CRS on Gun Control
Gun Control Legislation, by William J. Krouse, Specialist in Domestic Security and Crime Policy, Congressional Research Service, RL32842 (November 14, 2012). Hat tip to Full Text Reports, where you will find an excerpt of the 118 page report. Continue reading
Freedom of the Press Foundation launched! @FreedomofPress
This is exciting news. The Freedom of the Press Foundation has just been launched! Their goal is to help the public "donate to journalism organizations dedicated to transparency and accountability." The goal is simple really: raise funds and help promote public-interest journalism. So far, they're supporting Wikileaks, MuckRock News, National Security Archive, and the UpTake. I hope they'll add other fine journalistic organizations like ProPublica and DemocracyNow.
Their board consists of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Perry Barlow, Glenn Greenwald, and several other journalists and activists. Early news coverage: New York Times, Huffington Post, Firedoglake.
You can receive updates from their site and/or follow them on twitter too (@FreedomofPress).
Please consider donating to support a free press!
Our Mission The Freedom of the Press Foundation is dedicated to helping promote and fund aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government. We accept tax-deductible donations to a variety of journalism organizations dedicated to government transparency and accountability. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is built on the recognition that this kind of transparency journalism — from publishing the Pentagon Papers and exposing Watergate, to uncovering the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and CIA secret prisons — doesn’t just happen. It requires dogged work by journalists, and often, the courage of whistleblowers and others who work to ensure that the public actually learns what it has a right to know.Continue reading
State Agency Databases Activity Report 12/16/2012
The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases spent last week fixing a lot of links and finding some databases to add to our state lists. Our survey on whether to retain our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/statedbs only got seven responses. While this might already send the message that the project Facebook page will not be missed, we're going to keep the survey open another week. So if you haven an opinion one way or the other, we'd love you to visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GHP7SPY and answer our quick, four question survey. Now on to our activity highlights. For the full listing of changes in the last week, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. DATABASES ADDED CONNECTICUT (Janice Wilson) Connecticut's Reemployment Portal - Linking skills and talents to new employment opportunities. Connecticut’s Reemployment Portal displays occupations with similar characteristics such as knowledge areas, tools and technology, and general work activities of your selected occupation. GEORGIA (Chris Sharpe) Search Fire Extinguisher Companies - Search companies to verify they are licensed to conduct business related to fire suppression systems and fire extinguishers. Continue reading
FOIAonline: tool for tracking and searching for FOIA requests
FOIAonline is a tool for tracking and processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. FOIAonline participating agencies include: Environmental Protection Agency, Department Of Commerce (except the US Patent and Trademark Office), Office of General Counsel of The National Archives and Records Administration, Merit Systems Protection Board, Federal Labor Relations Authority, and in a limited capacity the Department of the Treasury (for: Departmental Offices, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Bureau Of Engraving and Printing, Bureau of Fiscal Services, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and U.S.Mint). Please note: Information available from FOIAonline varies by agency. Also see:
- Searchable FOIA Database Available Online, National Coalition for History (December 10, 2012). FOIAonline can be accessed at http://FOIAonline.Regulations.gov. While you can send requests to the participating agencies now, the data available in the system are initially minimal and variable by agency. The partner agencies will continue to enhance the system and they welcome other agencies’ participation.
Census Bureau Data Visualizations
The U.S. Census Bureau has a Data Visualization Gallery where they post weekly "explorations of Census data." Some of these strike me as unnecessary (does adding animation to the map of population density around Interstate 5 add any value to the data?), but strangely cool; (I will never be able to drive north from San Diego again without remembering this map!). At the very least, the site is a showcase for the data and (I hope) an inspiration to budding data visualizers! Hat tip to LAist, a website about Los Angeles, that has a brief story (4 Cool Ways Of Visualizing Local Census Data) that links to some of their favorites that show how the population has been changing in Los Angeles and California relative to the rest of the country. Continue reading