If you are interested in following the developments in the Enron case, a former hot news story that has been moved to the back burner in recent months, then visit The Daily Enron. This public interest site maintains an active collection of news, commentary, book reviews and documents on corporate and government accountability.
On October 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the much heralded case of Eldred v. Ashcroft that challenges the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which extended by 20 years (and in some cases even longer) the duration of existing and future copyrights.
Stanford Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, will represent Eric Eldred, owner of Eldritch Press, which provides access to more than 15,000 free online books.
There are several excellent sites through which researchers can review relevant legal documents and commentary on this case, including: Eldred v. Ashcroft, Harvard University's Openlaw: Eldred v. Ashcroft and Copyright Extension.
The Privacy Commissioner of Canda functions as an independent advocate on behalf of citizens with the power to investigate complaints and present cases to the Federal Court, as well as to research and publish advisory reports on privacy issues.
The Commission's website, in French and English versions, is simple, well designed and content rich. There are: links on protecting privacy targeted to individuals and businesses; links to full-text documents on privacy legislation; publications; press releases; speeches; fact sheets; Commissioner's findings; and Provincial/Territorial Privacy Laws.
The Hamilton County Clerk of Courts, Ohio, website has generated controversy as a result of the state's Open Records Law , (see Chapter 149 section 43), allowing online access to "sensitive personal data" concerning Ohio citizens. James C. Cicell, Clerk of the Courts, has proposed safeguards for data that still protect the dissemination of court records.
The International Association of Privacy Officers provides links to a range of advocacy, corporate, government and academic sites.
A report commissioned by the Markle Foundation,
"Enhancing Legitimacy in the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and
Numbers: Accountable and Transparent Governance Structures, has been published which recommends specific actions that ICANN can take to improve confidence and trust in its actions as well as focus its mission.
The UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy was established in 1995 to disseminate resources on issues including freedom of expression, intellectual property, privacy and e-commerce. Especially useful are the site's "Cyberspace Law Bibliography" of print and online sources, and links to "Top Internet-Related Cases and Statutes (U.S.)."
OASIS is a non-profit, world wide consortium of coporations and individuals that seeks to establish "create standards for the electronic exchange of legal data" using XML.
Washington state, via their Department of Social and Health Services Legislative Relations website, is working on a project to make available to the public "all legislatively mandated reports," beginning with those from December 2001. The reports are posted according to topic, which range from Aging and Elderly Services to Juvenile Rehabilitation.
EDOCKET allows researchers to view and conduct a quick or full-text search for regulatory and non-regulatory dockets that are currently available for public comment.
The GAO today issued a report, Information Management: Update on Implementation of the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments. The GAO's study indicates a significant backlog in the response of federal agencies to freedom of information requests. Due no doubt in no small measure to the Patriot Act, agencies have not kept pace with requirements to make goverment documents available in accordance with the Electronic Freedom of Information Act (e-FOIA).
As promised, the FTC has introduced a new web site and mascot in an effort to promote safe use of the Internet by parents as well as children. Hence, I suppose, the use of Dewie, the biped turle mascot, holding a laptop computer.
H.R. 5469, referred to as the "Relief for Small-Business Webcasters" bill, was introduced on 9/26/2002 by Rep Sensenbrenner, F. James, Jr. Its purpose is to buy time for webcasters by delaying for six months "the determination of the Librarian of Congress of July 8, 2002, relating to rates and terms for the digital performance of sound recordings and ephemeral recordings."
Amazon.com plans to update its privacy policy this October in response to pressure from advocacy group EPIC, consumer complaints and a coalition of state attorney generals. See this press release from Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly indicating that Amazon has agreed "to clarify policy, protect customer data."
According to this article on CNET, UC San Diego has directed the student run Ché Café Collective web site to remove links to an organization identified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, in accordance with the USA Patriot Act.
A new GAO report, Information Management: Update on Implementation of the Freedom of Information Act Amendments, indicates that agencies throughout the government are experiencing significant backlogs in the responding to requests. In addition, the GAO noted that part of the problem stems from the fact that government sites have not kept pace with the publication of data their websites, in accordance with The Electronic FOIA (E-FOIA) Amendments (P.L. 104-231).
According to Government Computer News, the Department of Transportation's launch of a new online rulemaking portal has been delayed to allow addition testing to ensure the backend can manage 1,000 simultaneous users.
Testimony of Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center, on September 24, 2002, before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, on H.R. 4678. Mr. Rotenberg stated, "In many respects it seems crafted to protect privacy violators from legal accountability. On almost every key provision it favors industry over the consumer, the invasion of privacy over the protection of privacy."
This Wired article details the data security issues inherent in the sale or donation of used PCs, even those whose hard drives have been removed. Personal or corporate data can be pirated even "from the RAM chips and CPU core."
This site comes via the University of Minnesota Law School, its librarians and student assistants. It provides annotated links to dozens of first amendment cases from the Supreme Court (current and retrospective), as well as Courts of Appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court. In addition, there are links to primary sources for researchers, historical materials dating back to 1769, a sampling of polls conducted on First Amendment issues (not particularly current), and a small library of links, including one to news from the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center.
Pennsylvania Legal Research Web Sites is maintained by Dittakavi Rao, Associate Director, Duquesne University Center For Legal Information. This portal should be your first stop for Pennsylvania legal research. Here you will find links to a wide range of resources that include the state's administrative code and administrative law, statutory law, county court rules, federal, state and county case law, law reviews and journals, law libraries, state statistics, executive orders, and a whole lot more. An excellent resource.
The Technology Privacy Group is an organization that implements e-commerce sites and applications for state governments and counties.
In addition, the site hosts a keyword searchable database of The Presidential Privacy Archives from the Clinton administration.
The FTC announced today that they will unveil a new mascot called Dewie on September 26, at the Privacy2002 conference. Can't wait!
"Today's guidelines establish procedures for the disclosure to the intelligence community of grand jury and electronic, wire, and oral interception information that identifies a United States person, as defined by federal law."
The Information Society Project at Yale Law School (ISP) hosts several resources focused on how the Internet, intellectual property and telecommunications impact our civil liberties. The site posts working papers and information about policy initiatives. In addition, the project sponsors a provocative, insightful, and informative searchable weblog, LawMeme, with commentary on legal-tech issues provided by law students.
The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights (CIPR) an international organization, disbanded with the publication this month of their final report, Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy. The group's interest was strongly focused on developing countries and their access to the services afforded by technology to the world's prosperous nations.
This ZDNet article summarizes the key proposals in the report, which include eliminating shrink wrap licenses and a call for global support of open source software.
This is a complicated story, an important chronicle of which is published by two recommended sources for which I provide the direct links as follows: journalist Declan McCullagh and the weblog LawMeme (from Yale Law School).
The short version is that the Internet Archive has removed all its links to a personal site called Operation Clambake, that maintains a library of documents critical of Scientology. Purportedly, documents on this site include materials for which the the Church of Scientology claims copyright. Another site, Reed Slatkin Media Resources, stated in an email to Declan that links to their site have likewise been removed from the Internet Archive for the same reasons stated above.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides checks and balances for the disposition of claims of infringement, which apparently were not exercised by the Internet Archive in the case of these two web site. This is a developing story, which will not doubt result in further postings.
ZDNet reports that the clock has run out on the possibility of any new privacy legislation this year. However, consumers are not about to let this issue die on the vine, so legislators will try once again in 2003.
OMB issued their Final Infomation Quality Guidelines, setting the standards for all federal agencies in terms of the "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated to the public." It is notable that the guidelines impact the both the availability and extent of data posted to government web sites.
OMB Watch is a non-profit advocacy group that has been shining a bright light on the activities of the Office of Management and Budget since 1983. Post 9/11, their work has become more prominent as they track new government guidelines and regulations that restrict public access to data.
It is unfortunate that this study, "The Politics of State Legislature Web Sites—Who Gets Left Out?" is not available online. You can read the press release here. The authors of the study, three professors from Rochester Institute of Technology’s College of Liberal Arts evaluated the content available to citizens and journalists who use these sites to track legislation and obtain related information.
This testimony by Edmund Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director (U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), from the September 19, 2002 Oversight Hearing On Financial Privacy and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act (GLBA), represented the views of member of the Privacy Coalition.
It is a detailed and well annotated chronicle of the Act's limitations and failures in respect to protecting the privacy of personal financial data, which is routinely shared and traded within institutions, and bought and sold among institutions.
Johnson Controls conducted a poll of business class frequent flyers that indicated a willingness to undergo fingerprint identification if the techology would help speed the travel process.
This DOJ Factsheet indicates that the Office of Legal Policy will play a major role in Patriot Act related issues of security, privacy and surveillance.
Akamai and Cable & Wireless have been contesting ownership of a patent for disseminating and routing Internet content.
Web site watch-dog Google Watch has filed a complaint with the the Data Inspectorate of Norway, against AllTheWeb, where the company's parent, Fast Search & Transfer International AS, is based. It alleges that the global search engine is collecting and selling consumer data to DoubleClick, via the use of web bugs, and does not provide notice to users of this practice. The search engine does not currently post a Privacy Policy.
The Department of Commerce has extended its Memorandum of Understanding with ICANN through September 2003. ICANN manages the .com domain, as well as seven other domains (including .name, .museum, .biz and ".info).
Surveillance, privacy, a secret court, the Constitution and the fight against terrorism are all elements in a public debate in which the legal ramifications of 9-11 continue to impact the lives of Americans.
Civil liberties groups including the ACLU, EPIC and the Center for Democracy and Technology, filed an amicus brief on September 19 with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court (which is no longer such a secret since the court's historic public release of a memorandum opinion concerning the DOJ's intelligence sharing practices). The brief challenges the government efforts to expand surveillance of U.S. citizens in the interest of national security.
Bay Total Service Provider (BayTSP does not support a functioning web site. So why should you care about this company? Perhaps because they may well indeed know alot about your Web usage.
BayTSP is a heavy-weight contractor whose lucrative services involve enforcement of the Digital Millennium Act on behalf of private corporations as well as the government. Recording and software companies (such as Adobe) use BayTSP to establish violations of their intellectual property (via the illegal copying and digital distribution of their applications and services). The government uses the company to identify those who are using the web to distribute child pornography, and the FBI has enlisted their assistance in the 'war against terrorism.'
In a Wired article from June, Ishikaw boasted that "since June 2000 his company has found over a million copyright violations for its clients."
Federal government agencies are increasingly leveraging the Internet to disseminate information, communicate with citizens, and provide services that range from the online preparation and filing of tax forms to the preservation of digital archives of public documents.
This new GAO report addresses key e-gov issues including user privacy, data security, the expansion of useful services, and development of the IT infrastruture. Electronic Government: Proposal Addresses Critical Challenges, by Linda D. Koontz, director, information management, before the Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy, House Committee on Government Reform. GAO-02-1083T, September 18., 2002.
This site, Congress Merge, allows you to quickly and easily access information on your elected representatives from one convenient location. Simply click on the name of your state via a text link or a state map, and obtain bios, web sites, contact info (phone, fax, snail and email addresses), maps and directions to offices of elected officials, their committee membership (and associated links), and names of office staff.
On October 20, new royalty fees on webcast music will take effect. These fees were determined by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. The final rule and order from the Copyright Office were published in the Federal Register on July 8, 2002. Details concerning the rates were published in Appendix A and establish a performance fee, per performance, of 0.07 cents for "simultaneous internet transmissions of over-the-air AM or FM radio broadcasts."
A useful resource on this issue comes from the advocacy group Save Internet Radio, who provide news links, background information, government resources, and identify webcasters who will be impacted by the royalties.
Unlikely adversaries, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Verizon Internet Services Inc. are tangled in a controversy over alleged music piracy. The RIAA is seeking to enforce a subpoena issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to ascertain the identity of a Verizon customer has allegedly committed copyright infringement through file sharing, and futher to prevent this individual from continuing the activity.
The Motley Fool has an interesting article on this dispute, and the overlapping issues of privacy, music sales, and copyright.
Today the GAO released the following report: Intellectual Property: Information on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Past and Future Operations. GAO-02-907, published August 23, 2002. Revenues, already booming for this agency, will be even higher as their proposed Strategic Plan calls for an increase in overall fees of 51% for large entities, and 67% for small entities.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency that was created in the wake of 9-11 (Public Law 107-71), to quote President Bush, to "give all Americans greater confidence when they fly."
On July 19, 2002 there was a hearing on the status of the work of this agency, and among the topics discussed were the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which was designed in the 1990s to select those passengers who warranted additional security. Since the system had a nasty habit of flagging alot of senior citizens and children, a new and more advanced system (CAPPS II) is in the works. However, the details of the profiling directive of this still secret project has raised objections and privacy concerns, as it will be integrated with law enforcement databases on a domestic and global scale.
NeuStar Inc. was chosen as the manager of the new Congressionally mandated (S. 2537) .kids.us domain, and has been embroiled in a dispute with the government ever since over the company's quest to include e-commerce/revenue generating applications on the site. NeuStar recently released a report seeking public comment on content "guidelines and requirements" for the new domain.
On September 12, 2002, the Center for Democracy and Technology sent a letter to Chairman Wyden and Senator Allen of the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space detailing its opposition to the creation of the .kids.us domain in favor of more effective alternatives.
A recent Watchfire survey indicates that the use and administration of privacy policies on corporate sites is a requirement, not an option. This press release by Watchfire's President and COO is a focuses on legislative compliance and industry best practices.
Advocacy groups are lobbying for the repeal of CIPA's (The Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000) web filtering requirements for public libraries that receive federal funds. An ACLU press release and a preliminary research report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argue that the use of such filters is ineffective in preventing access to harmful information, and conversely can actually block access to relevant, appropriate data and research tools for students.
Please see Mary Minow's Q&A, The Children's Internet Protection Act: The Recent District Court Decision in Context, for Librarians and Library Patrons for additional information.
The Adelaide Instituteweb site will be offline in four days in accordance with an Explanatory Memorandum and decision in Jones v Toben by the Federal Court of Australia. The site will continue to be available via the Web Archive, for which I have provided the following link which is illustrative of some of the content at issue.
This is the first decision on hate sites and the Internet from an Australian court.
Darrell M. West, from the Center for Public Policy at Brown University, published a report this week evaluating e-government initiatives on the state and federal level. The report, U.S. State and Federal E-Government, Sept., 2002, is available via Mr. West's site, Inside Politics.
From the press release: "West.... and a team of public policy students examined 1,265 state and federal sites and evaluated the variety and quality of the electronic services they offered. The team ranked those sites on a 100-point scale based on information and service availability, quality of citizen access, and material that would help citizens hold leaders accountable. Of the sites evaluated, 1,206 were state government sites (an average of 24 per state), 46 were federal legislative or executive sites, and 13 were federal court sites."
A new grant report, State Government and E-Procurement in the Information Age: Issues, Practices and Trends, from the PriceWaterhouseCooper's Endowment for the Business of Government, reviews e-procurement techniques that can save money and develop and speed services to consumers.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California indicted Dennis Baker of San Jose, California for the operation of a website through which he marketed pirated copies of game and business software.
From the White House, this 65 page PDF draft report is divided into 5 content areas: Home User and Small Business; Large Enterprises; Critical Sectors (federal government, state and local government, higher education and private sector); National Priorities; and Global.
Public comments on the Draft Strategy to Secure Cyberspace will be accepted until November 12, 2002, via feedback@who.eop.gov.
Two brief but useful related resources on PC security are: Cybersecurity and You: Five Tips Every Consumer Should Know, and A Cybersecurity Primer: Links and Resources for Computer Users.
See also, Bush's computer 'culture of security' relies on users, September 19, 2002.
StateWatch.org reports that the Commissioners' stated: "Where traffic data are to be retained in specific cases, there must therefore be a demonstrable need, the period of retention must be as short as possible and the practice must be clearly regulated by law, in a way that provides sufficient safeguards against unlawful access and any other abuse. Systematic retention of all kinds of traffic data for a period of one year or more would be clearly disproportionate and therefore unacceptable in any case."
This Federal Register notice for comments from the Copyright Office, with a closing period of September 16, 2002, deals with addressing claims for royalties on copyrighted music that is webcast.
The use of crawlers (automated index tools) to mine data from web sites to create market comparison shopping services for subscribers is the focus of this Wall Street Journal article, Are Bots Legal?. An example of such a service is Bargain.com , whose home page proclaims, "Never Pay Retail Again!." Users may search through categories of consumer goods for competitive pricing options that then lead to deep links on the sites that range from real estate brokers to auctioneers. These deep links bypass e-commerce based sponsors and links that are hosted by the "retailers," which they contend causes them to lose business, and revenue.
DigitalConsumer.org is an advocacy group (that states a membership of 44,000) that is promoting a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that supports the right of consumers to use their PCs to make and view copies of digital content (CDs, DVD's, TV broadcasts) for personal use. The site links to current news on files sharing, copyright in IP issues, as well as small library of organizational press releases.
Judge William S. Ostten of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina, decided in favor of the University of North Carolina in a trademark case against Jack R. Erickson. Mr Erickson ran a now defunct porn website that infringed on the university's trademark, UNC.
S.B. 1614 would preclude the sale or distribution on the Internet of birth and death records created and maintained by state agencies.
Various flavors of privacy legislation are before state and federal legislators, no doubt spurred on by the PATRIOT Act. Awaiting a vote by the House this month is H.R. 4561 which would "require that (federal) agencies, in promulgating rules, take into consideration the impact of such rules on the privacy of individuals."
The University of Michigan Library Documents Center maintains a simple but handytext list of e-mail addresses and web sites for members of the 107th Congress.
BustPatents provides, "legal resources and tools for surviving the patenting frenzy of the Internet, bioinformatics, and electronic commerce." The site hosts a useful annotated list of national and international patent resources.
"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review announced in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that it would provide the panel with a copy of what is expected to be a signal ruling on the Justice Department's request for broad new wiretap powers." A copy of the opinion is available at:
The court was created in 1978 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A list of its members as of August 2002 is on the web at http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/court2002.html.
The Center for Digital Government and Government Technology announced their 2002 Digital Legislatures Awards. The top honor went to the Arizona State Legislature web site.
The California Senate, in a 25-13 vote on August 31, 2002, killed the Financial Information Privacy Act (SB 773), "which would require a financial institution, as defined, to provide a specified written form to a consumer relative to the sharing of the consumer's confidential consumer before the financial institution could share the confidential consumer information with other nonaffiliated companies."
Intense lobbying against the bill by a collation of organizations represented by CAPrivacyProtection.org that used a newspaper marketing campaign titled, "SB 773: A Special Interest Experiment California Can't Afford," apparently assisted in the legislation's demise. Confused? Yes indeed, there is another organization that lobbied for passage of the bill, and it is called CaliforniaPrivacy.org. On the home page of this site, you will find a email letter that citizens could have used to communicate their support of the bill to their Assembly Members.
A U.S. District Judge ruled that the California Department of Corrections must allow prisoners, who have no Internet access, to receive printed copies of documents and materials obtained through the Web.
This report provides a New York state perspective on the value of e-government initiatives and examples of successful programs.
Via the new South Dakota Service Direct Portal, the state has made available over 1,100 forms, by service or category. Users may search for forms and download them, or fill them out online and submit them electronically.
The State Department web site had apparently been providing a link to the Republican National Committee web site, in violation of federal laws prohibiting the use of government resources to promote partisan causes. According to an article in the New York Times, the link was removed on September 12.
The national law firm, Morrison & Foerster LLP (known as MoFo), with its main office in San Francisco, sued direct mail marketer Etracks.com Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, and Learn2 Corporation, for spamming the firm's servers with more than 6,500 unsolicited emails.
The Center for Digital Government has given its first ever award, in the category of Best Digital Legislature, to the Arizona State Legislature Information System (ALIS) web site, which "allows the public to create individualized bill-tracking systems, among many other features and services. Arizona also boasts a 100 percent usage rate of members with laptops."
Other top state legislative sites recognized by the Center for Digital Government, along with their respective links, can be found in this announcement.
The two author's of this article, Jeffrey Eisenach and Peter Swire, are former members of the Reagan and Clinton administrations respectively. They concur on the need for the creation "of a new commission on privacy, personal freedom and homeland security."
NeuStar.com, manager of the ".us" domain, argued against legislation requiring the creation of a ".kids.us" domain during a September 12 hearing held by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space. The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 was passed by the House on May 21, 2002. NueStar seeks to make the .kids domain commercially viable using e-commerce transactions, and believes this goal cannot be achieved with government regulation.
From the Legal Information Insitute (LII) at Cornell University, here is a useful site that organizes the Court's decisions by topic, also providing a brief synopsis of each case, the date decided, and a link to the full-text.
From the current issue of the Journal of Information Law & Technology, this article on Online Dispute Resolution in Business to Consumer E-commerce Transactions reviews online forums for effectively resolving frequent disputes that arise from consumer purchases via the Web, including cross-border disputes.
A new article, Electronic Signatures: A Transatlantic Bridge? An EU and US Legal Approach Towards Electronic Authentication, provides a detailed analysis of how the two parties are approaching the issue of digital signatures in regard to the challenges presented by the e-commerce arena, based on the EU Directive on electronic signatures (1999) and the US E-Sign Act (2000).
The National Journal reviews the ongoing Internet copyright battle framed from the Hollywood perspective that focuses on widespread evidence of digital piracy, and Silicon Valley (the tech marketplace) position that argues making personal copies of various forms of digital content (CDs, DVDs) is fair use. This is a battle between titans, and the stakes are very high for the music, movie and publishing sectors. Both sides have advocates on the Hill who have introduced legislation that is noted in this article.
ICANN provides a searchable database for Proceedings under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) that is updated daily. The database is maintained by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
After a rather long wait, the Public Papers of President George Bush, 1992-1993, Vol. I, were just released on September 11, via this link to the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The Clinton public papers have been available for some time via this same link.
It is estimated that China has 46 million Web users, and the recent flareup concerning the government's censorship of both the Google and AltaVista search engines has raised concerns. According to a September 12 article , 80% of all Chinese internet traffic goes through one ISP, so it is very easy for the government to block sites and censor data.
Former President Clinton's new web site is available at http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.com/. There is an archive of his post-Presidential speeches, a flash timeline of his administration's legislative accomplishments from 1993-2000, and the site was designed to comply with Section 508 and W3 standards for use by those with disabilities.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)sent a letter to the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space concerning its objection S. 2537, The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002. The House had already passed a similar bill, H.R. 3833. The CDT contends that this legislation simply cannot guarantee that children would be protected from exposure to inapropriate materials via the proposed .kids.us domain. Furthermore, the creation of this domain "sets a dangerous precedent for regulation of the domain name space...and creates new concerns about free expression online."
Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws (FOIA) 2002 "is the standard reference work covering all aspects of the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Government in the Sunshine Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act. "
This new book, Web of Deception Misinformation on the Internet, is edited by Anne P. Mintz, who is Director of Knowledge Management at Forbes Inc., and includes a foreword by Steve Forbes. You may review in PDF the Table of Contents and a sample chapter, Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) posted a pithy chronology of major federal government proposals, laws and guidelines resulting from 9-11. To the right of the list is a scrolling group of statements attributed to politicians and editoral commentary from major papers, on the importance of maintaining the freedoms so fundamental to our democracy.
Since 9-11, there have been documented instances of information having been removed from government sponsored web sites, as well as indications that data that otherwise would be made public has simply not been published on the Web. A September 11 article in PCWorld addresses this issue, albeit well after its discussion in other venues. It is difficult to determine whether this is a 'trend' or an aberation, and only time will tell as researchers and advocacy groups monitor the situation. OMB Watch has a site , last updated on May 2, 2002, with background on the issue and links to previous articles. Also see the April 2, 2002 article from Government Computer News, Some feds welcome order to scrub Web.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually took their site offline last October to prevent access to sensitive data. On December 3, 2001, the agency posted a newly designed, and well scrubbed site, at the time indicating that it would continue to undergo revision until early 2002.
See also the Pew Internet and American Life Project Survey, published September 5, 2002, titled September 11 and the Internet, that found "More than two-thirds of Americans believe that the government should be granted wide privileges in deciding what information to post on government agency Web sites and what information to keep off government sites for fear it will help terrorists."
The Progressive Librarians Guild issued a statement in opposition to the DOJ's Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), which gives the federal government's stamp of approval to citizens' reporting on the supposedly suspicious and potentially nefarious activities of their friends and neighbors (such as what kind of books they take out of the library).
"'Why Do We Need to Keep This in Print? It's on the Web ...':
a Review of Electronic Archiving Issues and Problems," by Dorothy Warner.
From Nielsen NetRatings, this press release indicates that the Web is very popular at work, especially among women: Online Usage at Work Jumps 17 Percent Year-Over-Year, Driven by Female Office Workers.
This PCWorld article reviews various government sites from which data has been removed post 9-11, and also mentions watchdog groups that are monitoring whether and how this trend continues.
A survey conducted in May 2002, commissioned by the Brookings Institution, indicates that the spike in overall support for the government, media and corporations that occured after 9-11 has very much subsided.
Attention web site designers and publishers: according to Jeffrey Zeldman, in a book excerpt from Forward Compatibility: Designing & Building With Standards (2003 publication), we are undermining the success of our sites through flawed markup that slams the door on the metaphorical face of lots of potential users. Zeldman argues for the adoption of web standards developed by the collective World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as an essential means of ensuring the future accessibility and functionality of web site content.
The Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights released an important set of documents, in PDF, that focus on the legal ramifications of 9-11 to American society and the legal process. A 79 page report report, along with a corresponding set of recommendations, and a chronology – by date – of the government's restrictions on civil liberties after September 11th comprise these materials which offer critical insight into the path down which we are currently traveling.
Newsday.com published this AP article on September 5 which enumerates the changes in our fundamental rights since 9-11. See also, Safe and Free in Times of Crisis, On Eve of One-Year Anniversary, ACLU Says Terrorist Attacks Have Changed American Law, Society.
The current issue of the Journal of Information, Law and Technology, from the UK, published this well documented article, A Stages of Growth Model for Knowledge Management Technology in Law Firms, by Petter Gottschalk, of the Norwegian School of Management. The author provides much needed perspective on the concept of knowledge management in general, and specifically as it is implemented via various technology solutions in the law firm environment, which differ substantially between continents. He illustrates the process of developing a sound KM solution through the use of a series of detailed matrices and charts. This article also contains many useful annotations, and a copy of the survey he sent to the 100 largest Norwegian law firms, from whom he received 38 responses.
The Kennedy School of Government, NPR and the Kaiser foundation released a report, 2002 Civil Liberties Update which seems to contradict recent articles indicating that Americans were prepared to give up certain rights facilitate the war on terrorism.
I can certainly say that this story caught my eye. Afterall, who hasn't considered purchasing a low cost casket via the Web? Well, no time like the present, I guess. The FTC filed an amicus brief in support of competition that would facilitate the sale of low cost "funeral goods" in Oklahoma by those other than registered funeral home directors, who have a state supported monopoly on such sales.
See also CasketXpress.com for range of caskets available for purchase directly.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Amtrak will run a test in October offering high-speed wireless Web access to travelers who stop at Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York, sponsored by the state of Pennsylvania and the ISP, NRoute Communications.
In their report, Domain Name Services: Let Competition, Not ICANN, Rule, the PFF continues what has become steady bombardment against ICANN policies. The author, William Adkinson, senior policy council to PFF, contends there is no need for price regulation as there is already a competitive market to obtain web addresses.
On 9/10/2002, the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 4561, the Federal Agency Protection of Privacy Act, that "Requires Federal agencies: (1) when publishing a general notice of proposed rulemaking for any proposed rule or for an interpretative rule involving the internal revenue laws, to prepare, make available for public comment, and publish an initial analysis describing the rule's impact on the privacy of individuals; and (2) when promulgating the final rule, to prepare, make publicly available, and publish a final privacy impact analysis that includes a summary of the significant issues raised by and changes made pursuant to public comments on the initial analysis."
The Electronic Privacy Information Center's report, Privacy and Human Rights 2002, examines privacy in the context of the events of 9-11 and the impact of these events on fifty countries. The report can be downloaded in three separate parts, in PDF, or purchased from the EPIC bookstore.
This article focuses on the tremendous, time consuming challenges that journalists have had to face to for decades in their efforts to obtain access to federal and state government documents in accordance with theFreedom of Information Act (FOIA), Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552. Subsequent to 9-11, there has been considerable press related to broad brush decisions that have been made by government officials to either remove documents entirely from public access for security reasons, or severly limit their availablity to such an extent that one could grow quite old in the process of attempting to obtain specific materials.
The group behind the blog The End of Free, that includes the extraordinary Tara Calishain of Research Buzz fame, has recently launched a new site, appropriately titled The Start of Fee, dedicated to chronicling web sties that are transitioning from providing free content, to a hybrid free and fee model. The archive on this site begins on August 13, and the End of Free archive goes back to March 2002.
The UK has implemented a new guidance from the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 , via Home Office Circular 7/2002, sec. 119, allowing police, customers or immigration officers "to make a request to air or ship carriers to provide information about passengers, crew or vehicles belonging to the passengers and crew on any air or ship journey to, from or within the United Kingdom. "