New GAO Report on FOIA
The GAO released a report today on FOIA entitled "Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans." [PDF] From the "Highlights" page:
The improvement plans submitted by the 25 agencies mostly included goals and timetables addressing the four areas of improvement emphasized by the Executive Order: eliminating or reducing any backlog of FOIA requests; increasing reliance on dissemination of records that can be made available to the public without the need for a FOIA request, such as through posting on Web sites; improving communications with requesters about the status of their requests; and increasing public awareness of FOIA processing. Most of the plans (20 of 25) provided goals and timetables in all four areas; some agencies omitted goals in areas where they considered they were already strong. Although details of a few plans could be improved, all the plans focus on making measurable improvements and form a reasonable basis for carrying out the goals of the Executive Order.Continue reading
White House eschews email
Despite a huge DOJ documents dump to the Committee on the Judiciary concerning the US Attorney firings, it's come to light that the White House is now abstaining from using the official White House email system. Crooks and Liars has more and points out that this subverts the Presidential Records Act which mandates thorough record-keeping, and ironically, as Josh Marshall has pointed out, means that much of this "official" communication can not be shielded by executive privilege. Read on... Continue reading
Short pub funding from beginning of time
A posting on govdoc-l from Janet Fischer, Collection Development/Government Documents Librarian Golden Gate University Law Library in San Francisco shows us that Congress has been tight-fisted regarding government documents for a very long time:
I'm wrapping up a fine read: Nathaniel Philbrick's "Sea of Glory," about the U.S. Exploring Expedition that sailed around the world from 1838-42, mapping Pacific Islands, part of the antarctic coast, and the Columbia river basin and US Pacific coast, among other things. The ExEx, as it was called, brought back copious amounts of samples, specimens, artifacts, charts, journals, etc., much of which provided the basis for the foundation of the Smithsonian. Among the problems was securing funding to publish the findings of the ExEx. Wilkes, the controversial leader of the ExEx, wrote, "I had more trouble and difficulty in securing the appropriation annually than I experienced in the command of the Expedition." Philbrick goes on to write: "A nation that prided itself in its democratic scorn of book-learning was reluctant to acknowledge that publishing volumes about 'bugs, reptiles, etc.' was a necessary expense. When asked to vote on yet another appropriation to pay for the seemingly never-ending publications of the Exploring Expedition, one vexed senator complained, 'I am tired of all this thing called science here.' ... [There was a] growing realization in Washington that scientific pursuits such as geology, botany, anthropology, and meteorology were crucial to the progress of the nation. Almost in spite of itself, Congress began to see the wisdom and necessity of paying for expeditions..." Congress began to see the wisdom and necessity of paying...in spite of itself. While we continue to be frustrated at GPO's underfunded mandate to provide copies of our government's work to the people, it does warm my heart a little to know that it has been ever thus.One of the reasons that we at FGI continually advocate a decentralized approach to the access to and preservation of government information is because of this long history of Congress being unwilling to fully fund information efforts. A system that depends on a centralized approach is held hostage to Congressmembers who may not always see the value of no-fee, permanent public access to fully functional government information. Continue reading
DMCA creator Lehman admits failure of DMCA
Bruce Lehman, who, as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks under Bill Clinton, was one of the main architects of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, gave a presentation at a conference on copyright reform at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his talk, Lehman admitted that "our Clinton administration policies didn't work out very well" and "our attempts at copyright control have not been successful" and laid much of the blame on the recording industry for not adapting to the changing marketplace. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has more on his blog including video of the Lehman's presentation. Continue reading
GPO’s Budget and Priorities
April 1, 2007 / Leave a comment
The news of the Government Printing Office's (GPO) funding for next year is not encouraging. After flat-funding in 2006 and 2007, Congress is now considering the GPO budget for 2008. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee's Legislative Branch Subcommittee, said that the focus has to be on GPO's mission of printing first and foremost, and the transformation aspects, while still important, are secondary. "What happens to the systems if we can't fund it?" she asked.
At a time when 92 percent of all documents are available online Mike Wash, GPO's chief technical officer, said that accessibility will not be hampered. We might amend that by saying "accessibility will not be hampered...yet." Wash did say that the plans to add capabilities could be affected.
Here at FGI, we've often argued that it is a bad idea to rely on a single government agency (i.e., GPO) to provide the "single authoritative source" for "permanent preservation for public access" to all Federal documents (A strategic vision for the 21st century). One reason for our concern is that inadequate funding of GPO could reduce or even eliminate access to information that is essential to citizens. Every agency must pick and choose and set priorities and Congress must set priorities among all government programs. That is simply the way things are. As we noted elsewhere:
If GPO can't get funding in 2008 for transformation and adding capabilities, will it be able to always keep online everything that citizens need or everything that is important to your library's users? Or will it "come down to priorities" for what is kept freely available and what is taken offline or what becomes available "on a cost recovery basis" (A strategic vision for the 21st century)? Will we find those pointers in our OPACs pointing to a message that says "not enough funding to keep this online" -- or pointing to the GPO bookstore?
We may find that one of GPO's original planning documents was prescient when it said that it would maintain information online for "as long as usage warrants" (Electronic Information Access and Dissemination Services of the Federal Depository Library Program). When it comes down to priorities (and it will -- it already is), if we only have one "authoritative source", it will be Congress and GPO that decide what is "warranted" and what is not.
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