Executive Order requires agencies to share information
On October 25, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388 that requires agencies to use their information systems to share "terrorism information" -- including information on individuals -- with counter-terrorism agencies. While the EO explicitly says that agencies must also "protect the freedom, information privacy, and other legal rights of Americans," it, like the "PATRIOT Act," appears to give the government broad and explicit authority to examine information on individuals. It sets up an Information Sharing Council whose mission includes creating an "interoperable terrorism information sharing environment to facilitate automated sharing of terrorism information." The term "terrorism information" is defined in section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform And Terrorism Prevention Act Of 2004. That definition includes information collected on foreign or domestic terrorist groups or individuals and those "reasonably believed to be assisting or associated with such groups or individuals." The law defines terrorism information to include the "activities" of these groups and individuals. Continue reading
Senate Bill Would Increase Biodefense Secrecy
SECRECY NEWS, Volume 2005, Issue No. 100, October 26, 2005 from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. Steven Aftergood says that this "audacious" exemption "would nullify the applicability of the FOIA to an entire agency." Continue reading
Fall DLC Proceedings Watch 10/25/05 – A week without content
A week ago, the Fall 2005 meeting of the Depository Library Council (DLC) meeting adjourned. Since that time, nothing has appeared on the official DLC proceedings page. A look at the FDSys Presentations page shows that Mike Wash's slides have yet to appear. So far, we seem to be the only ones offering content from the Fall 2005 DLC Meeting, including some admittedly rough audio and a few web-based presentation handouts that GPO could have already posted. I'm not writing to crow about our coverage. I'm writing because as an institution obsessed with dropping its self-perception as a buggy whip manufacturer, GPO is unacceptably slow in posting meeting proceedings, especially in the Internet age. If the Wyoming Library Association can provide immediate, web-based coverage of their proceedings, why can't the Government Printing Office? Because they don't have the resources? Because it's too technically difficult? If that's the case, are they really the ones we want running an all-encompassing digital information system? Continue reading
Jessamyn West speaks Oct 26th on Small Libraries/Digital Divide
Jessamyn West of librarian.net will be webcasting this presentation from San Jose State University, on Wednesday, October 26, 2005: "The Information Poor and the Information Don't Care: Small Libraries and the Digital Divide" When: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 from 7 PM to 8:30PM Where: San Jose, King Library, room 225b After broadcast, talk will be archived on the Internet at http://amazon.sjsu.edu:8080/ramgen/wiab/jwest/archive.smil. I'm highlighting this talk because I think the digital capabilities of small libraries will be important in a future where the federal government expects virtually all information to be available exclusively on the Internet. I'll try to catch her talk this week and summarize it for you. If someone beats me to it, please feel free to comment below! Continue reading
New Mellon Report on Digital Deposit
A new report from the Mellon Foundation that urges action on preserving scholarly electronic journals strongly suggests the need for digital deposit and for having locally controlled copies of digital information. This parallels issues that the government information community should address as well.
- Urgent Action Needed to Preserve Scholarly Electronic Journals, Report of a meeting at the Mellon Foundation, October 15, 2005, Edited by Donald J. Waters, Program Officer, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (There is also a pdf version.)