, and Harkin, “…to make Congressional Research Service, CRS, reports, and other Senate… Continue Reading
House-Senate Conferees Block TIA Funding
The efforts of Senators Ron Wyden and Harry Reid to block the progress of the Total Information Awareness surveillance program through an amendment (S. 59) added to the omnibus spending bill to discontinue its funding, have been successful. For additional information on this legislation and the Democratic-led initiative to terminate this government sponsored data mining… Continue Reading
Strategic Plan for Total Information Awareness Program
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a strategic plan (PDF) detailing the goals and objectives of the Total Information Awareness Program, as required by the Senate as part of the Defense Authorization Act of 2003. Continue Reading
Copyright and Digital Archives
Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment. Continue Reading
.edu Domain Expanded by Commerce
The Department of Commerce is extending the use of the .edu domain beyond colleges and universities to now include a wide range of “educational institutions,” according to this Reuter’s report. Continue Reading
Report Backs Public Access to CRS Reports
Congressional Research Service Products: Taxpayers Should Have Easy Access. From the report: “$81 million of tax-payer money funded the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in FY 2002. CRS authors products at the request of current Members of Congress, many of whom become lobbyists, but CRS products are made difficult if not impossible for the public to… Continue Reading
beSpacific on travel this week
Postings will be lighter than usual this week due to travel schedule. Please stay tuned, and thank you. Continue Reading
Draft of New Patriot Act Legislation
The advocacy group Public Integrity issued a press release on February 7 detailing their research on a previously secret 120 page draft of what is being called the “Patriot Act II” legislation, which apparently has not been shared with the House Judiciary Committee. This draft was written by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft.… Continue Reading
More Opposition to Gov't Data Mining
The National Journal reports that opposition to the government’s Total Information Awareness Project continues to gain momentum. Sen. Ron Wyden, who spearheaded a bill to limit spending on the program, spoke this week with a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU, in an effort to ensure that the upcoming conference report will adopt the… Continue Reading
Joint Study to Improve Health-Related Web Searches
The URAC (a non-profit charitable organization that establishes standards for the health care industry) and Consumer WebWatch (a non-profit that “seeks to improve the credibility of online information”, are partnering on a project to improve consumer access to health data on the web. Their study will entail benchmarking the quality of health related information on… Continue Reading
Palo Alto City Council and E-Mail Disclosure
Palo Alto California’s Mayor Dena Mossar announced a settlement of lawsuits brought against the City Council by The Palo Alto Weekly and the San Jose Mercury News concerning e-mail correspondence that was not disclosed to the public. The Council held a closed door meeting on October 30, 2002 during which time they disseminated e-mail concerning… Continue Reading
