Pentagon Posts Documents on its “Military Analysts” Propaganda Program
In April, the New York Times broke a story about the now infamous Pentagon information apparatus that used retired military officers in a "campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance" (Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008). The Times also published some of the documents it obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests on its web site (NY Times publishes some FOIA documents). Now, the Pentagon has published documents it released. This collection appears more complete than what the NYT released.
- Military Analysts "These documents were released to the New York Times regarding the Pentagon's Military Analyst program." (last updated 28-May-08)
Pig book
The 2008 Congressional Pig Book, published annually since 1991 by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), is now available. This year's Pig Book identified 11,610 projects at a cost of $17.2 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2008. A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition. You can download the summary in PDF, or serve up all the 2008 information from their pork database. But for a small fee, you can order the books in paper for your library reference collection (or buy them and donate to your local library!). This and more are what you get from the daily feed of Docuticker. Subscribe to the docuticker feed or check out their latest documents in the left hand column of FGI. Thanks to our buddies Gary Price and Shirl kennedy for keeping docuticker chugging along, feeding us with great govt documents from all levels of government! Continue reading
The Military’s Internet ‘Civil War’
The first two parts of a three part series on how the military is adapting to the Internet are online: from the Air Force banning access from official networks to many blogs (because they are not "established, reputable media"), to the Army setting up its own, password protected version of MySpace ("MilSpace"?).
- The Military's Internet 'Civil War' by David Axe, The Washington Independent
- Part One: How the Army Found Middle Ground to Embrace the Internet, 05/30/2008
- Part Two: How the Coast Guard Botched Its Online Start, 06/03/2008
National Archives Reticent About Broadening Mission
National Archives Reticent About Broadening Mission, by Dan Friedman, CongressDaily, Jun. 2, 2008. [subscription required]. Update: NOW AVAILABLE from NextGov WITHOUT SUBSCRIPTION: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080602_6498.php The National Archives (NARA) is being put in an awkward position. Viewed as nonpartisan and professional, it is being tasked by Congress with new enforcement duties. Late last year, a new law passed that set up an "Office of Government Information Services" within the NARA to help set federal Freedom of Information Act policy. Another bill that is expected to pass the House would give NARA a new role requiring NARA to monitor White House e-mail archiving. This would change NARA's role from that of passively receiving records to actively monitoring and enforcing rules. National Archives Inspector General Paul Brachfeld said that "NARA traditionally has not viewed itself as an enforcement entity but rather one that focuses upon collegiality and relationships." From the article:
Chafing at Bush administration secrecy, congressional Democrats are handing the National Archives and Records Administration new jobs promoting government transparency. Officials at the records agency appear to be balking at taking on unfunded mandates beyond their traditional role. If Congress wants the Archives to become open-government cops, archivists may prefer to remain librarians. "They have always had a narrow view of their mandate and have never been particularly inclined to seek any expansion," said Patrice McDermott of OpentheGovernment.org, a coalition of groups urging government transparency. "They see their mission as providing access to historical records. They see [overseeing] contemporaneous records as a shift."Continue reading
Happy 100th birthday First Sale Doctrine!!
100 years ago today (June 1, 1908) the [w:First-sale doctrine] was established in the US Supreme Court case Bobbs-Merrill v. Straus, and became codified into the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. § 109). First sale doctrine -- which allows the purchaser of a copyrighted work to sell or give away that work without permission once it has been obtained -- is the pillar and copyright protection upon which libraries have been able to build their collections and services to their communities. Ironically, today libraries find themselves in an untenable situation. The First Sale Doctrine continues to move toward the margins as more and more information goes digital. Much of this content is not protected by first sale because libraries license access from vendors. Perhaps that's why Ross Dawson, on his extinction timeline, has libraries going extinct in 2019, a year before copyright itself. Or maybe Slate's slideshow "borrowed time" is closer to being right when they describe the future of libraries as a "mutating role as urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information, the public library seems far from spent." I'm hopeful about the future of libraries, but think that librarians need to be more conscious and proactive about digital content, to negotiate licenses with vendors that allow for perpetual access -- if not actually being able to host digital content on their own servers -- as well as libraries being able to share their content with other libraries (aka interlibrary loan) and "shelve" or repurpose their digital content in ways that serve their local communities. Only if digital content has the same first sale protection as paper content will libraries continue to serve their traditional (and critical) role as cultural repositories. [Thanks for the heads-up Everybody's Libraries!] Continue reading