Spring [Training], March [Blogging], et al.
Thanks so much to the editors of FGI for allowing me the extreme pleasure of blogging this month! I understand March has come in like a [don't say it] lion in many parts of the eastern United States. Well, its baseball weather here in Los Angeles and Orange Counties -- 70 degree temps with perhaps the slightest chance of rain imaginable... Throughout this wonderful month, as the Dodgers and A's toil in Spring Training, I'll do my level best to keep the FGI blog well stocked with stories of government information from across jurisdictional boundaries. It’s my pleasure! Brian Continue reading
Federal Reserve releases and withholds documents on credit crisis
As noted here before, the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to release documents about bailout money. Now according to POGO, "Governmentattic.org has posted several documents from the Federal Reserve in response to a FOIA request about the Fed's lending activities related to the credit crisis" but "the Fed was withholding over 2,000 pages of information under the (b)(4) and (b)(5) FOIA exemptions, which protect against the disclosure of "trade secrets" and "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters."" The Fed Knows Best, Project on Government Oversight, Feb 23, 2009. Continue reading
Here is something you don’t see every day: talking NSA!
Oral History Interviews, National Security Agency. Continue reading
The Best Government Tech of the Bush Years
Wired has a list of "smart ways different federal agencies started using technology during the last eight years. It's not mind-blowing, but it's not terrible." Examples of Agencies Using Online Content and Technology to Achieve Mission and Goals (UNOFFICIAL DRAFT, November 26, 2008. Sent to Wired Magazine.) The Best Government Tech of the Bush Years, By Nicholas Thompson, Wired, January 23, 2009. Continue reading
Another example of a step backward
One of the things we worry about at FGI is how technology that could be opening up information access is too often used to reduce access. Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader is a completely proprietary device. You can't buy a "Kindle" book and loan it or re-sell it or give it away or read it on any device except on one Kindle. Amazon even charges you to convert PDFs into the Kindle format (or so I have heard). It also has a nice feature that allows text to be vocalized -- great for the blind, but not a replacement for audiobook performances read by professionals. But the Author's Guild sees this as a threat and Amazon, while claiming (rightly, I think) that the feature is legal, is nevertheless willing to disable text-to-speech on a title-by-title basis at the rightsholder's request. More here: Caving into bullies (aka, here we go again), Lawrence Lessig, February 28, 2009. Continue reading