Presidential Signing Statements 1929-2008
The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara has archived all Presidential Signing Statements from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush.
You can search or browse by year. The signing statements are part of a much larger documents section that includes executive orders, proclamations, "fireside chats" and more.
The Project site also includes a "data" section with information such as a table of vetoes and "success rate", a section on presidential elections data (statistics) and more.
Continue readingFederal courts adopt uniform rules for judicial discipline
The Judicial Conference of the United States has announced the adoption of uniform standards for the first nationally binding judicial discipline rules among the federal Circuit courts. The standards curtail the decentralized self-regulatory system that let individual circuit's set their own standards and closed "jurisdictional gaps," according to Judge Ralph K. Winter of the 2d U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and chair of the Conduct Committee that compiled the reforms. The changes were made in response to recommendations by a special committee chaired by Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and pressure from some in Congress to improve implementation of the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, the basis of federal judicial discipline. Continue reading
Some Gov Agencies Block Web 2.0 Access
A blog post by Coby Logen was brought to my attention in the comments from my previous post about Government agencies using Twitter, called "Agencies Block YouTube, Shoot Themselves in the Foot" (great title!). When I was hunting fervently for the NASA Twitter account, I almost jumped to the conclusion that perhaps they never did create one because of this article I stumbled upon, discussing how some Government agencies block access to Twitter on Government computers. I found a recent news report on GovTech.com entitled, "Don't Block Web 2.0 Access", urging businesses to "resist the temptation" to block their employees' access to Web 2.0 technologies . I wish the author had urged the U.S. Government to resist the temptation too, but perhaps this is implied. This quote from Coby's blog post sums up the issue nicely: "It is humorous that the Secretary of Energy invites us to explore the Solar Decathlon MySpace page while he doesn't trust his own employees to do so. And you've got to chuckle a little as you watch the Secretary of the Interior on a field trip to learn about "technology and collaborative science" via the collaborative technology that his department banned. But I hope no one in the Coast Guard or FEMA (both in DHS) would benefit from NOAA's environmental visualization channel on YouTube, because they aren't allowed to watch it." Continue reading
More about Sunshine Week
As noted here previously, Sunshine Week is coming up March 16-22. More events around it: Gabriela notified us of a a press briefing featuring Lawrence Lessig that will be webcast. Secrecy News lists several events, including: National Freedom of Information Act day will be observed on March 14 with a day-long conference sponsored by the First Amendment Center. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/press/information/topic.aspx?topic=FOI_Day Collaboration on Government Secrecy at the American University’s Washington College of Law will hold a conference on Monday March 17. http://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/founders/2008/031708.cfm OpenTheGovernment.org will hold a webcast conference on Government Secrecy at the National Press Club on March 19 and lists a Calendar of Sunshine Week Events http://www.openthegovernment.org/article/subarchive/109 Continue reading
Enhanced American FactFinder (AFF) Comments Requested
This from the Census Bureau:
Enhanced American FactFinder (AFF) Comments Requested The U.S. Census Bureau is enhancing the current American FactFinder (AFF) to add features and improve its functionality. As users of our data, we value your input and want the enhanced AFF to meet as many of your needs as possible so that you can easily access and use data available at the Census Bureau. Therefore, we would like your input about the new system. We have identified a number of improvements which are described in the link below. Please review them and then provide up to five additional items you would like to see incorporated into the new system. (Note: The survey will be available for comments beginning today, March 10 - March 31, 2008.) Given the limited resources available for enhancing the AFF, the Census Bureau may not be able to implement all the suggestions. https://questionweb.com/63144/ In an effort to reach as many users as possible, please forward this information to your colleagues and others who use data from the Census Bureau. Thanks for your time and input as we work together to make the AFF a more efficient, dynamic, and interactive data access and dissemination system. ******************************************* Nancy M. Gordon Associate Director for Strategic Planning and Innovation U.S. Census Bureau 301-763-2126 (Office) 301-763-8150 (Fax)Continue reading