FEC aims to restrict Inspector General reports
Politico reporter John Bresnahan noted a brief item currently on the front page of CQ's PoliticalMoneyLine about the "minor changes" the Federal Election Commission wants to make to its System of Records.
"In a bland Federal Register Notice requesting public comment on a System of Records, the Federal Election Commission seeks to restrict access to the reports of the agency’s Inspector General unless the requestor has the permission of the individual involved."Bresnahan explains that a former FEC official is being investigated for misappropriation of funds that were used to settle a sexual harassment complaint. According to PoliticalMoneyLine:
"For the FEC this means the Inspector General’s report on the activities of the last Staff Director and his supervision, or lack of supervision, by the Commissioners could not be made available to the White House or Congress unless the former staff director and other individuals involved granted approval."The FEC is accepting public comments on the requested revisions until the end of the business day tomorrow. Here's how to submit a comment, from the Federal Register notice:
Comments should be addressed in writing to Thomasenia P. Duncan, Privacy Act Officer, Federal Election Commission, 999 E Street, NW., Washington, DC 20463, and must be received by close of business on February 23, 2007. Comments also may be sent via electronic mail to Privacy@fec.gov.Continue reading
Problems search engines have indexing government web sites
Here is bad news about public access to government information. In an article (Agencies Take Steps To Make Web Data Searchable by Daniel Pulliam, National Journal's Technology Daily, February 21, 2007 PM Edition. [subscription required]) about efforts by Google, MSN. and Yahoo to index government web pages using the Sitemaps tool, J.L. Needham, a strategic partner development manager at Google, criticizes government information access.
Despite months of meeting with nearly every government agency, Needham said there is a lack of understanding about search engines. He said most agency officials do not realize that about 80 percent of visitors to their sites come through search engines. Most sites under the e-government initiative of the President's Management Agenda remain unsearchable, Needham said. "Literacy about search engines is lower in the federal government than in the private sector," he said. Because about half of all government Web pages are not searchable, a substantial percentage of people conducting searches are missing information they would otherwise find, Needham said. Managers cite other priorities and a potential increase in bandwidth use, which could drive up costs, as their primary concerns about optimizing their sites for searches, he said.Continue reading
Congress has created a bootleg market for CRS Reports
Information, Please. Watchdog Groups, Some Lawmakers Say Congressional Reports Should Be Made Public, By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post, February 19, 2007; A17. [Another copy here]
For years, open-government groups have fought to make the [Congressional Research Service] reports public, and for years, many lawmakers have kept them under wraps. Or so they thought. By insisting on secrecy, Congress instead created a bootleg market for the research. Every day, a small Texas company compiles the reports and sells them to lobbyists, lawyers and others who pay thousands of dollars for a peek at the reports and what they say about the congressional agenda. And it's all legal. "How I get them is my trade secret . . . but I get them all," said Walt Seager, who digs up the reports for Gallery Watch, a legislative tracking service.... Subscribers to Gallery Watch pay about $4,000 a year to get all the CRS reports, online and searchable, delivered weekly.Continue reading
Audio and Video from the Fall Depository Library Council Meeting
GPO is providing audio and video files from the Fall DLC meeting and Library of the Year award presentation here. They note that "Audio files are available in .mp3 format, while video files are available in .mov format. All files have been compressed in zip format for easier download. Transcripts are available in PDF format.... In the future, we hope to provide these podcasts in streaming format. For now, however, they are only available as downloadable content." Continue reading
CRS describes Budget Documents in useful 5 page report
FY2008 Budget Documents: Internet Access and GPO Availability, by Jennifer Teefy, Congressional Research Service, February 13, 2007
This 5 page document provides brief descriptions of the budget volumes and related documents, together with Internet addresses, Government Printing Office (GPO) stock numbers, and prices to obtain these publications. You might be able to use this as a handout if you have lots of budget users.
Thanks to OpenCRS!
Continue reading