Hiroshima Documents Posted by National Security Archive
In 1945 the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying the two cities and killing over 200,000 people by the end of the year. On the 60th anniversary of the bombing, the National Security Archive has published on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the first use of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. The documents include "Top Secret Ultra" summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the "Magic" program etc. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources Continue reading
Secret Documents About Indymedia Server Disappearance Unsealed
The story below has large implications for the GPO's Future Digital System. What would happen if the FBI wanted to look over the server log files of a centralized, government-controlled system of government information? The FBI wouldn't even need a subpoena. They would already have the information they needed and users would be none the wiser. >>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2004, two Independent Media Center (IMC or Indymedia) Web Servers were seized from the US-owned web hosting company Rackspace operating in London (UK) by the US Justice Department acting at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities. Eectronic Frontier Foundation last week won a motion that allows EFF access to sealed court documents about the disappearance of two web servers used to host news websites for Indymedia. The unsealed documents reveal that the government never officially demanded the computer servers, but requested only the server log files from the Rackspace. Continue reading
DLC visioning blog
The Depository Library Council (DLC) has recently created a Visioning Blog to survey the depository library community and collect ideas and comments regarding the future of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Much of this fall's DLC conference will be devoted to creating a vision for the FDLP in the digital age. FGI applauds this initiative and hopes that community members will take this opportunity to participate in shaping their own future.
With the advent of the Web, access to Federal Government information has expanded far beyond Federal Depository Libraries. The current environment presents challenges to Federal Depository Libraries in four key areas: * Library Roles in the Non-Exclusive Environment * Managing Collection and Delivering Content Continue reading
Directories of Government RSS Feeds
A growing number of local, state and federal governments are using RSS Feeds to provide information to citizens. FGI is grateful that some official and unofficial guides to RSS feeds have sprung up, so we point you to those instead of reinventing the wheel. If you know of more comprehensive directories of government RSS feeds than the ones below, please drop a line to admin AT freegovinfo.info!
- Federal RSS feeds from FirstGov
- Federal and state feeds from RSSGov.com
- State and Local RSS Feed directories
- Michigan RSS Feeds - Feeds listed by Department
- Montana State agency publications feeds - listed by department.
Digital decay destroys modern American military history
The Fading Memory of the State is a Technology Review article talking about the immediate and massive problems that the National Archives and Records Administration is having in preserving electronic records.
This article contains several practical examples of what happens when electronic data is lost. One instance led to the failure to tell the story of the 1989 Panama Invasion, where 23 US soldiers lost their lives:
NARA's crash data-preservation project is coming none too soon; today's history is born digital and dies young. Many observers have noted this, but perhaps none more eloquently than a U.S. Air Force historian named Eduard Mark. In a 2003 posting to a Michigan State University discussion group frequented by fellow historians, he wrote: "It will be impossible to write the history of recent diplomatic and military history as we have written about World War II and the early Cold War. Too many records are gone. Think of Villon's haunting refrain, 'Ou sont les neiges d'antan?' and weep....History as we have known it is dying, and with it the public accountability of government and rational public administration." Take the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, in which U.S. forces removed Manuel Noriega and 23 troops lost their lives, along with at least 200 Panamanian fighters and 300 civilians. Mark wrote (and recently stood by his comments) that he could not secure many basic records of the invasion, because a number were electronic and had not been kept. "The federal system for maintaining records has in many agencies--indeed in every agency with which I am familiar--collapsed utterly," Mark wrote. Continue reading