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Bush Hits the Delete Button
Bush Hits the Delete Button: Public information the administration doesn't want you to see, by Paul Kiel, Utne Reader, March-April 2008.
Since 2006 ... the investigative website TPMmuckraker.com [has] been keeping a running tally of the diminishing access to government information. Reporter Steve Benen got the list started over at his own blog, the Carpetbagger Report. Then his fellow Muckrakers joined in by trawling the news and--as is the website's custom--tapping the collective wisdom of their readers to cobble together a dossier on an administration that has, as deputy editor Paul Kiel writes, "discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps." Here, Utne Reader presents an excerpted (but not redacted) version of the list Kiel continues to compile. [Bush Admin: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Us, 2007 Version By Paul Kiel - November 23, 2007.]Continue reading
Who decides what is available and what is withdrawn?
Do you ever wonder why or how something gets on a federal government web site -- or why something suddenly disappears? Like much of the web, the federal government web sites have a history of a "grassroots legacy of letting a thousand flowers bloom" followed by attempts to keep tight control over what is on the web. According to a story in GCN (A tangled web we weaved by Trudy Walsh, GCN, 04/02/07), at the General Services Administration the chief information officer has every page reviewed every six months. The CIO gives the office responsible for the page's content multiple "warnings" before the expiration date.
"We give them a warning so they can review the page," said Susie Kampans, team leader of GSA's infrastructure applications team. If they don't, the content will go offline and won't be available to the public.The article describes different models of managing hundreds of millions of federal government web pages.
[Candi] Harrison [Web manager for the Housing and Urban Development Department] said she believes strongly in the need for a move toward centralized governance of federal Web sites. "But I think it's going to take an act of Congress." Harrison estimates the number of federal Web sites at more than 24,000, "which is ridiculous. And let's just say that unnamed sources at Commerce don't know how many Web sites they have." Federal Web sites are funded by taxpayers, and that's who they need to serve, Harrison said. "Some heads of agencies use the Web site as their own personal page, with a big photo of the secretary," she said. "Now we have 400 million government Web pages," Harrison said. "We can't keep that current or manage that. It's all sitting out there unattended." The overwhelming amount of data on federal Web sites doesn't even help most people. "The public can't use all this content," she said. "People make better decisions if they have fewer options."Continue reading
Is The White House Scrubbing its Website?
There is a report on the Daily Kos that attempts to document removal of embarrassing materials from the White House website.
- (Updated) The White House website is getting scrubbed by smintheus, Daily Kos, (Sun Feb 25, 2007 at 12:39:00 PM PST)
Some of the post has "proven" facts and other bits are labeled "Speculation." I would be very interested if anyone in the library community can verify or disprove any of the facts or speculations in the article. Also, are there official print resources that document the information that smintheus finds missing at the White House web site? Please let us at FGI know what you find.
If we can't verify or disprove any of this, perhaps we should ask ourselves why we can't. What are we as depository libraries doing if we can't answer what should be a simple straightforward question about who said what, when?
Continue readingConstitution Superseded and Web Sites Scrubbed of Public Documents to Hide It
An article about the Navy's brig in Hanahan, South Carolina reveals details about "one of the most secretive installations in the government's anti-terrorism effort." Among other revelations is that the brig believes that "higher guidance" and "accepted prison practice" can supersede the Constitution:
"In detaining American citizens, full constitutional rights are afforded except where curtailed by higher guidance or accepted prison practice," the report said. [emphasis added]
- Navy' s secret brig by Tony Bartelme, Charleston Post and Courier (February 23, 2007)
The Navy developed elaborate plans to dodge public scrutiny of its operations to detain enemy combatants, plans that include destroying "critical info," and scrubbing public Web sites.
Continue readingNARA for adults only at .com partner
National Archives Announces New "Service" According to this posting, the contract between the National Archives and a private contractor for digitization of materials at NARA has terms of service that limits access to adults-only. "You have to be 18 to get an account and under no circumstances may anybody under 13 be allowed to look at archival documents." Also, access to the images at http://www.footnote.com/nara.php requires a paid membership or you can purchase documents at $1.99 per page.
The National Archives receives a copy of all the digital media for their archives, but the contract prohibits the Internet Archive (or anybody else for that matter) from having a copy of that data. It is amazing to me how often the government goes down the road of trying to privatize public information.Also see: Press Release January 10, 2007 National Archives and Footnote Launch Project to Digitize Historic Documents. Continue reading
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