Control of Presidential Records in the News
Presidential Records Act Stymied in Senate; ALAWASH Urges Action, Library Journal Academic Newswire, October 2, 2007.
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has placed a bill that would rescind provisions of a controversial executive order restricting the release of presidential records on hold without explanation. Bunning said that "the president ought to have the right to withhold any records he chooses." The American Library Association's Washington Office (ALAWASH) noted that "the records of the highest elected public office in the country, the President of the United States, belong to the people and are evidence of government activity."
Federal Judge Invalidates Order Allowing Former Presidents to Withhold Records, National Coalition of History, October 2nd, 2007.
On October 1, a federal district court judge gave historians and researchers a partial, but significant victory in a lawsuit questioning the legality of President George W. Bush’s Executive Order (EO) 13233, which broadened the rights of presidents and former-presidents to withhold federal records from the public. The judge struck down the section of the EO that allows a former president to indefinitely delay the release of records. However, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not rule on the constitutionality of the Executive Order itself, narrowly crafting her decision to address only specific provisions in the order.Continue reading
International Right to know week!
This is International Right to Know Week, “dedicated to the promotion of freedom of information worldwide. The goal is to raise citizens’ awareness level about their right of access to information under the control of government institutions.†Around the world, September 28th is celebrated as International Right to Know Day. This began in Sofia, Bulgaria at an international meeting of access to information advocates who proposed that September 28th be dedicated to the promotion of freedom of information worldwide. FOIA Advocates has a nice map displaying as well as what's happening in each country to celebrate this week. How about submitting a FOIA request in honor of the week? Continue reading
Gov Gab: Friendly gov website talk
The folks that brought us usa.gov have established a blog of their own over at http://blog.usa.gov/roller/. The blog is called Gov Gab and is maintained by "a team of five bloggers with different backgrounds and interests, all experts on government information via their jobs at USA.gov, Pueblo.gsa.gov, or 1 (800) FED-INFO."
The blog is a week old and so far have had conversational, user-friendly postings on photo resources, gov't travel sites, apartment hunting and organic foods. If you're familar with Lori Smith's blog on MySpace, you have a sense of the tone of this blog. The sites featured are taken from federal, state and local web resources. If this week is an indicator of the quality, this will be a great resource. I hope it gets maximum promotion from librarians and other interested parts.
The blog accepts comments according to this reasonable sounding policy:
We welcome your comments and expect that our conversation will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. This is a moderated blog, and we will only post comments from bloggers over 12 years of age that relate to topics on Gov Gab: Your U.S. Government Blog. We will review comments for posting within one business day. You are fully responsible for everything that you submit in your comments, and all posted comments are in the public domain. We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right not to post comments.
According to a reply to a comment I saw, the blogging team is very open to suggestions for future topics:
We would love to get ideas for future blog topics! You can email any of us by clicking our name above our posts and sending us a message.
Spread the word! The more the merrier around here.
Consider the word spread. Thanks much to Ray Matthews of the Utah State Library for pointing out this new blog to me. Now go and do the same for others!
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Air fresheners are bad, but regulations are fun
Anyone who has ever had to teach about federal regulations is always thrilled to have good, hopefully entertaining, examples for this topic. And now that instructors have access to the Reg Map, we can actually give a step by step explanation of this once murky process (thank you, General Services Administration). As is the case with legislative process, our students' first question is frequently "How do regulations come about?" We reassuringly tell them that executive agencies produce regulations, frequently due to statutory mandate, and that the regs are published first in the Federal Reqister, now Regulations.gov as well, before being codified in the CFR. From the Reg Map, we learn that that there are other Initiating Events besides legislative mandate: such as recommendation from an external group.
Well, a recent news article offers a fine example of an external group directly petitioning the federal Executive Branch: environmental organizations are asking both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to more tightly regulate air fresheners. The groups don't need to approach Congress; they can go directly to those agencies whose mission it is to keep us safe. And since the air freshener industry, a $1.72 billion annual sales concern, is cranking out "sprays, gels and plug-in fresheners offer[ing] no public health benefits" but potentially causing "breathing difficulties, developmental problems in babies, and cancer in laboratory animals," I am glad the groups are taking action. The groups are asking for labeling of all ingredients in air fresheners and a banning of allergens or items appearing on California's Proposition 65 list of chemicals. Here's a report from the National Resources Defense Council, one of the groups involved.
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