Declassified Government Documents in name only
Starting in the new year, hundreds of millions of pages of classified government documents were automatically declassified (see FGI's previous post for background). You might assume that you should able to access these documents in the National Archives, but think again. Declassification is different from "release" so certain documents will remain classified and some documents will be withheld. This is the result of President Bush's Executive Order on Declassification (Exec order 13292) which has nine grounds for exemptions and various restrictions on the release of declassified documents. Source: Alternet Continue reading
What is Information Warfare?
Communications during war is vital to military operations, and information, or lack of it, can make or break a battle. Information Warfare (IW), also known as cyberwar, cyber attack, and cyberterrorism, is a form of modern warfare in which information and media become instruments of war. As of 13 Jan 06 JP 3-13, the Joint Doctrine for Information Operations removed the term information warfare and replaced it with the more civilized concept of Information Operations (IO). Likewise, the term has been removed from JP 1-02, the Deparment of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms The U.S. Air Force retains the idea of Information Warfare in AFDD 2-5, Information Operations, with this definition:
Information warfare is information operations conducted to defend one’s own information and information systems or attacking and affecting an adversary’s in-formation and information systems.Duane McCollum, FGI Blogger of the month for December, 2006, posted an interesting entry on December 1, 2006 about the Global Information Grid (GIG) and Net Centricity. The concepts of information warfare and information operations are closely tied to the GIG and to the ultimate goal of Information Assurance (IA). I have to ponder a moment while I contemplate the level of Information Assurance associated with publications that remove definitions...
- Should a reputable dictionary at the very least indicate that this term is archaic?
Are any other archaic definitions missing?
Could this very lack of information be construed as a form of Information Warfare itself?
As we like to say in library collection development, "let's keep a copy for historical research."
One Terabyte for $400
Whatever problems there are with creating local digital collections of government documents, affordable storage capacity WON'T be one of them. Walt Crawford reports on a one terabyte hard drive from Hitachi that will go on sale in March. The price? $400. And how much is a terabyte? At the current DVD size of 4.7GB, a terabyte hard drive could store 212 DVDs. I imagine that would easily work out to tens of thousands of average sized government documents. Combine terabyte hard drives with LOCKSS and you have a virtualy maintanance free network of geographically disbursed collections capable of holding large volumes of publications. Why not? Continue reading
FCC Releases and Withholds Ownership Documents
FCC Releases, Withholds Ownership Documents, By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2007. Eggerton says, "The FCC's Media Bureau has released a number of documents and audio transcripts related to its media ownership proceeding, but has withheld some 1,400 pages of documents, including two draft reports, citing various privilege exemptions." I believe the documents released are here: Additional Materials documents identified by Commission staff pertaining to localism, media ownership, minority ownership and other related issues Federal Communications Commission Continue reading
Net Neutrality 101
If you are looking for a quick introduction to what net neutrality is all about and why you should care about it, you can't do much better than the "Inside Risks" column in the current issue of the Communications of the ACM.
- Ma Bell's revenge: the battle for network neutrality [subscription required] by Lauren Weinstein, "Inside risks" Communications of the ACM Volume 50, Number 1 (January 2007), Page 128.
If you can't get that, an almost identical version appeared earlier on Weinstein's blog as Why Consumers Should Care About Network Neutrality, Lauren Weinstein's Blog (October 30, 2006). Lauren Weinstein is co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility (www.pfir.org).
He says:
The outcome of this controversy will affect everybody who comes into contact with the Internet... Neutrality is an aspect of the Internet that is so taken for granted that it seems invisible and intrinsic, but it has been critical to the Internet's success to date. ...most Internet users simply don't realize how drastically and negatively they could be affected if anti-neutrality arguments hold sway. Getting true network neutrality back after it's been lost is likely to be effectively impossible. Except for the anti-neutrality camp itself, we'd all be worse off with a non-neutral Internet, and that's a risk we simply must not accept.Continue reading