Freedom of Information;

U.S. federal judge lifts ban on public access to Medicare data
A U.S. federal judge lifted a 33-year-old injunction barring public access to a confidential database of Medicare insurance claims, a decision that could lead to greater scrutiny of how physicians treat patients and charge for their services. Judge Marcia Morales Howard ruled in favor of a motion by Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida lift an injunction imposed in 1979.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/medicare-lawsuit-idUSL2N0EC25U20130531.

Intellectual Property Issues:

Academic Authors: Guild Does Not Speak for Us
On June 11, some 133 academic authors filed an amici curiae brief in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case, in support of the HathiTrust. (In October 2012, The Honorable Harold Baer, Jr., held that the HathiTrust’s mass digitization is fair use, but the Guild filed an appeal in November.)
The brief distinguished their interest from that of the Guild’s members and pointed out that they are not only different, but diametrically opposed. "A ‘win’ for the Authors Guild would be a ‘loss’ for academic authors," the brief stated bluntly.
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/06/litigation/academic-authors-guild-does-not-speak-for-us/.

Justices rule human genes cannot be patented
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that human genes cannot be patented, a decision with both immediate benefits for some breast and ovarian cancer patients and long-lasting repercussions for biotechnology research.
Since 1984, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted more than 40,000 patents tied to genetic material. About one-fourth of the 22,000 human genes have been patented — patents that are now invalidated. That could open up competition in genetic testing for diseases ranging from Duchenne muscular dystrophy to inheritable heart arrhythmia.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/13/supreme-court-gene-breast-ovarian-cancer-patent/2382053/.

Open Access:

The Papers of the Founding Fathers Are Now Online
What was the original intent behind the Constitution and other documents that helped shape the nation? What did the Founders of our country have to say? Those questions persist in the political debates and discussions to this day, and fortunately, we have a tremendous archive left behind by those statesmen who built the government over 200 years ago. The Founders Online is a new website at the National Archives that will allow people to search this archive of the Founding Era, and read just what the Founders wrote and discussed during the first draft of the American democracy.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/06/13/papers-founding-founders-are-now-online.

Privacy Issues:

It’s Not Just About US: How the NSA Threatens Human Rights Internationally
The recent news about the NSA’s overreaching mass surveillance isn’t just about us in the US: it impacts everyone who uses the Internet and the major services that are offered over it. And although not everyone is entitled to rights under the US Constitution, every person is entitled to human rights – including the right to be free from unchecked surveillance.
That was the overriding message of a joint civil society statement delivered on Monday to the United Nations Human Rights Council. That statement in turn relied on a recent landmark report (PDF) to the UN by Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression Frank La Rue highlighting growing concern about the impact of widespread government surveillance on human rights worldwide.
https://www.cdt.org/blogs/1206it%E2%80%99s-not-just-about-us-how-nsa-threatens-human-rights-internationally.

Internet Access:

Library For All Builds Ebook Platform for Developing World
Library For All has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an ebook platform that would enable the distribution of ebooks in the developing world. The organization is seeking $100,000 in pledges to roll out a pilot program at the Respire School in Gressier, Haiti this fall.
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/06/ebooks/library-for-all-builds-ebook-platform-for-developing-world/.

International Outlook:

Open Wi-Fi Comes to Tunisia: Ex-Dictator’s House Turned Into "openwireless.org" Hotspot
The Open Wireless Movement has come to Tunisia! When former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali was ousted, the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) was quickly transformed from an institution of control to one of openness, reversing the oppressive censorship policies of the Ben Ali era. Similarly, the ATI’s building-once a private home of Ben Ali-is now being transformed into a space for citizens to innovate. Inside the basement of the building is #404Lab, a hackerspace that reclaims the space where censorship was once conducted.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/open-wi-fi-comes-tunisia-ex-dictators-house-turned-openwirelessorg-hotspot.

How Timbuktu’s manuscripts were smuggled to safety
When Islamist rebels set fire to two libraries in Timbuktu earlier this year, many feared the city’s treasure trove of ancient manuscripts had been destroyed. But many of the texts had already been removed from the buildings and were at that very moment being smuggled out of the city, under the rebels’ noses.
When Islamist rebels took over Timbuktu last year, looking after the documents began to look like an impossible task. The rebels soon began destroying shrines they considered "idolatrous."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22704960.

Report: "Library and Archives Canada Private Deal Would Take Millions of Documents Out of Public Domain"
Library and Archives Canada has entered a hush-hush deal with a private high-tech consortium that would hand over exclusive rights to publicly owned books and artifacts for 10 years. The plan is scheduled to be announced publicly on Friday and according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, a gag order has been placed on everyone involved in the project until then. The plan effectively means that Canadians will have to pay twice for timely access to material they already own.
http://www.infodocket.com/2013/06/12/report-library-and-archives-canada-private-deal-would-take-millions-of-documents-out-of-public-domain/.

Public Policy:

"Fix the Debt" Corporate Supporters Would Reap $173 Billion Windfall from Territorial Tax
Fifty-nine corporations behind the "Fix the Debt" campaign could reap $173 billion in immediate tax windfalls if a "territorial tax" is enacted, according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies. The Fix the Debt campaign has lobbied extensively for a territorial tax system. The adoption of a territorial tax system, which would exempt U.S. corporations’ foreign profits from taxation, would ensure that the coalition’s members permanently avoid taxes on more than $544 billion in offshore profits.
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/fix-debt-corporate-supporters-would-reap-173-billion-windfall-territorial-tax.

Weird Stuff:

11 Weird Books That Really Exist
Although not every author’s masterwork is cut out for The New York Times Best Seller list, there are some books that are just so downright bizarre that it’s hard to imagine anyone reading them at all. Online bookseller AbeBooks collects the best and strangest in its Weird Book Room, which is full of gems like these, including Dating for Under a Dollar: 301 Ideas, How to Land a Top-Paying Pierogi Makers Job, and Does God Ever Speak Through Cats?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/50925/11-weird-books-really-exist.

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:

Just How Many Drone Licenses Has the FAA Really Issued? 
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the FAA has issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007 and noted this was "far more than were previously known." This new number points out again how difficult it is to answer the most common questions EFF gets from reporters about drones — just how many agencies have applied for drone licenses? How many licenses has the FAA issued since it started issuing licenses (which was earlier than 2007)? And how much has domestic drone use increased over the years?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/just-how-many-drone-licenses-has-faa-really-issued.

Action sought on Farm Bill amendment that would exempt factory farms from Freedom of Information Act
I just got word that the terrible Farm Bill Amendment #970 proposed by Grassley-Donnelly could go to a vote as soon as tomorrow. The amendment would exempt factory farms from the Freedom of Information Act so that EPA would not be able to release any information about them to the public as it relates to any of their environmental regulations (e.g., the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, CERCLA, EPCRA, etc.).
Luckily Senator Ben Cardin (MD) has introduced a side-by-side amendment that will hopefully be voted on as an alternative to Senator Grassley’s Amendment. It balances Freedom of Information to protect the public, but also respects information personal in nature.
http://rockrivertimes.com/2013/06/06/action-sought-on-farm-bill-amendment-that-would-exempt-factory-farms-from-freedom-of-information-act/.

Privacy Issues:

States’ Hospital Data for Sale Puts Privacy in Jeopardy
Hospitals in the U.S. pledge to keep a patient’s health background confidential. Yet states from Washington to New York are putting privacy at risk by selling records that can be used to link a person’s identity to medical conditions using public information. The potential for a patient’s hospital record to be made public by anyone buying data compiled by states adds to ways privacy is vulnerable in an age of digitized health record keeping and increasingly sophisticated hacking. State public-health agencies received an exemption from the federal law, formally the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, enacted in 1996. The privacy rules took effect in 2003, though they apply only to health-care providers, insurers, billing and claims processors and their contractors.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/states-hospital-data-for-sale-puts-privacy-in-jeopardy.html.

ALA calls for accountability and transparency in nation’s surveillance laws
The American Library Association (ALA) is gravely concerned, but unfortunately not surprised, at this week’s revelations that the U.S. government obtained the phone records of all Verizon customers for the last seven years. Leaders of the association again call upon Congress to provide more accountability and transparency about how the government is obtaining and using vast amounts of information about innocent people. ALA’s response follows media reports that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has every three months, for seven years, been renewing a Section 215 order to obtain phone records of all Verizon customers.
http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2013/06/ala-calls-accountability-and-transparency-nation%E2%80%99s-surveillance-laws.

Internet Access:

The "Internet of Things": New Technologies and the Promise of Ubiquitous Computing
Refrigerators that can order fresh gallons of milk. Electricity meters that provide detailed usage analytics. Medical devices that can collect detailed biometric data. Until recently, such consumer products have been confined to the dreams of futurists and Jetsons devotees. But with the rise of smart grid technology and Internet-enabled consumer goods, the so-called "Internet of Things" has become less of a fantasy and more of a foreseeable future in consumers’ lives. However, the rise of such technologies will create new challenges for companies, policymakers, and regulators seeking to determine adequate privacy and security models.
https://www.cdt.org/blogs/gs-hans/0606%E2%80%9Cinternet-things%E2%80%9D-new-technologies-and-promise-ubiquitous-computing.

Public Policy:

Protecting Military Whistleblowers and Victims of Sexual Assault
Members of Congress are rightly outraged at the epidemic of sexual assault in the military. No one should have to suffer the trauma of sexual assault – least of all those Americans who have volunteered to serve our country, and whom our military has a duty to keep safe. Sadly, that promise is not being kept. Approximately 26,000 service members were victimized in the past year, according to a recent Defense Department survey. Even worse, of the women service members who suffered sexual assault, nearly 70 percent did not report the crime to a military authority – a majority of which said that they felt uncomfortable making a report. And no wonder why: of the women who did report, more than 60 percent said they suffered retaliation for doing so.
In response, lawmakers have proposed ways to strengthen whistleblower protections for members of the armed services. The legislation comes against a broader backdrop of government and media reports that have found problems with the handling of military whistleblower protection cases and weaknesses in the current state of the law over the last several years.
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/protecting-military-whistleblowers-and-victims-sexual-assault.

Open Access:

Publishers Offer CHORUS as Solution to Federal Open Access Requirements
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has put forward its bid for a coalition of publishers to handle many of the requirements outlined in the recent Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memo requiring open access to federally funded research, in the form of the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS). The publishers are in discussions with OSTP, the funding agencies, universities and research library communities (as are other proposed solutions by other stakeholders, not yet announced).
Others in the scholarly community have raised sinister ideas as possible motivations. "Given that the AAP clearly thinks that public access policies are bad for their businesses, they would have a strong incentive to make their implementation of a public access policy as difficult to use and as functionless as possible in order to drive down usage and make the policies appear to be a failure," PLOS co-founder Michael Eisen wrote.
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/06/oa/publishers-offer-chorus-as-ostp-solution/.

The Impact of Opening Up Zoning Data
The content, format, and quality of the zoning information municipalities share varies widely. Posting this information online empowers policymakers to better understand the impact of their decisions and allows people to provide accountability on the process. Access to this information can also help people understand what they are or are not allowed to do — but zoning data, even in an open format, is not always easy to understand. Thankfully, having this data publicly available has also enabled applications and news stories that contextualize the information and show people just how zoning regulations and processes can impact them.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/06/05/the-impact-of-opening-up-zoning-data/.

Intellectual Property:

US Takes Apple to Trial Over E-Books Price-Fixing
Apple goes to trial Monday over allegations by federal and state authorities that it conspired with publishers to raise the price of e-books. The trial pits the maker of the popular iPad and iPhone against the U.S. Justice Department in a case that tests how Internet retailers interact with content providers. "This case will effectively set the rules for Internet commerce," said David Balto, a former policy director for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100782703.

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

Data.gov embraces open source data management
“As part of a series of major upgrades, Data.gov today moved to a new data catalog based on an open source data management system, the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network – better known as CKAN. The new data catalog is a key component of the Data.gov 2.0 coming in the next few months. Users visiting the new data catalog will notice the improved search function, which now allows the user to find all datasets for a particular location, better sorting and tagging of datasets and improved metadata.”
http://fedscoop.com/data-gov-embraces-open-source-data-management/ http://www.data.gov/

DATA bill introduced
“A bill to change the way federal government spending data is reported was formally introduced in the House and the Senate on May 21. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act establishes standards for federal spending data published to the USASpending.gov portal, and requires agencies to report internal spending in addition to awards, grants, and contracts. The House version was quickly and unanimously approved on May 22 by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where it has the strong backing of committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). Passage in the full House is widely expected. The Senate companion measure was introduced by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Vir.) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).”
http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/22/data-act.aspx

Committee on House Administration Supports Public’s Right to Gov’t Docs
“The influential Committee on House Administration released a letter yesterday that endorsed the principle that “the documents of our democracy should be available to all Americans electronically, in perpetuity, and for free.” The letter, signed by every member of the committee, rejected a recommendation made in a flawed report issued by the National Academy of Public Administration, which had called for the Government Printing Office to consider charging “end uses” for online access to government documents made available through the online portal FDsys.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/05/23/committee-on-house-administration-supports-publics-right-to-govt-docs/

House Administration Rejects NAPA Recommendation to Charge Public for Access to Legislative Documents
“Today, House Administration Chairman Candice Miller, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Robert Brady, D-Pa., issued the following statement after the full Committee sent a letter to the Acting Public Printer of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) rejecting a recent recommendation by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to charge the public for access to GPO’s congressional documents.”
http://cha.house.gov/press-release/house-administration-rejects-napa-recommendation-charge-public-access-legislative

Open Access

Illinois State Senator Biss’ open access legislation passes House
“Legislation State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) sponsored to work toward making state universities’ taxpayer-funded research available to the public passed the House today by a vote of 98-16. Senate Bill 1900, which will require each public university to convene an open access task force, now awaits the governor’s signature.”
http://www.illinoissenatedemocrats.com/index.php/sen-biss-home/3420-biss-open-access-legislation-passes-house

Don’t Believe the Publishers’ Hype: Support Open Access
“Once again, we are seeing entrenched interests try to fight the future with scare tactics and misinformation. This time, it’s major journal publishers, and their target is open access to taxpayer-funded research.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/dont-believe-publishers-hype-support-open-access

Intellectual Property

Obama Stops Championing Treaty That Gives the Blind Better Access to E-Books
“The Obama administration went on record four years ago supporting a proposed international treaty to make books more accessible to the blind. But as world leaders prepare to gather in Morocco next month to finalize a deal that Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay proposed in 2009, the administration is mum on whether it supports a treaty that would, for the first time, loosen copyright restrictions. Many fear lobbying by Hollywood and dozens of the world’s largest corporations, including ExxonMobil, may scuttle the treaty altogether.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/ip-blind-treaty/

International Outlook

Her Majesty’s Government Wants to Monetize Open Data
“A new paper from the chair of the U.K. government’s Open Strategy Board outlines the best practices for the government’s open data policies. The government-commissioned Shakespeare Review – after author Stephan Shakespeare – looks into ways to monetize open data, and recommends an all-encompassing National Data Strategy. According to Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov and chair of the Open Strategy Board, the U.K. leads the world in making government data public. However, his report cautions the government against releasing data willy-nilly if they want to capitalize on the open data market (which the report finds could generate £2 billion ($3 billion) in the short term and £6 – 7 billion ($9 – 10.6 billion) later on. Many of his suggestions are aimed at simply streamlining the open data: designating leadership for the initiative, ensuring that what is said will be done is done, and releasing rough data quickly and refined and verified data in a second, higher quality data set. The Open Rights Group took issue with some of Shakespeare’s provisions for privacy and transparency. They found the “exclusive focus on economic growth, against transparency and accountability” troubling.”
http://techpresident.com/news/23901/making-bank-open-data-uk

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

Justices say states can limit access to public records
“The Supreme Court on Monday said states are free to allow public records access only to their own citizens, delivering a blow to freedom of information advocates who had challenged a Virginia law. In a unanimous ruling, the court said two out-of-state men did not have a right to view the documents. Various other states, including Tennessee, Arkansas and Delaware, have similar laws, although some do not enforce them.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/29/us-usa-court-records-idUSBRE93S0N420130429

Supreme Court FOI Decision Foolish and Shortsighted
“Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Virginia law that generally prohibits non-Virginians from making use of its Freedom of Information law. As part of its decision in McBurney v. Young, the Court held that the Constitution’s Article IV “Privileges and Immunities” clause does not extend to a non-Virginian’s right to access public information on equal terms with Virginia citizens.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/04/30/supreme-court-foi-decision-foolish-and-shortsighted/

Support for the PIDB’s Recommendations Continues to Grow
“The Public Interest Declassification Board received recognition at a recent academic conference titled The Legal and Civil Policy Implications of “Leaks” at the American University Washington College of Law.  A panel focusing on the legislative response to “leaks” discussed what impact over-classification and the current state of the security classification system have on the prevalence of leaks.”
http://blogs.archives.gov/transformingclassification/?p=467

USAID releases open data tools to increase government openness
“The U.S. Agency for International Development announced April 29 the launch of a plethora of new datasets and tools to increase transparency. The unveiling took place at the G-8 Conference on Open Data for Agriculture in Washington, D.C., and brought together G-8 countries and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to discuss open data for agriculture and to create action plans for food security datasets.”
http://fedscoop.com/usaid-releases-open-data-tools-to-increase-government-openness/

Public Policy

As Works Flood In, Nation’s Library Treads Water
“The Sea Creatures, who recently sent their recording “Naked in the Rain” to the Library of Congress, probably did not ponder the impact of sequestration on their music’s journey from dream to copyright. Just as military contractors, air traffic controllers and federal workers are coping with the grim results of a partisan impasse over the federal deficit, the Library of Congress, whose services range from copyrighting written works — whether famous novels or poems scribbled on napkins — to the collection, preservation and digitalization of millions of books, photographs, maps and other materials, faces deep cuts that threaten its historic mission.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/books/budget-cuts-hobble-library-of-congress.html?_r=0

2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed hopes after spring
“After the “Arab springs” and other protest movements that prompted many rises and falls in last year’s index, the 2013 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index marks a return to a more usual configuration. The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term.”
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html

Digital History

Are digitization and budget cuts compromising history?
“”When people say everything’s online,” says Jerry Dupont of the Law Library Microform Consortium, “they’re woefully uninformed.” Dupont, founder of the LLMC, a nonprofit law library cooperative, estimates that of the 2 million unique volumes contained in America’s law libraries, only about 15 percent are available in digital form. That figure includes access via proprietary, commercial services like Westlaw and LexisNexis. Across the country, law libraries are trying to adapt to the digital revolution and preserve historic and precedential documents. But budget cuts have hit hard at academic law libraries, which historically have hosted some of the most robust legal collections. And the pressures are creating concerns that the public will lose access to essential legal documents.”
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/are_digitization_and_budget_cuts_compromising_history

Open Access

Open Access Spreads
“A bill in the California legislature would require state-funded research to be made public free of charge within a year of its publication. If it passes, the bill would create an open access policy for California’s state-funded research similar to a policy announced earlier this year by the Obama administration. The federal policy, which is not yet finalized, would apply to most federally supported non-defense research. California is not the only state moving to make public the published research it helps to fund; Illinois is weighing a similar proposal.”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/29/california-weighs-its-own-open-access-plan

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

US government sends itself a takedown notice

As you may know, works of the U.S. Government are not protected by copyright in the U.S. (17 USC §105), but we often discover copyrighted government publications that one would reasonably think would be in the public domain and, more recently, we see works that were treated as public domain in print suddenly being treated as copyrighted when they are converted to digital. No matter how clear the law is, this can lead to confusing situations.
http://freegovinfo.info/node/3920

Open access: four ways it could enhance academic freedom

The power of funding alone should not be enough to override academic freedom, argues Curt Rice, nor does open access automatically skew the world of scholarship
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2013/apr/22/open-access-academic-freedom-publishing

Order and Liberty: The DPLA Launches

I wasn’t entirely sure what the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) would look like when the long-awaited launch date of April 18 approached. The suspense is finally over: it looks great.
The DPLA is an effort to unify access to cultural assets of the nation and make them free to all. We are not the first country to try this; in fact we’re a bit behind, perhaps because we have a tradition of local library planning and support and because we don’t have a true national library.
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/order-and-liberty-dpla-launches#ixzz2SBtsGG8R

Owner, new CEO of Powell’s Books see strength in brick and mortar

It’s tough to think about how people will read in 50 years when you’re worrying about what they’ll read tomorrow. So after just a couple of years as chief executive of Powell’s Books, Emily Powell — granddaughter of the bookseller’s founder — told employees last month she would step down and focus on the Portland company’s long-term strategy in a quickly changing market.
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/04/owner_new_ceo_of_powells_books.html

Public Policy

3D-printed guns are inevitable

NEW YORK–For months, a debate has raged in the media and on Capitol Hill about whether or not society (and the law) should allow 3D-printed guns. After listening to Cody Wilson speak for a few minutes, one can’t help but come away feeling that the national discussion is moot: 3D-printed firearms are inevitable.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57581053-76/3d-printed-guns-are-inevitable/

Privacy Concerns

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet? That’s a question we faced during our January visit to North Korea, when we attempted to engage with the Pyongyang traffic police. You may have seen videos on the Web of the capital city’s “traffic cops,” whose ballerina-like street rituals, featured in government propaganda videos, have made them famous online.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578424650479285218

Feds Push for Backdoor Wiretap Capabilities

Washington – The Washington Post reported today that the FBI is seeking authority to require surveillance backdoors in all popular Internet products and services.
“A wiretapping mandate is a vulnerability mandate,” said CDT Senior Staff Technologist Joe Hall. “The unintended consequences of this proposal are profound. At the very time when the nation is concerned about cybersecurity, the FBI proposal has the potential to make our communications less secure. Once you build a wiretap capability into products and services, the bad guys will find a way to use it.”
https://www.cdt.org/pr_statement/feds-push-backdoor-wiretap-capabilities

Intellectual Property

Human genome: US Supreme Court hears patents case

The US Supreme Court has heard arguments questioning whether the human genome can be claimed as intellectual property. The case relates to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2009, and centres on whether companies should be able to patent genes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22157410

International Outlook

World Book Night 2013: half a million free books to be handed out

20,000 volunteers will hand out half a million books tonight as part of World Book Night 2013. The event, now in its third year, aims to promote literacy and share the joy of books with people who might not normally read.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10011224/World-Book-Night-2013-half-a-million-free-books-to-be-handed-out.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

Sunshine Week: In Celebration of Open Government
“As President Barack Obama has stated, “Openness will strengthen our democracy, and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.” This week, we celebrate Sunshine Week — an appropriate time to discuss the importance of open government and freedom of information, and to take stock of how far we have come, and think about what more can be done.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/11/sunshine-week-celebration-open-government

Sunshine Week: A Round-up of EFF’s Year in Transparency
“This week, EFF once again joins a coalition of national and local transparency and press organizations in celebrating Sunshine Week as a way to bring attention to the importance of public records and the need to remain vigilant despite government push-back. Forty-seven years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law, giving the public the right to access records pertaining to government activities. Pronounced “foy-yah” by those who regularly employ it, the law serves as a sort of citizen subpoena process; if you ask for a record that doesn’t fall under a confidentiality exemption, the government has to produce it. Each day this week, EFF will be sharing details about our efforts to hold the government accountable using this crucial tool, including our successes and challenges. To kick it all off, here’s a breakdown of our greatest transparency hits since the last time Sunshine Week rolled around.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/sunshine-week-year-transparency

Open States: Transparency Report Card
“Today we’re making available our Transparency Report Card, a byproduct of the work we did in producing Open States. In the course of writing scrapers for all 50 state legislatures, our Open States team and volunteers spent a lot of time looking at state legislative websites and struggling with the often inadequate information made available.  Impossibly difficult to navigate sites, information going missing and gnarly PDFs of tabular data have become daily occurrences for those of us working on Open States. People are always curious to know how their state stacked up compared to others — in fact one of the most frequent questions we have been asked has been “so which state was the worst?”  That question got us thinking:  How could we derive a measure of how “open” a state’s legislative data was?”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/03/11/openstates-report-card/ http://openstates.org/reportcard/ http://openstates.org/

Governor Cuomo Launches Open.NY.Gov Providing Public Unprecedented User-Friendly Access to Federal, State and Local Data
“Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched “open.ny.gov,” a new and comprehensive state data transparency website that provides – for the first time – user-friendly, one-stop access to data from New York State agencies, localities, and the federal government. The website, featuring economic development, health, recreation, and public services information, was unveiled today during Sunshine Week, a nationwide initiative designed to raise awareness about the importance of open government.”
http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/03112013open-data http://open.ny.gov/

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): Background and Policy Options for the 113th Congress
“This report provides background on FOIA, discusses the categories of records FOIA exampts from public release, and analyzes statistics on FOIA administration. The report also provides background on severla legal and policy issues related to FOIA, including the release of controversial records, the growth in use of certain FOIA exemptions, and the adoption of new technologies to improve FOIA administration. The report concludes with an examination of potenital FOIA-related policy options for Congress.”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41933.pdf

Bipartisan Bill Aims to Beef Up FOIA Compliance
“The Republican and Democrat sitting atop Congress’ top watchdog panel unveiled joint proposed legislation Tuesday that would mandate a single online portal for all Freedom of Information Act requests across government. The 2013 FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act would direct officials to look closely at FOIA Online, a 5-month old joint FOIA Portal for the Commerce Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and a handful of other agencies. It would leave the door open for the governmentwide FOIA system to be built elsewhere, though, according to a press release from sponsors Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.”
http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2013/03/bipartisan-legislation-aims-beef-foia-compliance/61821/

Freedom of Information Act Performance, 2012: Agencies Are Processing More Requests but Redacting More Often
“A building block of American democracy is the idea that citizens have a right to information about how their government works and what it does in their name. However, citizen access to public information was only established by law in 1966 with the passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The law has since been strengthened and improved over the years, and FOIA currently requires federal agencies to formally respond to requests for information within 20 working days or potentially face a lawsuit. While there are exemptions that agencies can use to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information or information that violates privacy rights, agencies processed over half a million FOIA requests in 2012. In about 41 percent of these cases, the information requested was released “in full” with no parts “redacted” – i.e., clean, complete documents with no blacked-out parts were provided to the person who requested the information. How does this compare to past years and past administrations? How well has President Obama met his goal of being the most transparent administration in history with regard to access to public information? This report examines the processing of FOIA requests from 25 major federal agencies in 2012 and reviews the processing of FOIA requests by agencies since 1998.”
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/freedom-information-act-agencies-are-processing-more-requests-but-redacting-more-often

Whither whistleblowing: Where have all the leaking sites gone?
“More than two years ago, a flurry of new WikiLeaks clones sprung up around the world inspired by the world’s most famous transparency-driven organization. They had all kinds of names: QuebecLeaks, BaltiLeaks, EnviroLeaks, and more. PirateLeaks (based in the Czech Republic), BrusselsLeaks (Belgium) and RuLeaks (Russia) all did not respond to Ars’ requests for comments. HonestAppalachia’s Jimmy Tobias wrote to Ars to say the group was “active indeed, and working on a variety of projects.” To date, HonestAppalachia has yet to publish anything, despite receiving a $5,000 grant from the Sunlight Foundation nearly a year ago. Most of these clones never got very far and appear to have all but shut down. Balkanleaks seems to be just one of a handful still actively receiving and publishing new documents. “I think this points to the fact that what WikiLeaks did was fairly unique and probably a few years ahead of its time,” said Trevor Timm, co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. So how does Balkanleaks thrive where others haven’t?”
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/whither-whistleblowing-where-have-all-the-leaking-sites-gone/

Aaron Swartz to receive posthumous ‘Freedom of Information’ award for open access advocacy
“Internet activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz is slated to receive posthumous recognition in Washington for his efforts promoting free access to taxpayer-funded research. The James Madison Freedom of Information Award is administered by the American Library Association, and recognizes “individuals who have championed, protected and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know national information.”"
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/13/4099792/aaron-swartz-to-receive-posthumous-freedom-of-information-award-for

Senator Tester Champions Government Transparency; Reintroduces POIA
“Today, Senator Jon Tester reintroduced The Public Online Information Act (POIA) a bill that would take already public government information out of file cabinets and put it online in user friendly formats.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/03/12/senator-tester-champions-government-transparency-reintroduces-poia/

National Security Letters Are Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules
“A federal district court judge in San Francisco has ruled that National Security Letter (NSL) provisions in federal law violate the Constitution. The decision came in a lawsuit challenging a NSL on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In the ruling publicly released today, Judge Susan Illston ordered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stop issuing NSLs and cease enforcing the gag provision in this or any other case. The landmark ruling is stayed for 90 days to allow the government to appeal.”
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/national-security-letters-are-unconstitutional-federal-judge-rules

Shining a Light on FOIA Practices
“In celebration of Sunshine Week, a number of organizations released Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reviews. These reviews, conducted by National Security Archives, the Center for Effective Government, Cause of Action, Associated Press, and OpenTheGovernment.org, indicate how agencies measure up when it comes to providing the public with information. Although the studies indicate that agencies on the whole increased their responses to FOIA requests in 2012, disparities remain between agencies on things like response time, compliance with the 2007 Open Government Act and 2009 Guidance from the White House, cost of responding, fee waivers, and backlog reductions. A majority of responses to FOIA requests in 2012 were only partial responses, and use of exemptions to withhold or redact information increased. The following snapshots contain some of the highlights of each review.”
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/03/20130315-shining-a-light-on-foia-practices.html

Public Policy

2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed hopes after spring
“After the “Arab springs” and other protest movements that prompted many rises and falls in last year’s index, the 2013 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index marks a return to a more usual configuration. The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term.”
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html

National Archives to Help Launch the Digital Public Library of America’s Pilot Project
“Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that the National Archives, as a leading content provider to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), will help launch its first pilot project. The DPLA is a large-scale, collaborative project across government, research institutions, museums, libraries and archives to build a digital library platform to make America’s cultural and scientific history free and publicly available anytime, anywhere, online through a single access point.”
http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2013/nr13-72.html

Open Access

IMLS Director Susan Hildreth Supports Broad Access to Federally Funded Research
“The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced today its continuing commitment to expanding public access to IMLS funded research. In a February 22 memorandum, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy directed agencies to develop plans to increase access to federally funded scientific research and improve the management of research data. The following is a statement from IMLS Director Susan H. Hildreth.”
http://www.imls.gov/imls_director_susan_hildreth_supports_broad_access_to_federally_funded_research.aspx

Intellectual Property

What Librarians Need to Know about the New Copyright Alert System
“Late last month, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) launched its Copyright Alert System, creating a new effort by rights holders (including the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable) to curb online copyright infringement.”
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/03/new-copyright-alert-system-what-librarians-need-to-know/

Privacy Issues

Wimberly, Jasey Introduce “Reader Privacy Act” Bill Upgrading NJ Book Privacy for the Digital Age
“The rise in popularity of digital book purchasing, borrowing and concerns for individual privacy protections has prompted Assembly Democrats Benjie E. Wimberly and Mila M. Jasey to introduce legislation that would place readers and purchasers of books and electronic books –”e-Books”– under similar protections as library records by expanding reader privacy law. Wimberly and Jasey note the invention of digital books and e-readers has raised questions around the country about privacy and broadening protections to include new literary mediums. California enacted similar legislation in 2011 extending library privacy laws to include digital book records.”
http://www.politickernj.com/64006/wimberly-jasey-introduce-reader-privacy-act-bill-upgrading-nj-book-privacy-digital-age
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2012/Bills/A4000/3802_I1.HTM

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.

It’s Sunshine Week!

Celebrating Sunshine Week 2013
“Sunshine Week, a nationwide initiative highlighting the importance of open government and accountability, will be held this year from March 10-16. Created by journalists in 2002, Sunshine Week is designed to educate people on their right to access public information in understandable, user-friendly formats to participate more effectively in democracy and to use such information to protect and improve their communities. Sunshine Week coincides with James Madison’s birthday on March 16. Madison is considered the “Founding Father of Freedom of Information.” During the week, news media, government officials, educational institutions, libraries, nonprofit organizations, individuals, and anyone with an interest in open and transparent government can take part in a variety of events and activities. Shedding new light on the latest developments in freedom of government information, these events will include conferences, panel discussions, and workshops. Here are some notable events that will take place in Washington, D.C., throughout the week”
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/celebrating-sunshine-week-2013

Freedom of Information

It’s Time to Give the Public Access to CRS Reports
“Today, Representatives Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) reintroduced legislation that will make it easier for the public, the media, and government employees to better understand the important policy matters facing Congress. The bipartisan “Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2013″ would ensure that these reports, which are often cited by courts and the media and sold by third parties for $20 per copy, are freely available to the public on a website maintained by the House Clerk.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/03/07/its-time-to-give-the-public-access-to-crs-reports/

Data transparency advocates register lobbyist
“An upstart data transparency group run by a former congressional counsel has registered its first lobbyist, new U.S. Senate filings show. Hudson Hollister, a Republican who until last year served as counsel to the U.S. House’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will lobby on behalf of the Data Transparency Coalition, which wants the federal government to institute “greater efficiency and better transparency by deploying consistent data standards.”"
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/03/06/12277/data-transparency-advocates-register-lobbyist

Google Transparency Report Highlights Just How Much We Don’t Know About National Security Letters
“In an unprecedented win for transparency, yesterday Google began publishing generalized information about the number of National Security Letters that the company received in the past year as well as the total number of user accounts affected by those requests. Of all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act, the National Security Letter (NSL) power provided by five statutory provisions is one of the most frightening and invasive. These letters–the type served on communications service providers such as phone companies and ISPs and are authorized by 18 U.S.C. 2709–allow the FBI to secretly demand data about ordinary American citizens’ private communications and Internet activity without any prior judicial review. To make matters worse, recipients of NSLs are subject to gag orders that forbid them from ever revealing the letters’ existence to anyone.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-national-security-letters-google-transparency-report

In Maine, ‘sunshine’ law’s fate looks dim
“The public’s access to government information is under attack in Maine. The Legislature will take up several bills this session that would further puncture the state’s open-government law, snatching from public view information that is now considered part of the public’s right to know. If approved, the measures will reinforce Maine’s national reputation as a place where transparency and government accountability rank behind privacy and other powerful interests.”
http://www.pressherald.com/politics/sunshine-laws-fate-looks-dim-in-maine_2013-03-03.html

Obama’s Legacy of Transparency is Unfinished
“In a report released today, the Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch) examines the Obama administration’s progress on open government during the president’s first term. The review finds that the administration has issued important policy reforms, but that the implementation of White House policies has been inconsistent across federal agencies. The report, titled Delivering on Open Government: The Obama Administration’s Unfinished Legacy, reviews activity in three main areas relating to government transparency: creating an environment that supports transparency, improving the usability of government information, and reducing secrecy related to national security.”
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/obamas-legacy-of-transparency-is-unfinished
RSVP for a related Sunshine Week panel discussion and webcast on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time!  The webcast will also be archived at: http://www.youtube.com/foreffectivegov

Public Policy

GPO Celebrates 152 Years of Keeping America Informed
“Today is the 152nd birthday of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The agency first opened its doors for business on March 4, 1861, the same day Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President, with a mission based on the requirement in Article I, section 5 of the Constitution that “each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings and from time to time publish the same.” Since Lincoln’s time GPO has produced the official version of every great American state paper and an uncounted number of other Government publications, forms, and documents, including the Emancipation Proclamation, Social Security cards, Medicare and Medicaid information, census forms, tax forms, citizenship forms, military histories ranging from the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion to the latest accounts of our forces in Afghanistan, emergency documents like the ration cards and the “Buy Bonds” posters used during World War II, the Warren Commission Report on President Kennedy’s assassination, the Watergate transcripts, the 9/11 Commission Report, Presidential inaugural addresses, Supreme Court opinions, and the great acts of Congress that have shaped American society.”
http://gpo.gov/pdfs/news-media/press/13news08.pdf

Open Access

NIU Libraries launches Open Access Fund
“NIU Libraries has launched a pilot Open Access Fund that will provide small grants to faculty and graduate students to help defray the upfront costs associated with open access publishing. Grappling with the costs for expensive journal subscriptions, a number of universities nationwide, including Harvard and MIT, are promoting open access publishing. It provides unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed journal articles, thus broadening access to scholarly research. The NIU Open Access Fund seeks to advance the use of open access as a means of distributing the research and creative work of the Northern Illinois University community.”
http://www.niutoday.info/2013/03/04/niu-libraries-launches-open-access-fund/

Intellectual Property

Library Copyright Alliance Submits Reply Comments to Copyright Office on Orphan Works
“On March 5, the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA, of which the American Library Association is a member) filed reply comments (pdf) to the US Copyright Office in response to the office’s October 22, 2012, Notice of Inquiry about the current state of play with orphan works and mass digitization.”
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/03/library-copyright-alliance-submits-reply-comments-to-copyright-office-on-orphan-works/

Google Says Authors Guild Lawsuit Could Shred Modern Card Catalog
“A victory for the Authors Guild in its copyright infringement case against Google would do nothing less than destroy the “modern version of the card catalog,” the search company argues in new court papers filed this week. “This case is about whether Google’s modern version of the card catalog — a search tool that allows anyone with access to the Internet to search among millions of books — can continue to exist,” Google says. Google’s sweeping rhetoric comes in its latest round of papers stemming from its book digitization effort, which involves scanning library books and displaying snippets of some of them in its search engine, in response to queries. The company is currently appealing an order by U.S. Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin allowing the Authors Guild to proceed with its case as a class-action lawsuit.”
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195268/google-says-authors-guild-lawsuit-could-shred-mode.html#axzz2N6diKY28

Privacy Issues

CISPA is Back: FAQ on What it is and Why it’s Still Dangerous
“The privacy-invasive bill known as CISPA—the so-called “cybersecurity” bill—was reintroduced in February 2013. Just like last year, the bill has stirred a tremendous amount of grassroots activism because it carves a loophole in all known privacy laws and grants legal immunity for companies to share your private information. EFF has compiled an FAQ detailing how the bill’s major provisions work and how they endanger all Internet users’ privacy.”
https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq

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

White House Regulatory Office Too Quiet About Its Activities, Study Finds
“A notable portion of meeting records, oral communications and public comments related to agency rulemaking are absent from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website, according to a new study that faults OIRA for less-than-full transparency during the last 12 years.”
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/02/white-house-regulatory-office-too-quiet-about-its-activities-study-finds/61536/

Senator Tester Keeps Fighting the Good Fight for Transparency
“Today, Senator Tester announced that once again he has introduced the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, (not yet online) a bill that would bring the Senate into the 21st Century by requiring senators and Senate candidates to electronically file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/02/26/senator-tester-keeps-fighting-the-good-fight-for-transparency/

Public Policy

E-rate’s looming Fiscal Cliff
“While Congress and the White House debate how to prevent the looming across-the-board budgets cuts known as sequestration, those of us in the E-rate world are worrying about our own “fiscal cliff.” For the past several years E-rate applicants have been biting their nails waiting to see what totals are going to be requested from the capped fund and if there will be enough money to fund their applications. In 2012, we heard a collective gasp when the school and library applications showed that for the first time in the 15 years of the program there was not going to be enough money to cover all the priority one requests, with a shortfall of some $2.8 billion. After shaking out the couch cushions and emptying the penny jars, USAC was able to make up the deficit so that all of these applications could receive funding and the first tier of priority two applications would also receive funding.”
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/02/e-rates-looming-fiscal-cliff/

Open Access

SLA Supports Open Access to Federally Funded Research
“SLA, along with 11 other library, publishing, research and advocacy organizations, wrote a letter thanking U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden for introducing legislation titled “The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act” (FASTR). This bill, introduced on February 13, will provide an important mechanism to ensure that manuscripts of peer-reviewed scientific articles reporting on research funded by the U.S. Government can be freely accessed and fully used by all American taxpayers – including researchers, teachers, students and businesses.”
http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2013/02/sla-supports-open-access-to-federally-funded-research.html

Internet Access

Internet Governance, Policy Up for Debate at UNESCO Meeting in Paris
“This week, Internet governance experts and advocates gather in Paris to start preparing for the ten-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2015. This week’s meeting is hosted by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); CDT’s Leslie Harris and Matthew Shears will be appearing on several panels addressing questions of privacy, free expression, and cybersecurity – key issues in Internet policy that will shape governance debates over the next few years. The WSIS+10 event will give government, industry, civil society, academics, and the technical community an opportunity to continue conversations about Internet governance and policy that were features of the WCIT debates.”
https://www.cdt.org/blogs/emma-llanso/2602internet-governance-policy-debate-unesco-meeting-paris

Digital History

Building the Digital Public Library of America
“The Digital Public Library of America will launch on April 18 after two and a half years of careful planning and preparation. The project known as DPLA is the first national effort that seeks to aggregate existing records in state and regional digital libraries so that they are searchable from a single portal. Up until now, the documents that tell the story of our nation’s history and cultural heritage have largely been siloed in state and local libraries, museums, and archives. Some institutions have the ability to digitize those valuable materials and put them online, but strained budgets mean that most do not. The project’s funding will also allow it to work with local communities to digitize their cultural-heritage—preserving them for the future and bringing them online as part of our first national digital library.”
http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/2/28/building-the-digital-public-library-america/

Intellectual Property

Copyright Alert System Launching Today
“The long-discussed Copyright Alert System (CAS) is launching today — but don’t expect any immediate fireworks.  It’s going to take some time to see how the system operates in practice; all that will happen this week is that some Internet users may receive initial informational alerts. Under the CAS, ISPs will send warning notices to subscribers that copyright holders have identified as engaging in copyright infringement on peer-to-peer networks.  In the optimistic scenario, this notification-centric approach will serve a largely educational purpose, informing users that their file sharing activity may be both illegal and observable by rightsholders.  Some users may not have been fully aware of that.  And in some cases, notices may clue parents in to illegal behavior they weren’t aware of, such as file sharing by the household teenager.  This is why CDT has said that the CAS has the potential to help reduce peer-to-peer copyright infringement while sidestepping the serious concerns raised by approaches that involve (for example) government mandates or the adoption of new snooping or filtering technologies. There are risks, however.”
https://www.cdt.org/blogs/david-sohn/2502copyright-alert-system-launching-today

New German Law Will Allow Free “Snippets” By Search Engines, But Uncertainty Remains
“The good news for search engines like Google is a proposed German copyright law won’t require them to pay to show short summaries of news content. However, uncertainty remains about how much might be “too much” and require a license. The new law is expected to pass on Friday.”
http://searchengineland.com/new-german-law-will-allow-free-snippets-by-search-engines-but-uncertainty-remains-150131

Privacy Issues

Supreme Court Dismisses Challenge to FISA Amendments Act; EFF’s Lawsuit Over NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Remains
“Yesterday, the Supreme Court sadly dismissed the ACLU’s case, Clapper v. Amnesty International, which challenged the FISA Amendments Act (FAA)—the unconstitutional law that allows the government to wiretap Americans communicating with people overseas. Under the FAA, the government can conduct this surveillance without naming individuals and without a traditional probable cause warrant, as the Fourth Amendment requires. The court didn’t address the constitutionality of the FAA itself, but instead ruled that the plaintiffs—a group of lawyers, journalists, and human rights advocates who regularly communicate with likely “targets” of FAA wiretapping—couldn’t prove the surveillance was “certainly impending,” so therefore didn’t have the “standing” necessary to sue. In other words, since the Americans did not have definitive proof that they were being surveilled under the FAA—a fact the government nearly always keeps secret—they cannot challenge the constitutionality of the statute.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/supreme-court-dismisses-challenge-fisa-warrantless-wiretapping-law-effs-lawsuit

International Outlook

German National Data Portal Launched
“Wednesday saw the launch of the German national data portal. While the portal had been longtime expected, in the last days before the launch the German open data community has been vocal in its criticism of the introduction of a newly created national license framework, which includes the option to limit re-use to non-commercial use forms. The portal will also hold non-open data as well as data in closed formats. This in the expectation that once data is published in some shape or form the pressure on the data holder will rise to provide the data as really open data as well.”
http://epsiplatform.eu/content/german-national-data-portal-launched

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.

Take Action!

Call to action: Tell Congress you support the Bipartisan Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR)

Today (February 14, 2013), Senators Cornyn (R-TX) and Wyden (D-OR) and Representatives Doyle (D-PA), Yoder (R-KS), and Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act, a bill that will accelerate scientific discovery and fuel innovation by making articles reporting on publicly funded scientific research freely accessible online for anyone to read and build upon.

Every year, the federal government funds over sixty billion dollars in basic and applied research. FASTR will make these articles freely available for all potential users to read and ensure that articles can be fully used in the digital environment, enabling the use of new computational analysis tools that promise to revolutionize the research process.

Act Now!

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/news/FASTR_calltoaction.shtml.

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Open Access

Open Access Journal PeerJ Publishes First Articles

Multidisciplinary Open Access journal publisher PeerJ announced the publication of its first 30 peer-reviewed articles today. Co-founders Jason Hoyt, formerly chief scientist and VP for research and development for Mendeley, and Peter Binfield, formerly publisher of the Public Library Of Science (PLOS), launched PeerJ in June 2012. They quickly garnered support for the project, ultimately assembling an Editorial Board of 800 academics and an advisory board of 20 – five of whom are Nobel Laureates. PeerJ is now hoping that its business model can help make academic publishing more efficient and less expensive for both researchers and libraries.

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/02/publishing/open-access-journal-peerj-publishes-first-articles/.

California bill to release the state’s building codes online for free

Assemblyman Brian Nestande of California has introduced Assembly Bill 292, which would open source the California Code of Regulations (including the Building Codes!!). The summary reads: "This bill would provide that the full text of the California Code of Regulations shall bear an open access creative commons attribution license, allowing any individual, at no cost, to use, distribute, and create derivative works based on the material for either commercial or noncommercial purposes."

http://freegovinfo.info/node/3869.

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Public Policy

New GPO report suggests charging taxpayers twice for government info

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) recently released their congressionally mandated report, Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age.  NAPA’s five-member panel spent ten months conducting an audit of the Government Printing Office (GPO). The panel’s lengthy 166 page report does present some interesting, and at times, troubling thoughts.

On one hand the panel definitely grasps the difficult position that GPO is in considering that, with 97% percent of today’s federal documents are born digital, the GPO has had to make many changes over the past two decades. While much of the report is reasonable and responds to the needs of libraries, the public, and GPO itself, the section in Finding III-5, Government Information Dissemination and Access, is cause for concern. It gives some ideas on how GPO might ensure funding for FDsys in the future. One of these ideas is that "now might be the time to revisit charging the public for access to FDsys content."

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/02/new-gpo-report-suggests-charging-taxpayers-twice-for-government-info/.

What’s the Difference Between an Executive Order and a Directive?

The Obama Administration issued policy statements this week on critical infrastructure protection and cyber security, including measures to encourage information sharing with the private sector and other steps to improve policy coordination.  Curiously, the Administration issued both an Executive order and a Presidential directive devoted to these topics.

"There are probably two significant differences between an EO and a PD, at least to my understanding," said Harold Relyea, who served for decades as a Specialist in American National Government at the Congressional Research Service. "First, in almost all cases, for an EO to have legal effect, it must be published in the Federal Register. Second, is the matter of circulation and accountability. EOs are circulated to general counsels or similar agency attorneys, which can be readily accomplished by FR publication. Again, a PD may be more selectively circulated, and this is done through developed routing procedures."

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/eo_pd.html.

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Privacy Issues

CISPA is Back; All Your Data Are Belong to Us

Barely a year after the defeat of SOPA, Congress is back to testing the waters for legislation that many internet users believe to be in violation of their fundamental rights to privacy and free expression. CISPA, a bill that would make it easier for corporations and the government to share internet users’ personal data, was officially re-introduced in the House on Wednesday. It’s already being rushed forward in the legislative process. The House Intelligence Committee is holding a full hearing on the bill today [Feb. 14] at 10 am. They will hear from four witnesses – all from the business sector and all known supporters of CISPA. No experts with concerns about privacy issues in the bill were invited to address the committee.

http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2527-CISPA-is-Back-All-Your-Data-Are-Belong-to-Us.

Mandatory Black Boxes in Cars Raise Privacy Questions

The Electronic Frontier Foundation urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today to include strict privacy protections for data collected by vehicle "black boxes" to protect drivers from long-term tracking as well as the misuse of their information.

Black boxes, more formally called event data recorders (EDRs), can serve a valuable forensic function for accident investigations, because they can capture information like vehicle speed before the crash, whether the brake was activated, whether the seat belt was buckled, and whether the airbag deployed. NHTSA is proposing the mandatory inclusion of black boxes in all new cars and light trucks sold in America. But while the proposed rules would require the collection of data in at least the last few seconds before a crash, they don’t block the long-term monitoring of driver behavior or the ongoing capture of much more private information like audio, video, or vehicle location.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/mandatory-black-boxes-cars-raise-privacy-questions.

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International Outlook

Egyptian Court Orders 30-Day Ban On YouTube Over Hosting "The Innocence of Muslims" Video and There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around

This weekend, the Cairo Administrative Court issued a 30-day ban order on YouTube and all other websites that host or link to content from the anti-Islam film "The Innocence of Muslims," which was protested worldwide after footage from the trailer was shown on Egyptian television. The court’s ruling may force the hand of the National Telecom Regulation Authority and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which have refrained from pursuing such a ban themselves.

It is unclear what the court hopes to gain by temporarily blocking access to YouTube. YouTube had voluntarily blocked access to the video in Libya and Egypt in mid-September – a clear breach of Google’s own policy of only removing content if it is found to be in violation on their Terms of Service or in response to a valid court order.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/egyptian-court-orders-30-day-ban-youtube-over-hosting-%E2%80%9C-innocence-muslims%E2%80%9D-video.

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Freedom of Information

Congress Asking the Right Questions on FOIA

A recent letter from Congress to the Justice Department represents a positive development toward strengthening the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The letter (PDF), sent Feb. 4 by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asks what steps the government is taking on a number of key transparency improvements. The reforms, if implemented, could significantly improve the public’s access to information about critical topics such as food safety, compliance with environmental standards, and special interest influence in government decision making.

Open government advocates praised the letter. The Sunshine in Government Initiative said the letter asks "pointed questions," and the Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott wrote that it "could be the most comprehensive congressional review [of FOIA] in three decades."

http://www.foreffectivegov.org/congress-asking-right-questions-foia.

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

Intellectual Property Issues

The Orphan Works Problem: Time to Fix It

Can Congress embrace and enact sensible copyright policy? Four years ago, for a brief shining moment, it seemed the answer might be yes, as various interested stakeholders rallied around long-overdue legislation that would have helped to fix the orphan works problem. Orphan works are those whose owner cannot be located. Consequently, those who would like to use and share these works may hesitate to do so out of fear that they could later be found liable for copyright infringement because they didn’t get permission. In 2008, a variety of interested parties managed to come up with a way to limit that liability. It wasn’t perfect, but it represented real progress. Sadly, that effort collapsed. In the past several months, however, momentum started slowly building once again toward a solution.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/orphan-works-problem-time-fix-it.

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Public Policy

Law Library Sues San Francisco for Breach of City Charter

The San Francisco Law Library filed a lawsuit today against the City and County of San Francisco, alleging that since 1995 the city has violated a City Charter provision that requires it to provide proper funding and adequate space for the Law Library. Since 1995, the Library has been housed in a cramped, leaky and damaged upper room of the San Francisco Veterans War Memorial building. The Veterans building is set to close for renovation in May 2013, meaning that if the city continues to violate the Charter and fail to meet its obligations, the Law Library will then be homeless.

http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/02/06/4600104/law-library-sues-san-francisco.html.

Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks

The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month. The proposal from the Federal Communications Commission has rattled the $178 billion wireless industry, which has launched a fierce lobbying effort to persuade policymakers to reconsider the idea, analysts say. That has been countered by an equally intense campaign from Google, Microsoft and other tech giants who say a free-for-all WiFi service would spark an explosion of innovations and devices that would benefit most Americans, especially the poor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/eb27d3e0-698b-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html.

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Open Access

Researchers opt to limit uses of open-access publications

Academics are – slowly – adopting the view that publicly funded research should be made freely available. But data released yesterday suggest that, given the choice, even researchers who publish in open-access journals want to place restrictions on how their papers can be re-used – for example, sold by others for commercial profit.

http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-opt-to-limit-uses-of-open-access-publications-1.12384.

NISO Launches New Initiative to Develop Standard for Open Access Metadata and Indicators

NISO [National Information Standards Organization] voting members have approved a new project to develop standardized bibliographic metadata and visual indicators to describe the accessibility of journal articles with respect to how "open" they are.

Many offerings are available from publishers under the banner of Open Access (OA), Increased Access, Public Access, or other names; the terms offered vary both between publishers and within publishers by journal, and in some cases, based on the funding organization of the author. Adding to the potential confusion, a number of publishers also offer hybrid options in which some articles are &quotopen&quot while the rest of the journal’s content are available only by subscription or license. No standardized bibliographic metadata currently provides information on whether a specific article is openly accessible and what re-use rights might be available to readers. Visual indicators or icons indicating the openness of an article are inconsistent in both design and use across publishers or even across journals from the same publisher.

http://www.niso.org/publications/newsline/2013/newslinefeb2013.html#report2.

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Privacy Issues

In a Major Privacy Victory, Seattle Mayor Orders Police to Dismantle Its Drone Program After Protests

In an amazing victory for privacy advocates and drone activists, yesterday, Seattle’s mayor ordered the city’s police agency to cease trying use surveillance drones and dismantle its drone program. The police will return the two drones they previously purchased with a Department of Homeland Security grant to the manufacturer. EFF has been warning of the privacy dangers surveillance drones pose to US citizens for more than a year now. In May of last year, we urged concerned citizens to take their complaints to their local governments, given Congress has been slow to act on any privacy legislation. At least thirteen states are now considering legislation to restrict drone use to protect privacy, and there are also members of Congress on both sides of the aisle pushing the same thing.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/major-privacy-victory-seattle-mayor-orders-police-not-use-surveillance-drones.

Security fears slow cloud progress: Concern over government stopping companies from using the cloud

Almost half of IT professionals are deterred from keeping sensitive data in the cloud because of fear of government intervention and possible legal action. The survey, which looked at IT and cloud experts’ attitudes to storing data in the cloud, revealed that government and legal interference puts 48% of them off from entering the cloud environment. These figures highlight that IT managers are deterred from the Cloud, because they are unsure if their organisation’s sensitive data is adequately protected and will therefore pass IT security audits or indeed government regulatory checks which hosted cloud environments are subjected to.

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-management-and-technology/3011477/Security-fears-slow-cloud-progress.

Obama wants your immigration story – and personal data

Writing from a BarackObama.com email account, self-described "undocumented immigrant" Jose Magana last night shared his personal immigration story with the masses. Magana said he came to the United States from Mexico at age 2. He slept on a couch for much of his young life. He worked hard and excelled in school but lived in fear of being deported to a country he barely knows.

"Everyone has a story – I’m sure you do, too," Magana wrote in touting immigration policy reform on behalf of Organizing for Action, President Barack Obama’s new nonprofit advocacy organization that sprung from his campaign committee. "Will you share your immigration story? Organizing for Action will use these stories to move the conversation forward."

What isn’t immediately evident to people inclined to submit their names, emails, ZIP codes, photo and personal immigration story through a provided online form: that the group reserves the right to use submissions "for any purpose whatsoever at the sole discretion of OFA, including without limitation any political, advertising or commercial use of any kind."

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/02/07/12166/obama-wants-your-immigration-story-and-personal-data?utm_source=iwatchnews&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss.

The FTC and Mobile Privacy: Be Careful in Collecting User Data, or Face the Consequences

The FTC’s announcement late last week of a settlement with a mobile app developer and the Commission’s simultaneous release of a mobile privacy report highlighted the agency’s focus on protecting consumer privacy in the popular mobile space. Moreover, the Commission’s actions provided a pointed reminder to app developers that they must consider privacy at the earliest stages and in all phases of creating their innovative products.

The settlement was with Path, a social networking company, arising out of alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC Act. With respect to COPPA, the company had not actually targeted children, but it collected birthdates in the enrollment process and that, the FTC concluded, was enough to give the company knowledge that it was collecting data from children under 13.

https://www.cdt.org/blogs/gs-hans/0702ftc-and-mobile-privacy-be-careful-collecting-user-data-or-face-consequences.

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Digital History

Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) independent study of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age (PDF), was released January 2013.

"Over the past two decades, the shift from an industrial age to an information age has affected the way both public and private sector organizations operate. For GPO, the demand for federal print products has declined by half over the past twenty years, but the demand for information that government creates has only increased. While conducting this review, the Panel determined that GPO faces challenges in dealing with the movement to the digital age that are shared across the federal government. Critical issues for the federal government include publishing formats, metadata, authentication, cataloging, dissemination, preservation, public access, and disposition. The Panel believes that the federal government needs to establish a broad government-wide strategy to manage digital information through all stages of its lifecycle. The absence of such a strategy has resulted in a chaotic environment with significant implications for public access to government information—and, therefore, the democratic process—with some observers describing federal digital publishing as the "wild west." Now that approximately 97 percent of all federal documents are "born digital," many important documents are not being authenticated or preserved for the future, and the public cannot easily access them. GPO has a critical role to play along with other agencies in developing a government-wide strategy that streamlines processes, clearly defines agency responsibilities, avoids duplication and waste, and effectively provides information to current and future generations."

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/032568.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.