Presidential signing statements
There's an interesting article in today's NY Times entitled, "Presidential Signing Statements, and Alito's Role in Them, Are Questioned". It piqued my interest about presidential signing statements, so I tried to find others. Using the exact wording of the NYT article ("Presidential signing statements"), was unsuccessful. GPO Access' Public Papers of the Presidents gave some access, but only from 1991. What's worse, there is nothing for the current administration newer than 2002. I found nothing in LexisNexis, and only after a thorough search on whitehouse.gov did I find text there -- but not until I remembered the recent govdoc-l thread that described how to find them and Daniel Cornwall's helpful suggestion of using the phrase "statement on signing." Continue reading
Why we should care about network neutrality, now.
As we in depository libraries rely more and more on access to information that is not in our possession or control, we must rely on the Internet as the "pipe" that allows us and our users to get at that content that is on the servers of government agencies and others. And, when we do get digital files and we want to make them available over the Internet to users at home or in their offices, our users will be relying on the Internet as the pipe from them to us that allows them to get that content we want to deliver to them. So, what will happen if the Internet is no longer a neutral "pipe" that treats all bits equally? What happens if phone companies, cable companies, and other network service providers begin to give priority and higher bandwidth and speed to some services, some sites, and some information and, at the same time, reduce the bandwidth and speed of access to other sites, other content? Recent events and statements by the key players show that is exactly what they want to happen. For example, Ed Whitacre, the CEO of the large telephone company, SBC, caused a stir last November when he said that companies (such as Google and Yahoo) that make money using SBC's broadband connections should pay him. Continue reading
Citizen-based Semantic Web of Government Information — The Ultimate ReMix?
How can anyone deal with 368 million Web pages under the federal .gov domain? Researchers have a very interesting proposal for using wikis to enhance and enable government information. Use of wiki technology would "allow outside parties to add contextual information and pull together disparate strands of data." They see this as an implementation of the semantic web concept. Their paper is here:
IRS data goes from free to $12,000 per month
In 1976, a court ordered the Internal Revenue Service to disclose records showing how thoroughly it audits big corporations and the rich, and how much it discounts the additional taxes assessed after audits. And, "For decades, the information was given at no charge to a professor at Syracuse University, Susan B. Long, who made it available on the Internet at trac.syr.edu, with tools for people to conduct their own analyses." But, "In May 2004, the service told her that it would not provide the information and ordered its statisticians to stop answering her questions. It also advised her that if it ever did make the data public again, the information would cost $12,000 a month to receive electronic copies."
Much of what the public knows about the efficiency, effectiveness and evenhandedness of the revenue service and other big federal agencies is based on the figures that Professor Long collects and posts. Continue reading
CRS report on domestic surveillance
Secrecy News recently released the CRS report giving a detailed evaluation of Bush Administration legal claims regarding Presidential authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance within the United States. CRS evaluated the arguments presented in defense of the reported NSA surveillance activity, and ultimately (if delicately) find them wanting. Definitely one to read and print out for one's library collection. PDF of report from Secrecy News
From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of “electronic surveillance†within the meaning of FISA or any activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to cover the entire field with these statutes. To the extent that the NSA activity is not permitted by some reading of Title III or FISA, it may represent an exercise of presidential power at its lowest ebb, in which case exclusive presidential control is sustainable only by “disabling Congress from acting upon the subject.†While courts have generally accepted that the President has the power to conduct domestic electronic surveillance within the United States inside the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, no court has held squarely that the Constitution disables the Congress from endeavoring to set limits on that power. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has stated that Congress does indeed have power to regulate domestic surveillance, and has not ruled on the extent to which Congress can act with respect to electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information. Given such uncertainty, the Administration’s legal justification, as presented in the summary analysis from the Office of Legislative Affairs, does not seem to be as well-grounded as the tenor of that letter suggests.Continue reading