As I posted yesterday, Roll Call published an article that seemed to indicate the GPO was evaluating whether it would continue providing free public access to a range of government documents. The library community apparently reacted swiftly and strongly to this information, and late this afternoon, the Superintendent of Documents, Judith C. Russell, posted the text of a clarification letter to the article’s author on several library listservs. Excerpts from the letter are as follows:
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Daily Archives: October 23, 2003
House Bill to Amend Patriot Act Joins Companion Senate Bill
The House version of the Security and Freedom Ensured Act of 2003 (SAFE) Act, introduced October 21, H.R. 3352, mirrors the companion Senate version (S. 1709, introduced October 2), but it modifies the definition of domestic terrorism to “involve acts dangerous to human life,” thereby excluding political protests. Continue Reading
New Aussie Search Engine Takes Aim At Google
A new Australian search engine (it is in beta) was launched on October 22 by a company called Mooter Search. The CEO, Liesl Capper, stated that Mooter is unique in that it “look(s) at the long lists of results from other search engines and then…group(s) them using artificial intelligence algorithms. But also we look at… Continue Reading
Second Anniversary of Patriot Act on October 26
Press release from the website of Sen. Russ Feingold: “October 26 marks the second anniversary of the enactment of the USA-PATRIOT Act. I was the only Senator to vote against the Act at the time because I believe that it goes too far in allowing the government to obtain personal information about law-abiding Americans who… Continue Reading
Predicting the Outcome of Supreme Court Cases
The Supreme Court Forecasting Project, from Washington University in St. Louis, consists of a computer model that was used to predict the votes of the judges for each pending case of the 2001-2002 term. These forecasts were juxtaposed with those made by an expert panel of “law professors or appellate practitioners who specialize in one… Continue Reading
New Pew Internet Study Details Negative Impact of Spam
From the Pew Internet Project, a new report released October 22, Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet: “Spam is beginning to undermine the integrity of email and degrade life online. The huge increase in email spam in recent years is beginning to take its toll on the online world.… Continue Reading
Senate Passes Bill to Regulate Unsolicited Email
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, S. 877, which was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote on June 19, yesterday passed the full Senate by a vote of 97-0. An amendment to authorize the Federal Trade Commission to implement a nationwide “Do Not E-mail” registry was proposed and agreed to. Senate Anti-Spam Bill… Continue Reading
Book Buyers May Now Search Text Prior to Purchasing
In a posting on September 10, I noted that Amazon was preparing a new service for mid-September release, called Look Inside the Book II. A press release today from Amazon announced that an expansion to the service has been launched, Search Inside the Book, that enables “customers to find books at Amazon.com based on every… Continue Reading
