From around the country, more articles on the escalating backlash against the Patriot Act as exemplified by defiant libraries and local governments. In Washington State, Libraries routinely toss data on patrons’. From New York State, Libraries, government at odds over Patriot Act, and from California, Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act. Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: April 2003
Homeland Security Dept. and New Secrecy Rules
On April 15, the Department of Homeland Security proposed new regulations for Procedures for Handling Critical Infrastructure Information. The rulemaking states: “The Department recognizes that its receipt of information pertaining to the security of critical infrastructure, much of which is not customarily within the public domain, is best encouraged through the assurance that such information… Continue Reading
Lobbying by E-Mail Rejected by Forest Service
According to this article in PC World, “the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service is currently considering a regulation that would let it ignore any public comments on its rule-making process sent to it through Web-based forms.” The agency also intends to ignore comments sent using form letters and postcards that result from lobbying/advocacy efforts.… Continue Reading
Investigation Into Destruction of E-Mail in Tobacco Case
Rep. Henry Waxman, Ranking Member, House Committee on Government Reform, Minority Office, sent a letter to the Committee on Energy and Commerce requesting an investigation into accusations that over the course of two years, Philip Morris destroyed e-mail relevant to the DOJ case filed against the company in 1999, alleging deceptive practices. See also this… Continue Reading
Ask Jeeves Launches New Search Features
Ask Jeeves Inc., seeking to move out of the number two search engine position, today launched the new Ask Jeeves’ “Smart Search” features that facilitate more effective searches “by helping narrow, broaden or more directly answer user queries.” This announcement describes the new features and tools now available: Jeeves is now 50% faster. The cleaner… Continue Reading
The Destruction of the Iraqi National Library
See Burn a Country’s Past and You Torch Its Future: “Do libraries really matter for a nation’s sense of its self? Evidently Iraqis felt the destruction of their national library, archives and museum in the past week as a loss of their connection to a collective past, something like a national memory.” Continue Reading
Web Site Accessibility and Digital Rights
Joe Clark, author of Building Accessible Websites, published a white paper on Accessibility implications of digital rights management in which concludes, “Digital rights management, as currently designed, will harm people with disabilities and others who rely on accessibility features.” See also Fiddling with the Internet Dials: Understanding Usability. Continue Reading
The Rise and Fall of Napster
All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster, was reviewed in the Sunday Washington Post as “a richly reported behind-the-scenes account of the rise and fall of Napster Inc., the online music-swapping phenomenon.” From the Boston Globe, see also this article by the book’s author, Joseph Menn, The Man Who Hijacked Napster,… Continue Reading
Blog on Iraq and Related News
Infomania is a blog with links to Iraqi related news and web resources, maintained by Elisabeth L. Donovan, Miami Herald Research Editor. Continue Reading
Web Searching and Information Retrieval
Web search: how the Web has changed information retrieval. “This paper suggests that the significance of the topical metadata controversy depends on the technological appropriateness of adding them to Web pages. This paper surveys Web technology with an eye on assessing the appropriateness of Web pages as hosts for topical metadata. The survey reveals Web… Continue Reading
DOJ Backs Music Industry In Privacy Case
On April 18, the DOJ filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that supports the RIAA’s case against Verizon to compel the release of personal customer data of an individual who allegedly engaged in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations through file swapping. The DOJ contends the government’s position… Continue Reading
Budget Short-Fall for E-Gov Initiative
From the Washington Post: “An “e-government” program to make the federal government more citizen-friendly is $40 million short of its intended budget, which could hurt White House efforts to improve public access to regulations, information and services.” See also this interview with Mark Forman, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s associate director of information… Continue Reading
