Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects
For those FGI visitors who are not also government documents librarians, you might have missed the announcement about the new Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects. According to the Government Printing Office (GPO):
The Registry contains records for projects that include digitized copies of publications originating from the U.S. Government. The projects may or may not be Federally funded. They are from libraries, government agencies, or other non-profit institutions. The projects in the Registry are either entirely composed of digitized, U.S. Government publications or include a substantial number of them. Access to the digitized material must be free. In the rare case where a publication includes an element that is copyrighted, e.g. an image, the metadata in the Other Information section of the Registry entries will indicate that distinction. A Registry project entry typically includes a multi-volume publication title, a publication series title, or a specific range of a Federal agency's publications, i.e. a set of publications identified by a classification range or by years of publication. Digitization projects are initiatives to create digitized collections of these sets of resources. Continue reading
Google vs. DOJ: Privacy implications for Government Information
As Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch points out, the current Department of Justice (DOJ) Supeona for search engine data is not a direct attack on privacy:
AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo DID NOT VIOLATE THE PRIVACY of any user by handing over this information. No private data was revealed. Nevertheless, by not pushing back against such a bad request for data, it leaves open the real fear that they might not push back if the US government decided to go on a real fishing expedition in the future. Privacy may not have been lost but trust was.Mr. Sullivan than posits one possible future data mining scenario that would harm privacy:
Picture this scenario. The US government wants to pass a new law on monitoring terrorists. In order to see the presence of searchers seeking out TOMs (that's Terrorist Oriented Materials) through search results, they ask each search engine to hand over an entire week's worth of search data completely with cookie info, IP addresses and registration information. Continue reading
Sunshine week panel March 13, 2006
Sunshine Week The 2nd annual Sunshine Week is rapidly upon us. It's once again brought to you by Open the Government, partnering with OMB Watch and Democracy in Action. They've got an interesting panel of experts (Tom Blanton from the National Security Archive among others) lined up to talk about government secrecy -- especially salient at this time -- and what citizens can do to promote open government. They're looking for local hosts for the live satellite feed. Please contact them ASAP if your library would be willing to host. Continue reading
Forthcoming hearing on network neutrality to be webcast by committee
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will be holding a Full Committee Hearing on Network Neutrality on Tuesday, February 7, 2006. It will be webcast live:
More on Network Neutrality
The New York Times has a good article that covers network neutrality, the lousy home network service we get in the U.S., and more.
Left unmentioned in Verizon's pitch is the concentration of power that it enjoys in its service area, which would allow it to ignore the equal-access principle whenever it wishes. We are asked to take on faith that it and the other telephone companies with similar plans will handle ordinary network traffic with the same care they would show if they had not begun parallel businesses for the carriage trade. How likely is that?Continue reading