Home » Articles posted by James R. Jacobs (Page 123)
Author Archives: James R. Jacobs
Return of the guest blogger! welcome law librarian Peggy Jarrett to FGI
It's been a few months since we had our last blogger of the month. But I'd like to introduce Peggy Jarrett to the podium for the month of September. Peggy comes to us from the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library. I was able to twist Peggy's arm even as she so kindly hosted me at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) 2011 annual conference -- which I highly recommend our readers attend, especially those in the Boston area where the 2012 conference will be held. Take it away Peggy! And as always, if you're interested in taking a turn at the FGI podium, please contact us at freegovinfo AT gmail DOT com. That is all. Continue reading
Peggy Jarrett: blogger of the month for September, 2011
Peggy Jarrett is the Documents and Reference Librarian at the Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington School of Law. She’s been at Gallagher for 21 years, and before that, spent 7 years working as a law firm librarian in Seattle and Washington D.C. Her interest in government information dates back to the summer of 1973, when as an impressionable youth, she spent the summer watching the Watergate hearings. She is particularly interested in public access to state legal information and the intersection of reference and collection development. Her favorite part of her job is talking to students from the Law Librarianship Program at the UW Information School about government documents. She is currently a member of the Depository Library Council. Continue reading
Senator Feinstein’s canned responses to Statistical Abstract disappointing and disheartening
I've heard that librarians are beginning to receive canned responses to letters to Senator Feinstein and they have not been good. Feinstein's response to concerns about the shutting down of the Census Bureau's Statistical Compendia Branch and killing of the Statistical Abstract have been thus:
Dear Mr. ________________: Thank you for writing me to express your support for the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States. I appreciate hearing from you and apologize for the delay in my response. As you may know, the Statistical Abstract is data on the social, political, and economic organization of the Nation released by the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau publishes the information as well as making it available online for the public. In February 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau released its tentative fiscal year 2012 budget breakdown, which includes a provision to terminate the Statistical Abstract. I understand your concerns with the Census Bureau's proposal. According to the Census Bureau, in order to fund higher priority programs within the agency, it is recommending that certain programs be terminated or have their budgets reduced. You might be interested to know that much of the information available in the Statistical Abstract is available at university and library resources, particularly the Federal Depository Library. Please know that I recognize your concerns and appreciate the information you have provided about what this cut could mean. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind during the 2012 fiscal year appropriations process. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to share your concerns directly with the Census Bureau at: 1-800-923-8282. Again, thank you for writing. If you have any additional questions or comments, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards. Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein United States SenatorParticularly disheartening is that she references libraries, ignoring the fact that it is LIBRARIANS who are writing to her! We KNOW that much -- but not all! -- of the data are out there and in our stacks. But we also KNOW that the Statistical Abstract, because it is the aggregation of many data sources and data points across the .gov domain and beyond, is one of the most useful tools that librarians have to serve the public. The Statistical Abstract is the defacto Google for .gov statistical information. THAT'S why we're so concerned that the Statistical Compendia Branch is being cut. Feinstein's statement misses the point completely. Thanks to a tip from Kevin McClure, a librarian at Chicago-Kent College of Law, I contacted Jean Mullin, section chief at the Statistical Abstract. Ms. Mullin's quick and helpful response confirmed the amount of copyrighted material in the Statistical Abstract. She noted:
"100 of the Abstract's private sector sources contribute roughly 179 tables to the book, meaning that almost 13 percent of what's published in the book is copyrighted. All but a few of those tables are approved for the on-line and CD-ROM versions. There are also several tables in the Abstract, which are special tabulations produced by government agencies for the Abstract and can not be found anywhere else on-line. If one were to reproduce them, they would have to send a request to that agency for the data."Kevin, in this thread on govdoc-l and working off the same information Ms Mullin gave him, extrapolated the information and stated:
"... I think assurances that we can rely on other data sources are even more off the mark than they sound at first. The Preface to Stat Abstract says that both government and private sources contribute to its mix of data. I checked on what that would mean if we lost the publication, and found out that about 100 of those private sources, which contribute to 179 tables in the book, require copyright permission, meaning that almost 13 percent of the tables in the book are copyrighted. All but a few of those tables are approved for the online and CD-ROM versions. So the suggestion in Sen. Feinstein's response that we could reassemble much of the data in Stat Abstract with things in our SuDocs stacks and online, on top of being daft and irrelevant in so many irritating ways, also fails to account for that large chunk of data that will no longer be publicly accessible by any means. The resource is literally irreplaceable, because no one outside the Statistical Compendia Branch is capable of collecting it all without re establishing all those arrangements -- that is, without doing what the Statistical Compendia Branch already does, and does so much better and more efficiently than anyone else could. I think that is a point worth emphasizing as we continue to talk to our representatives about preserving the Statistical Compendia Branch."I hope that readers will use this information as added context in their responses (really just shrugs of their shoulders :-| ) to their Senators and Representatives. As Paul Krugman recently wrote, “Killing the publication for the sake of a tiny saving would be a truly gratuitous step toward a dumbed-down country. And believe me, that’s not something we need more of.” Google will not and cannot help the public and librarians access that copyrighted data. Without the Statistical Abstract, NONE of that data will be available to the public and the finding by citizens of .gov statistics will be unnecessarily obfuscated beyond reason. Continue reading
#Wikileaks releases new batch of US State Department diplomatic cables. Follow #wlfind for details
Wikileaks announced via twitter that they are releasing 35,000 U.S. diplomatic cables today. The current count of US Diplomatic cables released is 51,122 out of a total of 251,287 total. Check out the Twitter hashtag #wlfind for crowdsourced finds. That thread is quite an interesting read. Continue reading
SEC systematically destroyed investigation records
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has a new piece online "Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?" that will churn your stomach. A whistleblower SEC attorney named Darcy Flynn came forward to Congress earlier this summer to describe the systematic destruction of SEC records that were supposed to be archived for 25 years. Taibbi's piece shows the worst of the revolving door between .gov regulators and the industry they're entrusted to regulate and investigate. It also highlights the tenuous nature of the preservation of government information and the critical need for trusted 3rd party organizations -- libraries! -- to be part of that system of preservation.
This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record. That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – "18,000 ... including Madoff," as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – have apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history. Under a deal the SEC worked out with the National Archives and Records Administration, all of the agency's records – "including case files relating to preliminary investigations" – are supposed to be maintained for at least 25 years. But the SEC, using history-altering practices that for once actually deserve the overused and usually hysterical term "Orwellian," devised an elaborate and possibly illegal system under which staffers were directed to dispose of the documents from any preliminary inquiry that did not receive approval from senior staff to become a full-blown, formal investigation. Amazingly, the wholesale destruction of the cases – known as MUIs, or "Matters Under Inquiry" – was not something done on the sly, in secret. The enforcement division of the SEC even spelled out the procedure in writing, on the commission's internal website. "After you have closed a MUI that has not become an investigation," the site advised staffers, "you should dispose of any documents obtained in connection with the MUI." Many of the destroyed files involved companies and individuals who would later play prominent roles in the economic meltdown of 2008. Two MUIs involving con artist Bernie Madoff vanished. So did a 2002 inquiry into financial fraud at Lehman Brothers, as well as a 2005 case of insider trading at the same soon-to-be-bankrupt bank. A 2009 preliminary investigation of insider trading by Goldman Sachs was deleted, along with records for at least three cases involving the infamous hedge fund SAC Capital.Continue reading
Latest Comments