The divide between new technology and what the government understands about it
As a complement to Cory Doctorow's excellent talk about "The Coming War on General Purpose Computation" (see http://freegovinfo.info/node/3594), an article in Miller-McCune says we need a better understanding of technology before trying to regulate it.
- SOPA Debate Highlights Congress's Ignorance, By Emily Badger, Miller-McCune (December 29, 2011). When members of Congress earlier this month considered the Stop Online Piracy Act -- better known to anyone who actually hangs out on the Internet as #SOPA -- the most notable feature of the debate turned out to be the sheer ignorance of the elected officials discussing it. One after the other, members of the U.S. House of Representatives professed -- nay, bragged about -- approaching this weighty legislation from the vantage point of someone who is not "a nerd" or a "tech expert."
Lunchtime Listen: The Coming War on General Computation by Cory Doctorow
You have probably seen references to this presentation by Cory Doctorow, but if you have not taken the time to watch it (or read the transcript), I urge you to do so. He not only explains the issues and their importance, but why laws and regulations that sound reasonable to many people manage to fail in accomplishing their stated goals while simultaneously having disastrous unintended consequences.
- The Coming War on General Purpose Computation, by Cory Doctorow, [video of December 26 keynote at the 28C3, the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin; 55 minutes]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
"[T]he copyright wars are just the 0.9 beta version of the long coming war on computation."
- transcript by Joshua Wise
Profile of Mike Wash
The Library of Congress Digital Preservation blog The Signal has a brief biographical portrait of Mike Wash who was chief technical officer at GPO and is now chief information officer of the National Archives and Record Administration.
- Digital Pioneer: Mike Wash, by Mike Ashenfelder, The Signal (December 21st, 2011).
Update Report on April-May 2010 Lost Docs
Happy Holidays from the Lost Docs Team- In addition to our usual monthly report, we at the Lost Docs Project Blog will from time to time revisit, check, and update posted document receipts that at the time of their corresponding monthly reports were still classed as fugitives. The following report focuses on the receipts posted April-May, 2010. Report/Update Of the 54 fugitive document titles from receipts posted April-May, 2010, 37(69%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), as of this report. 17(31%) remain fugitives. We are appreciative of those records that have been created and added to the CGP. Found documents can be viewed by looking at the blog posts with April and May, 2010 dates at http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and/or view a listing by visiting https://sites.google.com/site/founddocslisting/ Cataloging times 39% of the items cataloged from the April and May 2010 posted receipts were cataloged between 50 and 100 days. A more detailed breakdown is provided below. Note: 38 items are represented below, as one of the receipts was for both the electronic and print versions of an item/title. Both formats have now been cataloged. less than or equal to 15 days 7(18%) >15 days but less than or equal to 50 days 2(5%) >50 days but less than or equal to 100 days 15(39%) >100 days but less than or equal to 200 days 7(18%) >400 days but less than or equal to 500 days 7(18%) If you report a fugitive document to GPO, please send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you receive it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission." Continue reading
State of the Federal Web Report
State of the Federal Web Report, .gov Reform Task Force (December 16, 2011).
This report presents a summary of data and findings about the state of Federal websites, collected as part of the .gov Reform Initiative. The report is intended to highlight--for the first time--the size and scope of websites in the Federal Executive Branch, how agencies are managing them, and opportunities for improvement. Though not a comprehensive assessment of every Federal Executive Branch website, this data provides a high-level overview and is the first step to more effectively collecting data to make better decisions about our Federal web operations. The .gov Reform Task Force and its partners will use this data to develop a Federal Web Strategy and create tools, best practices, and other resources that will make Federal websites more efficient and useful for citizens.hat tip to Sabrina I. Pacifici! Continue reading