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Some Gov Agencies Block Web 2.0 Access
A blog post by Coby Logen was brought to my attention in the comments from my previous post about Government agencies using Twitter, called "Agencies Block YouTube, Shoot Themselves in the Foot" (great title!). When I was hunting fervently for the NASA Twitter account, I almost jumped to the conclusion that perhaps they never did create one because of this article I stumbled upon, discussing how some Government agencies block access to Twitter on Government computers. I found a recent news report on GovTech.com entitled, "Don't Block Web 2.0 Access", urging businesses to "resist the temptation" to block their employees' access to Web 2.0 technologies . I wish the author had urged the U.S. Government to resist the temptation too, but perhaps this is implied. This quote from Coby's blog post sums up the issue nicely: "It is humorous that the Secretary of Energy invites us to explore the Solar Decathlon MySpace page while he doesn't trust his own employees to do so. And you've got to chuckle a little as you watch the Secretary of the Interior on a field trip to learn about "technology and collaborative science" via the collaborative technology that his department banned. But I hope no one in the Coast Guard or FEMA (both in DHS) would benefit from NOAA's environmental visualization channel on YouTube, because they aren't allowed to watch it." Continue reading
Army Reopens Digital Library to Public
I wasn't even aware they had closed it, but the Army reopened their Reimer Digital Library to the public a month after it decided to close it behind a firewall. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) filed a FOIA request for all of the library's contents and then posted these documents to the FAS website! The FAS Secrecy News blog documented the experience on the following blog posts: Army Blocks Public Access to Digital Library Army Says It Will Restore Public Access to Online Library Army Will Restore Access to Online Library Within 2 Weeks The Reimer Digital Library is Back Thank goodness for organizations like the FAS who are keeping tabs on and taking a stand on disturbing occurrences like this. Be sure to check out the FAS Project on Government Secrecy website and blog. It gives me the chills to think how many other resources are "closed" or simply vanish without our knowledge. I've been working as a Government Documents Librarian for a little over a year and I've only read about restricted access...but I dread the day I have to actually experience it. At least I feel more prepared after reading about the FOIA request filing procedures and I know where to get support if I have questions (yes, I'm talking about you, my fellow FGI readers!). Continue reading
Limits of Full Text Searching: Finding FOIA Docs
The federal government posts a fair amount of material requested by citizens under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) online. They do this in part so they don't have to respond to multiple requests for the same material. An of example of this that I love to use to document the feds' disturbing tendency to surveil harmless people when looking for national security risks is the FBI electronic FOIA reading room. But if you don't know whether an agency has an electronic FOIA reading room, it can be confusing searching for FOIA related materials. One way that I started looking for this type of material was to toss the term "foia" into a usa.gov search along with my search term. In this way I was easily able to locate the CIA's 5,000 pages on the US involvement in overthrowing the elected government of Guatemala in 1954. But try this technique with other countries, like say Cameroon and while you get a lot of results, nothing seems quite on point. Why is this? Mostly because many federal pages quite rightly have a link to their FOIA information page. This page usually has information on how to contact the agency to make a FOIA request and sometimes has a link to an electronic FOIA reading room. In some cases, like that for the State department, the reading room is a little bare, consisting mostly of annual reports. If we had a government web with good metadata or could otherwise catalog FOIA related materials, then finding FOIA related documents would be a lot easier. But as it is, people are left with many results to sift through for a few nuggets of information. And if you're reading this and are thinking "Why doesn't he know about ______, which provides gov't wide access to documents released under FOIA?", then by all means let me know about in comments. Continue reading
Reminder That Transparency Advocacy Trumps Parties
Two items from Peter Suber's Open Access News give an important reminder that friends of greater access to government information can come from anywhere:
The first item notes Senator Lieberman's call for action on S Res 401, which would post all unclassified Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports in a public database. Although this would simply do for CRS what is already done for the General Accountability Office (GAO), S Res 401 has seen no action since Senator Lieberman introduced it on December 11, 2007. The second item notes the gratitude of the American Association of Law Libraries for Justice Roberts action in permitting free trial access to the PACER database at selected Federal Depository Libraries. Free public access to PACER, which provides electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records has been a longstanding goal of the depository and law library communities. As I understand it, before Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court was unwilling to consider free access on any level. While it is tempting in these troubled times to assume that one party stands firmly for restricted access in all cases and the other party stands for full transparency, that's not true. In all cases we information advocates should be seeking out and working with whomever is in favor of greater transparency on a case by case basis. Continue readingWe Salute MnCOGI
Our media monitoring for mentions of FGI recently pulled up the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information at http://www.mncogi.org. According to the organization's About page, it's mission is "promote public access to government activity and information." The page also carries their guiding principles which we at FGI agree with almost entirely:
MnCOGI carries out its mission through uniting, informing and enhancing the impact of organizations and individuals committed to open access to public records.
It is the active responsibility of government to promote public participation supported by open access to accurate public information by and about the government.
Documents/records produced with public funds, regardless of physical format, are part of the public record.
Compliance with open meeting and public records laws must be monitored and enforced by responsibility authorities and institutions that are held accountable.
Because collection, maintenance and preservation of information are the responsibility of each government office each must be held accountable.
Research and education are essential to preserve and improve access to public information.
Education and support for all Minnesotans about their rights and responsibilities is best accomplished through a broad-based coalition of informed advocates for open access.
Preservation of public records is a critical part of achieving accountability to be encouraged by MnCOGI.
MnCOGI will link with and support parallel efforts at the federal level while maintaining a specific focus on the free flow of information on public policy matters at the state and local levels in Minnesota.
About the only quibble we have with MnCOGI is that we believe that collection, maintenance and preservation of information are responsibilities too important to be left to each government office. They must be assisted in those tasks by third parties with fewer axes to grind, like libraries. But this is a minor quibble given the level of involvement by libraries in MnCOGI.
One last thing we appreciate about MnCOGI is that they have signed up nonlibrarian organizations like the MN Newspapers Association to their efforts. Congratulations on that. Keep up your important work!
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