More on release of last FBI files on John Lennon
Here is a follow up to one of the stories in last week's post (Government Openness and Government Secrecy). Jon Wiener, who teaches history at University of California Irvine and who placed a FOIA request for FBI files on John Lennon in 1981 writes in the current issue of The Nation about what we learned from the release of the last few pages of these files.
- The Last Lennon File by Jon Wiener, The Nation December 20, 2006 (January 8, 2007 issue).
Why did four administrations fight in court to prevent the release of information that was already public? ... The answer, I think, has nothing to do with John Lennon. It has everything to do with the FBI and the Justice Department, and what they see as the principle they are defending: that they alone should define what constitutes a national security secret. They argued repeatedly in this case that the courts should defer to the FBI, which supposedly has expertise on national security that judges lack. The FBI and the Justice Department don't want the courts telling them they are wrong about what constitutes a national security secret--and they certainly don't want the ACLU telling them. For the ACLU too, it's not just about John Lennon, it's also about a principle--but a different one: the principle of freedom of information. In a democracy, the government's information belongs to the people; the people have a right to know the information in government files--and the FBI and the Justice Department do not get the last word in deciding what to release and what to withhold. That's what the Freedom of Information Act says: It gives the people the right to appeal decisions to withhold documents; it gives federal judges the power to examine documents the FBI is withholding; and most important, it gives judges the power to order federal agencies to release documents they conclude have been improperly withheld. That's the principle at the heart of the FOIA, and it's at the heart of the Lennon FBI files case.Continue reading
Gilgamesh at VA
I'm not exactly sure what to say about this new training video on the VA website, but i feel compelled to pass it along. Thanks to Boing Boing (Department of Defense remakes Gilgamesh online Thursday, December 28, 2006) for pointing to it:
There are lots of good translations of Gilgamesh. Try this one to refresh your memory: The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic, by Anonymous, Edited by Morris Jastrow, Translated by Albert T. Clay Continue readingFBI: “It’s a wonderful life” = communist propoganda
Happy holidays all! I thought you'd get a kick out of the following: Wise Bread noted that the FBI considered "It's a wonderful Life" -- one of the most tear-inducing films ever IMHO!! -- to be communist propoganda. Unfortunately, Wise Bread only linked to two pages of the more than 2,000 pages in the FBI's Communist Infiltration- Motion Picture Industry (COMPIC) FOIA file, but I left a comment to point readers there as well as to let them know about the FBI's FOIA Reading Room. File 10a has a list of films from 12/31/55 (this was a running memo from 1942 - 1958!) which include such subversive titles like A Song to Remember (bio of Chopin), Buck Privates Come Home (abbott & Costello), Keeper of the Flame (Tracy & Hepburn) and Salt of the Earth, the only film ever actually banned in the US, but later deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. BoingBoing has more background on HUAC and the blacklisting of many directors, actors, and writers. Continue reading
GAO Analyzes Smithsonian/Showtime Deal
As a follow-up to our previous story on the media deal between the Showtime Channel and the Smithsonian Institution, FGI would like to draw the attention of our readers to this General Accountability Office report on the deal: Smithsonian Institution: Additional Information Should Be Developed and Provided to Filmmakers on the Impact of the Showtime Contract, GAO-07-275, December 15, 2006 They conclude in part:
It is too early to determine the long-term impact of the contract. Access to the Smithsonian's collections and staff for research purposes remains unchanged, but the direct impact on filmmakers will depend largely on how many request permission to use a substantial amount of Smithsonian content. So far, 6 of 117 filming requests have involved a substantial amount of Smithsonian content--2 were denied and 4 were approved as exceptions. The Smithsonian contends that it will be able to accommodate the same level of filming activity as it has in the past based on its historical analysis of filming contracts. GAO found that this analysis was unreliable because it was based on incomplete data and oversimplified criteria. In addition, concerns have been raised about damage to the Smithsonian's image and the appropriateness of limiting the use of the collections held in trust for the American public.Hmm, what is appropriate about the limiting the use of the collections held in trust for the American public? I can't really think of anything. Can you? The report suggests that the Smithsonian might see as much as $150 million from this deal after 10 years. While this may seem like a lot, this amount could only fund about 13 hours of our current occupation in Iraq. This is estimated from the Iraq Study Group's estimate of $8/billion per month. Couldn't we spare a day's worth of Iraq funding this year to make deals that limit national collections unnecessary? Continue reading
Open Source ILS
The Georgia Public Library Service has developed and is now using Evergreen, an an open source, enterprise-class Integrated Library System (ILS) "that may revolutionize the way large-scale libraries are run." See Librarians stake their future on open source by Michael Stutz, Linux.com (December 21, 2006 ) The Evergreen catalog "has many features and innovations that are lacking in non-free systems. It does on-the-fly spellcheck and gives search suggestions and adds additional content, such as book covers, reviews, and excerpts. The Shelf Browser shows items ordered along a "virtual" shelf built out of the holdings of the entire system. Patrons can create "bookbags," which are lists that contain a selected collection of annotated titles. Bookbags can be kept private or shared as a regular Web page or as Atom or RSS feeds." Continue reading