Oregon once again claims that law is copyrighted
Oregon once again claims that law is copyrighted, by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, October 30, 2009. The Oregon Attorney General has asserted ownership over the "Attorney General's Public Record" and "Public Meeting Manual." See also:
- The Oregon Question: What is the copyright status of primary legal materials governing the actions of the citizens of Oregon?, Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org.
- Oregon Tries Claiming Copyright Over Gov't Materials Again, by Mike Masnick, techdirt, Oct 30th 2009.
Law Library of Congress refusing to retract report on Honduras coup
Library of Congress stands by report on Honduras coup, By LESLEY CLARK, McClatchy Newspapers (October 29, 2009).
Congress's law library is rebuffing calls from the chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees to retract a report on the military-backed coup in Honduras that the lawmakers charge is flawed. The request, by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., has sparked cries of censorship from Republicans who say the Democrats don't like what the August report said: that the government of Honduras had the authority to remove deposed President Manuel Zelaya from office. ...Kerry and Berman maintain the report "contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras." The chairmen charge that a key line in the analysis was based on a provision of the Honduran constitution that was struck down in 2003 and that "critical portions rely exclusively on a single, outside individual who had previously and publicly declared his support for the coup."The report is: HONDURAS: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ISSUES, Directorate of Legal Research for Foreign, Comparative, and International Law, The Law Library of Congress, REPORT FOR CONGRESS (August 2009) LL File No. 2009-002965, Prepared by Norma C. Gutiérrez, Senior Foreign Law Specialist. "This report discusses the legal basis under the Honduran Constitution for President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales’s removal from office."
Executive Summary: The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings. The Constitution no longer authorizes impeachment, but gives Congress the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President, to conduct special investigations on issues of national interest, and to interpret the Constitution. In the case against President Zelaya, the National Congress interpreted the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President to encompass the power to remove him from office, based on the results of a special, extensive investigation. The Constitution prohibits the expatriation of Honduran citizens.Also see: Law Library of Congress refusing to retract report on Honduras coup: report, by Sarah Miley, Jurist (Oct 31, 2009). Continue reading
October 2009 Lost Docs Report and Appeal
Last month we at Free Government Information (FGI) started the "lost docs blog" at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info to collect your receipts from GPO about the fugitive documents you reported through GPO's lost docs form at www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs or through GPO's Help system at gpo.custhelp.com. Starting this month, we want to provide you a monthly summary report and appeal for help. REPORT Thanks to generous and retention minded librarians, we posted 45 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. These receipts were primarily from 2008. Once we get the backlog posted, we hope to post receipts as we get them and will then be able to more closely track the number of submissions per month. Of these 45 reports, 12 items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with October 2009 dates. We are appreciative of these new records. In our view, three of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in October were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications or were already in the catalog. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with October 2009 dates. APPEAL If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:
- If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month.
- Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
- Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
- Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/ or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.
A Call to Action for State Government: Guidance for Opening the Doors to State Data
The National Association of State CIOs has issued a brief on state government transparency that describes and defines a vision of open government information. The brief recommends that State CIOs should partner with agency executives, records managers, librarians, archivists, data architects, and others to create an open system of government information. It sets out 8 Open Government DAta Principles. Data should be:
- Complete
- Primary
- Timely
- Accessible
- Machine processable
- Non-discriminatory
- Non-Proprietary
- License-Free
Read all about the Fall 2009 DLC meeting!
Whether you were able to attend the Fall 2009 Depository Library Council meeting or not, don't miss what is now online!
- GPO's Fall DLC Meeting - Arlington, VA page with presentations available for downloading.
- Tweets from fall09 depository library council meeting. See a record of what people tweeted in real time at the conference.