FGI Doc of the day: NSC’s pandemic playbook plus 4 other pandemic preparedness documents
Today’s document of the day is actually a super trifecta of documents all having to do with COVID-19 and the US government’s preparedness (or lack thereof). It started out with a document cited in this Politico news story: Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook. Politico cited and included a copy of the National Security Council document “Playbook for early response to high-consequence emerging infectious disease threats and biological incidents.” The story caught my eye because it started out “The 69-page document, finished in 2016, provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration.” This document was unfortunately stamped “Not for public distribution” so I couldn’t report it to GPO as a fugitive document — but I *could* save a copy to the Stanford Digital Repository (it’ll take a couple of days to process and catalog, but this link should soon be live).
BUT, the Politico story referenced a few other documents which I tracked down. I reported the FEMA and USAID documents to GPO as fugitive. The White House document was in the CGP, and PanCAP Adapted was a leaked document that the NY Times put online (I saved that one too in the Stanford Digital Repository!).
- National Biodefense Strategy. White House.
- Biological Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plans. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
- PanCAP Adapted. US Government COVID-19 Response Plan. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (Stanford digital repository copy).
I also found and reported another document cited in one of the above documents:
- Lessons From USAID’s Ebola Response Highlight the Need for a Public Health Emergency Policy Framework. Office of Inspector General, USAID.
FGI Document of the day: CRS report on legal considerations for postponing federal elections
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress is “Congress’ think tank.” Their reports are great resources on a wide variety of issues — don’t forget to look at the footnotes for more context and legislative histories!
Some Congressperson must have been thinking about the ramifications of postponing the November elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic currently sweeping the nation (check out the NCOV2019.live site for frequently updated data from around the world) because CRS published this report just a couple of days ago:
Postponing Federal Elections and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Legal Considerations
This Sidebar reviews the legal provisions that would constrain any efforts to delay or cancel federal elections during a public health crisis or other national emergency. The first part reviews laws pertaining to presidential elections, and the second part reviews laws relevant to congressional elections.
On a side note, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the “Vote By Mail Act of 2019” way back in january, 2019 (one of the first bills introduced in the 116th Congress!) and is now pushing a petition to get Congress to expedite the process for the November election. Please sign the petition to get your state’s Senators to co-sponsor this legislation and make it so we don’t need to postpone the November election. Elections are critical to a functioning democracy!
Got a document of the day that you’d like us to highlight? Send us an email at freegovinfo AT gmail DOT com!
Check out these .gov webinars, training opportunities and crowdsourcing projects while you’re telecommuting during COVID-19
This surely is a surreal time as counties around the San Francisco Bay area are issuing “shelter in place” orders until at least April 7, 2020 and other cities around the country have already or will soon be following suit in order to try and curb the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). As we scramble to find work for our library staff, here’s a reminder that the .gov domain (International, Federal, state and local!) is a great place to find webinars and other training opportunities as well as pitching in on some amazing crowdsourcing projects from agencies like the Library of Congress and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Here are just a few examples for readers to explore. Let us know in the comments if you have other favorites.
Webinars:
Given that the Census 2020 is currently being mailed to households around the country, now’s a great time to explore all of the webinars from the US Census Bureau. They’ve got recorded webinars and courses/workshops going back to 2015 on their site covering topics from data tools, population characteristics, housing, data visualization, census data with R and so much more!
Another awesome place for webinars about government information is the “Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian” webinar series which has been hosted by the North Carolina Library Association since 2011(!). All have been recorded and available on their site as well as on YouTube. You’ll find webinars covering local, state, US and international government information — and even a few done by your friendly FGI writers on saving government data and fugitive documents hunting!
There are so many webinars out there in the .gov domain, and even some that are suitable for middle- and high school students (the younger kids might want to check out Ben’s Guide from GPO for a fun learning opportunity!). The best way to find these is to do a google search for “webinars site:*.gov” or “webinars site:*.un.org” or “webinars site:worldbank.org” (or put in your favorite government agency url after “site: “).
Crowdsourcing projects:
Crowdsourcing is another great way to use your “shelter in place” time for a good library/archives cause. Here are just a few:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Citizen Archivist Dashboard. NARA has opened up their treasure trove of archival records of the US government so that citizens can tag, transcribe, and add comments to NARA’s records, making them more accessible and searchable. Explore all of NARA’s “missions.” There’s something there for everyone.
The Library of Congress launched its By the People (crowd.loc.gov) in the fall of 2018. The application invites everyone to transcribe, review, and tag digitized images of manuscripts and typed materials from the Library’s collections. There are so many campaigns to choose from. I’ve been chipping in on the Walt Whitman at 200 project which has been amazing since he’s one of my favorite poets.
While not technically .gov, the Zooniverse is a great platform that brings together researchers, scientists, academics with citizens in a many-hands-make-light-work manner. Projects that are in need of citizens with time and an internet connection run the gamut from arts, biology, climate, history, language, literature, medicine, to physics and space. One of my favorites actually IS a .gov project called “Old weather” where scientists seek help in transcribing Arctic and worldwide weather observations recorded in ship’s logs since the mid-19th century. This started as a British Navy project, but NARA became involved and brought logbooks of the US Navy into the project. There’s so much to explore in the zooniverse for librarians, staff and even their kids!
Appeals court rules DOJ must give sealed Mueller materials to Congress
Appeals court rules DOJ must give sealed Mueller materials to Congress By Harper Neidig – 03/10/20 12:27 PM EDT
“A federal appeals court in Washington ruled on Tuesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) must hand over grand jury materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to Congress.”
“A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s decision that the House’s impeachment inquiry justified its request for the sealed documents.”
‘”In short, it is the district court, not the Executive or the Department, that controls access to the grand jury materials at issue here,” Judge Judith Rogers wrote in an opinion for the panel’s 2-1 majority. “The Department has objected to disclosure of the redacted grand jury materials, but the Department has no interest in objecting to the release of these materials outside of the general purposes and policies of grand jury secrecy, which as discussed, do not outweigh the Committee’s compelling need for disclosure.”‘
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/486818-appeals-court-rules-doj-must-give-mueller-grand-jury-materials-to
The decision is at https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/E5DEA16F3BB4D8BD8525852700599D47/$file/19-5288-1832741.pdf
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
HHS IG report on family separation
Inspector general report on US health officials and child separation, 10:55 AM ET, 07 March 20 By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN.
“Senior Department of Health and Human Services officials failed to act on repeated warnings from staff about family separations at the US-Mexico border, and staff members were advised not to put controversial information in writing, according to a HHS inspector general report released Thursday. ” https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/politics/ig-report-child-separation/index.html
The IG report is at https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-BL-18-00510.pdf
Key Takeaways
+ Poor interagency communication and internal management decisions that + failed to protect children’s interests left HHS unprepared for the + zero-tolerance policy This lack of preparation impeded HHS’s ability
+ to identify, care for, and reunify separated children Care provider facilities faced significant operational challenges at every stage of reunification, causing additional stress to children HHS has taken steps to improve tracking and placement of separated children, but vulnerabilities remain.
A government documents librarian requested that GPO catalog for the Federal Depository Library Program.
co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.
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