Public Policy

Top 10 donors make up a third of donations to super PACs

Contrary to expectations, the much-criticized court decisions that gave us "super PACs" have not led to a tsunami of contributions flowing from the treasuries of Fortune 500 corporations – at least not yet anyway.

What the Citizens United decision and a lower court ruling have done is make household names out of a bunch of relatively unknown, very wealthy conservatives. Of the top 10 donors to super PACs so far in the 2012 election cycle, seven are individuals – not corporations – and four of those individuals are billionaires.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/04/26/8753/top-10-donors-make-third-donations-super-pacs?utm_source=iwatchnews&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss

Open Government Plans 2.0: Some Agencies Make Strides, Others Just Go Through the Motions

On April 9, federal agencies across the government released updates of their Open Government Plans, a key component of President Obama’s Open Government Initiative. With delegates from 53 countries converging last week in Brazil for the first annual meeting of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), now is a good time to take stock of the renewed commitments in the updated plans and evaluate the government’s progress on the road to implementation. Overall, the results have been mixed.

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/04/agencies-release-open-gov-20-plans-doj-forgets-to-copy-edit.html

CA Legislators Allow Wireless Industry to Continue "Working Day and Night" Selling You Out in Secret

EFF, along with the ACLU of Northern California, is a sponsor of the California Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB 1434), a bill that would require California law enforcement officers and agencies to seek a search warrant before obtaining electronic location information. Yesterday, the bill passed through the California Senate Committee on Public Safety and is now on its way to the full Senate for consideration. But when it gets there, it will be missing a major, important piece of its text: its reporting requirement.

Its certainly no surprise that there’s opposition whenever a bill proposes making it harder for law enforcement to get information. But in the case of SB 1434, the opposition came from a surprising place: the wireless industry.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/ca-legislators-allow-wireless-industry-continue-working-day-and-night-selling-you

DATA Act Passes House, Moves on to Senate

Today, the House passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act (H.R. 2146), by a voice vote with strong bipartisan support. The bill to strengthen the transparency of federal government spending was sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and 13 other representatives.

OMB Watch released a statement applauding the DATA Act’s passage.

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12057

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Open Access

Harvard Releases Metadata Into Public Domain

Harvard is making more than 12 million catalog records from its 73 libraries publicly available under a Creative Commons public domain license, the university announced today.

The records can be bulk downloaded from Harvard in the standard MARC21 format, and are available for programmatic access by software applications via API at the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/04/metadata/harvard-releases-metadata-into-public-domain/

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Freedom of Information

Govt Appeals Court-Ordered Release of Classified Document

Government attorneys said yesterday that they would appeal an extraordinary judicial ruling that required the release of a classified document in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The document in question is a one-page position paper produced by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) concerning the U.S. negotiating position in free trade negotiations. It was classified Confidential and was not supposed to be disclosed before 2013.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/04/ciel_appeal.html

Lt. Col. Danny Davis, Camp Lejeune Documentary and Other Whistleblowers Honored at Ridenhour Awards

Eileen Foster, a former senior executive for the national’s largest mortgage provider, Countrywide Financial, didn’t plan on getting labeled a whistleblower. She was hired to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by company employees. But when she did her job and revealed large-scale fraud within the company—the kind that led to the 2008 financial crash—she was fired for telling the truth.

Foster was one of the truth-tellers honored yesterday at the 9th annual Ridenhour Prizes. The ceremony recognizes those who champion the truth and uphold the spirit of Ron Ridenhour, the former U.S. Army helicopter gunner who exposed the My Lai Massacre based on accounts he had heard from fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War.

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/04/jerry-ensminger-lt-col-danny-davis-and-other-whistleblowers-honored-at-ridenhour-awards.html

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Internet Access

The Internet will be a fad with little value

He thought the Internet had no future. Merely a fad. A passing fancy.

MPR News reporter Curtis Gilbert recently stumbled upon a gem from the MPR archives, a 1995 interview with Stoll by MPR host Paula Schroeder.

"STOLL: I’d say it’s not that important. I think it’s grossly oversold and within two or three years people will shrug and say, ‘"Uh yep, it was a fad of the early 90′s and now, oh yeah, it still exists but hey, I’ve got a life to lead and work to do. I don’t have time to waste online."’

http://lisnews.org/the_internet_will_be_a_fad_with_little_value

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Privacy Issues

Mobile Payments Can Expose More Consumer Data and Weaken Privacy Laws

Get ready for mobile payments to change how we make in-store purchases and how companies collect information about us. Nearly all the major smartphone manufacturers, Internet service providers (ISPs), credit card issuers, and tech companies are gearing up to provide consumers with mobile payment services.

While this will create interesting and convenient new apps, mobile payments will also provide more consumer data to more companies than traditional offline credit card transactions. Without strong user privacy controls, mobile payments may turn your cell phone into a magnet for telemarketing, spam, and online behavioral advertising.

https://www.cdt.org/blogs/harley-geiger/2304mobile-payments-can-expose-more-consumer-data-and-weaken-privacy-laws

CDT Statement on Passage of CISPA

The Center for Democracy & Technology is disappointed that CISPA passed the House in such flawed form and under such a flawed process.

We worked very hard in cooperation with the Intelligence Committee to develop amendments to narrow some of the bill’s definitions and to limit its scope. We are very pleased that those amendments were adopted, leaving the bill better for privacy and civil liberties than it was going into the process.

However, we are also disappointed that House leadership chose to block amendments on two core issues we had long identified – the flow of information from the private sector directly to NSA and the use of that information for national security purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.

https://www.cdt.org/pr_statement/cdt-statement-passage-cispa

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Intellectual Property Issues

Library Associations File Brief in Defense of Fair Use

Last Friday, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of College and Research Libraries filed a friend of the court brief to defend the fair use rights of libraries. The brief responds to the Authors Guild’s extraordinary arguments in a lawsuit against the Hathi Trust and several member libraries.

http://policynotes.arl.org/post/21695785549/library-associations-file-brief-in-defense-of-fair-use

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International Outlook

Palestinian Authority Found to Block Critical News Sites

According to a report from Ma’an News published today, the Palestinian Authority has ordered the blocking of websites belonging to eight news outlets critical of President Mahmoud Abbas. The report states that technicians at PalTel—the largest ISP in the West Bank—tweaked their proxy server and web cache daemon to block the sites, while other ISPs are using similar setups.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/palestinian-authority-found-block-critical-news-sites

ACTA in the EU: We Can’t Call it Dead Yet

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was dealt a major blow on April 12 when MEP David Martin, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the agreement and member of the Committee responsible for delivering the recommendation to European Parliament to adopt or reject the agreement, announced that he would be recommending a "no" vote. While the prospects of the European Parliament ratifying the agreement seems to have fortunately lessened, it does not mean that it’s a fait accompli that the European Parliament will reject ACTA. As we’ve noted before, ACTA is a plurilateral agreement designed to broaden and extend existing intellectual property enforcement laws to the Internet. It was negotiated in secret by a handful of countries, in a process that intentionally bypassed the checks and balances of existing international IP norm-setting bodies without any meaningful input from national parliaments, policymakers, or their citizens.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/acta-eu-we-cant-call-it-dead-yet

Freedom of Information

 Classified Info in Criminal Trials, and More from CRS

from Secrecy News by Steven Aftergood

Former CIA officer John C. Kiriakou is to be arraigned today on charges of leaking classified information to the press in violation of the Espionage Act and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act — charges that he denies.  See The Case of An Accused Leaker: Politics or Justice? by Carrie Johnson, National Public Radio, April 13.

A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service discusses Protecting Classified Information and the Rights of Criminal Defendants: The Classified Information Procedures Act, April 2, 2012.

Another newly updated CRS report finds that federal agencies spent $750.4 million last year to pay for “advertising services.”  But though non-trivial, it seems that this amount was less than was spent for such purposes in any previous year since 2003.

The term advertising is not strictly defined in budget documents, and may include various forms of public relations, public service notices, and the like. “Government advertising can be controversial if it conflicts with citizens’ views about the proper role of government,” the CRS report stated. “Yet some government advertising is accepted as a normal part of government information activities.”

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/04/classified_trials_crs.html

Week of Action On CISPA Preceding “Cybersecurity Week” in the House
from Center for Democracy & Technology – Keeping the Internet Open, Innovative and Free by CDT

We need cybersecurity legislation, not surveillance legislation.

Leslie Harris – President & CEO, CDT

Security & Surveillance, Cybersecurity

Washington – This week CDT is participating in a “week of action” urging Internet users to ask their Members of Congress to amend parts of CISPA—the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act—that pose serious threats to privacy.

Other groups joining in the week of action include The Constitution Project, American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Reporters Without Borders, Sunlight Foundation, TechFreedom, and others.

EFF opposes CISPA on Hackers and Founders Panel

from Deeplinks by dan

Yesterday, EFF participated in a panel discussion about CISPA moderated by CNET’s Declan McCullagh and put on by Hackers and Founders. We were happy to have the opportunity to do so, and although we disagreed quite a bit with a key proponent of the bill, House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee staffer Jamil Jaffer, one area where we agreed is that more people should read the text of the bill. Let’s not let this legislation rush through right when people are starting to question it—if Jamil and other staffers stand behind the bill, why not give it another week or two to let the public debate mature?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/eff-opposes-cispa-hackers-and-founders-panel

Public Policy

AHRQ Will No Longer Participate in the NIH Parent Funding Opportunity Announcements related to Understanding and Promoting Health Literacy

from NIH Funding Opportunities (Notices, PA, RFA)

Notice NOT-HS-12-009 from the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-HS-12-009.html

Public Structures Save Lives

from All Articles from OMB Watch (Articles Only) by admin

April 17, 2012—Today is Tax Day, and many Americans may be wondering how government uses the revenue it raises from income taxes. One example can be found in the National Weather Service and its Storm Prediction Center. These public structures, funded with our tax dollars, forecasted this past weekend’s violent tornado outbreak in the Plains and the Midwest days ahead of time. Thanks to this advance warning, the National Weather Service helped save countless lives and prevented millions of dollars worth of damage to military aircraft in the face of more than 100 tornadoes spread across several states. The bottom line: public structures save lives.

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12047

Privacy Concerns

GAO Completes an “Intelligence-Related” Review

from Secrecy News by Steven Aftergood

Following years of controversy, the Government Accountability Office this week released an unclassified version of its long-awaited report on FBI Counterterrorism.

The report itself comes as an anti-climax, but it is the first GAO report involving intelligence-related matters to be completed since the issuance of an intelligence community directive last summer which authorized GAO to gain access to certain intelligence agency information.  As such, it may herald a growing role for GAO in intelligence oversight.

Given the FBI’s and the Justice Department’s stubborn resistance to this GAO review, which was suspended for two years as a result, one might have expected the resulting report to address matters of the greatest significance and sensitivity — perhaps dealing with infiltration of mosques, allegations of entrapment, unauthorized domestic surveillance, or something along those lines.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/04/gao_fbi_ctd.html

Secret Systems Clutter the Electromagnetic Spectrum

from Secrecy News by Steven Aftergood

The difficulty that the military has in allocating the efficient use of the electromagnetic spectrum for military operations is aggravated by the fact that some of those uses — involving intelligence platforms and sensors — are secret even from military planners themselves, a new Pentagon doctrinal publication notes.

“Coordination with intelligence units and agencies can be challenging for many reasons, to include classification issues, disparate data formats, and separate technical control or reporting channels,” the publication states.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/04/em_clutter.html

“Traitor,” A Whistleblower’s Tale

from Secrecy News by Steven Aftergood

Jesselyn Radack’s memoir “Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban” presents the moving story of a young attorney’s unexpected encounter with official misconduct, and the excruciating ordeal that ensued when she decided to challenge it.

In 2001, Ms. Radack was a Justice Department attorney and specialist in legal ethics.  In response to an official inquiry, she advised that the newly captured John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” should not be interrogated without an attorney present — which he then was anyway.  When Department officials publicly denied having received any such legal advice, and even destroyed evidence to the contrary, she exposed the deception.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/04/traitor.html

Open Access

State Agency Databases

From GODORT
Jump to: navigation, search

In every US State and the District of Columbia, agencies are creating databases of useful information – information on businesses, licensed professionals, plots of land, even dates of fish stocking. Some of this content is available on search engines, but much of it is part of the invisible web.

Since July 2007, librarians and other government information specialists have been working on identifying and annotating these databases in one place. We’ve chased across fifty state web sites so you don’t have to!

Information here changes from time to time. Check out our last seven days’ or 14 days’ worth of activity. Another parallel project of note is the State Blue Books project.

http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases

April 18, 2011 Charity and Security Network newsletter

from All Articles from OMB Watch (Articles Only) by ssazawal

1. The Threat Behind the Homegrown Threat
2. Overcoming Islamophobia through Charity, Advocacy and Education
3. Private funding: An Emerging Trend in Humanitarian Giving
4. Governments Not the Only Major Players in Global Assistance

Public Structures Save Lives

from All Articles from OMB Watch (Articles Only) by admin

April 17, 2012—Today is Tax Day, and many Americans may be wondering how government uses the revenue it raises from income taxes. One example can be found in the National Weather Service and its Storm Prediction Center. These public structures, funded with our tax dollars, href=”http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2012/04/some-thoughts-about-yesterdays.html” target=”_blank”>forecasted this past weekend’s violent tornado outbreak in the Plains and the Midwest days ahead of time. Thanks to this advance warning, the National Weather Service helped save countless lives and prevented millions of dollars worth of damage to military aircraft in the face of more than 100 tornadoes spread across several states. The bottom line: public structures save lives.

Image by flickr user Frank Peters, used under a Creative Commons license.

EPA Releases Open Government Plan 2.0

from All Articles from OMB Watch (Articles Only) by admin

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other major federal agencies released updated versions of their Open Government Plans on April 9. The EPA’s Open Government Plan 2.0 discusses its ongoing efforts to increase transparency and instill a culture of greater openness through activities designed to increase participation in rulemaking, allow greater public access to EPA data, and speed the processing of Freedom of Information Act requests.

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12050

International Outlook

Countries Fail at Regulating Money-in-Politics, Regardless of How Weak or Solid their Laws
from RSSfeed by Global Integrity

Washington D.C., Friday, March 30, 2012 Regardless of how weak or sophisticated their political financing regulations are, countries around the world are equally failing to effectively regulate the flow of money into politics, a new report finds. The Global Integrity Report: 2011, a major investigative study of 31 countries, was released today by Global Integrity, an award-winning international nonprofit organization that tracks governance and corruption trends globally.

Twenty-nine countries out of a 31-country sample scored less than 60 on a 100-point scale on questions assessing the effectiveness of laws regulating individual and corporate donations to political parties, as well as the auditing of those donations and campaign expenditures. Government monitoring agencies tasked with enforcing such laws typically lack investigative power and often have little to no authority to impose sanctions.

http://www.globalintegrity.org/pressroom/global-integrity-report-2011?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+globalintegritycommons+%28Global+Integrity%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

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

Public Policy
Darrell Issa: Possibly ‘billions’ in GSA waste
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who will hold a hearing Monday on the General Services Administration “culture of wasteful spending,” said the agency may be squandering “perhaps billions of dollars.”

“What we expect to find [in the hearing] is, again, what you have is a pattern, a pattern that may have begun under the Bush administration… it’s likely it’s a pattern of behavior that is costing the American people hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars, and setting a bad example for the rest of the federal workforce,” said Issa on CBS’s “This Morning.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75181.html#ixzz1sFg00A1L

Republicans to slash food stamps
From food stamps to child tax credits and Social Service block grants, House Republicans began rolling out a new wave of domestic budget cuts Monday but less for debt reduction — and more to sustain future Pentagon spending without relying on new taxes.

Going into November’s election, President Barack Obama’s signature health care and financial market reforms are again favorite targets. And with as many as six House committees involved, the whole budget drill can resemble “Casablanca” with Claude Rains’s Captain Renault ordering his men: “Round up the usual suspects!”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75190.html

Internet Access

 Guest Post: Google’s Relationship with the NSA, EPIC and the Public’s Right to Know
from The FOIA blog by scott hodes
For the very first time ever, the FOIA blog has a guest blogger.  Our guest blogger is Fiona Causer.  She is currently a student pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies. She enjoys writing and seeks to use it as a vehicle to convey ideas and engage others in discussing relevant issues of our day.  Ms. Causer writes about the current FOIA lawsuit EPIC has with the NSA concerning the NSA’s relationship with Google.  The opinions in the article are solely those of Ms. Causer.

Google’s Relationship with the NSA: EPIC and the Public’s Right to Know

Along with American individuals being granted the rights to freedom of speech, privacy and various others as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, the American public, through the Freedom of Information Act, also has a right to know whether companies with services they utilize on a daily basis, such as Google, are in dealings with the U.S. government.  While this does present some legal obstacles of how to handle properly, attorneys and paralegals still must learn to tackle these issues head-on. Fortunately, the wide availability of law and online paralegal  resources on the Internet make accessing educational and applicable information a lot easier. But unfortunately, the task of creating change is still a tremendous challenge, especially if dealing with a Fortune 500 company and the U.S. government.

http://thefoiablog.typepad.com/the_foia_blog/2012/04/guest-post-googles-relationship-with-the-nsa-epic-and-the-publics-right-to-know.html

Privacy Concerns
Letter to DOJ on Ombudsman Role

from The FOIA blog by scott hodes

A number of non-profits have sent a letter to Tony West, the Acting Associate Attorney General asking him to clarify issues raised by the Department of Justice’s recent System of Records modifications in which it classified certain records maintained by the Office of Information Policy as records maintained by the agency in its role as a FOIA Ombudsman.

Last week, the Department issued a press release stating that it would modify the modification because these records concern “compliance inquiries” not actual FOIA Ombudsman duties.  The letter to West asks him to further clarify OIP’s role in intervening in FOIA matters that it considers “compliance inquiries.”
http://thefoiablog.typepad.com/the_foia_blog/2012/04/letter-to-doj-on-ombudsman-role.html
 

International Outlook
 Foreign Governments Barred From Some FOIA Requests

from The FOIA blog by scott hodes

Judge Ricarda Urbina of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that a member of the U.K Parliment and a group composed of U.K. Parliment members are barred from making certain requests under the U.S. FOIA pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(E), an exception to FOIA that prohibits intelligence agencies from granting requests to all non-domestic government entities, their subdivisions and their representatives.  Further, the plaintiffs’ attorney was also barred from being a party allowed to bring the request because he was acting in his capacity as their counsel.  The Court found that while there was nothing barring the attorney from bringing the request in his own name and giving the documents to whomever he chose; he couldn’t under the law make the request in his clients’ names.
http://thefoiablog.typepad.com/the_foia_blog/2012/04/foreign-governments-barred-from-some-foia-requests.html
Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

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

Freedom of Information

Dale Corson and Scientific Freedom: Dale R. Corson, a nuclear physicist who died last week, is best remembered as the Cornell University President who peacefully led his campus through the turmoil and upheaval of the Vietnam era.  But he also played an influential role in deliberations over the role of secrecy in scientific research.  from Secrecy News by Steven Aftergood

Public Policy

Notice of Change in Participation of NIH Institutes and Centers in PAR-11-028 “Continued Development and Maintenance of Software (R01)”  On December 23, 2011, the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) was dissolved and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) were established. As indicated in NOT-OD-12-026, all NCRR programs were transferred to other NIH ICOs. Additionally, the responsibility for all Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) in which NCRR participated is being transferred to other ICOs. Please visit the NCRR website for more information regarding the transfer of NCRR programs to other NIH ICOs.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74901.html#ixzz1rGzZ4yQC

Intellectual Property Issues

Some e-book publishers begin settlement talks; Apple holding out:  ars technica – “Three e-book publishers are nearing a settlement over an e-book price-fixing case in the US and Europe, according to sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal. But not everyone is on board—Apple and two other publishers are allegedly holding out, though the situation was described as “fluid” and could change as a lawsuit filing looms.”

Privacy Concerns

The World Bank’s New Position on Citizen-Generated Geo-Data :Two weeks ago, we were excited to read that the World Bank took a public position explicitly endorsing citizen mapping tools that keep control of citizen-generated geo-data in the hands of the folks that created it, not the organization providing the mapping tool used to generate the data. This statement was in direct response to months of concerns expressed by a range of organizations and experts, including Global Integrity, over the Bank’s deal with Google to provide quick access to Google Map Maker data for humanitarian purposes. That agreement, which has never been made public, seemed at times to endorse the use of Google’s Map Maker tool itself, which puts user-submitted geo-data in Google’s control. Jon Mitchell at ReadWriteWeb has a nice wrap-up and summary of the issues here.
« Back to your recommended feeds

Twitter, Facebook meet Big Brother:  Federal agencies have realized they can mine social media for intel to help thwart potential terrorist strikes, keep tabs on domestic protests and better help citizens after a natural disaster. But privacy groups are clamoring for Congress to intervene, likening it to Big Brother.
“That’s a gray area we’re all trying to define,” Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, told POLITICO. “The concept that the government would somehow be monitoring and storing inquiries of individual Web activities — many would find that disconcerting.”
from POLITICO.com: Congress by David Saleh Rauf
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74849.html#ixzz1rD3DVbAy
Open Access

International Outlook
20 Demands on the future of access to EU documents: Campaign Update

Madrid, 25 March 2012 – Since the 20 demands on the future of the EU access to documents Regulation were launched for civil society sign-on on 7 March 2012, 3 European Information Commissioners, 67 Non-governmental organisations and 6 Civil Society Coalitions representing 249 organisations have joined the campaign.

The 20 demands are presented to the Member State representatives working on the revision of the EU access to documents Regulation before each of their inter-governmental meetings at the Working Party on Information (WPI).

http://www.access-info.org/en/european-union

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

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

Here’s the complete list of SLA neighborhood dinners going on this month.  RSVP to the host of your choice!

Lafayette/Orinda
Wednesday, April 11, 6:15 PM
Uncle Yu’s, 999 Oak Hill Road, Lafayette (7 minutes walk from BART)
RSVP to Dan Holmes

Albany/North Berkeley
Tuesday, April 17, 6:00 PM
Aangan Restaurant (http://www.hamroaangan.com/)
RSVP to Elyse Eisner

El Cerrito/Richmond
Wednesday, April 18, 6:00 PM
“Chez Rochelle,” 788 Colusa Avenue, El Cerrito (a safe & pleasant 1-mile walk from El Cerrito Plaza Bart)
RSVP to Rochelle Richardson

Temescal (Oakland)
Thursday, April 19, 7:00 PM
Barlata
RSVP to Laurel Bellon

Daly City
Thursday, April 19, 6:00 PM in the bar; 6:30 at the table
Boulevard Cafe, 2 Poncetta Dr Daly City, CA 94015
RSVP to Jaye Lapachet or Craig Cruz

San Leandro/Castro Valley/Hayward
Thursday, April 19, 6:00 PM
Mama Lupe’s Cosina Mexican, 15033 Farnsworth St, San Leandro
RSVP to Marlene Vogelsang

Presidio (SF)
Tuesday, April 24, 6:30 PM
Presidio Social Club, 563 Ruger Street
RSVP to Barbara Janis — and do it quick, space is limited!

Solano/Napa
Tuesday, April 24, Time: TBA
Bistro Sabor in Napa
RSVP to Becky Miller

Castro/Mission (SF)
Wednesday, April 25, 6:15 PM
Thai House Express, Castro @ 19th
RSVP to Hilary Schiraldi

Bernal/Noe (SF)
Thursday, April 26, 6:30 PM
Fattoush, Church between Clipper & 26th
RSVP to Cyndi Berglez

Southern Marin
Saturday, April 28, 6:30 PM
Signature Thai, 810 B St, San Rafael
RSVP to Anne Barker

Northern Marin/Sonoma
Tuesday, May 8, 6:45 PM
Hilltop 1892 in Novato
RSVP to Diane Rosenberger

by Ian Palmer

A few months ago, my Reprints Desk colleagues and I conducted focus groups with information professionals and others who rely on journal articles for use in research, sales, marketing, legal and regulatory functions. We discovered that curated content and the distribution of this content was by far one of the most important functions performed by information professionals – a sentiment that was reinforced equally by the end users who consume curated content. With this information, we sought out HiveFire, a content curation technology supplier that was repeatedly mentioned during our research. Together, we decided to host an educational webinar on the topic of newsletters and other useful methods and approaches for keeping users informed. The accompanying slide deck is what we presented. We hope you find it useful and that you will continue engaging your peers to explore what may work for you and your end users.

By Judy Bolstad, Editor

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Contemporary Historians at the Presidio 2012: Voices and Views

Location: Golden Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop, Presidio of San Francisco

Barbara Janis shares that The Presidio Trust continues its series of popular talks featuring nationally known historians speaking at the Presidio of San Francisco. Covering larger themes in American and world history, the talks help put the Presidio into context as a former military post and an innovative national park. Please join us at the Golden Gate Club for the second season of this free series, Contemporary Historians at the Presidio. For a more detailed description of the lectures and biographies of the speakers, please see:

http://www.presidio.gov/

• Dr. Richard Stewart, Thursday, April 26, 7pm – “Reflections on the American Profession of Arms”
• Margaretta Lovell and Kathleen Moran Thursday, July 12, 7pm – “Themed Nature and Historic Preservation”
• Quintard Taylor, Thursday, Sept 6, 7pm – “The Racial Integration of the United States Army: From World War II to the War in Afghanistan”
• Jay Winter, Thursday, Oct 25 – “Filming War”
• K. Scott Wong, Thursday, Nov 15 – American First: Chinese Americans and the Second World War. The Redmond Kernan Lecture: The Annual Talk Honoring Redmond Kernan, a Lover of History and the Presidio.

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Exciting and Informative Presentation!

Chris Orr and Deb Hunt spoke at the February Createasphere Digital Asset Management conference in Los Angeles. Their topic was the value of librarians in content management system implementations. The audience included librarians, archivists, production managers, IT and creative directors for media, entertainment and marketing departments. They had two chock-full days of conference in the Beverly Hilton, but managed to sneak away for a dinner on Rodeo Drive and a walk around neighboring Beverly Hills. Don’t worry – they used the services of a friendly school crossing guard to navigate Wilshire Boulevard without getting run over. Los Angeles traffic is everything they say it is, and then some!

Here are the slides from Chris and Deb’s presentations; sans audio, but still of interest and value:

http://slidesha.re/GHFAVA

http://slidesha.re/GHFNIh

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In Remembrance of Mary Helen Feldman

Jo Falcon regrets to inform you of the death of her mother, Mary Helen Feldman, two-time DC/SLA Distinguished Service Award winner, honorary Life Member of DCLA, co-founder of the Intercom newsletter, former Catholic University of America SLIS Cataloging faculty member, longtime head of Technical Services for Trinity College, and close colleague of Dr. Elizabeth Stone. Mary was 92 and apparently died peacefully in her sleep — or while reading. Based on alumni gatherings at various library conferences, she had a large and loving cohort of former students and associates, and she would want you to know. You should also know that she requested that in-memoriam gifts in lieu of flowers be sent to CUA SLIS.

Both Jo and granddaughter, Leah Swift, MLIS, continue to uphold the tradition, and at least two of the great-grandchildren seem likely to go into the “family business.” Jo states that “Mom leaves a large footprint on the profession.” Please send your condolences to jofalcon@gmail.com.

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Dear readers:

The next Mosaic submission deadline is May 25.

Even though I will be on maternity leave from mid-April through the rest of 2012, I will be continuing as Mosaic Editor. Please continue to send me your news!

- Judy Bolstad, Editor, Mosaic Column
jbolstad@library.berkeley.edu

Freedom of Information

UK’s MySociety Releases How-To Guides, Source Code for Open Government Activists
“MySociety.org, the group behind several civic and democratic websites in the United Kingdom, this year is stepping up its effort to help people in other countries build websites based on its model with a project called DIY mySociety. MySociety.org has lauched websites such as WhatDoTheyKnow.com, a site helping people in the UK to send Freedom of Information requests, TheyWorkForYou, a parliamentary monitoring site, and FixMyStreet, which helps people report problems like potholes in their local area.”
http://techpresident.com/news/21967/uks-mysociety-releases-how-guides-source-code-open-government-activists

Is the Justice Dept. Attempting to Usurp OGIS’s Role as FOIA Ombudsman?
“Earlier this week, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) wrote a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, urging the Justice Department to clarify its recent notice of proposed changes to the Department’s Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) system of records. DOJ’s proposed modifications included several references to the Department’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) serving as “Ombudsman” in disputes between federal agencies and individual FOIA requestors. This designation would seem to clash with Leahy and Cornyn’s OPEN Government Act of 2007, which specifically established the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as FOIA ombudsman.”
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/03/is-the-justice-dept-attempting-to-usurp-ogiss-role-as-foia-ombudsman.html

DOJ Responds to POGO Post on Department’s Proposed Changes to System of Records
“We were pleased to receive this response to our recent post on proposed changes to the Department of Justice’s system of records from the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs.”
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/03/doj-responds-to-pogo-post-on-departments-proposed-changes-to-system-of-records.html

Chicago’s Data Brain Trust Tells All
“Chicago considers itself to be leading in open data projects. Since Emanuel took office, the city has implemented projects to make Chicago data more accessible to the public such as with websites like Wasmycartowed.com and ChicagoBudget.org. More recently, the city, in combination with Cook County and Illinois, developed a “convergence cloud” so public data can be accessible across the three levels of government. Goldstein [Chicago's chief data officer] and Danielle DuMerer, a project manager for the Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology, discuss Chicago’s open data and what it takes to federate data across multiple jurisdictions.”
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Chicagos-Data-Brain-Trust-Tells-All.html

Public Policy

House set to move ‘online freedom’ bill
“A House subcommittee is scheduled to vote on a bill on Tuesday that aims to prevent U.S. companies from helping foreign regimes crack down on Internet freedom. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) has been pushing the Global Online Freedom Act for several years, but the issue has gained more attention after countries including Egypt and Syria began shutting down Internet access and blocking websites to quell popular uprisings.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/217927-house-set-to-move-online-freedom-bill

2011 Legislative Scorecards Now Available from ALA
“National Library Advocacy Day (NLLD) is right around the corner, and to help prepare for your advocacy efforts, we’ve created the 2011 ALA scorecards. Did your representative support school libraries in the Senate or the House? Did your senator co-sponsor a bill that would help school libraries? Did your representative sign onto a key letter requesting support for school libraries? Our scorecards are the definitive way to answer these and other questions.”
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/03/2011-legislative-scorecards-now-available-from-ala/

Big Data is a Big Deal
“Today, the Obama Administration is announcing the “Big Data Research and Development Initiative.”  By improving our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, the initiative promises to help accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering, strengthen our national security, and transform teaching and learning. To launch the initiative, six Federal departments and agencies will announce more than $200 million in new commitments that, together, promise to greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data. Learn more about ongoing Federal government programs that address the challenges of, and tap the opportunities afforded by, the big data revolution in our Big Data Fact Sheet.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/29/big-data-big-deal

Global Integrity Report: U.S. joins countries that fail to effectively implement money-in-politics rules
“Regardless of how weak or sophisticated their political financing regulations are, countries around the world are equally failing to effectively regulate the flow of money into politics, a new report finds. The Global Integrity Report: 2011, a major investigative study of 31 countries, was released today by Global Integrity, an award-winning international nonprofit organization that tracks governance and corruption trends globally. . . The United States scored just 29 out of 100 on the effectiveness of its party financing regulations and 25 out of 100 in its ability to effectively regulate contributions made to individual political candidates. Those scores represent a significant decrease from 2009, the last year Global Integrity covered the US, and reflect the negative impact of the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision in early-2010 that loosened the controls over private money flowing into US elections. Despite that backsliding, the US remains at the head of the pack when it comes to the disclosure of political finance information to the public (94 out of 100).”
http://www.globalintegrity.org/blog/GIR11

Privacy Concerns

FTC Issues Final Commission Report on Protecting Consumer Privacy
“The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s chief privacy policy and enforcement agency, issued a final report setting forth best practices for businesses to protect the privacy of American consumers and give them greater control over the collection and use of their personal data. In the report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations For Businesses and Policymakers,” the FTC also recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation.”
http://ftc.gov/opa/2012/03/privacyframework.shtm

International Outlook

Draft Spanish access to information law contains excessive exceptions and falls below international standards
“The Spanish government today opened for public consultation the draft “Law on Transparency, Access to Public Information, and Good Governance”. Specialist NGO Access Info Europe welcomed the law and unprecedented consultation but noted that serious improvements are needed to bring the law into line with international standards, in particular by revising the definition of information which establishes excessive exceptions thereby excluding large quantities of information from the right to request access.”
http://www.access-info.org/en/spain-coalicion-pro-acceso/230-draft-spanish-access-to-information-law-contains-excessive-exceptions-and-falls-below-international-standards-

Transparency International Russia follows the money in the €100 billion state procurement sector
“Under a new law, companies in Russia’s mаssive state-owned business sector must now publish rules for purchasing and service contracts, and report all public contracts worth 2500 Euros or more. Transparency International Russia will take advantage of this new openness to track the estimated $100 billion of state sector buying power — an amount equivalent to 10 per cent of Russia’s GDP. The new law is meant to improve transparency and accountability of state-run firms, which have gained a reputation for being closed to public scrutiny, almost inaccessible for many federal and local government departments.”
http://blog.transparency.org/2012/03/27/transparency-international-russia-follows-the-money-in-the-e100-billion-state-procurement-sector/

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