Google and the Government
The Chronicle of Higher Education gives more information about Google's government search and other deals the government is making for private sector delivery of government information. It says this is connected to "Google’s drive to digitize government documents" Google and the Gov, Chronicle of Higher Education's The Wired Campus, June 15, 2006
In early July, the Library of Congress Law Library will begin sending thousands of volumes of U.S. Congressional hearings to Google for digitization. The first shipment will consist of 5,000 volumes, but library officials anticipate that they will send 10,000 volumes a month to the search-engine company, says Mark Strattner, the law library’s chief of collection services.Continue reading
Vice President Refuses to Disclose Classification Data
Vice President Refuses to Disclose Classification Data, OMB Watch, 06/13/2006
For the third consecutive year, the Office of the Vice President has refused to disclose information on its security classification practices, according to a report released last month. The refusal contradicts a presidential order to disclose data on classification and declassification, issued by President Clinton and amended by President Bush in 2003.... The Office of the Vice President asserts that the order does not apply to it, even though the office regularly complied with the order before 2003. The implementing directive for ISOO states, "Each agency that creates or handles classified information shall report annually to the Director of ISOO statistics related to its security classification program." An agency is defined as any "entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information."Continue reading
Government Increasingly Turning to Data Mining
Government Increasingly Turning to Data Mining, By Arshad Mohammed and Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post, June 15, 2006; D03.
As federal agencies delve into the vast commercial market for consumer information, such as buying habits and financial records, they are tapping into data that would be difficult for the government to accumulate but that has become a booming business for private companies.... Privacy advocates say the practice exposes ordinary people to ever more scrutiny by authorities while skirting legal protections designed to limit the government's collection and use of personal data.Continue reading
Google to Launch Government Search Site
Google to Launch Government Search Site, By Kim Hart Washington Post, June 15, 2006; D01. http://usgov.google.com
The government search site joins similar engines that target the same audience. The five-year-old FirstGov.gov, a government-sponsored site powered by Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, is geared to help citizens locate federal, state and local information without sifting through individual agency sites.... Other similar search engines include http://govspot.com , http://searchgov.com and http://govengine.com... More than 87 million unique visitors used Google's search engine in May, compared with 443,000 that searched FirstGov, according to Nielsen-NetRatings.Continue reading
reduce, reuse, and recycle… food
Food recovery is a more sophisticated way of saying "food recycling", making use of unwanted or unused food. The most common methods of food recovery [pdf] are field gleaning, perishable food rescue or salvage (from wholesale and retail food sellers), food rescue (for prepared foods) and nonperishable food collection (food with long shelf lives). Some of these tactics are familiar to Food Not Bombs workers, food shelf volunteers or dumpster divers. What you may not know is that under President Clinton, some United States Department of Agriculture agencies (Rural Development, the Farm Service Agency, and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service) and AmeriCorps created a Summer of Gleaning project working with food recovery groups in twenty-two states to help recover food that would have otherwise been thrown away. They were aided in this program by the passage in 1996 of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act which creates a federal-level protection from liability for accidental damages for people and non-profits who donate food in good faith to help feed the needy.
A person or gleaner shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals.The USDA created a Citizen's Guide to Food Recovery which includes a handy state food recovery resource directory as well as a list of state food recovery law citations (sadly unhyperlinked). Other government agencies have also published information on food recovery
- The EPA even got into the act, dealing with the related issue of reducing food waste, mainly via composting and food bank donations.
- The USDA created a Best Practices Manual For Food Recovery and Gleaning in the National School Lunch Program
- The FDA created a list of links to resources for Food Emergency and Salvage Information in the case of a natural or man-made disaster situation.
- The USDA Economic Research Service published the results of their research on food recovery and farmer's markets in Increasing Food Recovery From Farmers' Markets: A Preliminary Analysis
- The Department of Transportation joined with the USDA and private sector organizations to try to address the logisitcal issues involved in transporting available food to the people who need it. It's unclear what the results of this program initiative were.