NAPA launches collaboration Web site
National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has launched The Collaboration Project, "an independent forum of leaders committed to leveraging web 2.0 and the benefits of collaborative technology to solve government's complex problems. Powered by the National Academy of Public Administration, this "wikified" space is designed share ideas, examples and insights on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the field of public governance." See also: NAPA launches collaboration Web site, By Anne Laurent, The Agile Mind blog, NextGov, 05/09/08. "The site is a great example of collaboration, chock-a-block as it is with case studies, a long discourse on government 2.0 by Don Tapscott, Anthony Williams and Dan Herman, authors of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Portfolio Media, 2006), a blog and plenty more. There’s even a catchy slogan: 'Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what we can do together.'" Continue reading
Classifying the Unclassified – Blanket Secrecy License?
On May 9, this past Friday, the White House issued a memorandum doing away with the old category of "Sensitive But Unclassified" and replacing it with "Controlled Unclassified Information." The memo is titled, "Memorandum For The Heads Of Executive Departments And Agencies - SUBJECT: Designation and Sharing of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)". Here is how the memo defines CUI (bolding mine):
a. "Controlled Unclassified Information" is a categorical designation that refers to unclassified information that does not meet the standards for National Security Classification under Executive Order 12958, as amended, but is (i) pertinent to the national interests of the United States or to the important interests of entities outside the Federal Government, and (ii) under law or policy requires protection from unauthorized disclosure, special handling safeguards, or prescribed limits on exchange or dissemination. Henceforth, the designation CUI replaces "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU).This is such a broad brush that it could be used to exempt anything from public disclosure. By definition, isn't anything the government produces at least somewhat pertinent to the national interests of the United States? Otherwise, why waste taxpayer dollars and government time creating the product? Then there's the allowance for "policy." I'm sure that DoD's 2002 domestic propaganda program probably "required protection" from "unauthorized disclosure" for "policy" reasons. This is a definition that appears to be designed to give the executive branch total control over what information is released by the US Government regardless of existing law. It is an order that should be challenged by Congress today with no funding permitted for its implementation. Assuming the President doesn't back down, it should be one of the first items revoked by the incoming President. Government information items should be properly classified and protected, safeguarded when containing individuals personal data, or public record. No twilight zone of "It's unclassified, by I can't give it to you for reasons of government policy." Continue reading
PublicMarkup.org
[cross-posted from Legalresearchplus.com] As I wrote about earlier, I was having a fun, albeit geeky Saturday night following links hither and yon, and I ran across the fascinating PublicMarkup.org site. PublicMarkup is a project of the Sunlight Foundation , and just like sunlight is the best of disinfectants, a bit of public scrutiny and participation should make legislation stronger and more viable. The folks at PublicMarkup drafted the Transparency in Government Act of 2008, and hope that the wonders of online collaboration will enhance and improve the legislation and will inspire lawmakers to carry it forward. From the PublicMarkup site: “The Sunlight Foundation has put together what we think can become model transparency legislation—the Transparency In Government Act of 2008—and we now need your help to further shape and refine it.” Interesting? Inspired? Well, you better move fast if you want contribute — You only have until May 19th before they close the site for comments and then try to re-craft/re-draft the legislation. -Erika Continue reading
Ruggles report on preservation and use of economic data liberated!
A few weeks back, we posted a story about an Atlantic article from November, 1967 called, "The National Data Center and Personal Privacy" in which was discussed the idea of a National Data Center, the precursor to Total Information Awareness. It was such a hot topic of the day that Congress held a hearing on computers and the invasion of privacy of US citizens (The computer and invasion of privacy. Hearings, Eighty-ninth Congress, second session. July 26, 27, and 28, 1966. by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Special Subcommittee on Invasion of Privacy.) I started reading the hearing, and found that Yale Economics Professor Richard Ruggles (NYT obituary from 2001) had also testified before that hearing. So I started poking around about Ruggles, looking in WorldCat and Google Scholar. I found quite a few citations to a document entitled, Report of the Committee on the Preservation and Use of Economic Data submitted to the Social Science Research Council in 1965. But for such a well-cited document that spawned a Congressional hearing and much worry in the mainstream press about computers and privacy, there were only 3 libraries in the whole country that held the report. Imagine that! Well, I decided to liberate the report, so -- after much finagling! -- got a copy, scanned it, and uploaded it to the Internet Archive. Score one for the digital public domain!! I hope to see more libraries listed as having a copy in WorldCat in the near future. And if you've got any fugitive documents laying around your hard drive, send them to us here at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. We'll make sure they get up on the open Web safe and secure in the Internet Archive!! Continue reading
CIA’s Psychology of Intelligence Analysis book now online
The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence has posted the full text of one of its guidebooks, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis originally published in 1999. you can get it on the CIA site, but I also took the liberty of downloading it and then uploading it to the Internet Archive's government documents collection. That link is stable and would be appropriate for adding to the 856 field of your bib record. Wouldn't it be really cool if all of those 4412 govt documents in the IA's collection had downloadable MARC records?
Intelligence analysts, in seeking to make sound judgments, are always under challenge from the complexities of the issues they address and from the demands made on them for timeliness and volume of production… How many times have we encountered situations in which completely plausible premises, based on solid expertise, have been used to construct a logically valid forecast–with virtually unanimous agreement–that turned out to be dead wrong? A central focus of this book is to illuminate the role of the observer in determining what is observed and how it is interpreted. People construct their own version of “reality” on the basis of information provided by the senses, but this sensory input is mediated by complex mental processes that determine which information is attended to, how it is organized, and the meaning attributed to it. What people perceive, how readily they perceive it, and how they process this information after receiving it are all strongly influenced by past experience, education, cultural values, role requirements, and organizational norms, as well as by the specifics of the information received.[Thanks BoingBoing!] Continue reading