Secret Army Field Manual on Map Reading
Secrecy News has made available a PDF of a A U.S. Army Field Manual that explains the rudiments of map reading. Distribution of the manual is restricted, and it has not been approved for public release. Maps and Legends Secrecy News, December 28, 2007.
- MAP READING AND LAND NAVIGATION. FM 3-25.26 January 2005 HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY Washington, DC, 30 August 2006
Gen Y are the leading users of libraries
A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that "members of Gen Y are the leading users of libraries for help solving problems and in more general patronage.... Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library."
- Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help (December 30, 2007) Leigh Estabrook, Evans Witt, and Lee Rainie. (full report. PDF)
- Information Searches That Solve Problems (Press Release)
- Young Adults Heavy Library Users by Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press December 30, 2007.
New CRS Report on Data Mining
Thanks to Docuticker for pointing out this new Congressional Research Report on Federal data mining efforts:
Data Mining and Homeland Security: An Overview (PDF; 231 KB)
RL31798
Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)
Aside from cataloging currently known datamining efforts by the federal government, the report identifies four areas of concern:
As with other aspects of data mining, while technological capabilities are important, there are other implementation and oversight issues that can influence the success of a project’s outcome. One issue is data quality, which refers to the accuracy and completeness of the data being analyzed. A second issue is the interoperability of the data mining software and databases being used by different agencies. A third issue is mission creep, or the use of data for purposes other than for which the data were originally collected. A fourth issue is privacy. Questions that may be considered include the degree to which government agencies should use and mix commercial data with government data, whether data sources are being used for purposes other than those for which they were originally designed, and possible application of the Privacy Act to these initiatives.
I've heard people say that data mining by the government is no big deal since advertisers and other corporate interests do it all the time in efforts to focus marketing and improve profits. If we don't have privacy from corporate types, why should the government worry us? Because ratty data used by a marketer might result in a bald man getting shampoo ads, but when the government relies on ratty data for law enforcement, innocent people can get jailed or harrassed.
Hopefully Congress will be more vigilant on this issue.
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Happy 75th to UCLA!
In a govdoc-l posting on December 21, 2007, Jan Goldsmith informed the depository community that the Federal Depository LIbrary at UCLA celebrated it's 75th anniversary. Her post states how they celebrated:
The UCLA Library celebrates its 75th anniversary as a member of the Federal Depository Library Program this year. We were designated a depository in 1932 by Senator Samuel Shortridge. Over the course of these past years, we have provided free access to federal government information for the University community and beyond. In honor of our anniversary, Kris Kasianovitz and Jan Goldsmith, with the professional assistance of Ellen Watanabe and Dawn Setzer, mounted an exhibit in the Young Research Library lobby. Gary Strong signed letters notifying all legislators whose district we serve, including our Senators and Congress representatives. For more information regarding 75 years of collection and services of the Federal Government Documents at the UCLA Library visit our Anniversary web page, at: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/yrl/depository_exhibit.html
Let's hear it for UCLA for providing three quarters of a century of public service to the people of Los Angeles!
Continue readingGovernmentDocs.org provides enhanced access to FOIA documents
Back in November, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation launched a new website, GovernmentDocs.org, which will house governmetn documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. From the press release:
The database will house Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) responses, and other government documents, from a number of organizations, that can be browsed, searched and reviewed. It is the only one of its kind.
Traditionally, government watchdog groups have either posted FOIA documents on their websites as unsearchable PDFs, or statically highlighted several pages within a document to bolster their findings. This has historically limited the public's access to FOIA documents, and minimizes the opportunities for use by researchers, journalists and citizen reviewers for further research and disclosures. Governmentdocs.org changes that:
- Each and every document goes through an optical character recognition (OCR) process, so that the text of each document is entirely searchable.
- A powerful search engine provides full-text searches and hit highlighting.
- Citizen reviewers can add information to each document page and highlight important findings, allowing for more robust and targeted searches.
- Every page of every document has its own unique URL so that documents can be linked, shared, or posted onto websites.
- The database is a coalition effort, so all of the organizations' documents will be housed on governmentdocs.org and searches will work across collections.
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