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Enhancements to U.S. Statutes at Large on FDsys
Enhancements to U.S. Statutes at Large on FDsys, FDLP.gov (16 January 2013).
The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) recently enhanced the U.S. Statutes at Large collection on FDsys by adding descriptive metadata for public laws, private laws, concurrent resolutions, and presidential proclamations. For approximately 32,000 individual documents, the enhancements allow researchers improved searchability and retrieval by searching such metadata fields as title, SuDocs classification number, date, category, etc. The U.S. Statutes at Large collection includes volumes 65–115, covering the 82nd –107th Congresses, from 1951–2002.
The additional descriptive data was added by both manual and automatic processes. A team of GPO staff members from Library Services and Content Management (LSCM), including catalogers and automation librarians, added descriptive metadata for titles, public law numbers, and dates.
- Access the U.S. Statutes at Large collection on FDsys. [scroll down on linked page]
In 2011, GPO announced the release of digitized volumes of the U.S. Statutes at Large, in partnership with the Library of Congress. The U.S. Statutes at Large is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress.
Compilations of public laws
The U.S. House Office of Legislative Counsel produces a number of compilations of public laws for use by the committees. Recently, they made them over 250 of these compilations available to the public on their web site:
- Statute Compilations: A list of our frequently requested compilations in PDF format.
[T]he frequently requested compilations of those public laws that either do not appear in the United States Code or that have been classified to a title of the Code that has not been enacted into positive law. They have been prepared by our Office for the use and convenience of the Members and committees of the House.
- Unofficial documents: The compilations of public laws, as amended, provided at this site are unofficial documents and should not be cited as legal evidence of the law.
- Status: Please note carefully the date of the last amendment compiled, as some of these files have not yet been updated to reflect the most recent amendments enacted.
New version of the US Code online
Here is an announcement from the Office of Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives of a new version of the United States Code.
From: Seep, Ralph, Office of Law Revision Counsel
Subject: OLRC website Beta 2 announcementA little over a year ago, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives released beta version 1 of a new website for the Office and the United States Code. Beta version 2 is now being released for testing and feedback. It is available at http://uscodebeta.house.gov. You are invited to test version 2 and give us your comments about its features, content, and ease of use.
Version 2 includes the following new features:
Default searching and browsing in the most current version of the Code (formerly USCprelim) Ability to search and browse previous versions of the Code back to the 1994 main edition (either separately or concurrently) Internal links to referenced Code sections External links to referenced Public Laws and Statutes at Large citations (back to 1951) will be included in the near future. Since the new release is a beta, there will be a period of testing for both new and existing features. Following this period, which is anticipated to last several months, beta version 2 will replace the existing US Code website at http://uscode.house.gov.
Your comments and questions about version 2 are welcome and can be sent to uscode@mail.house.gov. Thank you for your assistance.
Ralph V. Seep
Law Revision Counsel
Including Full Text of Commercial Standards in the Federal Register, incorporation by reference
What happens when federal agencies rely upon standards developed by standard-setting bodies and communities of practice and incorporate those standards into federal rules? In many cases agencies refer to the standards but do not include the full text of the standards in Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations. As a result, those interested in commenting on a particular regulation may not have access to the relevant standard, particularly if it is copyrighted or only accessible for a fee.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Association of Research Libraries, and OpenTheGovernment.org have sent comments to the Administrative Conference of the US recommending that “all material incorporated by reference — regardless of the stage in the regulatory process, the subject matter of the regulation, or the identity of the regulated entity — should be made freely available, with no purported copyright restrictions and downloadable on a government agency’s website.”
Public.Resource.Org submitted comments to the Office of Management and Budget on making standards that are incorporated by reference into federal regulations widely available to the public without charge. Public.Resource.Org also said that such standards should “be deemed in the public domain rather than subject to copyright restrictions.”
- OpenTheGov and ARL Join EFF in Urging Government to Make all Parts of the Law Easily Available to Everyone (10/24/2011).
“copyrighted materials, once incorporated into law, should be available for free.” The principles of transparency and accessibility to the law should animate agency decisions in this arena and materials incorporated by reference should be made freely available, online and off, at all times…
- Revised Draft Recommendations of the Administrative Conference of the US on “Incorporation by Reference in Federal Regulations” ACUS.gov (October 2011)
- Comments on “Incorporation by Reference in Federal Regulations” (October 21, 2011) To Committee on Administration and Management Administrative Conference of the United States Committee of Administration and Management from Corynne McSherry & Mark Rumold Electronic Frontier Foundation, Prue Adler, Association of Research Libraries, and Patrice McDermott, OpenTheGovernment.org
We urge ACUS to reject any suggestion that access to the law may be limited where the regulation in question happens to incorporate copyrighted materials. All material incorporated by reference – regardless of the stage in the regulatory process, the subject matter of the regulation, or the identity of the regulated entity – should be made freely available and downloadable on a government agency’s website.
- Incorporation by Reference, A Proposed Rule by the Federal Register Office on 02/27/2012
On February 13, 2012, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR or we) received a petition to amend our regulations governing the approval of agency requests to incorporate material by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations. We’ve set out the petition in this document. We would like comments on the broad issues raised by this petition.
- Re: Request for Information 2012–7602, 77 FR 19357 submitted by Public.Resource.Org to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget Washington (April 11, 2012).
See also: Liberating America’s secret, for-pay laws.
Susan Crawford on Telecommunications Deregulation
Susan Crawford comments on deregulation of the telecom industry:
- ‘Radicalized’ ex-Obama adviser blasts deregulation of telecom. By Andrew Feinberg, The Hill (05/21/12)
She said telephone service had long been considered, along with water and electricity, to be among the utilities that were extended to all based on a “collective responsibility” to ensure that everyone receives the benefits of modern society.
Crawford said that “basic network” of services should now include Internet access, but argued deregulation is undermining that goal by creating a consolidation in the cable and wireless industries that will limit choice and make it harder for people to afford services.
One-third of people in the United States still lack Internet access, Crawford said, which will hurt competitiveness at home and abroad.
Crawford is Visiting Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard’s Kennedy School, a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, and a columnist for Bloomberg View and Wired. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy during 2009 and co-led the FCC transition team between the Bush and Obama administrations.
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