Open source: How e-voting should be done
"In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in response to the hanging-chad debacle of Florida's 2000 presidential elections. The act's main thrust was to provide money to states to replace outdated punch-card- and lever-based voting systems with optical-scan or touchscreen models. The act largely accomplished that goal, filling the coffers of closed source voting system manufacturers. In doing so, the act may have inadvertently placed the country in a worse situation...." "Current U.S. policy ensures that e-voting remains in the hands of very few proprietary vendors.... But the key to securing e-voting resides in making its systems open source."
- Open source: How e-voting should be done, by Paul Venezia, IDG News Service, InfoWorld, October 27, 2008.
CRS Reports to the People!
Now that a new administration will be coming into office soon, it is more important than ever to encourage our Government to make Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports publicly accessible online. Here at FGI, the topic of CRS Reports has been written about often, but I was inspired to create this blog post and take action after seeing Starr Hoffman’s DLC conference presentation last week (click on "Search Document" and enter "Starr Hoffman". Her PowerPoint, "Encouraging An Informed Citizenry" will come up as a PDF to download). Starr is responsible for maintaining University of North Texas's Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports Archive. In her presentation, she gives tips for writing to Congressmen and lists some past legislative efforts (Bills that never passed both houses of Congress) to make CRS Reports publicly accessible. I have gathered some other Bills, as well as all the contact information for the sponsoring Congressmen and have included them in my Delicious.com "CRS" tag as well as in this list: 1998 H.R. 3131, S. 1578 1999 H.R. 654, S. 393 2000 H.R. 4582 2001 S. Res. 21 2003 H.R. 3630, S. Res. 54 2007 H.R. 2545, S. Res. 401 Senator John McCain Introduced S. 1578, S. 393, S.Res. 21, S. Res. 54, & co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Senator Mike Enzi Co-sponsored S. 393 Senator Leahy Co-sponsored S. 393, S. Res. 21, S. Res. 54, and S. Res. 401. Senator Tom Coburn H.R. 4582 co-sponsor when he was in the House. Senator Jim DeMint Introduced H.R. 4582 when he was in the House. Senator Joe Lieberman Introduced S. Res. 401 and co-sponsored S. Res. 21 and S. Res. 54 Senator Tom Harkin Co-sponsored S. Res. 54 and S. Res. 401 Senator Susan M. Collins Co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Senator John Cornyn Co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Congressman David Price Co-sponsor for H.R. 3131, H.R. 654, H.R. 3630, and H.R. 2545 Congressman John Campbell Co-sponsored H.R. 654 Congressman Jay Inslee Co-sponsored H.R. 3630 and H.R. 2545 And you can find and contact your local Senator and your Representatives too. James A. Jacobs did a Google search this past June for "Received through the CRS Web" OR "CRS Report for Congress" combined with site:house.gov and then again for site:senate.gov and got around 600 hits with each. For example, here are some domains he found that you can search within for CRS Reports or to search for those in Congress who may support public access to CRS Reports: bartlett.house.gov, holt.house.gov, radanovich.house.gov, weldon.house.gov, bennelson.senate.gov, carper.senate.gov, lugar.senate.gov, murray.senate.gov, etc. For more information on CRS Report legislation efforts, visit this site which contains a "Campaign for Online Access" section. Spread the word about this post and good luck in writing to your Congressmen! If you have other ideas, please share them in the comments. Continue reading
OMB sponsors online discussion of privacy issues
OMB sponsors online discussion of privacy issues, By Nancy Ferris, FCW, October 23, 2008.
The Office of Management and Budget has asked the National Academy of Public Administration to hold a public discussion this month of health care privacy issues through an interactive Web site. The “National Dialogue on Health Information Technology and Privacy” will take place the week of Oct. 27 at www.thenationaldialogue.org.The site is also using Twitter (use tag #nationaldialogue) and Youtube (see: http://www.youtube.com/user/natldialogue). "A panel of academy fellows will review the postings and produce a report in December with recommendations for the new administration." Continue reading
Rebecca Troy-Horton
Rebecca Troy-Horton (f/k/a Rebecca Blakeley) is a Reference Librarian at the New Hampshire State Library. She was head of the Government Information Department at the McNeese State University Library in Lake Charles, Louisiana from 2007-2011. She was selected to be a 2008 American Library Association Emerging Leader and a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2009.
Prior to McNeese, Rebecca worked in the Reference and Government Publications departments at the University of Rhode Island and also taught courses on Information Literacy. She received her M.L.I.S. in 2005 and her B.A. in Anthropology in 2003, both from the University of Rhode Island. Rebecca fell in love with Government Documents when she took an online course with Daniel O'Mahony, whose passion for "Documents to the People" inspired her to become a documents librarian. Rebecca is a techie wannabee and is neither Gen X nor Gen Y but somewhere in between. Continue reading
Guide of the Week: Indiana
In case I haven't made it clear by now, the ALA Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) Handout Exchange Wiki has guides for all levels of government information. For instance this week's guide: Indiana Government and Politics (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2008) is dedicated to the US State of Indiana, which has emerged as a battleground state in the 2008 Presidential Election. So what has Bert Chapman found out about Indiana resources? Here is a sampling of the materials he has listed:
- Here Is Your Indiana Government HSSE REF 353.9772 In2c
- Election Report: State of Indiana HSSE REF 324.772 In22a
- West's Indiana Law Encylopedia HSSE REF 347.03 W52
- Indiana Campaign Finance Database
- AJR Newslink Indiana Newspapers