Cheney: OVP neither executive nor legislative branch
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) is refusing to cooperate with a government directory known as the "Plum Book," which lists government employees. Federal agencies have to comply by listing staffers in the directory, but Dick Cheney's office claimed an exemption for itself, arguing that the Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch. But it's not just the phone book with which the OVP refuses to cooperate. Evidently, the OVP is not part of the executive branch and so need not comply with ANY disclosures. An important legal ruling is pending over Vice President Cheney's refusal to disclose statistics on document classification and declassification activity. The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which is responsible for the policy and oversight of the government's security classification system and declassification, has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to direct Cheney's office to disclose these statistics. According to Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News, "for the last three years, OVP has refused to divulge its classification statistics to ISOO, despite a seemingly explicit requirement that it do so. Prior to 2002, such information had routinely been transmitted and reported in ISOO's annual reports to the President." Hmmm, the OVP doesn't want the public to know who's working there or how many documents they're classifying. What's going on there?
Continue readingDigital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy
One of the organizations listed on the FGI "Organizations of interest" page is the Center for Digital Democracy. Jeff Chester, the CDD's director, has just published a new book that looks to be fascinating. The book, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy, seriously looks at the details and the consequences of the 1996 Telecommunications Act -- the overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934 -- how it set the stage for the current media ownership battles. In the book, Chester examines the market forces that are dictating the US media landscape and the dangerous consequences of media consolidation and mergers and partnerships between telephone and cable companies. In the 3rd part, Chester puts forth a "policy agenda for the broadband era." Definitely a good addition to any library collection!
- Alternet review of Digital Destiny
- Media Matters' Bob McChesney interview with Jeff Chester (scroll down to the Feb. 4, 2007 show)
Response to “The Machine is Us/ing Us.â€
CorytheRaven posted a response to Prof. Wesch's “The Machine is Us/ing Us†about which we posted a few days ago. The full transcript is available on Digital Ethnography blog
Media philosopher Marshall McLuhan observed that “The Medium is the Messageâ€. That is, the form of media is what changes consciousness irrespective of the content of that media.Continue reading
The burden e-gov puts on libraries
James Jacobs commented on the post I published on e-government. He said:
"Evidently (and I haven't checked on this so this is purely an anecdote!), libraries are beginning to be seen as e-govt resources. Good you say, but the worry comes in when librarians are more and more expected to help their patrons fill out the govt forms that they've downloaded from library public computers. In other words, librarians are being seen as defacto public information officers."
From the discussion on this subject that I had in one of my classes, I think what James is saying is true. I'm not a public librarian, so I am basing this opinion off of what I heard my class. My professor, Paul Jaeger, co-wrote an article in Library Journal last year on this subject. He and his co-authors took a poll of librarians to investigate the growing reliance on libraries as an e-gov source. From the article:
"So, as libraries become valuable community access points to e-government services and resources, especially in post-hurricane emergency relief, their efforts as agents of e-government represent an unfunded mandate. The library community must respond with better training and education. However, government agencies that both fund libraries and rely on them for their public access computing and Internet access also must provide greater support." (Bertot 35)
Here is the citation for the article: Bertot, John Carlo, et al. "Drafted: I Want You to Deliver E-Government." Library Journal 131.14 (15 Aug. 2006): pp.34-39.
Continue readingNARA to release ERA in September
Wade-Hahn Chan reported in Federal Computer Week this week that the first part of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) will make its debut in September. ERA is the system that the National Archives is designing to preserve the federal government's electronic records. The first release, according to NARA CIO Martha Morphy, will allow federal agencies to transfer their electronic records directly to the ERA. Four agencies currently submit their records to NARA for archiving; in addition, NARA's Electronic Records Management Initiative has provided all agencies with information on how to handle the formating of electronic documents. The White House has requested a $12 million increase in the budget for ERA for FY2008. Speaking of the Bush administration, a second version of ERA will be developed for the George W. Bush Presidential Library to archive the administration's electronic records. The FY2008 budget requests $38 million to archive these documents. You can learn a bit more about ERA in a video [WMV] linked to on the project's website. I found the FCW article at the eGovernment Resource Centre. Continue reading