Directorate of Legal Research at the Library of Congress
The Directorate of Legal Research at the Library of Congress: A Treasure Hidden Under a Bushel Basket, By Michael Ravnitzky, LLRX.com, November 12, 2006.
Michael Ravnitzky, a Washington, D.C. area attorney and journalist, has published this useful article about this "little known but well-regarded and highly influential research department contained within the Library of Congress." The mission of the Directorate of Legal Research is "to provide high quality, timely, and innovative research, analysis, and reference services on issues of international, and foreign and comparative law."
But obtaining reports from the Directorate is very difficult. No overall list of DLR reports has ever been produced or released and the Directorate itself says that it has no comprehensive list of its own publications. While the Pennyhill Press sells copies of 66 DRL reports, there are evidently many more that it does not sell.
Ravnitzky does an excellent job of digging into the sources that do exist to track down this useful information. Bookmark this article for future reference questions!
Continue readingTrue Sharing and Fake Sharing of Information
What is the difference between true and fake sharing? Lawrence Lessig addresses the question on his blog this week:
- More bad karma: When Web 2.0 meets lawyers 1.0, by Lawrence Lessig on Lessig Blog(Nov 16, 2006).
Government Secrecy in the Information Age
While it is easy for us to take government openness for granted and assume that government secrecy is an aberration, a new book that examines government secrecy world-wide warns us of dangers that exist today and identifies problems that we can see in the United States. From the publisher:
Roberts goes further than the popular view that secrecy is simply a problem of selfish bureaucrats trying to hide embarrassing information by showing how such powerful trends as privatization, globalization, and the "networking" of security agencies are complicating the fight against secrecy.
The book is Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age by Alasdair Roberts of the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, New York, Cambridge University Press (January 2006, 334 pages).
We know about privatization of government information and this week we saw more about networking of security agencies when Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte submitted to Congress the Information Sharing Environment Implementation Plan (November 2006). This plan explicitly calls for "policies, processes, protocols and technology that enable the sharing of ["terrorist related"] information among federal, state, local, tribal and private sector entities, as well as our foreign partners." While this may seem a reasonable proposal in the abstract, it has two problems: First, it is not clear that the "terrorist related information" will always be information about terrorists; it may often be massive amounts of information on all citizens, which the government hopes to use to identify terrorists. Second, there is no proposal for sharing information with the public; that implies that this information will be shared and kept secretly -- exactly what Roberts discusses in his book.
Thanks to Secrecy News for the pointer to this book! Continue reading
Secret Laws
Can you be required to comply with a government policy or law that is itself secret? Although we are not allowed to see the law in question, at least we can see the court documents and amicus curiae briefs filed in the court case challenging this situation. See:
- Confronting Secret Law by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (November 15, 2006).
USDA redefines hunger
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry. By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post, Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01 The USDA has eliminated the term "hunger" from the categories it uses to describe impoverished households. The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security." This is absolutely horrendous that in the world's richest country (to say nothing of the 820 million hungry people in the rest of the world!), 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people!! -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. This is a good time to review Jessamyn's post from a few months back entitled, "reduce, reuse, and recycle... food." If the numbers above sicken you, please consider donating food and/or time to your local Food Not Bombs and/or donate food at your local food bank. Documents quoted:
- Household Food Security in the United States, 2005. US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)