NORAD orders Web deletion of transcript
NORAD orders Web deletion of transcript, By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com, March 9, 2006. "The Bush administration has been criticized in the past by open government advocates for its aggressive efforts to avoid the disclosure of information that historically has been public. In 2003, the U.S. Army surreptitiously pulled the plug on one of its more popular Web sites after a report embarrassing to the military appeared on it. In another example, the names of the members of the Defense Science Board--an obscure but influential advisory body that influences military policy and had a budget of $3.6 million a year--have vanished from the group's public Web site." Now, "in an unusual follow-up to a public event, the Defense Department has ordered that a transcript of an open hearing on aviation restrictions be yanked from the Web." Some of the pilots who attended the meeting suggested that nothing sensitive was disclosed and that the transcripts were deleted because one of the pilots who testified, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Bush, criticized the government's security apparatus. Continue reading
Susan Golding, Blogger-of-the-month for March, 2006
This month's BOTM is Susan Golding, govt documents librarian at Temple University (see her bio for more information on Susan). And if anyone would like to be BOTM in the future, please contact us at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. Welcome Susan! Continue reading
Susan’s bio
Susan J. Golding, blogger-of-the-month for March, 2006, got her MSLIS from Long Island University in 2002. She has been the Government Documents and Maps Librarian at Temple University's Paley Library since September 2004. Her hobbies are obsessing, worrying and boring people with long-winded anecdotes about her job. She is thrilled to have this opportunity to expand her audience. Continue reading
Origins of “The Right to Know”
Origins of "The Right to Know" by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, March 7, 2006. Continue reading
Kudos to GPO for new Catalog of Government Publications
Today the Government Printing Office announced:
The Superintendent of Documents is pleased to announce the launch of the enhanced version of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) - http://catalog.gpo.gov/. This version of the CGP is the online public access catalog (OPAC) module of the Government Printing Office's (GPO) new integrated library system. With the availability of the new CGP Phase 1 of a larger modernization plan to replace older legacy systems is complete.Unlike the previous version of the CGP, which only went back to 1994, the new catalog allows you to find documents back to 1976. It is also easy to find the nearest libraries that are supposed to hold a given item. It's been a long time in coming, but it does seem to be a step forward in providing access to vast number of government publications that have good information, but not the good fortune to be on the 'Net. Thanks GPO! I'd also like to compliment GPO for sticking with the easy to understand name of "Catalog of Government Publications" instead of "Franklin." This responsiveness to community input is much appreciated. As nice as the new CGP is, one could wish for more that I've seen in other catalogs/databases, but that will be for another posting. Continue reading