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.

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.
The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

Public Policy

PACER Federal Court Record Fees Exceed System Costs

The federal government has collected millions from the online Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, or PACER – nearly five times what it cost to run the system. Between fiscal years 2006 and 2010, the government collected an average of $77 million a year from PACER fees, according to the most recent federal figures available.

Critics have derided PACER, saying the government has increased user fees over the years without making the system easier to use. The fees, some say, act as a deterrent to public access. "Given the lack of oversight for what the fees are being used for, the incentive for the courts is to raise fees," said Stephen Schultze, associate director of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

http://californiawatch.org/money-and-politics/pacer-federal-court-record-fees-exceed-system-costs-18685

GAO finds NTIS’ fee-based model no longer viable or appropriate. FGI has suggestions

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just published a report analyzing the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). This report is an update of a 2001 GAO report on the dissemination of technical reports. It offers quite a bit of information as to the scope of work done by the NTIS and the costs associated with that work.

GAO’s conclusion states:
…Charging for information that is freely available elsewhere is a disservice to the public and may also be wasteful insofar as some of NTIS’s customers are other federal agencies. Taken together, these considerations suggest that the fee-based model under which NTIS currently operates for disseminating technical information may no longer be viable or appropriate.
…In light of the agency’s declining revenue associated with its basic statutory function and the charging for information that is often freely available elsewhere, Congress should consider examining the appropriateness and viability of the fee-based model under which NTIS currently operates for disseminating technical information to determine whether the use of this model should be continued.

http://freegovinfo.info/node/3817

Come to CityCamp Oakland

On December 1, all roads will lead to Oakland, CA for CityCamp Oakland — an unstructured conference where municipal employees, department heads, technology folks, developers, journalists and engaged citizens will talk about technology and local government. Organized by OpenOakland, the City of Oakland and other local organizations, CityCamp Oakland will show how innovative technology and open data can improve civic engagement, increase efficiency and government transparency while connecting residents to the city of Oakland. The Camp will be at the City Hall.

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/11/19/come-to-citycamp-oakland/

Digital History

Giving Digital Preservation a Backbone

Libraries used to be the main stewards of the cultural and scientific record. But in the era of digital storage "cloud computing," the institutions best-positioned to manage vast quantities of data are often companies such as Google and Elsevier. That is a big problem, said James Hilton, the chief information officer at the University of Virginia, in a talk on Thursday here at Educause. For all their current stability and rhetorical commitments to preserving their records, Google and Elsevier cannot be trusted with the task of digital preservation in the long term, said Hilton. Part of Hilton’s agenda here was to draw attention to the Digital Preservation Network, a consortium of universities that is attempting to build a framework for keeping digital artifacts viable as institutions and technologies rise and fall around them.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/09/educause-call-digital-preservation-will-outlast-individual-institutions-and

JSTOR provides free access to Wikipedia editors via pilot program

One of the challenges facing the volunteer editors of Wikipedia is finding reliable sources to use as reference material – in our [Wikipedia's] last editor survey, 39 percent named this as one of the largest problems hindering their contributions. To address this issue, the Wikimedia Foundation is collaborating with JSTOR, a service of the not-for-profit organization ITHAKA, to provide 100 of the most active Wikipedia editors with free access to the complete archive collections on JSTOR, including more than 1,600 academic journals, primary source documents and other works.

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/19/jstor-provides-free-access-to-wikipedia-editors/

Libraries

FBI removes files during raid of Detroit Public Library

FBI agents raided the Detroit Public Library system and the home of its chief administrative officer on Tuesday, removing financial records from the agency that’s been beset by controversy, officials confirmed. Nine agents arrived at the library’s main offices on Woodward at 8 a.m. They left shortly after 11 a.m. carrying three cardboard boxes and what appeared to be computer equipment.

Tuesday’s raid follows money problems that forced the system to close two branches and lay off 80 of 364 staffers – and persistent questions about spending. In a series last year, The Detroit News exposed allegations of misspending, mismanagement and nepotism. Among other purchases that were questioned, the library bought 20 lounge chairs for $1,100 apiece at a time it was cutting staff. Numerous contracts also have been called into question, as well as hiring practices, The News has reported.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121120/METRO/211200394

Charge Amazon, Starbucks and Google unpaid tax to fund libraries, says Winterson

A fiery Jeanette Winterson has called for the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit which Amazon, Starbucks and Google were last week accused of diverting from the UK to be used to save Britain’s beleaguered public libraries. In an impassioned speech at the British Library this evening, the award-winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit said: "Libraries cost about a billion a year to run right now. Make it two billion and charge Google, Amazon and Starbucks all that back tax on their profits here. Or if they want to go on paying fancy lawyers to legally avoid their moral duties, then perhaps those companies could do an Andrew Carnegie and build us new kinds of libraries for a new kind of future in a fairer and better world?"

Winterson was referring to the meeting at parliament’s public accounts committee last Monday which saw executives from the three companies vigorously quizzed by MPs over their tax affairs, and accused of diverting UK profits to tax havens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/19/amazon-starbucks-google-libraries-jeanette-winterson

Intellectual Property

The Copyright Reform Report That Wasn’t

Last Friday, the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) released a policy brief titled "Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it," lauded by the tech community and cause for celebration among copyright reform advocates. Less than 24 hours later – and after what we can assume was severe backlash from the content industry – the brief was retracted, with RSC Executive Director Paul Teller issuing a statement that the memo had been "published without adequate review." It’s safe to assume that the RSC was flooded with calls from entertainment and content industry lobbyists.

http://aallwash.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/the-copyright-reform-report-that-wasnt/

Freedom of Information

Some Things Never Change: Governments Still Present Biggest Threat to Open Internet

Some things change, but others stay the same. While the types of threats facing Internet users worldwide have diversified over the past few years, from targeted malware to distributed denial of service attacks, one thing has remained constant: governments seeking to exert control over their populations still remain the biggest threat to the open Internet. Which countries are the worst offenders? Unsurprisingly, the United States once again tops the list (though, followed by Germany and Brazil. The three countries have almost consistently dominated the top since the creation of the Transparency Report in 2010. Other notable offenders for 2012 include Argentina, Turkey, and India. It is noteworthy that all of the countries at the top of the list are democracies.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/some-things-never-change-governments-still-present-biggest-threat-open-internet

Open Access

Fastcase Announces Partnership with Hawaii State Bar Association to Provide Free Access to Legal Research Library

Today the Hawaii State Bar Association (HSBA) and legal publisher Fastcase announced a partnership to provide members of the state bar with free access to Fastcase’s nationwide legal research system. This partnership is the latest in a growing number of bar associations that are offering the Fastcase benefit – 23 state bar associations representing more than 500,000 lawyers now subscribe to Fastcase as a free benefit for their members.

The HSBA is the sixth in a growing number of state bar associations upgrading from the Casemaker legal research benefit to Fastcase, and the eighth state overall that has switched to Fastcase, including two states that switched from Versuslaw and LexisNexis. No state bar association has ever switched from a Fastcase benefit to another provider.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/FastcaseHawaii/HSBA/prweb10148440.htm

International Outlook

EU Parliament Endorses Internet Openness, Transparency Ahead of WCIT

The European Parliament today approved a Joint Resolution calling on EU Member States to promote and protect Internet openness at the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The resolve of the Parliamentarians who drafted the resolution deserves recognition. The result is a strong statement of confidence in the civic and economic value of the open Internet, as well as the virtues of transparent, inclusive models for Internet governance. The public’s ability to submit comments in the drafting process is testimony to the work of Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake, a steadfast advocate for civil liberties in the digital age.

https://www.cdt.org/blogs/ellery-biddle/2211eu-parliament-endorses-internet-openness-transparency-ahead-wcit

Take Action!

Journalism is Not Terrorism: Calling on Ethiopia to #FreeEskinder Nega

Eskinder Nega, an award-winning journalist who has been imprisoned for over a year, appeared briefly in court to appeal the terrorism charges levied against him. Eskinder has unwaveringly denied the charges, maintaining that blogging about human rights abuses and democracy is not a form of terrorism. In July, Eskinder was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his reporting. In court this week, his appeal was cut short: according to one report EFF received from partners working on his case, Eskinder was not allowed to read his defense statement and the appeal was rescheduled to November 22. We are continuing to seek confirmation about the status of the trial. For now, we’re asking concerned individuals to join us in calling on the Ethiopian government to live up to the promises in their own Constitution and free Eskinder Nega.

While many journalists have either fled Ethiopia or been silenced by repressive policies, Eskinder Nega has become a national symbol for press freedom. Here’s how you can get involved:
• Sign PEN American Center’s petition, which automatically an email to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Minister of Justice Berhanu Hailu.
• Send appeals by mail to Ethiopian officials and their local Ethiopian Embassy or Consulate.
• Tell your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Suggested Tweet:
Journalism is not terrorism. Join @PenAmerican and @EFF in fighting to #FreeEskinder Nega.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/journalism-not-terrorism-calling-ethiopia-freeeskinder-nega

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!

Take Action to Support Ethiopian Blogger Eskinder Nega

EFF was dismayed to learn that Ethiopian journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega had been sentenced to eighteen years in prison under a sweeping and overbroad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. More than one hundred other Ethiopians, including nine journalists, have been sentenced under the vague law. Individuals and organizations in the U.S. that wish to offer support for Eskinder Nega and freedom of expression in Ethiopia have several options. They can:

• Sign PEN American Center’s petition, which automatically an email to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Minister of Justice Berhanu Hailu.
• Send appeals by mail to Ethiopian officials and their local Ethiopian Embassy or Consulate.
• Contact their elected official, urging them to take a stand for freedom of expression in Ethiopia, a US ally.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/take-action-support-ethiopian-blogger-eskinder-nega

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Public Policy

Counties Across the Country Use an Array of Voting Technology

Across the United States, there are thousands of voting jurisdictions, most of which are responsible for deciding how elections will be conducted. In an attempt to present an up-to-date breakdown of voting technology in every county in the United States, a group of News21 reporters set about verifying and collecting information for every jurisdiction and verifying it with every state in the country.

http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/voting-technology-county/

Several Top Federal Contractors are also Top Polluters

Whenever someone puts out a best/worst ranking of corporations, the first thing the Project On Government Oversight does is check to see if any of the contractors in our Federal Contractor Misconduct Database are in it. This week, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst published its fourth Toxic 100 Air Polluters list of the worst corporate air polluters in the United States. Sure enough, it ranks Textron and General Electric, respectively, as the second and third worst air polluters. Sixteen other contractors in our database also made the top 100.

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/08/top-federal-contractors-are-also-top-polluters.html

California Suspends Open Meetings Law to Save Money

In June, the California state legislature suspended the state’s open meetings law, which requires cities and other agencies to publish the agendas of public meetings before they occur and make the minutes of these meetings available to citizens after they occur. In suspending the law, the state is sacrificing not only a fundamental element of a democratic society, but a vital tool that can actually save money.

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12171

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Intellectual Property Issues

A Push Grows Abroad for Open Access to Publicly Financed Research

Researchers, publishers, and librarians have spent a lot of this year firing up the longstanding debate over access to published research. You’ve probably heard the big questions: Who gets to see the results of work the public helps pay for, when should they get to see it, and who’s going pay for it? This summer, the fervor has gone global, with policy makers in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and in Australia signaling that they’re ready to come up with some answers. Details vary from country to country and proposal to proposal, but the overall warming trend looks very clear.

http://chronicle.com/article/Push-for-Open-Access-to/133561/

DMCA overkill: NASA video of Mars removed from YouTube

Hours after NASA’s successful landing on Mars of its Mars rover, one of NASA’s official clips from the mission was pulled from YouTube, and replaced with a notice from the video site indicating that the "video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds."

The video was replaced and Scripps apologized, but it is an example of how the scale are tipped in favor of the "content industry" and even obvious, public-domain content gets caught in the privatization of information trap.

http://freegovinfo.info/node/3759

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Freedom of Information

39% of Office of Legal Counsel Opinions Kept from the Public

The Department of Justice is withholding from online publication 39% (or 201) of its 509 Office of Legal Counsel opinions promulgated between 1998 and 2012, according to a Sunlight Foundation analysis. This apparently conflicts with agency guidance on releasing opinions to the public.

OLC opinions are the Justice Department’s authoritative legal advice to the executive branch on questions central to the functioning of government. Publication of opinions allow Congress and the public to review executive branch determinations on the lawfulness of policy options, thereby providing information necessary for oversight, historical, and precedential purposes.

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/08/15/39-of-office-of-legal-counsel-opinions-kept-from-the-public/

BART’s Cell Phone Shutdown, One Year Later

A year ago this week, responding to planned protests throughout the BART system, the transit authority cut off cell phone service in four stations in downtown San Francisco. BART acknowledged the problem with their actions, and in October of last year promised to introduce a new policy restricting the circumstances under which it could manipulate communications networks.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-shutdown-one-year-later

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Privacy Issues

ACLU sues FBI for tracking memos

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to force the FBI to reveal internal memos on GPS tracking.

The ACLU requested the documents, which provide guidance to FBI agents about using GPS devices to track suspects, last month under the Freedom of Information Act, but the FBI has yet to respond.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/243825-aclu-to-sue-fbi-for-memos-on-gps-tracking

Court Dismisses Case Based on State Secrets Privilege

A federal court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit which alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had engaged in unlawful surveillance of Muslim residents of southern California. The court granted the Obama Administration’s claim that the state secrets privilege precluded litigation of the case.

The plaintiffs in the case contended that the FBI had "conducted an indiscriminate ‘dragnet’ investigation and gathered personal information about them and other innocent Muslim Americans in Southern California based on their religion." The government said various aspects of the subject were too sensitive to be addressed in open court.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/08/fazaga_ssp.html

Hackers Steal, Encrypt Health Records and Hold Data for Ransom

As more patient records go digital, a recent hacker attack on a small medical practice shows the big risks involved with electronic files.

The Surgeons of Lake County, located in the affluent northern Illinois suburb of Libertyville, revealed last month that hackers had burrowed deeply into its computer network, infiltrating a server where e-mails and electronic medical records were stored.

But unlike many other data breaches, the hackers made no attempt to keep their presence a secret. In fact, they all but fired a flare to announce the break-in, taking the extreme step of encrypting their illicit haul and posting a digital ransom note demanding payment for the password.
The doctors turned the server off and notified the authorities, refusing to pay.

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-08-10-hackers-steal-encrypt-health-records-and-hold-data-for-ransom/

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International Outlook

This Week In Internet Censorship: Activists Convicted in Oman, Malware in Nepal, and Wiretapping Bloggers in Russia

More Activists Convicted on Protest-Related Charges in Oman: The dozens of writers, activists, and bloggers who have been arrested on charges connected to their calls for greater freedoms in Oman in May and early June of 2012 have been brought to trial, convicted, and sentenced in recent weeks.
Nepalese Government Website Compromised, Altered to Serve Malware: Last week, Websense reported on its Security Labs Blog that its security researchers had detected the compromise of two Nepalese government websites.
Russian Government Wiretaps Dissident Blogger Alexei Navalny: When Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny found a bug hidden inside the wall molding in his office last week, he was not surprised. Russian security services have a long history of extensive surveillance of activists and dissidents, especially those who was outspokenly critical of the Putin regime. Before calling the police, Navalny posted this video of himself and his colleagues taking the surveillance device apart.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/week-internet-censorship-activists-convicted-oman-malware-nepal-and-wiretapping

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.

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope you enjoy the day. Please take a moment to remember the women and men in uniform for whom this holiday exists. As information professionals, please also take a moment to think about how our work is relevant to veterans and military families, whether it be unveiling the secrecy surrounding military activities and their aftermath (think Agent Orange), or providing professional help: Infopeople has scheduled a webinar called "Operation Health: Resources for Veterans and Their Families." It’s June 13, 12-1pm. Details and registration: http://infopeople.org/training/operation-health-resources-veterans-and-their-families.

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Take Action!

Require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research.

The highly successful Public Access Policy of the National Institutes of Health proves that this can be done without disrupting the research process, and we urge President Obama to act now to implement open access policies for all federal agencies that fund scientific research.

The petition is here: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-free-access-over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded-research/wDX82FLQ

Call to Action: Join the Fight Against Cyber Spying Proposals in the Senate

EFF and an array of civil liberties organizations are engaged in a pitched battle against the privacy-invasive legislation Congress is pushing under the guise of promoting "cyber security." Everyone agrees that network security is important, but a thinly disguised mass surveillance bill won’t help address the needs of our country in defending our networks.

Use this online form to contact Congress

More suggestions for action: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/call-action-join-fight-against-cyber-spying-proposals-senate

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Open Access

UCSF Implements Policy to Make Research Papers Freely Accessible to Public

The UCSF Academic Senate has voted to make electronic versions of current and future scientific articles freely available to the public, helping to reverse decades of practice on the part of medical and scientific journal publishers to restrict access to research results.

The unanimous vote of the faculty senate makes UCSF the largest scientific institution in the nation to adopt an open-access policy and among the first public universities to do so.

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/05/12056/ucsf-implements-policy-make-research-papers-freely-accessible-public

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Intellectual Property Issues

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing files for bankruptcy

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., the publisher of authors from Mark Twain to J.R.R. Tolkien, sought bankruptcy protection to eliminate more than $3 billion in debt.

The company, based in Boston, listed assets and debt of more than $1 billion each in Chapter 11 documents filed today in US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2012/05/21/houghton-mifflin-harcourt-publishing-files-for-bankruptcy/YsYKHm1cGXpDvPDkLna20J/story.html

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Freedom of Information

Court blocks release of CIA interrogation methods

CIA secret interrogation methods — including detention and harsh questioning of suspected terrorists — remain off limits to public release, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The agency was sued eight years ago to provide details of certain communications describing the use of waterboarding and other direct intelligence-gathering methods of foreign terror suspects. A three-judge panel from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled "intelligence methods" are not subject to a Freedom of Information Act request from the lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/us/scotus-cia-interrogations/index.html

Restrictions on WikiLeaks Documents Challenged in Court

The publication of leaked classified documents by WikiLeaks continues to confound government officials and to generate some unusual legal tangles. Last month, attorneys for a Guantanamo prisoner asked a federal court to nullify the restrictions that the government has imposed on access to and dissemination of the leaked records, so that the prisoner can prepare a response to the disclosures contained in them.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/05/wikileaks_faraj.html

7 Types of Government Information that Would Benefit from Springtime Sunshine

We’ve put together a list of seven types of information generated by the executive branch that could benefit from a little springtime sunshine – and should be made public ASAP. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s representative of the kinds of data, documents, records, and other information that we’d like to see prioritized in the President’s open government effort.

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/05/7-types-of-government-information-that-would-benefit-from-springtime-sunshine.html

Bay Area immigration records, destined for dustbin, will be released Tuesday
Tens of thousands of old West Coast immigration records the government once sought to throw away will instead become publicly available on Tuesday at a Bay Area archive. Photographs, letters, health records, interview transcripts and other historical documents were destined for a recycling bin or a remote Midwestern storage facility. "We changed that plan. We’re making them permanent," said spokeswoman Sharon Rummery of U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services. Archivists credit the advocacy of the late U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, and his successor, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, for helping to save the collection. The documents will be housed at the San Francisco National Archives in San Bruno and open to the public beginning Tuesday.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/census/ci_20646026/

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Public Policy

Contracting Government By Cutting Census Bureau Programs


On May 9, 2012, the U.S. House of Representative adopted the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013. In addition to cutting $20 million from this year’s Economic Census, H.R. 5326 contained an amendment proposed by Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) that would eliminate funding—an estimated $2.5 billion over the 10 years—for the American Community Survey (ACS). As one of the tea-party officials who entered the House in 2010 on a platform to "streamline government and stop wasteful spending," Webster pointed to the intrusive nature of the census questions as his primary rationale for eliminating the program. ACS "hardly fits the scope of what is required by the Constitution," prying into Americans’ lives. Webster’s spokeswoman, Kelly Kwas, said that the Representative felt the survey tramples on personal privacy" and was "wasteful" of taxpayer funds. Recognizing the need for across-the-board budget cuts, the Census Bureau had already cut several strategic publications from its FY2012 budget estimate, including Statistical Abstracts, which has been "rescued" by ProQuest and Bernan Press. In a statement released on May 10, the Census Bureaus said eliminating the ACS would "mark the first time in the country’s history that we would not collect and share vital economic and demographic measures of the country. These cuts would also keep us from conducting the 2012 economic census. Eliminating the American Community Survey would make it extremely difficult if not impossible to contain the costs of the 2020 census."

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Contracting-Government-By-Cutting-Census-Bureau-Programs-82729.asp

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Digital History

Abraham Lincoln Did Not Invent Facebook: How a Guy and His Blog Fooled the Whole Wide Internet

It started with a headline I saw pinging around Twitter yesterday afternoon. Abraham Lincoln, my friends’ tweets informed me, had invented a 19th-century version of Facebook.
Yes! This previously unknown tidbit, it turns out, was the discovery of a guy in Milwaukee who had happened to take a day off work — and then happened (serendipity!) to visit a circus graveyard in Delavan, Wisconsin — and then happened (serendipity again!) to visit the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois — and then happened (serendipity some more!) to discover that Mr. Lincoln had once filed a patent application for a newspaper that would, via profiles and updates, "keep People aware of Others in the Town."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/abraham-lincoln-did-not-invent-facebook-how-a-guy-and-his-blog-fooled-the-whole-wide-internet/256945/

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International Outlook

Governmental Access to Data in the Cloud – A comparative analysis of ten international jurisdictions

"This White Paper examines the extent to which access to data in the Cloud by governments in various jurisdictions is possible, regardless of where a Cloud provider is located."

a href=”http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/030399.html” target=”_blank”>http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/030399.html

From Canada: Cuts to archives threaten our ability to preserve our precious heritage

On April 30, Library and Archives Canada eliminated the $1.71-million National Archival Development Program and made drastic cuts to its own staffing. These cuts are devastating to the Canadian archival network and to Canadian documentary heritage.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Cuts+archives+threaten+ability+preserve+precious+heritage/6655739/story.html

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Privacy Issues

Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers

When scientists publish their research, they also make the underlying data available so the results can be verified by other scientists.

At least that is how the system is supposed to work. But lately social scientists have come up against an exception that is, true to its name, huge.

It is"big data," the vast sets of information gathered by researchers at companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft from patterns of cellphone calls, text messages and Internet clicks by millions of users around the world. Companies often refuse to make such information public, sometimes for competitive reasons and sometimes to protect customers’ privacy. But to many scientists, the practice is an invitation to bad science, secrecy and even potential fraud.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/science/big-data-troves-stay-forbidden-to-social-scientists.html

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