Freedom of Information

Kiriakou Not Allowed to Argue Lack of Intent to Harm U.S.

A court ruled this month that former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who is charged with unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the media, will not be permitted to argue at trial that he intended no harm to the United States, or that his entire career testifies to a deep commitment to national security.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/10/kiriakou_intent.html
GPO PARTNERS WITH TREASURY DEPARTMENT ON PUBLIC ACCESS TO DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

“The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury are partnering on a pilot project to make digitized content from the Treasury library available on GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys), a one-stop site to authentic, published Government information. Through the pilot project, the Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange, 1956-2005, which list the exchange rates of foreign currencies based on the dollar, are now available on FDsys. Over the next year, additional historical documents within the Treasury’s library collection will be made available on FDsys, including the Official Register of the United States: 1829-1861; 1879-1959, a publication with information about the Federal workforce, including the name of every employee, their job title, state or country of birth, the location of their post, and their annual salary”

http://www.librarystuff.net/2012/10/17/gpo-partners-with-treasury-department-on-public-access-to-digital-collections/
ProQuest Study Looks Beyond Journals to Identify What Other Sources Faculty Consult for

“In addition to using scholarly journals for active research projects, business faculty rely on materials that share insights and ideas ahead of publication, according to a new study from ProQuest that explores non-journal resources. Business faculty members are using working papers, printed books, pre-prints, conference proceedings and dissertations to explore specific research topics. When asked about passive forms of research — such as staying up-to-date in the field or identifying ideas for further research — newspapers join books at the top of most-used resources.”
http://www.librarystuff.net/2012/10/17/proquest-study-looks-beyond-journals-to-identify-what-other-sources-faculty-consult-for-research/
Announcing Whispercast for Kindle–A Free Self-Service Tool for Schools and Businesses to Manage Large Deployments of Kindles and Support Purchase and Distribution of Kindle Books and Documents Across Kindle E-Readers, Kindle Fires and Free Kindle Reading Appsfrom

“Amazon.com, Inc. today announced “Whispercast for Kindle,” giving schools and business customers a simple, scalable online tool for deploying Kindle devices and Kindle content. Whispercast provides a single access point to easily purchase and distribute Kindle books and documents for educational, marketing and employee incentive programs across Kindle devices and free Kindle reading applications for iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, PCs and Macs. In the coming months, Whispercast will support distribution of Kindle Fire applications.”
http://www.librarystuff.net/2012/10/17/announcing-whispercast-for-kindle-a-free-self-service-tool-for-schools-and-businesses-to-manage-large-deployments-of-kindles-and-support-purchase-and-distribution-of-kindle-books-and-documents/
Groups Call on Congress to Rein in Excessive Compensation of Defense Department

Groups Call on Congress to Rein in Excessive Compensation
of Defense Department Contractors

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2012—Today, a group of public interest organizations and unions wrote to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, urging them to rein in excessive government compensation of Defense Department contractors. The groups strongly support an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (S. 3254) that would lower the cap on such compensation.
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12251
Obama’s big green donors starting to thaw – New Solyndra emails – Inhofe to release report on regs delayed until after election – N.Y. Senate candidate spar over fracking safety

THE BIG GREEN THAW: Some wealthy green donors who enthusiastically backed President Barack Obama four years ago are steering their dollars elsewhere this election. Others are opening their checkbooks to aid the president — but largely out of fear of what a Mitt Romney administration would do to their causes. Darren Goode has the story for Pros:
https://www.politicopro.com/login/
Public Policy

The Purpose of National Security Policy

The most fundamental purpose of national security policy is not to keep the nation safe from physical attack but to defend the constitutional order. At least, that is what President Reagan wrote in a Top Secret 1986 directive.

“The primary objective of U.S. foreign and security policy is to protect the integrity of our democratic institutions and promote a peaceful global environment in which they can thrive,” President Reagan wrote in National Security Decision Directive 238 on “Basic National Security Strategy,” which was partially declassified in 2005.

In a list of national security objectives, the directive does note the imperative “to protect the United States… from military, paramilitary, or terrorist attack.”
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/10/nsdd_238.html
Job Growth During the Recovery

New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has not made available to the public include the following.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41434.pdf
Miles of Documents Now Online

“Imagine if the entirety of the Library of Alexandria, once a vast repertory of documents from the ancient world, had been digitized and preserved on the Internet before its destruction. Now imagine the digital collection had a function allowing users to search—and find—a single name. That’s what Georgette Bennett and Leonard Polonsky did. Then they provided a lead gift of $1 million to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Global Archives to enable the digitization of 1.8 million historic documents.”
http://www.librarystuff.net/2012/10/17/miles-of-documents-now-online/
Copyright

“What has developed in the content industries is a sense that copyright exists to support their

“What has developed in the content industries is a sense that copyright exists to support their businesses, so any new way they find to extract a little extra money from the rights they hold should be endorsed and protected by the courts. If you start from that premise, it makes sense to sue libraries for providing digital copies to blind people and professors for giving students access to short excerpts from a scholarly book because you believe you are acting from within the core purpose of copyright. But the premise is wrong.”
http://policynotes.arl.org/post/33838462253/what-has-developed-in-the-content-industries-is-a

International Outlook

Google Under Pressure from EU Regulators on Privacy

On Oct. 16, European Union data protection authorities issued a letter to Google CEO Larry Page calling upon the search engine giant to revisit its privacy policy. Earlier this year, the policy was unified into one policy covering a wide range of different Google services and integrating data from Google search history and YouTube accounts. When Google first unveiled its new privacy policy, European regulators greeted it with skepticism and requested Google to delay instituting the revised policy. Google refused. The letter followed a months-long exchange between Google and EU privacy regulators, stemming from a formal investigation as to whether Google’s new privacy policy adheres to EU privacy regulations.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/google-under-pressure-eu-data-commissioners-privacy-policy
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.