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The Militarization of our Republic?
Government Executive posted an article on President Bush's call for the creation of a "Civilian Reserve Corps" "...to ease the burden on the military...". It was mentioned in his State of the Union address, Tuesday.
"Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time. "There are many ways a person can serve his country. Federal Depository Librarians, for example. Or just an ordinary citizen taking up an issue, commenting on Rulemaking, and so on. Serving or supporting the military often is made out to be the primary way "to serve your country' but it's not. The military is just one of many --and certainly has the greatest sacrifice and risk. What would happen if we mobilized a "Citizen's Government Oversight Corps", asking people to serve 3-4 years engaging in executive and legislative branch activities? I wonder if there are any implications of international military "law" involving civilians in harms way. If your adversary is using the tactic of terrorism, the theatre is anywhere. We already have a great deal of commercial interests involved in supporting military. This is just not enough, certainly in our present foreign adventures, and this initiative confirms our military's lack of resources to accomplish all its aims (at the direction of the current executive). I wonder where this initiative will go and whether it is wise. Continue reading
CRS Director Moves to Restrict Analysts’ Media Contacts
The FAS (Federation of American Scientists) blog on government secrecy posted an interesting article today on additional restrictions on CRS analysts' contact with media representatives. Supposedly, the new policy is being driven by CRS management fearing "that the agency may come to be perceived as having an institutional agenda of its own or that its impartiality will be questioned by members of Congress". That's a legitimate concern, perhaps driven from wanting to manage their reputation and the quality of their work. But, the author of the FAS blog entry suggests the new policy may have a negative effect on the employees --which may affect the quality of their work after all. Continue reading
Review of THOMAS beta
My first take on the THOMAS beta is now available online at LLRX.com -- specifically at http://www.llrx.com/columns/govdomain23.htm. (The full January issue of LLRX is not up yet, so you have to go directly to this URL.) The Library of Congress is looking for feedback, so be sure to use the THOMAS beta comment page if you have something to say. Continue reading
Congressional Committees Project
Note: News of this project was originally posted on the govdoc-l list. The Congressional Committees Project is a wiki who's main goal is to "facilitate participatory democracy by encouraging an informed citizenry through the advocacy of legislative transparency and the gathering of legislative information." Contributors are asked to organize information on committees, and to share resources and information. Although this is hosted on the wiki section of dailykos, a democratically partisan blog, the project is deliberately *non-partisan* and "does not imply the endorsement of daily kos or its creators." I'm adding this to our list of remixes. This would be a very valuable project for govt documents librarians to get involved in. After all, who better than docs librarians to know about the workings of the US government and to share that information! To get the ball rolling, I just edited the section on the House Committee on Science, noting the name change because of Deb Liptak's post earlier today about that news!! [Thanks to Patrice McDermott, director of Open the Government for originally posting to the list!] Continue reading
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