Return of the BIA
Nextgov reports that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is free to reconnect itself to the Internet, thanks to a Washington D.C. District Court ruling earlier this month.
Interior allowed to reconnect to Internet, by Gautham Nagesh, Nextgov, May 21, 2008. District Judge James Robertson granted on May 14 motions filed by [Deparment of the] Interior requesting that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Hearings and Appeals, the Office of the Special Trustee, and the Office of Historical Trust Accounting be allowed to reconnect their networks to the Internet.The BIA network was ordered to shut down in 2001 amid accusations of poor data security in the ongoing Cobell v. Kempthorne class action case. Security questions remain, however.
[Judge] Robertson acknowledged that Interior’s IT security may still be inadequate. “The congressional and inspector general reports indicating that the Interior Department, overall, continues to receive failing grades on its IT report card are troubling, but I have no authority to act in response to them, nor do I have any colorable suggestion that the declarations before me … were made in bad faith,” he wrote.As of this writing, the BIA site has not been fully restored. According to Interior chief information officer Michael Howell, it is expected to take a couple of months for the BIA to reconnect. -Brian Provenzale Continue reading
Think you can balance the US budget?
Go ahead and try with this online game called Budget Hero. Fun for the whole family :-) Continue reading
Good news and bad news about UK GIS data
Today, some mixed good news/bad news about the availability of free public data in the UK. As we've noted here before (e.g., Privatized Data Woes in Britain and News from abroad: UK open statutes & RFID in Canadian coins and The Semantic Web + Government Information = Serendipitous Reuse) the British government sells limited-use licences to its GIS data on a cost recovery basis. Now, as part of a proposed national geoportal, the UK would "create a single point of entry on the web to data held by public bodies such as local councils, Ordnance Survey (OS), the British Geological Survey and the Environment Agency." But, as the story says, "A new system will make geospatial information available without charge - yet we'll still have to pay."
- An Inspired debate on access, by Michael Cross, The Guardian, May 22 2008.
First, some very good news. Civil servants revealed last week that the British government has begun work on a system to make all the geospatial data it holds on the natural environment available for free inspection and re-use. Now the bad news. In this context, "free" means we will still have to pay to download much key data, especially if it is to be published or otherwise used commercially.Continue reading
Does Your State Make the Grade?
The Pew Center on the States has been running a "Government Performance Project" for some time. It seeks to grade the 50 states on how well they manage their information, as well as their infrastructure, money, and people. The latest evaluation is titled Grading the States 2008 Report. -George Wilson Continue reading
DoJ probe on Guantanamo interrogations released
The Department of Justice’s Inspector General has just released its report (PDF) (uploaded to the Internet Archive of course!) on the FBI’s involvement in detainee interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Reuters reports that the “Bush administration’s top security officials ignored FBI concerns” and that the “FBI, alarmed by interrogation techniques such as the use of snarling dogs and forced nudity, clashed with the Defense Department and CIA over their use. According to McClatchy News, The IG's report had been delayed in part because the Pentagon slow-rolled its review of the report for classified information.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's top security officials ignored FBI concerns over the abusive treatment of terrorism suspects, which one agent called "borderline torture," a four-year Justice Department probe found. The FBI, alarmed by interrogation techniques such as the use of snarling dogs and forced nudity, clashed with the Defense Department and CIA over their use, said the 370-page report released on Tuesday by the Justice Department's inspector general. Critics say the techniques employed by the CIA and U.S. military in questioning terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks amounted to torture. FBI agents participated interrogations and still do, but bureau Director Robert Mueller directed agents in 2002 not to participate in coercive questioning, the report said.[Thanks Crooks and Liars!] Continue reading