Freedom of Information

CIA Sees “Little Likelihood” of Finding Docs on Secrecy Reform
“There is “little likelihood” that the Central Intelligence Agency will be able to produce any records documenting the CIA’s implementation of the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review that each classifying agency is required to conduct, the Agency said last week. The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review (FCGR) was ordered by President Obama in his December 2009 executive order 13526 (section 1.9) as a systematic effort to eliminate obsolete or unnecessary classification requirements.  It is the Obama Administration’s primary response to the problem of over-classification, and it has already achieved some limited results at the Department of Defense and elsewhere. But it can’t possibly work if agencies don’t implement it.  And so far there is no sign of any such implementation at CIA, despite the fact that compliance is not optional.”
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/11/little_likelihood.html

Broad Spectrum of Interests Urge Super Committee Transparency
“A bipartisan assembly of groups representing a variety of interests—from a conservative government watchdog to a supporter of women’s rights to social security advocates—today sent a letter to the twelve members of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction asking them to post their recommendations for trimming at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget online for 72 hours prior to a committee vote. The breadth of groups that joined the letter demonstrates that Super Committee transparency is an issue that matters to every American.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/11/16/broad-spectrum-of-interests-urge-super-committee-transparency/

Growing Support for Online Release of Agency Reports
“A bill to make federal agency reports to Congress available to the public online has garnered bipartisan support in the House, a companion bill in the Senate, and the thumbs-up from the Government Printing Office and transparency advocates. The Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act would gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place. It requires that they be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. As things currently stand, the reports are scattered about online, in the infrequent circumstance when they can be found at all.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/11/15/growing-support-for-online-release-of-agency-reports/

AP Impact: Right-to-know laws often ignored
“The promise is magnificent: More than 5.3 billion people in more than 100 countries now have the right – on paper – to know the truth about what their government is doing behind closed doors. Such laws have spread rapidly over the past decade, and when they work, they present a powerful way to engage citizens and expose corruption. However, more than half the countries with such laws do not follow them, The Associated Press found in the first worldwide test of this promised freedom of information. And even when some countries do follow the law, the information unearthed can be at best useless and at worst deadly. Right-to-know laws reflect a basic belief that information is power and belongs to the public. In a single week in January, AP reporters tested this premise by submitting questions about terrorism arrests and convictions, vetted by experts, to the European Union and the 105 countries with right-to-know laws or constitutional provisions.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ACCESS_DENIED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Romney staffers wiped out records in ’06
“Just before Mitt Romney left the Massachusetts governor’s office and first ran for president, 11 of his top aides purchased their state-issued computer hard drives, and the Romney administration’s e-mails were all wiped from a server, according to interviews and records obtained by the Globe. Romney administration officials had the remaining computers in the governor’s office replaced just before Governor Deval Patrick’s staff showed up to take power in January 2007, according to Mark Reilly, Patrick’s chief legal counsel. As a result, Patrick’s office, which has been bombarded with inquiries for records from the Romney era, has no electronic record of any Romney administration e-mails, Reilly said.”
http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-17/news/30411090_1_e-mails-andrea-saul-mitt-romney

Justice Department’s New FOIA Regulations: Still Worse than Reported
“Since the last time we wrote about the DOJ’s newly proposed FOIA regulations, as part of signing on to EPIC’s comments on the proposed rule, not a whole lot has changed. The DOJ sent a letter to respond to Congressional concerns about their lying about the existence of records.  The letter hardly paints a clear picture, but basically says that the DOJ will withdraw a section of the proposed regulations, but that their conduct won’t change, and that they’ll continue to mislead requesters about whether records exist or not. Unmentioned in the letter, however, are all the steps backward on FOIA that the DOJ is proposing in their rules. In a package completely at odds with President Obama and Attorney General Holder’s public FOIA rhetoric, the new DOJ rules throw up new roadblocks and hurdles to requesters, and generally make it easier to deny requests.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/11/18/justice-departments-new-foia-regulations-still-worse-than-reported/

Public Policy

E-gov on the chopping block
“White House officials are urging House and Senate lawmakers to maintain a separate funding account for high-profile Gov 2.0 and “eGov” initiatives such as Data.gov, Federal IT Dashboard and Challenge.gov rather than merging them with other funds as currently proposed. Under the House and Senate budget bills for fiscal 2012, the flagship Electronic Government Fund would be combined with another fund. Both bills also would maintain recent dramatic cuts to the electronic government fund.”
http://fcw.com/articles/2011/11/14/white-house-fights-to-maintain-funds-for-data.gov-and-egovernment-initiatives.aspx

Open Government Leaders Support Funding for Key Transparency Initiatives
“OMB Watch and the Sunlight Foundation today released an open letter to the U.S. Senate supporting continued funding for the Electronic Government Fund’s important transparency projects. The letter echoes the Obama administration’s policy statement issued Nov. 10. The letter calls for full funding for the E-Gov Fund, which pays for flagship projects such as USAspending.gov and Data.gov.”
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/11911

Suburban libraries worry about the effects of Chicago library cuts
“Cuts to the Chicago Public Library’s budget may reverberate through the suburbs, where many Chicago residents use local libraries through reciprocal borrowing privileges. Some suburban librarians expect those cuts, if they go through, to not only reduce the number of hours Chicago branch libraries are open, but also reduce the number of books Chicago libraries buy and the ability to get borrowed books back after Chicagoans return them. All three possibilities could affect how well also-burdened suburban libraries perform, they said.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/8856301-418/suburban-libraries-worry-about-the-effects-of-chicago-library-cuts.html

PolitickerUSA is the best way to track politicians’ tweets
“Following politicians on Twitter can be as boring as watching paint dry on some days, but a new app pulls together tweets from both parties, and shows a whole host of trends about what they’re tweeting about. PolitickerUSA is a simple app that displays tweets from every politician that uses the Twitter platform. At the very least, the service is the best social list of every U.S. Senator and Representative on the web. You can watch tweets fly by in real-time, or you can filter them by your favorite politico.”
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/11/17/politickerusa-is-the-best-way-to-track-politicians-tweets/

Digital History

A Year Later, Little Progress on Digitizing Legislative Documents
“A year ago today, Congress’ Joint Committee on Printing directed that three sets of vital legislative and legal documents be published online “as quickly as possible.” We’ve reviewed how well that order was implemented, and the results are not encouraging. Of the three documents, there’s only apparent progress on one. The vital documents are the Constitution Annotated, the Congressional Record, and the Statutes at Large. The Government Printing Office is responsible for publishing them, and shares that responsibility to a certain extent with the Library of Congress and its subsidiary agencies, the Congressional Research Service and the Law Library of Congress. These agencies are custodians of America’s heritage, and have an important obligation to make it available to every citizen. Here’s how they’ve performed.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/11/16/a-year-later-little-progress-on-digitizing-legislative-documents/

Internet Access

Reports and Prepared Testimony From SOPA (Stop Online Privacy) House Judiciary Committee Hearing & Additional Resources
http://infodocket.com/2011/11/16/live-video-stream-sopa-stop-online-privacy-house-judiciary-committee-hearing-additional-resources/

Intellectual Property Issues

Righthaven Case Ends in Victory for Fair Use
“In a victory for fair use, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stephens Media, filed papers yesterday conceding that posting a short excerpt of a news article in an online forum is not copyright infringement. The concession will result in entry of a judgment of non-infringement in a long-running copyright troll case that sparked the dismissal of dozens of baseless lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC.”
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/righthaven-case-ends-victory-fair-use

International Outlook

Researchers work to build a national online library to house Canada’s history
“Across Canada, efforts are being made to digitize some of our oldest and more important historical documents so they can be preserved indefinitely and accessed online by anyone across the country, or even around the world. While those working behind the scenes are pleased with the progress to date, they can’t help but look a little jealously at what’s happening down south and across the Atlantic. Governments in the United States and the European Union have committed significant budgets to building online libraries to digitally showcase their most important historical artifacts. Similar work is happening in Canada but it’s being done — with less funding — by researchers, schools and a non-profit group called Canadiana, which is trying to spearhead a national archive.”
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=e14487580

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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.