Home » Posts tagged '140 days' (Page 7)
Tag Archives: 140 days
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 5
I got say, having your Governor impeached by your State House of Representatives and about to be put on trial by Senate, starting tomorrow, just makes me all kinds of nostalgic for other moments of impeachment across this great land. Our Illinois legislature has not impeached or convicted a governor for misconduct for almost a century. In order to set up the structure of removing a sitting governor, our fearless legislative leaders modeled their actions on the impeachment of President Clinton ten years ago. Anxious to refresh my mind on the legal strategies and structures from that event, I wanted to see what artifacts remained on the web. I got to say -- Google was a failure in this kind of search --I turned up over 700,000 hits. The same search terms in usa.gov turned up 99 very specific and on scope hits In this way, the organized structure of the government trumps the expansiveness of the web. I will be very interested to see where (and how) the Obama civic machinery improves on the search capabilities of usa.gov. See you on Day 6 Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 4
A short message tonight. I was just looking at the State Department Web site and noticed its link to the Bush Administration only goes back as far as 2005. I can not find any reference to the critical years of 2001 to 2004, much less the Clinton years. I know 1995 -- 2000 exists (dosfan.lib.uic.edu) and (http://state.gov/index.html) as one of the first partnerships with GPO. But there is no direct link from the current state department web pages to these earlier entities. As much as we should worry about digital preservation, we should also worry about preservation of digital links from one administration to another. I think a mistaken impression has crept into our political culture that all information produced by executive offices changes with the regimes. I think this is a perception especially encouraged by all the recent press about Obama undoing several of Bush's executive orders. It leaves the impression that executive action can be changed and all earlier policies, decisions, actions are either not applicable or enforceable. I have sent an email message to the State Department web folks asking them to restore the links to the earlier material. See you day 5. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 3
Wow. I just watched the dvr'd version of Obama's remarks. Wow. Two things are remarkable to me as I sit here and think about what I just saw. First, his remarks are stitched together with both subtle and outright references to the mother of all government information sources: the constitution and bill of rights. Have I been such a cynic for so long when I listen to our politicians that I have forgotten the civic wonder contained within that foundational document? Second, or perhaps I was equally stunned to hear a politician who can think in complete, metaphoric, and appealing sentences. I do not remember him once glancing down at any notes, or obviously towards a teleprompter. What's more, is it just me, or has nearly thirty years of banging the drum of "the government is the problem, not the solution." rant really deaden any sense of optimism in most of us? To hear one of our presidents speak of a government with such positive (and realistic) tone -- why does it feel like walking into a bright shining patch of sunlight after toiling so long through a dark and confusing forest? I can understand much better how the promise of this one politician married to the reach and power of the information technologies that it seems we have rediscovered the ruins of our humble information tribe's former city. Documents to the people indeed. I can only redouble my urgency and encourage all of you to contribute to the great discussion now being joined about the future of the federal depository library program. This is the first president, and perhaps the first congress as well, who share in a civic vision where the expansiveness of the democratic and civic possibilities of a well ordered digital library system just might be in reach. Before I return with a gimlet-eyed weariness to the civic project, I am going to enjoy this moment of rediscovered idealism in the democratic experiment. See you on Day 4. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 2
Well, already there is an information gap -- just two days into the new Administration. The first is constitutional, and stems from the stumbling exchange between Obama and Supreme Court Justice Roberts during the oath of office on Tuesday. Apparently the clumsy dialogue raised contstitutional questions of the legitmacy, and there was a do over Wednesday evening. Good to know the power of the mother of all goverenment information, the Constituion, still has its foundational mojo going -- especially after eight years were the practice and philosophy seemed to consider constitutional advantages in such a limited fashion. What I find more curious (but not surprised, considering other news stories of the technological and transitional state of affairs in the White House) is how few (if any) of Obama's official words, statements, news releases, etc. actually appear on the White House web page. The other official sources, Weekly Compilation and the Federal Register are also behind. I predict a robust life and purpose for government informationn librarians in the near future. See you on Day 3 Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 1
And so, Team Obama greets the first day of Government Information Liberation with, among many other things, the recision of G.W. Bush's infamous Presidential Records Executive Order. But a closer reading of the press release and the order itself proves to be more nuanced. As it states in the news release about the new executive order: "This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.” So the new order consolidates the power of review back into the current White House, which we all hope is much more enlightened than other political powers. Is it a true revocation of the early Bush doctrine? Maybe yes, maybe no. It would be much better to have statutory language that makes clear which records are reviewable and which are not, otherwise each administration can change the intent of the law according to its own political whim. Perhaps only a new law, such as the Presidential Records Act of 2009 can take this descision making power from the politics of executive and/or legislative will. On another front, it will be very interesting to see how the policies and programs of Obama will be distinguished from those of Bush. Web pages may change, as demonstrated by the Obama White House web site; but so many other Bush decisions and laws he signed while in office will remain in effect that swapping out Secretaries or Cabinet level officers won't necessarily lift the yoke of Bush doctrine completely. This will be a very, very good season to be a government information librarian. As a reminder -- with government information liberation day now in the rear view mirror, I am shifting my focus on the next few months, calling these daily blog entries, "Won't Get Fooled Again" in honor of the wonderful 1971 song by the band The Who. We are in time frame of a few months when a series of critical discussions will take place at various national level librarian conferences. It starts with the ALA midwinter confab in Denver at the end of this week. followed by at least three other meetings before the gathering during July in Chicago for ALA's annual gig. To this end, I am resetting (and renaming) the discussion time clock. 140 days to consensus on the future role of libraries in the fabric of our civic information exchange. See you on Day 2. Continue reading
Latest Comments