Managing Sensitive Information: Departments of Energy and Defense Policies and Oversight Could Be Improved, GAO-06-369, March 7, 2006. Full text | Highlights: “…the lack of training requirements and oversight of the Official Use Only (OUO) and For Official Use Only (FOUO) programs leave DOE and DOD officials unable to assure that OUO and FOUO documents… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: March 2006
Judge Backs DOJ In Google Info Release Case
Following up on recent postings about Google’s legal battle with the DOJ, today District Court Judge James Ware indicated he will require Google to provide user generated search data, but with the caveat that he was concerned about use of such data for surveillance purposes. In addition, the government has reportedly scaled back the scope… Continue Reading
70th Anniversary of the Federal Register
Press release, March 10, 2006, The National Archives and GPO Celebrate 70th Anniversary of the Federal Register: “…over the past two years, the public has downloaded almost 200 million Federal Register documents each year. During each of the past ten years, the Federal Register has published more than 70 thousand pages of rulemaking documents.” Continue Reading
GAO Report on Challenges to Spectrum Reform
Telecommunications: Options for and Barriers to Spectrum Reform. GAO-06-526T, March 14, 2006. Full text | Highlights. “The radio-frequency spectrum is used to provide an array of wireless communications services that are critical to the U.S. economy and various government missions, such as national security. With demand for spectrum exploding, and most useable spectrum allocated to… Continue Reading
FOI Audit of Gov’t Policies on Sensitive Unclassified Info
Press release: “The first-ever government-wide audit of the ways that federal agencies mark and protect information that is unclassified but sensitive for security reasons has found 28 different and uncoordinated policies, none of which include effective oversight or monitoring of how many records are marked and withheld, by whom, or for how long. The audit… Continue Reading
Sunshine Week 2006: March 12-18
Sunshine Week press release: “Two national polls conducted on the eve of the second national Sunshine Week open government initiative, March 12-18, show a public that equates open government with effective democracy and is concerned about the rise in official secrecy at the national, state and local levels.” Scripps Survey Research Center poll Washington State… Continue Reading
NY Announces Settlement in Largest Privacy Breach to Date
Press release: “Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced a settlement to address what may have been the largest breach of privacy in internet history. The settlement with Datran Media, a leading e-mail marketer, follows an investigation that identified the improper disclosure of the personal information of more than six million American consumers.” Assurance of Discontinuance Continue Reading
National Security Archive FOIA Audit Identifies Continued Backlog
“Press release: The oldest Freedom of Information requests still pending in the U.S. government date back to 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to the Freedom of Information Audit released [March 12] by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University.” Continue Reading
Taxpayers Alerted to Escalation in Phishing Scams
U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration: Taxpayers Beware of Widespread Phishing Schemes Involving the IRS IRS: Phishing, Identity Theft and Scams Continue Reading
Washington Post Spotlights GPO’s Digital Future
Confronting Digital Age Head-On GPO Aims to Secure All Government Documents Online:” For most of U.S. history, any government agency that needed to print many copies of a document went to the GPO. Now, about half of government documents go straight online, forcing the printing agency to find new ways to make itself relevant in… Continue Reading
State of the News Media 2006
Project for Excellence in Journalism: “The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism. Our goal is to put in one place as much original and aggregated data as possible about each of the major journalism sectors… Continue Reading
Reporters Group Tracks Missing Dockets
Research on the Case Management/Electronic Case File system (PACER), conducted by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), documented 469 missing criminal cases and 65 missing civil cases over the five-year period of Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2005. Also from the RCFP: This related editorial, In search of the secret docket… Continue Reading
