Press release: "The Commission has issued a study, 2007 Report on Ethanol Market Concentration, its third annual report on the state of ethanol production in the United States, as required by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. On the assumption that U.S. fuel ethanol is a relevant market, the report concludes that the market, when measured on the basis of production or capacity, is unconcentrated and has become even more unconcentrated over the past year. As of September 2007, 103 firms produced ethanol in the United States, a one-year increase of 13 firms, and a two-year increase of roughly 28 firms. The largest ethanol producer’s share of capacity has continued to fall each year as new firms enter the market. Currently, the largest producer accounts for approximately 16 percent of domestic ethanol capacity, down from 21 percent in 2006, 26 percent in 2005, and 41 percent in 2000."
House Government and Oversight "Chairman Waxman today released a draft of an internal FDA guidance that would allow drug companies to use journal articles to promote potentially dangerous uses of drugs and medical devices without prior FDA review and approval."
Press release: "The Division of Privacy and Identity Protection of the Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection has issued a summary of information it has obtained in preparation for an upcoming FTC workshop on private-sector use of Social Security numbers (SSNs)...In July 2007, FTC staff invited interested parties to comment on the issues surrounding private sector usage of SSNs. More than 300 individuals and entities provided comments. The staff summary of the public comments and the information the staff obtained through its interviews can be found here. The issues will be addressed at an FTC workshop on December 10-11, 2007. More information about the workshop can be found here."
DHS OIG FY 2008 Annual Performance Plan (PDF, 101 pages - 1.3 MB) - New 11/30/2007
Center for Immigration Studies, Immigrants in the United States, 2007 - A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population, November 2007, Steven A. Camarota. "This Backgrounder provides a detailed picture of the number and socio-economic status of the nation’s immigrant or foreign-born population, both legal and illegal. The data was collected by the Census Bureau in March 2007. Among the report’s findings: The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007;Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13...Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived — the highest seven-year period of immigration in U.S. history. More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens; The largest increases in immigrants were in California, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Arizona, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania."
"In preparation for this year’s World AIDS Day, December 1 2007, the Kaiser Family Foundation would like to highlight several new resources that may be of interest, including updated HIV/AIDS fact sheets and web tools, and developments in some of our global public education campaigns designed to raise awareness about HIV." [Link to resource guide including those listed below.]
Press release: Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York and eleven other states are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over new regulations denying the public access to information about toxic chemicals in their communities. The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements. The suit seeks to overturn the weakened reporting requirements and provide the public with the access they had in the past."
"To celebrate the one-year anniversary of FedSpending.org, OMB Watch Nov. 29 released a new and improved version of the website. The new version includes a complete FY 2006 data set for both contracts and federal assistance spending. The upgraded site also incorporates major functionality improvements, including the addition of a mapping feature on all searches, creation of a streamlined and powerful SuperSearch for all advanced searching needs, and increased flexibility in retrieving more extensive summary data through expandable summary tables."
Homeland Security: Federal Efforts Are Helping to Alleviate Some Challenges Encountered by State and Local Information Fusion Centers, GAO-08-35, October 30, 2007: "Most states and many local governments have established fusion centers to address gaps in information sharing. Fusion centers across the country vary in their stages of development--from operational to early in the planning stages. Officials in 43 of the centers GAO contacted described their centers as operational, and 34 of these centers had opened since January 2004. Law enforcement entities, such as state police or state bureaus of investigation, are the lead or managing agencies in the majority of the operational centers GAO contacted; however, the centers varied in their staff sizes and partnerships with other agencies."
Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission and the federal financial regulatory agencies (the Agencies) have approved proposed regulations and guidelines to help ensure the accuracy and integrity of information provided to consumer reporting agencies and to allow consumers to directly dispute inaccuracies with financial institutions and other entities that furnish information to consumer reporting agencies. This information is widely used to determine eligibility for credit, employment, insurance, and rental housing. The proposal would implement section 312 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, which amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act."
Follow up on previous postings on U.S. Attorney firings, today's press release: "Taking the next step to enforce subpoenas that the White House has refused to heed, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Thursday ruled that White House claims of executive privilege and immunity in the Senate’s investigation of the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys are overbroad, unsubstantiated, and not legally valid to block current and former White House officials from fulfilling Judiciary Committee subpoenas. Leahy directed them to comply immediately with the subpoenas that were issued by the Committee earlier this year. Leahy issued subpoenas for documents and testimony to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House political director Sara M. Taylor on June 13, 2007, and to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and White House deputy political director J. Scott Jennings on July 26, 2007. Bolten produced none of the White House documents compelled by subpoena and Rove failed to appear at all before the Committee to testify as required by subpoena after the White House asserted a novel claim that he was immune from testifying. While Taylor and Jennings appeared before the Committee for sworn testimony, both cited the White House’s claim of executive privilege in failing to answer many of the Committee’s questions about their roles in the dismissals of U.S. Attorneys."
McAfee Virtual Criminology Report - Cybercrime: The Next Wave - The annual McAfee global cyber trends study into organized crime and the Internet in collaboration with leading international security experts, November 2007.
Press release: "The new, non-proprietary, open standard, ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol), is set to put an end to publisher-search engine legal clashes was unveiled and showcased in New York today, 29 November 2007 at a conference opened by World Association of Newspapers President, Gavin O’Reilly and addressed by keynote speaker AP CEO Tom Curley. ACAP has been developed at the initiative of the World Association of Newspapers, the International Publishers Association and the European Publishers Council in close collaboration with search engines to protect the intellectual property of anyone wishing to make content available on the worldwide web. ACAP is the result of an intense 12-month pilot project which has resulted in a unique communications tool that will open the door to more and more high level content, giving all content owners the confidence to make their content available on the worldwide web. From today, publishers globally will be encouraged to implement ACAP version 1 which will allow publishers, broadcasters and indeed any other publisher of content on the network to express their individual access and use policies in a language that search engine robots and similar automated tools can read and understand. ACAP is set to become a universal standard. Click here for instructions on how to implement ACAP."
United Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour, A Report by SIPRI and the Uppsala University Special Program on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions. ISBN 978-91-85114-56-6. Executive Summary.
What a Family of Four Would Need to Earn in Selected Urban Areas to Have Purchasing Power Equal to 300% of the U.S. Federal Poverty Level ($61,950), 2007. Data is ranked by state (and ranked within group; Lowest Cost Urban Area, Middle Cost Urban Area, Highest Cost Urban Area).
A National Study of Confidence in Leadership: "Americans are alarmed about the quality of their leaders and concerned about the country’s future, yet optimistic that things can improve. The third national study of confidence in leadership, conducted by the Center for Public Leadership in cooperation with U.S. News & World Report and Yankelovich, Inc., reveals that the leadership crisis we first identified in our 2005 report continues—and, in Americans’ eyes, is deepening:
Press release: "The Treasury Department today sent to Congress a Congressionally mandated report on three international tax issues. The Report to the Congress on Earnings Stripping, Transfer Pricing and U.S. Income Tax Treaties (108 pages, PDF) describes current issues regarding U.S. earnings stripping rules, transfer pricing rules, and the misuse of income tax treaties to which the United States is a party. The report provides conclusions and recommendations in each of the three areas studied."
Nuclear and Worker Safety: Actions Needed to Determine the Effectiveness of Safety Improvement Efforts at NNSA's Weapons Laboratories, GAO-08-73, October 31, 2007: "The nuclear weapons laboratories have experienced persistent safety problems, stemming largely from long-standing management weaknesses. Since 2000, nearly 60 serious accidents or near misses have occurred, including worker exposure to radiation, inhalation of toxic vapors, and electrical shocks. Although no one was killed, many of the accidents caused serious harm to workers or damage to facilities. Accidents and nuclear safety violations also contributed to the temporary shutdown of facilities at both Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore in 2004 and 2005."
Press release: "In the wake of the detection and reporting of Comcast Corporation's controversial interference with Internet traffic, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has published a comprehensive account of Comcast's packet-forging activities and has released software and documentation instructing Internet users on how to test for packet forgery or other forms of interference by their own ISPs."
U.S. Army News release: "The Army announced Nov. 28 that it has taken initial steps to plan for reduced operations at all Army bases while the congressional review continues on funding for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and requirements associated with the Global War on Terror. With no funds provided for GWOT requirements since the beginning of the fiscal year, the Army has had to use Operation and Maintenance Account (OMA) dollars budgeted to organize, train, equip, and field forces, as well to sustain Soldiers and their Families, to fund war related activities. Gen. Richard A. Cody, vice chief of staff of the Army, directed all Army commanders and agency directors in a Nov. 26 memorandum to begin planning for reduced Army-wide operations. The memo instructs Army leaders to review all operations, and to make plans to minimize OMA-funded activities not required to protect the life, health and safety of occupants of Army installations, or required to maintain assets vital to the national defense. Detailed reports of this review and planning effort by installation commanders are due back to Gen. Cody by December 4."
Press release: "Late Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won the speedy release of telecom lobbying records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The agency was ordered to comply with a new December 10 deadline -- in time for the documents to play a role in the congressional debate over granting amnesty for telecommunications companies taking part in illegal electronic surveillance. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston vacates a hearing on the matter previously scheduled for Friday."
"The Human Development Report 2007/2008 shows that climate change is not just a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Business-as-usual climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human development in our lifetime, and acute risks for our children and their grandchildren."
Human Development Report 2007/2008, November 2007
National Association of State Chief Information Officers - The Search Is On: State CIO Starting Points for E-Discovery
November 2007: "In its September 2007 Issue Brief entitled Seek and Ye Shall Find? State CIOs Must Prepare Now for E-Discovery!, NASCIO raised the importance of State CIO involvement in e-discovery and the need for collaborative state electronic records management activities to properly address e-discovery requests. In this follow-up Research Brief, NASCIO provides starting points for State CIOs to improve the state’s ability to successfully address legal requests for electronic information.
Topics include:
Follow up to March 27, 2007 posting Opening up of the Bad Arolsen Holocaust Archives in Germany, this news:
Press release: "Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the first round of sampling results from its Lower Manhattan Test and Clean program, established to identify the possible presence of contaminants associated with the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. EPA has posted this round of data on its Web site. The Agency is continuing to test residential and commercial spaces and will update the Web site regularly as more data becomes available."
Press release: "The sixth edition of Greenpeace International’s ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ has been expanded to include televisions and game consoles.(1) Market leaders Microsoft, Nintendo, Philips and Sharp enter at the bottom of the ranking of environmental performance with Nintendo being the first company scoring zero out of a possible 10 points. Philips and Microsoft performed little better, scoring only 2 and 2.7, respectively."
Press release: "Google today announced a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, known as RE/C [Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal], will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other potential breakthrough technologies. RE/C is hiring engineers and energy experts to lead its research and development work, which will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and will also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas. In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns."
News.com: "The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries across the globe, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publically available. The online library offers full text downloads of works that are in the public domain, or for which the copyright holder has been given permission to make available. Having the backing of prominent institutions such as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, however, the collection goes far beyond the widely available classics, though those are there, too..." According to the director of intellectual property for the Universal Digital Library, Michael Shamos, "But once books are digitized and stored on servers around the world, it becomes impossible for any one government to destroy all the copies of a book. Once it's there it remains immortal."
US Courts: "New rules providing privacy protection for case files posted online in the federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts are scheduled to take effect December 1, 2007. Some of the rules represent a change in Judicial Conference policy. Meanwhile, a Judicial Conference committee is studying a related privacy issue: Whether courts should restrict Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations. The new rules were proposed by the Judicial Conference in accordance with the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires that each court make publicly available online any document filed electronically. The rules require parties to redact certain personal information from each filing. The Act required the Supreme Court to prescribe rules “to protect privacy and security concerns related to electronic filing of documents and the public availability..of documents filed electronically.” The new privacy rules include Civil Procedure Rule 5.2, Criminal Rule 49.1 and Bankruptcy Rule 9037. Appellate Rule 25 was amended to incorporate the new privacy directive. The rules can be found here."
Verizon press release: "Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008."
US Courts: "Supreme Court decisions, shifting Administration priorities, new legislation, and numerous other factors caused the composition of the federal courts’ caseload to change over the past decade. Between September 30, 1997 and September 30, 2006, appeals court filings steadily climbed, district court caseloads fluctuated, and bankruptcy filings hit a record high before tumbling following the enactment of sweeping bankruptcy reform legislation. What are the identifiable caseload trends and what are the forces behind the changing nature of the federal courts’ caseload?"
Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today released a survey showing that 8.3 million American adults, or 3.7 percent of all American adults, were victims of identity theft in 2005. Of the victims, 3.2 million, or 1.4 percent of all adults, experienced misuse of their existing credit card accounts; 3.3 million, or 1.5 percent, experienced misuse of non-credit card accounts; and 1.8 million victims, or 0.8 percent, found that new accounts were opened or other frauds were committed using their personal identifying information."
Joint Understanding Read by President Bush at Annapolis Conference, November 27, 2007.
DOJ FOIA Post: Summaries of New Decisions -- October 2007: "As announced previously by OIP, we are now posting up-to-date summaries of new court decisions. To facilitate their review, cases are broken down by FOIA Exemption or procedural element and internal citations and quotations have been omitted. OIP provides these case summaries as a public service; due to their nature as summaries, they are not intended to be authoritative or complete statements of the facts or holdings of any of the cases summarized, and they should not be relied upon as such. Set out below are summaries of the court decisions that were received by OIP during the month of October 2007."
LC press release: "The Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and OCLC have signed a memorandum of understanding to extend and enhance the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), a project that virtually combines multiple name authority files into a single name authority service. Building on a previous proof-of-concept research project by the Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (the German national library) and OCLC, the new agreement adds the Bibliothèque nationale de France (the French national library) as a principal partner in VIAF and will lead to the inclusion of content from name authority files maintained by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The French name authority records will be added to the existing VIAF files built from authority data from the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and the Library of Congress. VIAF’s matching routines were developed by OCLC research."
WSJ: "Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives -- such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said."
Audit of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Fiscal Year 2007 Financial Statements, November 15, 2007 (33 pages, PDF)
Press release: "Mayor Adrian M. Fenty today announced the first-ever data on HIV in the District of Columbia and updated AIDS statistics last reported five years ago. Released to coincide with events leading up to World AIDS Day this Saturday, December 1, the statistics show striking findings on the severity of the District’s epidemic. The Mayor also announced steps to reduce the number of children born with HIV, increase testing and earlier treatment for people before they get sick, and respond to the disproportionate impact on women and the African-American community...The District’s rate for newly reported AIDS cases is higher than rates in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Chicago."
"In a letter to the EPA Assistant Administrator for Water, Chairman Waxman discloses that documents the Committee has received raise new questions about whether EPA is effectively monitoring a 2003 Memorandum of Agreement intended to eliminate the injection of diesel fuel into underground sources of drinking water. The oil and gas industry has had a practice of injecting diesel fuel into underground sources of drinking water in order to fracture wells and make them more productive. Chairman Waxman also wrote to Halliburton, Schlumberger, BJ Services, and the Encana Corporation to request information about what chemicals are currently being injected into underground sources of drinking water."
Via Secrecy News:
Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission is beginning a regulatory review of its environmental marketing guidelines, also known as the Green Guides. The guides outline general principles for all environmental marketing claims and provide specifics about certain green claims, such as degradabilty, compostability, recyclability, recycled content, and ozone safety. In a Federal Register Notice, the Commission is requesting comments on the guides, including standard questions about costs, benefits, and effectiveness of the guides, and questions on specific topics, including “sustainable” and “renewable” claims. While the review was scheduled to begin in 2009, because of the current increase in green advertising claims, the Commission is reviewing the guides at this time to ensure they reflect today’s marketplace. The guides were last updated in 1998...As part of the Green Guides review, the FTC will be holding public meetings or workshops on a number of green marketing topics. The first workshop on January 8, 2008, will address the marketing of carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates (RECs) as detailed in a separate Federal Register Notice published concurrently with the [previous] Notice..."
Press release: "The New York Public Library has acquired the papers of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the late American historian, social critic, and advisor to President John F. Kennedy, announced Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. "Arthur Schlesinger was a pivotally important American in the last century. He was both a brilliant historian and also a witness to, and participant in, most of the significant events of his era," said Dr. LeClerc...The Arthur Schlesinger papers consist of almost 300 linear feet of correspondence, journals, manuscripts of his writings, research files, phone logs, sound recordings, videos, date books, and clippings and will be housed in the Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division. The correspondence in Schlesinger's papers includes letters from nearly every significant figure in American politics, as well as many prominent scholars, thinkers, writers, and artists. Examples of prominent correspondents include Kofi Annan, Brooke Astor, Truman Capote, Bill Clinton, Marlene Dietrich, Allen Ginsberg, Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javitz, Edward Kennedy, Edward Koch, Norman Mailer, Walter Mondale, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ralph Nader, I.M. Pei, John D. Rockefeller IV, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, and Caspar Weinberger."
White House, November 26, 2007: Fact Sheet: U.S.-Iraq Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation - "The U.S. and Iraqi "Declaration of Principles" is a shared statement of intent that establishes common principles to frame our future relationship. This moves us closer to normalized, bilateral relations between our two countries. With this declaration, leaders of Iraq and the United States commit to begin negotiating the formal arrangements that will govern such a relationship."
Press release: "China and India play an increasing role in EU27 trade. China, which was the fourth trading partner of the EU27 in 2000, has since 2003 become the second trading partner after the USA. India, which was the 17th trading partner in 2000, ranked ninth in 2006. On the occasion of the EU-China Summit, which will take place on Wednesday 28 November in Beijing, and the EU-India Summit, which will take place on Friday 30 November in New Delhi, Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, issues the latest data available on trade and investments between China and the EU27 and India and the EU27."
AFRICOM's Dilemma: The "Global War on Terrorism" "Capacity Building," Humanitarianism, and the Future of U.S. Security Policy in Africa.
Authored by Robert G. Berschinski. November 21, 2007.
Press release: "With public concern over online fraud, new research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, has revealed that internet users will reveal more personal information online if they believe they can trust the organisation that requests the information. 'Even people who have previously demonstrated a high level of caution regarding online privacy will accept losses to their privacy if they trust the recipient of their personal information' says Dr Adam Joinson, who led the study. The findings of the study are vital for those aiming to create online services that pose a potential privacy threat, such as Government agencies involved in developing ID cards. The project found that even those people who declared themselves unconcerned about privacy would soon become opposed to ID cards if the way that they were asked for information made them feel that their privacy was threatened...56 percent of internet users stated that they have concerns about privacy when they are online. The central issue was whether websites were seen as particularly trustworthy - or untrustworthy - causing users to alter their behaviour. When a website is designed to look trustworthy, people are willing to accept privacy violations. But, the same actions by an untrustworthy site leads to people behaving in a much more guarded manner."
"At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY. The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30. These cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon's official tally of wounded, which stands at 30,327."
WSJ free feature, Clinging to the Rolodex: "More than 20 years after the digital revolution that forecasted the paperless office, the "rotary card file" -- best known by the market-leading brand name, Rolodex -- continues to turn. As millions of social-network users display their connectedness on their Facebook pages, a surprisingly robust group of people maintain their networks on small white cards. Most of these devotees also rely on BlackBerrys and other computer-based address books."
Reinventing the Law Library - Year is 2020, NE2007: Law Libraries Without Borders II: 4th Northeast Regional Law Libraries Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Claire M. Germain, Professor of Law & Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Cornell University Law School, October 19, 2007.
WSJ: A Little Laptop With Big Ambitions - How a Computer for the Poor
Got Stomped by Tech Giants, By STEVE STECKLOW and JAMES BANDLER, November 24, 2007.
"Word Spy is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't "stunt words" or "sniglets," but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources."
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, filed November 23. 2007, ACLU v DHS: Proposed Order Granting Defendants’ Motion to Stay Proceeding Pending New Rulemaking.
Press release: "comScore, Inc...released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the search marketplace. Among core search engines in October 2007, Google Sites remained the top search property with more than 6.1 billion core searches conducted, representing a 58.5 percent share of the search market. October was a strong month for overall search activity, as each of the five core search engines achieved at least 5 percent growth in the number of searches conducted."
"As much of the daily practice of law moves to web-based technologies, it is increasingly important that all members of the legal community -- lawyers and non-lawyers alike -- understand the need for websites that are accessible to all audiences. Efforts to ensure that websites are accessible to disabled persons, simply referred to as "web accessibility," allow people with disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web. In doing so, they promote full and open access to the legal profession -- a longstanding ABA goal. To help you better understand web accessibility and how it can be implemented by your firm or organization, we've collected the[se] useful resources..."
"...the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has been tracking security breaches for the past three years, looking for patterns, new trends and any information that may help us better protect data and assist companies in their activities...In 2006, there were in excess of 315 publicized breaches affecting nearly 20 million individuals. Based on ITRC’s categorization, the breaches break down as follows: 29% government/military agencies; 28% from educational institutions; 22% from general businesses; 13% from health care facilities / companies; and 8% from banking / credit / financial services entities. In 2005, there were 158 incidents affecting more than 64.8 million people."
PBS NOW, Big Oil, Big Influence: "During the time that Bush and Cheney, both of whom are former oil executives, have been in the White House, the oil and gas industry has spent $393.2 million on lobbying the federal government. This places the industry among the top nine in lobbying expenditures. The industry has also contributed a substantial $82.1 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 80 percent of the industry's contributions have gone to Republicans."
AP: "The papers of two of Arkansas' most prominent political leaders former Govs. Clinton and Huckabee remain locked in storage four years after both promised to donate them to two separate archival projects."
DHS Leadership Journal" "DHS posts its System of Record Notices and Privacy Impact Assessments on our website. These documents inform the public what personal information the government is collecting; how it will be used and shared; what consent, access and redress rights the individual may have; how the information will be protected; and how compliance with these protections is audited. Privacy is enhanced by revealing what the government is doing, and security is enhanced by DHS supporting systems intended to protect the public."
US Courts: New rules providing privacy protection for case files posted online in the federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts are scheduled to take effect December 1, 2007. Some of the rules represent a change in Judicial Conference policy.
Meanwhile, a Judicial Conference committee is studying a related privacy issue: Whether courts should restrict Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations.
The new rules were proposed by the Judicial Conference in accordance with the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires that each court make publicly available online any document filed electronically. The rules require parties to redact certain personal information from each filing.
The Act required the Supreme Court to prescribe rules “to protect privacy and security concerns related to electronic filing of documents and the public availability...of documents filed electronically.”
The new privacy rules include Civil Procedure Rule 5.2, Criminal Rule 49.1 and Bankruptcy Rule 9037. Appellate Rule 25 was amended to incorporate the new privacy directive. The rules can be found at http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/congress0407.htm."
Access Case Records: "Minnesota Online District (Trial) Case Records - Minnesota District Courts offer an online case inquiry tool for statewide electronic case records, called MPA Remote, which stands for Minnesota Trial Court Public Access Remote view. MPA Remote is a public-view version of the Minnesota Court Information System (MNCIS), the computerized case management system used by Minnesota District Courts to track and manage cases. MPA Remote contains replicated public case data from MNCIS. Upon inquiry, MPA Remote displays case information for public viewing, including register of actions, calendars, judgments, and orders and notices prepared by the court."
Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales 3rd Quarter 2007: "The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2007, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, was $34.7 billion, an increase of 3.6 percent (±0.8%) from the second quarter of 2007. Total retail sales for the third quarter of 2007 were estimated at $1,020.4 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±0.2%) from the second quarter of 2007. The third quarter 2007 e commerce estimate increased 19.3 percent (±2.6%) from the third quarter of 2006 while total retail sales increased 3.8 percent (±0.5%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2007 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales."
CAFE and the U.S. Auto Industry - A Growing Auto Investor Issue, 2012-2020 October 2007 (36 pages, PDF): "In partnership with Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, [citi] along with industry experts at the Planning Edge, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, and NRDC evaluated potential changes to the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program.
101 Best Web Freebies - BusinessWeek.com scoured the Internet for the most useful free products and services available online that you probably don't know about, by Douglas MacMillan. This 45 screen slideshow includes graphics and links to recommended products by category - tech tools, personal finance, career, entertainment, print media, research, health, online learning, PC security.
2007 Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, November 2007 (364 pages, PDF)
The data come largely from a trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. The raid’s target was an insurgent cell believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.
The most significant discovery was a collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006.
The records also underscore how the insurgency in Iraq remains both overwhelmingly Iraqi and Sunni. American officials now estimate that the flow of foreign fighters was 80 to 110 per month during the first half of this year and about 60 per month during the summer. The numbers fell sharply in October to no more than 40, partly as a result of the Sinjar raid, the American officials say."
National Vital Statistics - Deaths: Leading Causes for 2004 (96 pages, PDF): "This report presents final 2004 data on the 10 leading causes of death in the United States by age, race, sex, and Hispanic origin. Leading causes of infant, neonatal, and postneonatal death are also presented. This report supplements the annual report of final mortality statistics. Methods—Data in this report are based on information from all death certificates filed in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2004. Causes of death classified by the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD–10) are ranked according to the number of deaths assigned to rankable causes."
"The Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has released its 2007 Coal Power Plant Database, a new, updated version which contains the most current and comprehensive collection of coal-fired power plant data in the United States. The database consolidates large quantities of information on the nation's existing coal-fired power plants in a single location. It covers 191 fields and provides information on more than 1,700 boilers and associated units. Emissions, generation, location, and firing data for all U.S. coal-power plants are located in the database, which supports DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and NETL project management and analysis studies."
National Security Archive: "The first comprehensive U.S. nuclear war plan, produced in 1960, was controversial within the U.S. government because top commanders and White House scientists objected to its massive destructiveness—the “high level of damage and population casualties”—according to newly declassified histories published today by the National Security Archive. The war plan also appalled Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who wanted to find ways to curb its overkill, but the first nuclear plan revised on his watch remained massively destructive."
Documents Center, University Library, University of Michigan, Guide to Elections 2008. Choose this web guide as your basis for any aspect of election related research. It is comprehensive, current, and presents a wide spectrum of state and federal resources, as well as annotated links to free and fee-based publications, subscription services, and online guides maintainted by government, newspapers, campaigns, advocacy groups, lobbying groups, and academics.
"The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Established in the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the SPR provides the President with a powerful response option should a disruption in commercial oil supplies threaten the U.S. economy. It also allows the United States to meet part of its International Energy Agency obligation to maintain emergency oil stocks, and it provides a national defense fuel reserve. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Secretary of Energy to fill the SPR to its authorized one billion barrel capacity. This required the Department of Energy to complete proceedings to select sites necessary to expand the SPR to one billion barrels."
National Endowment for the Arts Report: To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence: "This report is a new and comprehensive analysis of reading patterns of children, teenagers, and adults in the United States. To Read or Not To Read assembled data on reading trends from more than 40 sources, including federal agencies, universities, foundations, and associations. The compendium expands the investigation of the NEA's landmark 2004 report, Reading at Risk, and reveals recent declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike, exposing trends that have severe consequences for American society. November 2007. (100 pages, PDF)
The U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has released "Law Enforcement Intelligence: A Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies CD-ROM." This guide is an electronic version of the 2004 print publication. The guide is targeted to managers, supervisors, and officers tasked with developing or reinvigorating their intelligence function. The CD also includes other related documents such as The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP) and Fusion Center Guidelines. For more information on COPS and other resources provided by COPS, please visit the COPS Web site.
State Department: "Forty-nine nations, organizations and individuals have been invited to attend the U.S.-sponsored international Middle East conference November 26-28 in Annapolis, Maryland, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says...The United States will host Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, along with the members of the Quartet, which includes the United Nations, European Union, Russia and the United States, the members of the Arab League Follow-on Committee, the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and other key international actors for a conference at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis..."
National Archives: "The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will release approximately 122,800 pages of historical materials from the Nixon presidency at the National Archives in College Park, MD. Highlights include national security documents on U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Soviet Union, and on the Kurds. Also included are documents on the Vietnam War, on dealing with the terrorist Black September Organization, on producing the CIA’s Presidential Daily Brief, and on U.S. covert action in Chile. A selection of 15 documents from the release will be posted on the Nixon Presidential Library web site.
Blog announcement: "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), in conjunction with a coalition of government watchdog groups, launched a new online government document database, governmentdocs.org on Thursday, November 8. The database houses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) responses, and other government documents, from a number of organizations, that can be browsed, searched and reviewed. It is the only one of its kind...Governmentdocs.org for the first time creates a central repository of government documents, promoting greater transparency into the inner-workings of our government. Traditionally, most government watchdog groups have either posted FOIA documents on their websites as unsearchable PDFs, or statically highlighted several pages within a document to bolster their findings. This has historically limited the public's access to FOIA documents, and minimizes the opportunities for use by researchers, journalists and citizen reviewers for further research and disclosures. Governmentdocs.org changes that: Each and every document goes through an optical character recognition (OCR) process, so that the text of each document is entirely searchable; A powerful search engine provides full-text searches and hit highlighting; Citizen reviewers can add information to each document page and highlight important findings, allowing for more robust and targeted searches.
Every page of every document has its own unique URL so that documents can be linked, shared, or posted onto websites; The database is a coalition effort, so all of the organizations’ documents will be housed on governmentdocs.org and searches will work across collections."
This series is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and Research Center for Information Law at University of St. Gallen. Authors, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser.
Defense Science Board Report, September 2007 - Deployment of National Guard and Reserve in the Global War on Terrorism (53 pages, PDF): "...given current levels of operational demand, today's Army active, National Guard and reserve force structure will not support the DOD [deployment] policy."
Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age, James Waldo, Herbert S. Lin, and Lynette I. Millett, Editors, Committee on Privacy in the Information Age, National Research Council.
Press release: "Hazardous toys are still sold in stores across the country, according to the 22nd annual toy safety survey released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG)...According to the most recent data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), toy-related injuries sent almost 73,000 children under the age of five to emergency rooms in 2005. Twenty children died from toy-related injuries that year. For 22 years, the U.S. PIRG Trouble in Toyland report has offered safety guidelines for purchasing toys for small children and provided examples of toys currently on store shelves that pose potential safety hazards...U.S. PIRG’s 2007 research focused on several categories of toy dangers: toys that pose choking hazards, toys with powerful magnets, toys that contain lead, and toys that pose strangulation hazards."
"Health Policy Picks is a monthly selection of recent publications, such as technical reports, conference proceedings, and other material produced by organizations and government agencies that conduct health care policy analysis and research. Health Policy Picks is a partnership between KaiserEDU.org and the New York Academy of Medicine Library's Grey Literature Collection...This month's Health Policy Picks presents recently released publications on Medicare, Medicaid, the Uninsured, and Health Systems."
Press release: "New data show global HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—has levelled off and that the number of new infections has fallen, in part as a result of the impact of HIV programmes. However, in 2007 33.2 million [30.6 – 36.1 million] people were estimated to be living with HIV, 2.5 million [1.8 – 4.1 million] people became newly infected and 2.1 million [1.9 – 2.4 million] people died of AIDS. There were an estimated 1.7 million [1.4 – 2.4 million] new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007—a significant reduction since 2001. However, the region remains most severely affected. An estimated 22.5 million [20.9 – 24.3 million] people living with HIV, or 68% of the global total, are in sub-Saharan Africa. Eight countries in this region now account for almost one-third of all new HIV infections and AIDS deaths globally."
Unidentified Human Remains in the United States, 1980-2004, November 2007: "Examines the number of unidentified persons reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Death Index (NDI), by State, from 1980 to 2004. This report also looks at the number of unidentified human remains reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Unidentified Person File. It describes the characteristics by race and gender and the manner of death."
The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web - "In this research study, Nemertes performed an independent in-depth analysis of Internet and IP infrastructure (which we call capacity) and current and projected traffic (which we call demand) with the goal of understanding how each has changed over time, and determining if there will ever be a point at which demand exceeds capacity....findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years. We estimate the financial investment required by access providers to bridge the gap between demand and capacity ranges from $42 billion to $55 billion, or roughly 60%-70% more than service providers currently plan to invest. It’s important to stress that failing to make that investment will not cause the Internet to collapse. Instead, the primary impact of the lack of investment will be to throttle innovation” both the technical innovation that leads to increasingly newer and better applications, and the business innovation that relies on those technical innovations and applications to generate value. The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise, not because of a lack of demand, but due to an inability to fulfill that demand."
Center for Public Integrity: "It's been four years since the Center released its acclaimed Windfalls of War investigation, which first named Halliburton as the largest single contractor in Iraq and revealed the most comprehensive list of the top Iraq and Afghanistan contractors available at the time. That list included more than 70 American companies that had been awarded up to $8 billion in contracts from 2002 through July 1, 2004. By the end of 2006, U.S. contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan have grown to $25 billion, while oversight has seriously deteriorated, according to a new Center analysis, Windfalls of War II. The Center report shows that KBR, Inc., formally known as Kellogg, Brown and Root and a Halliburton subsidiary until April 2007, continues to top the list at more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts from 2004 to 2006. DynCorp International, at $1.8 billion, came in at a distant second...The Center assembled its list of the top 100 contractors, where the reported place of performance was in Iraq and Afghanistan, by analyzing the General Service Administration's Federal Procurement Data System. After reviewing this federal database, the Center was able to piece together the 100 companies that received the most contracts from fiscal years 2004 to 2006. However, even this publicly available federal database does not include all Iraq and Afghanistan contracts, including the ones originating at the Baghdad contracting agency. The Baghdad contracting agency has rebuffed Center efforts to obtain missing contracts. The Center is now seeking to acquire them through Freedom of Information Act requests."
OMB: "For the third year in a row, all major Federal agencies successfully met the 45-day financial audit deadline as required by the rigorous reporting guidelines set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Since 2001, agencies are required to complete the financial report 45-days after the end of the Fiscal Year, compared to the previous five month (150 days) window for completion. The accelerated deadline results in more immediate availability of financial information to agency decision-makers and requires agencies to employ rigorous disciplines throughout the year to ensure readiness for year-end reporting."
Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts, November 2007: "Presents findings on the pretrial release phase of the criminal justice process using data collected from a representative sample of felony cases filed in the 75 largest U.S. counties in May during even-numbered years from 1990 to 2004. It includes trends on pretrial release rates and the types of release used. Pretrial release rates are compared by arrest offense, demographic characteristics, and criminal history. Characteristics of released and detained defendants are also presented. Rates of pretrial misconduct including failure to appear and rearrest are presented by type of release, demographic characteristics, and criminal history."
CBO Statement of Peter R. Orszag, Director, Issues in Climate Change, Presentation for the CBO Director’s Conference on Climate Change, November 16, 2007, November 16, 2007
Press release: "Thomson Healthcare, publisher of the definitive drug resource for physicians, the Physicians’ Desk Reference...announced the launch of PDRhealth.com, an online health Web site for the more than 80 percent of consumers that use the Internet to search for health information. Developed for consumers, PDRhealth.com is based on the same information platform that Thomson Healthcare uses to create the world’s largest and most trusted database of prescription drug information, Physicians’ Desk Reference. This drug information is paired with comprehensive diagnostic tools in the new PDRhealth.com, putting critical health information into the hands of consumers."
Prepared Statement of Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) Regarding the Finance Committee Investigation of Avandia, November 15, 2007: "We place a great deal of trust in pharmaceutical companies to make safe and effective products.The health of millions of Americans, from young children to retirees, depends on the careful work of these drug manufacturers. Today, Senator Grassley and I are placing in the Congressional Record a Senate Finance Committee staff report which describes a very disturbing series of events related to the safety of the diabetes drug Avandia. The report presents evidence that a pharmaceutical company allegedly tried to intimidate a doctor who raised concerns about Avandia’s link to heart problems. This occurred after the doctor gave speeches at two scientific meetings where he warned of the cardiovascular risks to those using Avandia, a drug designed to control glucose levels in diabetics. To make matters worse, the company in question denied trying to intimidate the doctor in the
press. That claim is seriously challenged by emails presented in the staff report."
EPA News release: EPA has developed two tools that let computer users "see" air quality information on a virtual globe. Both tools are available to the public starting today...The first tool is part of the new "Air Emission Sources" Web site, which is designed to make emissions data for six common pollutants easy to find and understand. Based on the latest National Emissions Inventory, the site uses charts and Google Earth files to answer a user’s questions. Users can look at overall emissions, emissions by type of industry, or emissions by largest polluter. Want to know what industry emits the most sulfur dioxide in your state? Select your state from a map, pick a pollutant, and the site creates a chart showing you emissions by industry. Want to "see" which refineries in your state emit the most sulfur dioxide? Use the "tilt" feature in Google Earth to quickly find the largest emitter. Then click on the balloon to get more details about emissions from that facility. EPA also is providing Air Quality Index (AQI) information in the Google Earth format. Use the AQI tool to quickly see air quality across the country, then click on a specific location to see that city’s AQI forecast and current levels of ozone or particle pollution. The AQI is EPA’s color-coded tool to inform the public about daily air pollution levels in their communities. EPA, in collaboration with state and local governments, provides AQI forecasts and conditions for more than 300 cities across the United States."
Coalition of Journalists for Open Government: "The Department of Energy, in a new rule covering Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEII), said that it will eliminate the “Non-Internet Public” designation that has kept some 5,400 documents available in reading rooms but not on the Internet. The agency said much of the information is already available online and the NIP marker “does not enhance security or safety.” It said it would allow 60 days in which the status of any individual document could be challenged before being posted."
Stateline.org: "The 2001 terrorist attacks led every state but South Dakota to restrict access to information deemed critical to homeland security — from architectural blueprints to emergency evacuation routes, according to a comprehensive, state-by-state study of post-9/11 changes to open-government laws. Wary of terrorists, state lawmakers closed government meetings previously open to the public, denied residents access to disaster-response plans and concealed documents on mass-transit systems, energy companies and research laboratories, according to the findings."
"In this Order, we grant the application of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust Corporation (PSSTC) for the single nationwide license for the public safety 700 MHz broadband spectrum allocation (i.e., the Public Safety Broadband License)."
US Courts: "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts totaled 801,269 for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, down 28 percent when compared to the 1,112,542 filings in Fiscal Year 2006. However, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the September 2007 filings are the highest of any previous 12-month period since September 2006."
News release: "The Department of Defense (DoD) has released details on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule, and performance changes since the June 2007 reporting period. This information is based on the Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) submitted to the Congress for the September 2007 reporting period. SARs summarize the latest estimates of cost, schedule, and performance status...The current estimate of program acquisition costs for programs covered by SARs for the prior reporting period (June 2007) was $1,693,773.4 million."
Gender differences in the use of computers and the Internet - Issue number 119/2007: "The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has become an essential feature of both economic and social activity across Europe. In nearly all European countries and in all age groups, however, men are more regular users of both computers and the internet than women and many more men than women are employed in computing jobs throughout the EU."
Press release: "A new national alliance, HOPE NOW, was announced... by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Housing Secretary Jackson to reach out and help homeowners who may not be able to pay their mortgages. The HOPE NOW collaboration of credit and homeowners’ counselors, mortgage servicers, and mortgage market participants was formed with the encouragement of the Department of the Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development... “HOPE NOW will harness the collective strength of counselors, capital markets investors and mortgage servicers in a more coordinated way and will bring to bear the full power of the government for the benefit of all consumers across our nation.”
FY DOJ 2007 Performance and Accountability Report: "The Department again earned an unqualified audit opinion on our financial statements as of September 30,2007. For the third year in a row, all of the Department's components that produce financial statements received an unqualified opinion. For the first time in DOJ history, the Department had no material weaknesses in financial controls or information systems (IT) controls at the consolidated level."
Lobbying Disclosure, Office of the Clerk: "The Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate are pleased to advise you of the following new lobby report filing procedures resulting from the passage of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-81), which amends the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. The Secretary and the Clerk have combined their filing processes so that you may file your forms at a single location that does not require an ACES digital signature." [Peggy Garvin]
Fiscal Year 2007 Performance and Accountability Report: "The EEOC is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the Nation’s laws prohibiting employment discrimination. As part of our mission, we receive, review, investigate, and process charges of employment discrimination and file discrimination suits in the private sector. We provide administrative hearings and appellate decisions in the federal sector. Our guidance and information helps educate both employers and employees about their rights and responsibilities under the laws we enforce. A more detailed explanation of our structure and the laws we enforce can be found in Appendix A. We view ourselves as guarantor of the American Dream, ensuring the opportunity to compete on the basis of merit in the workplace and protecting against the pernicious effects of unlawful discrimination. We strive to be proactive, educating workers and applicants, managers, and business owners, from teens to retirees, from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations, in order to promote a productive, harmonious, and inclusive American workplace."
Hate Crime Statistics 2006: "Today, we’re releasing the latest suite of hate crime numbers that we’ve collected in concert with our law enforcement partners. It’s one third of our trilogy of annual crime statistics, along with Crime in the U.S. and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted....A total of 7,722 incidents and 9,080 offenses were reported by participating agencies in 2006."
Operations Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom Review: Information For Veterans Who Served In Iraq And Afghanistan And Their Families (October 2007). Articles in this issue include: VA Researchers Develop New Prosthetic Ankle; VA Brings Mental Health Programs To Primary Care Settings; VA's Suicide Hotline Begins Operations; How To Apply For Disability Compensation from VA; Where To get Help.
Basel Action Network BAN and Toxics Link press release, 14 November 2007 (New Delhi): "...Environmentalists say that the newly drafted hazardous waste management law for India seeks to undo established, science-based definitions of waste and consider waste that is being recycled somehow less hazardous than the waste being landfilled in order to curry favor with hazardous scrapping industries.
"Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) is one of the UK’s leading civil liberties and human rights organisations. Liberty works to promote human rights and protect civil liberties through a combination of test case litigation, lobbying, campaigning and research."
"Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found."
"The IPCC has launched the first three volumes of its assessment report “Climate Change 2007” and is currently finalizing its Synthesis report [Fourth Assessment report ("AR4"]. The Synthesis Report [was] launched in Valencia, Spain, 17 November 2007 during a press conference."
Press release: "Tabulations of all surnames occurring 100 or more times in the census 2000 returns are provided in [these] files... The first link [Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000] explains the methodology used for identifying and editing names data. The second link [Top 1000 Names] provides an Excel file of the top 1000 surnames. The third link provides zipped Excel and CSV (comma separated) files of the complete list of 151,671 names."
"State governments are improving their transparency practices, but many are still not taking full advantage of the Internet to inform the public. Online disclosure of corporate tax breaks and other economic development subsidies lags far behind reporting on procurement contracts and lobbying activities. These are the main findings of a report entitled The State of State Disclosure released [November 15, 2007] by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First."
The Future of Reading, by Steven Levy, Newsweek, November 17, 2007: "...the Kindle...has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book's binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps....with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's six-inch screen posts readable pages... (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.)...E-book devices like the Kindle allow you to change the font size: aging baby boomers will appreciate that every book can instantly be a large-type edition. The handheld device can also hold several shelves' worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. Also, the Kindle [costs $399] allows you to search within the book for a phrase or name...Some of those features have been available on previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.)"
"Welcome to the British Museum collection database. When complete, it will contain a record of every object in the Museum collection. This is the first release and contains records for the collection of two-dimensional works (almost entirely drawings, prints and paintings) from all over the world. New records and images are being added every week as work on the database continues...The entire database contains records for more than 1,698,000 objects. It is still in its early stages, and work is continuing to improve the information recorded in it. In many cases it does not represent the best available knowledge about the objects. This is being added as fast as possible, but will take many years."
"We’ve mashed up Google Maps with World Bank data to give you a visual entry point to browse our projects, news, statistics and public information center by country."
"In its final Afghan Opium Survey for 2007 issued [November 16, 2007], the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that opium is now equivalent to more than half (53%) of the country's licit GDP. Speaking at a conference in Brussels on the future of Afghanistan, hosted by Princeton University, the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, announced that the total export value of opiates produced in and trafficked from Afghanistan in 2007 is about $4 billion, a 29 per cent increase over 2006."
"The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) issued its first library statistics report on state library agencies, on state library agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for state fiscal year (FY) 2006. The State Library Agency Report for FY 2006 [released November 2007] includes a wide array of information on topics such as libraries’ Internet access, services, collections, staff, and revenue, and is used by state and federal policymakers, researchers, and others."
DOJ FOIA Summaries of New Decisions, September 2007: "OIP provides these case summaries as a public service; due to their nature as summaries, they are not intended to be authoritative or complete statements of the facts or holdings of any of the cases summarized, and they should not be relied upon as such. Set out below are summaries of the court decisions that were received by OIP during the month of September 2007."
"EPA's FY 2007 Performance and Accountability Report (480 pages, PDF) describes to the President, Congress, and the public our environmental, programmatic, and financial performance over the past fiscal year. It also reports our progress in addressing management challenges. The report satisfies a number of legislative reporting requirements, including those of the Government Performance and Results Act. This is EPA's ninth performance report since FY 1999. Links to other years' Performance and Accountability Reports."
Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 3074 - Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill, 2008
Consumer Price Index Summary, November 15, 2007 (19 pages, PDF)
US Climate Change Science Program - The First State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR): The North American Carbon Budget and Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research [King, A.W., L. Dilling, G.P. Zimmerman, D.M. Fairman, R.A. Houghton, G. Marland, A.Z. Rose, and T.J. Wilbanks (eds.)]. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC, USA, 242 pp. Printed copies will be available Winter 2008. Final Report. Note: All links are to PDF files.
"IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has circulated his latest report to the upcoming meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors on the Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The report covers developments since Dr. ElBaradei´s report of 30 August 2007."
Follow up to Undercover GAO Investigation Exposes Vulnerabilities in Airport Security, DHS OIG Report - Information Technology Management Needs to Be Strengthened at the Transportation Security Administration, October 26, 2007 (PDF, 48 pages) - New 11/15/2007.
Press release: "The Food and Drug Administration is announcing several steps to strengthen its advisory committee processes in ways consistent with recommendations of the Institute of Medicine. The measures include proposed new guidance or procedures on advisory committee voting, on disclosing information on conflicts of interest, and on security and appropriate conduct for participants at meetings. Other improvements include greater clarity to FDA’s advisory committee Web site...A draft guidance document being issued today recommends advisory committees adhere to a process of simultaneous voting, in which all members vote at once. The results of the vote would be announced immediately. How each member voted would be part of the public record. The draft guidance document is available at http://www.fda.gov/oc/advisory/votingguidance.html. A second draft guidance issued recently lays out recommended changes to the process of public disclosure of financial interests that create conflicts of interest for advisory committee members. The new draft guidance makes the process more transparent and consistent by having all advisory committee members publicly disclose interests for which a waiver is granted. The draft guidance also includes redesigned disclosure and waiver templates that are clearer and easier for the general public to understand. See the FDA draft guidance document and redesigned templates."
Top Management and Performance Challenges in the Department of Justice – 2007, (21 pages, PDF), released November 16, 2007.
Congressional Directory 110th Congress, 2007-08: "Presents short biographies of each member of the Senate and House, listed by state or district, and additional data, such as committee memberships, terms of service, administrative assistants and/or secretaries, and room and telephone numbers."
Press release, November 15, 2007: "IT security and control firm Sophos has revealed new research into the use of other people's Wi-Fi networks to piggyback onto the internet without payment. The research, carried out by Sophos on behalf of The Times, shows that 54 percent of computer users have admitted breaking the law, by using someone else's wireless internet access without permission. According to Sophos, many internet-enabled homes fail to properly secure their wireless connection with passwords and encryption, allowing freeloading passers-by and neighbours to steal internet access rather than paying an Internet Service Provide (ISP) for their own. In addition, while businesses often have security measures in place to protect the Wi-Fi networks within their offices from attack, Sophos experts note that remote users working from home could prove to be a weak link in corporate defenses."
"We are pleased to announce the launch of the Carbon Monitoring for Action database at www.carma.org. CARMA provides the world’s most detailed and comprehensive information on carbon emissions resulting from the production of electricity. Power sector emissions make up 25% of the global total, 40% of carbon emissions in the United States, and are a primary cause of global warming. CARMA is a product of the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC."
National Archives: "Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) is a geographic information system portal that serves as a public gateway for improving access to geospatial information and data. This portal makes it easier, faster, and less expensive for all levels of government and the public to access geospatial information. GOS provides web access to maps, data and other geospatial services from all levels of government...The National Archives has joined Geospatial One Stop’s (GOS) web portal. Select National Archives holdings are now searchable from the GOS Historical Collections Channel, which the National Archives and the Library of Congress jointly manage."
Minimum Criminal Intelligence Training Standards, For Law Enforcement and Other Criminal Justice Agencies in the United States, Findings and Recommendations, Version 2, October 2007. Prepared by the Intelligence Training Coordination Working Group, Presented to the Counter-Terrorism Training Coordination Working Group, the Global Intelligence Working Group, and the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council (64 pages, PDF).
Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, United Nations S/2007/643, Security Council, Distr.: General, 28 October 2007. Original: English: "The present sixth report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict is submitted in accordance with Security Council resolutions 1674 (2006) and 1738 (2006). Resolution 1674 (2006) marked a watershed in the protection of civilians by providing a clear framework for action by the Council and the United Nations in this area — action that is as critical and necessary today as it was eight years ago, when the Council considered the first report on the protection of civilians."
America Recycles Day, November 15, 2007 - "In 2006, the United States produced 251 million tons of municipal solid waste, approximately 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day. Most of this material is recyclable. Recycling benefits the environment at every stage in the life cycle of a consumer product, from the raw material used to make the product, to the final method of disposal. Environmental benefits of recycling include: Conserving energy and natural resources; Providing feedstock for key domestic industries; Reducing air and water pollution; and Reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
Key Web Sites:
"Fraud Awareness Week is dedicated to promoting fraud awareness and educating businesses and the public about the growing global impact of fraud. Therefore, this is an appropriate time to address and promote basic steps that can be taken to recognize, report, and reduce the risk of becoming a victim of fraudulent activities. In recognition of Fraud Awareness Week, NCJRS presents this online compilation of resources addressing fraud:
Press release: "U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Linda M. Springer today released the report titled Employment of Veterans in Federal Government: Fiscal Year 2006, which demonstrates a small increase in the number of armed forces veterans working for the Federal government. The report shows increases in both the number of veterans employed and newly hired since Federal fiscal year (FFY) 2005."
Press release: "Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose."
Google Public Policy Blog: "Google has been working to make publicly available government information more accessible to the public. We're doing so by helping government agencies implement the Sitemap Protocol, a technical standard that makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index pages on a website...The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee...[reported out of committee] S. 2321, which extends and updates the E-Government Act of 2002. Part of the bill directs the Office of Management and Budget to create guidance and best practices for federal agencies to make their websites more accessible to search engine crawlers, and thus to citizens who rely on search engines to access information provided by their government. It also requires federal agencies to ensure their compliance with that guidance and directs OMB to report annually to Congress on agencies’ progress."
DNI Addresses the DNI's Office of Analytic Integrity and Standards Symposium, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 13, 2007: Center Director Lee Hamilton: "...today's meeting will help, we believe, those in the media gain a greater understanding of the extraordinary challenges facing the intelligence community."
From speech delivered by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, November 14, 2007: "Because monetary policy affects spending and inflation with a lag, policy decisions must be based on an assessment of medium-term economic prospects. Thus, the Committee cannot fully explain its policy decisions without sharing its economic outlook with the public and the Congress. To provide more-timely information about the evolving outlook, the Federal Reserve will release FOMC participants' economic projections four times each year, rather than twice each year as we have done previously. Projections will continue to be released in February and July of each year to coincide with the semiannual Monetary Policy Report and the associated testimony to the Congress. Two additional sets of projections will be published in conjunction with the minutes of the FOMC meetings held around the beginnings of the second quarter and the fourth quarter of the year (in 2008, the April and October meetings). The first expanded set of projections will be released next week, on November 20, together with the minutes of the October FOMC meeting. The horizon of the projections will be extended from two years to three. The projections released next week will extend through 2010."
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: "The Committee held a hearing to assess the performance of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard following a series of allegations that the Inspector General halted investigations, censored reports, and refused to cooperate with law enforcement agencies. Witness: The Honorable Howard J. Krongard, Inspector General, U.S. Department of State."
Documents and Links:
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: "An undercover GAO investigation of airport security checkpoints succeeded in passing through TSA screening checkpoints undetected with liquids and other materials that could be combined to make a dangerous improvised explosive device."
Financial Market Perceptions of Recession Risk, Thomas B. King, Andrew T. Levin, and Roberto Perli, 2007-57
"The impact of climate change will make the poorest communities across the world poorer. Many of them are already affected by conflict and instability and thus face a dual risk. International Alert’s new research finds that the consequences of climate change will fuel violent conflict, which itself hinders the ability of governments and local communities to adapt to the pressures of climate change."
...3.9 billion people live in countries that are at high risk of violent conflict as a consequence of climate change [according to a new report], A Climate of Conflict [International Alert is an independent peacebuilding organisation working in over 20 countries and territories around the world.] It lists 102 countries at risk of climate change-related violent conflict and instability and calls for an immediate investment in adaptation."
[November 6, 2007] "...the Commission adopted a new package of proposals aimed at improving the EU’s capabilities in the fight against terrorism. The package contains a series of proposals dealing with the criminalization of terrorist training, recruitment and public provocation to commit terrorist offences, the prevention of the use of explosives by terrorists and the use of airline passenger information in law enforcement investigations. It also contains a report on the implementation of one of the key legal instruments of the EU’s counter terrorism arsenal."
GSA Office of Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter Issue 20: How E-Government Is Changing Society and Strengthening Democracy, 48 pages, PDF, November 14, 2007.
"America Recycles Day — celebrated on November 15 — is a national campaign to encourage all Americans to produce less waste, reuse and recycle more materials, and buy more recyclable products. All of these actions help to conserve energy, preserve natural resources, and reduce emissions. The U.S. currently recycles about one third of its waste, which represents a significant increase from 15 years ago. To continue this positive trend and participate in local events for America Recycles Day, visit the National Recycling Coalition."
November 13, 2007: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) will join Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), and JEC Vice Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) today released a new report exposing the hidden costs of the war in Iraq. The Joint Economic Committee report investigates the costs of the war in Iraq that are not included in direct budgetary appropriations, including long term veteran’s health care, foregone investment, oil market disruptions and interest payments on borrowed war funding. The JEC estimates these costs could total in the trillions of dollars."
Veteran Suicide - Methodology, November 13, 2007: "When CBS News began looking into veteran suicide, it found that no federal organization or agency tracks the number of veteran suicides nationally. No one is keeping count. We wanted to know how many veterans are committing suicide nationwide and how the rate of suicide for veterans compares to non-veterans. This is a summary of the methodology and results of the data that appeared in this CBS Evening News investigation, The Veteran Suicide Epidemic - A CBS News Investigation Uncovers A Suicide Rate For Veterans Twice That Of Other Americans.
Press releass: "The Treasury Department today released a study on income mobility of U.S. taxpayers from 1996 through 2005. The study showed that, just as in the previous 10-year period, a majority of American taxpayers move from one income group to another over time. The study also recognizes that the dynamism of the U.S. economy significantly contributes to income mobility."
"In connection with a hearing, Federal Estate Tax: Uncertainty in Planning Under the Current Law, scheduled by the Senate Committee on Finance for November 14, 2007, the Joint Committee on Taxation has issued History, Present Law, And Analysis Of The Federal Wealth Transfer Tax System (JCX-108-07), November 13, 2007 (50 pages, PDF)."
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources in Afghanistan, Released: 11/13/2007.
OIG-08-06 - Better Administration of Automated Targeting System Controls Can Further Protect Personally Identifiable Information (Redacted) (PDF, 22 pages) - New 11/09/2007
FCW.com: "The Office of Management and Budget has issued preliminary instructions Nov. 9 to agencies on how to report contract, grant and other types of financial data for inclusion in the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) system."
Press release, November 9, 2007: "The Financial Services Roundtable today unveiled the Blueprint for U.S. Financial Competitiveness, a plan of action which seeks to ensure that the U.S. maintains a competitive position in the global financial marketplace through principles-based regulation; eight "must do" reforms; and modernized charters and new national charter options."
Press release: "Today, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's (CREW) request for a temporary restraining order to prevent the White House from destroying back-up copies of millions of deleted emails while the lawsuit is pending. CREW brought this lawsuit against the Executive Office of the President and the National Archives and Records Administration challenging their failure to restore and preserve millions of emails deleted from White House servers and to institute an effective electronic record-keeping system. When the White House refused to give adequate assurances that it would preserve back-up copies of the deleted emails -- the only source of these important historical records [see Federal Records Act] -- CREW sought a temporary restraining order."
The University of Arizona Artificial Intelligence Lab Dark Web project: "Based on our actual spidering experience over the past 5 years, we believe there are about 50,000 sites of extremist and terrorist content as of 2007, including: web sites, forums, blogs, social networking sites, video sites, and virtual world sites (e.g., Second Life). The largest increase in 2006-2007 is in various new Web 2.0 sites (forums, videos, blogs, virtual world, etc.) in different languages (i.e., for home-grown groups, particularly in Europe). We have found significant terrorism content in more than 15 languages...We believe our Dark Web collection is the largest open-source extremist and terrorist collection in the academic world."
A Tribute to Carl Linnaeus - November 13 and 14, 2007: "Scientists around the world are celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. He is best known for instituting a two-name method for identifying plants and animals, called binomial nomenclature. Considered the “father” of modern taxonomy, Linnaeus named approximately 4,400 species of animals and 7,700 species of plants. Today, many museums, including this one, continue to research the relationships between species, and rely on Linnaeus’ classic works. For two days in November we will celebrate this 300th anniversary with an exhibition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae and symposium."
OIG-08-08 - Administration of the Federal Trucking Industry Security Grant Program for FY 2004 and FY 2005 (PDF, 22 pages) - New 11/09/2007
LA Times: "Under pressure from federal judges, inmate advocacy groups and civil rights organizations, federal authorities are considering a sweeping cut in prison sentences that could bring early release for thousands of federal inmates. The proposal being weighed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission would shave an average of at least two years off the sentences of 19,500 federal prisoners, about 1 in 10 in the 200,000-inmate system. More than 2,500 of them, mainly those who have already served lengthy sentences, would be eligible for release within a year if the rule is adopted."
US Courts press release: "Free public access to federal court records is available at 16 libraries in 14 states [the list is included with this release] under a joint pilot project of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and the Government Printing Office. The project offers free access, at the participating 16 federal depository libraries, to the federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. PACER allows users to obtain case file documents, listings of all case parties, judgments, and other information from district, bankruptcy and appellate courts online, with the data immediately available for printing or downloading."
Center for American Progress: The Forgotten Front, by Caroline Wadhams, Lawrence J. Korb, November 6, 2007 - "Six years after the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power and destroy Al Qaeda’s safe haven, Afghanistan faces a growing insurgency that directly threatens its stability and the national security interests of the United States and its allies."
"A special new TRAC terrorism enforcement page features a unique national map displaying the location of recent federal convictions for all individuals who have been categorized by the Justice Department as spies or terrorists, or those whose prosecution the government thought might prevent or disrupt potential or actual terrorist threats. Click on one of the many visible locations -- such as Atlanta or Seattle or Gulfport, Florida -- to get a list of convictions so far in the current fiscal year of people who either (1) are from that city or (2) were convicted
in that federal district or branch. You may then click on the list for a detailed report on each of the defendants." [Note: access to full content requires subscription.]
Press release - "In a statement issued on Thursday, November 8, 2007, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein said: I welcome the Inspector General’s recommendations included in the ‘Audit of the Process of Safeguarding and Accounting for Presidential Library Artifacts’. This audit which was completed on October 26, 2007, examined the management of Presidential artifacts at six Presidential Libraries: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the John F. Kennedy Library, the Gerald R. Ford Library, the Ronald Reagan Library, the George Bush Library, and the William J. Clinton Library."
Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else, by Anne Broache, News.com: "New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also "alternatives" to peer-to-peer piracy, such as paying monthly subscription fees to the music industry for their students, on penalty of losing all financial aid for their students. The U.S. House of Representatives bill (747 pages, PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student."
Press release: "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing [Protecting the Employment Rights of Those Who Protect the United States, November 8, 2007] to address employment challenges that service members face when returning from a tour of duty. The hearing focused on the enforcement of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) which requires employers to continue to employ members of the Guard and Reserve upon their return from duty. There are four federal agencies that are responsible for the oversight and implementation of veterans’ employment rights: the Departments of Labor, Department of Defense, Defense and Justice, as well as the Office of Special Counsel. Data previously withheld from the public were released the hearing. The data demonstrates serious inadequacies in the performance of the four federal agencies responsible for protecting returning veterans’ reemployment rights."
National Alliance to End Homelessness: This report details the number of homeless veterans by state, how housing and lack of housing contributes to the problem, and strategies to prevent and end homelessness for veterans.
"Fact Sheet No. 9, updated Fall 2007 – Rural Americans Continue to Account for Disproportionately High Share of U.S. Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan – is the Carsey Institute’s second annual Veteran’s Day release of this data, drawn from U.S. Department of Defense records. “As we observe Veteran’s Day this year, it is important for Americans to recognize that rural families are paying a disproportionately high price for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says report author William P. O’Hare, a senior fellow at the Carsey Institute. Rural areas account for only 19 percent of the adult population, but have suffered 26 percent of the casualties. Of the 4,197 American military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, 1,102 are accounted for by soldiers from rural areas. That represents a death rate of 31 per million among rural men and women, compared to a death rate of 21 per million for urbanites – a significant increase since October 2006, when the death rate was 24 per million for rural residents and 15 per million for urbanites."
AP: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information...Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation...said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service."
Press release: "Demand response and advanced metering programs have grown significantly over the past year, according to a new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report that charts progress in the number of demand response programs, the number of states introducing opportunities for demand response and the key role that demand response is playing in organized wholesale power markets. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires FERC to annually assess electric demand response resources and advanced metering. The report, “Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering 2007,” notes major demand response developments in wholesale markets, including the use of demand resources in forward capacity markets and ancillary services markets, and the development of new reliability-based demand response programs. The report estimates that demand response in 2006 lowered the consumption of electricity by 1.4 to 4.1 percent during periods of peak demand on the systems."
Press release: "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [October 30, 2007] amended its regulations for accessing critical energy infrastructure information (CEII) to create a more efficient process and provide additional guidance of what material is considered CEII...Specifically, the Commission is allowing landowners access to alignment sheets containing CEII for the limited portion of a project that would affect their land and the adjacent parcels on each side without going through the CEII process. In addition, the Commission is eliminating the non-internet public (NIP) category because much of the information currently designated as NIP is easily available on-line from other sources such as the U.S. Geological Survey or commercial mapping firms."
Press release: "At the request of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a new analysis released [November 9, 2007] by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that legislative language in the energy bill currently being considered by the Congress would ensure that billions rightfully owed in oil royalties will be paid to American taxpayers regardless of the outcome of lawsuits by big oil. Congress is currently considering two energy bills passed by the House and Senate that would reduce oil dependence and cut global warming pollution. The current House energy bill contains the Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act, originally drafted by Rep. Markey, which would recover an estimated $10 billion in unpaid royalties from Gulf of Mexico oil leases granted in 1998 and 1999 that erroneously allowed for royalty-free drilling regardless of increasing oil prices...In the research memo, CRS notes the passage of Rep. Markey’s language in the current energy bill would ensure recovery of the royalties."
"The WorldPublicOpinion.org poll was developed in conjunction with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM) and fielded by Knowledge Networks in the United States and the Levada Center in Russia. The goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons, established in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is endorsed by 73 percent of Americans and 63 percent of Russians. Seventy-nine percent of Americans and 66 percent of Russians want their governments to do more to pursue this objective. Majorities of both Democrats and Republicans agree on these points, although the Democratic majorities are larger."
"The Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center (AFDC, formerly known as the Alternative Fuels Data Center, provides a wide range of information and resources to enable the use of alternative fuels (as defined by the Energy Policy Act of 1992), in addition to other petroleum reduction options such as advanced vehicles, fuel blends, idle reduction, and fuel economy. This site is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Cities initiative."
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Letter to the Attorney General on the Use of National Security Letters by the FBI, September 14, 2007.
CIA FOIA Backlog Reduction Goals for Fiscal Years 2008, 2009, and 2010
Press release: "In anticipation of the planned launch of the final Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite tomorrow evening, which was originally scheduled to be orbited in October 2005, the National Security Archive has posted on the Web a collection of declassified documents tracing the history of the program from its roots as Subsystem G of WS-117L in 1957. At that time the U.S. began seriously planning to deploy satellites that would detect the infrared signals emitted by intercontinental ballistic missiles in order to provide warning of a Soviet missile attack.
The documents posted today, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and archival research, include documents on the theoretical work behind the concept of space-based missile detection, the early doubts about the feasibility of such detection, and 1960s research and development work on the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS). They also include documents on the evolution of the DSP--with regard both to its capabilities and its use for a variety of additional missions, including the detection of intermediate-range missiles, bombers flying on afterburner and spacecraft. In addition, a number of documents focus on the decades-long search for a follow-on system to DSP.
Compiled by National Security Archive Senior Fellow Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson, the documents in the briefing book originated with the Defense Department, Air Force, U.S. Space Command, Air Force Space Command, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Aerospace Corporation, Government Accounting Office, and other organizations."
Conference Reports: Main Page - "A conference report is an agreement on legislation that is negotiated between the House and Senate via conference committees. It is printed and submitted to each chamber for its consideration, such as approval or disapproval.
An amendment to Rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the Senate states:
"9. (a)(1) It shall not be in order to vote on the adoption of a report of a committee of conference unless such report has been available to Members and to the general public for at least 48 hours before such vote. If a point of order is sustained under this paragraph, then the conference report shall be set aside."
Normally, conference reports are printed and made available online in the Congressional Record the day after they have been filed. In those cases when GPO is unable to print a conference report the next day, GPO will scan the manuscript and post the searchable PDF of the manuscript on this web page. Otherwise, links to the conference reports as they appear in the Congressional Record will be posted on this web page.
Links to each conference report will be date and time stamped to establish when the conference report was first made available to the public online. If a conference report is scanned as manuscript, that version will be superseded when the conference report is made available in the Congressional Record. Links to a conference report in the Congressional Record will be superseded when the conference report is made available in the congressional reports database.
Although the PDF of the scanned manuscript of a conference report will be searchable, handwritten notes or other illegible text may or may not be completely searchable. Regardless, the image of the handwritten notes, etc., will be captured in the PDF of the scanned manuscript.
GovernmentAttic.org has posted the FOIA Case Logs for the Federal Aviation Administration for the years 2006 and 2007.
Kaisernetwork.org: Decreasing Reimbursements for Outpatient Emergency Department Visits Across Payer Groups From 1996-2004, Annals of Emergency Medicine, November 2007: "The study finds that the share of emergency department charges paid was consistently lowest for Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured and was consistently the highest for visits by privately insured patients. The study also finds that declines in the proportion of payments to charges over the eight-year period tended to be greater among insured patients, and reimbursements declined the least for the uninsured."
"This spectacular 2,000 page US military leak consists of the names, group structure and equipment registers of all units in Iraq with US army equipment. It exposes secretive document exploitation centers, detainee operations, elements of the State Department, Air Force, Navy and Marines units, the Iraqi police and coalition forces from Poland, Denmark, Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Armenia, Kazakhstan and El Salvador. The material represents nearly the entire order of battle for US forces in Iraq and is the first public revelation of many of the military units described."
OIG-08-05 - Independent Auditor's Report on TSA's FY 2006 Balance Sheet (PDF, 61 pages) - New 11/08/2007
Press release: "In a letter sent Wednesday to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) again requested legal memoranda outlining the White House’s justifications and policies on torture and interrogation. Such documents have long been requested but not provided. The New York Times recently reported on two secret 2005 memoranda that reversed government policy to allow combinations of extreme techniques, and this week in a court filing the Government conceded there were three such memoranda."
Via FAS:
"GPO is pleased to announce the renewal of its partnership with the
Richard J. Daley Library of the University of Illinois at Chicago
through 2012. Originally signed in 1997, the partnership provides
permanent public access to content in the Department of State Foreign Affairs (DOSFAN) Electronic Research Collection, a digital library of electronically archived information products produced by the U.S. Department of State from 1990 through 1997, which includes the archived Web sites of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA)."
USA Today: "More than 15,000 people have appealed to the government since February to have their names removed from the terrorist watch list that delayed their travel at U.S. airports and border crossings, the Homeland Security Department says."
Related government documents:
Press release: "The Internal Revenue Service this year received nearly 80 million tax returns through e-file, breaking the record set last year. The 2007 level is up about 9 percent from the 73 million returns filed for the same period last year. Of the 139.3 million returns filed in 2007, 79.98 million or about 57.4 percent were filed electronically."
Terrorism 2002-2005 (73 pages, PDF): "Since the mid-1980s, the FBI has published Terrorism in the United States, an unclassified annual report summarizing terrorist activities in this country. While this publication provided an overview of the terrorist threat in the United States and its territories, its limited scope proved inadequate for conveying either the breadth or width of the terrorist threat facing U.S. interests or the scale of the FBI’s response to terrorism worldwide...This second edition of Terrorism provides an overview of the terrorist incidents and preventions designated by the FBI as having taken place in the United States and its territories during the years 2002 through 2005 and that are matters of public record. This publication does not include those incidents which the Bureau classifies under criminal rather than terrorism investigations. In addition, the report discusses major FBI investigations overseas and identifies significant events—including legislative actions, prosecutorial updates, and program developments—relevant to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The report concludes with an “In Focus” article summarizing the history of the FBI’s counterterrorism program."
Press release: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Wednesday introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen U.S. government efforts to combat copyright infringement and counterfeiting at home and abroad. The Judiciary Committee Wednesday also held a hearing today, Examining U.S. Government Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act introduced Wednesday by Leahy and Cornyn would strengthen law enforcement capabilities and resources in thwarting copyright theft. The bill [Section-By-Section Analysis] would give civil copyright enforcement powers to the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and it would authorize additional funding to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes involving computers and the Internet. The bill also requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assign a minimum of 10 agents to work on intellectual property crimes, and it classifies both the importation and exportation of pirated works as infringement."
National Center for Education Statistics, Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 2005: "This report includes national and state summary data on public libraries in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with an introduction, selected findings, and several tables. The report, based on data from the Public Libraries Survey for fiscal year 2005, includes information on population of legal service area, service outlets, library collections and services, full-time equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. The report includes several key findings: Nationwide, visits to public libraries totaled 1.4 billion, or 4.7 library visits per capita. The average number of Internet terminals available for public use per stationary outlet was 11.2."
Alliance for Public Technology's new report, Broadband Initiatives: Enhancing Lives & Transforming Communities (72 pages, PDF)
Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today announced a law enforcement crackdown on companies and individuals accused of violating the requirements of the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry, resulting in six settlements collectively imposing nearly $7.7 million in civil penalties, along with an additional complaint that will be filed in federal district court. The actions, brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the FTC’s behalf, are against companies ranging from adjustable bed seller Craftmatic Industries, Inc. (Craftmatic) to alarm-monitoring provider ADT Security Services (ADT) and lender Ameriquest Mortgage Company (Ameriquest), and bring to 34 the number of cases filed by the FTC to enforce the DNC Rule, which was implemented in 2003. To date, more consumers have put more than 145 million numbers on the Registry, indicating they do not want to receive calls from telemarketers at home."
Review of Generic Drug Price Increases (A-06-07-00042), October 24, 2007: "Generic drug price increases exceeded the specified statutory inflation factor applicable to brand-name drugs for 35 percent of the quarterly average manufacturer prices reviewed. If the provision for brand-name drugs were extended to generic drugs, the Medicaid program would receive additional rebates. By applying the method in the Social Security Act for calculating additional rebates on brand-name drugs to generic drugs, we calculated that the Medicaid program would have received a total of $966 million in additional rebates for the top 200 generic drugs, ranked by Medicaid reimbursement, from 1991 through 2004."
Identity Theft, 2005 released on November 7, 2007: "Presents data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) on identity theft victimization and its consequences. This report presents the first full year of data available after new questions about identity theft were added to the survey in July 2004. Identity theft is defined in the report as credit card thefts, thefts from existing accounts, misuse of personal information, and multiple types at the same time. Based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of 40,000 household residents, the report describes age, race, and ethnicity of the household head; household income and composition; and location of the household. Characteristics of the theft presented include economic loss, how the theft was discovered, whether misuse is ongoing, and problems experienced as a result of the identity theft."
Follow up to previous postings on the domestic surveillance program and AT&T's alleged participation, today's article in the Washington Post, A Story of Surveillance - Former Technician 'Turning In' AT&T Over NSA Program, by Ellen Nakashima: "...Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician...alleged that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T. Contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists, Klein said, much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic."
Optimizing Investments in Security Countermeasures: A Practical Tool for Fixed Budgets, by Jonathan Caulkins and Nancy R. Mead, September/October 2007 edition of IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine. "In the article, the team presents a tool and methodology they developed for software engineers and their clients to help them make security decisions when resources are limited."
Byting Back -- Regaining Information Superiority Against 21st-Century Insurgents, RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Volume 1: "U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed to exploit information power, which could be a U.S. advantage but instead is being used advantageously by insurgents. Because insurgency and counterinsurgency involve a battle for the allegiance of a population between a government and an armed opposition movement, the key to exploiting information power is to connect with and learn from the population itself, increasing the effectiveness of both the local government and the U.S. military and civilian services engaged in supporting it. Utilizing mostly available networking technology, the United States could achieve early, affordable, and substantial gains in the effectiveness of counterinsurgency by more open, integrated, and inclusive information networking with the population, local authorities, and coalition partners."
Press release: "According to the latest Harris Poll, the number of adults who are online at home, in the office, at school, library or other locations continues to grow at a steady rate. In the past year, the number of online users has reached an estimated 178 million, a ten percent increase."
"FDA is implementing a Food Protection Plan (the Plan) that addresses both food safety and food defense for domestic and imported products. The Plan is integrated with the Administration's Import Safety Action Plan. The Food Protection Plan operates through a set of integrated strategies that:
Press release: "A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans. In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence."
"The OECD broadband portal provides access to a range of broadband-related statistics gathered by the OECD. Policy makers must examine a range of indicators which reflect the status of individual broadband markets in the OECD. The OECD has indentified five main categories which are important for assessing broadband markets...Penetration (actual lines); Usage (household surveys); Coverage and Geography; Prices; Services and speeds."
Fact Sheet: "Secretary Chertoff highlighted the Department’s progress on immigration efforts. More than 76 miles of pedestrian fence have been completed on the Southwest border, and the number of Border Patrol agents is increasing: currently roughly 15,000, it is scheduled to be more than 18,300 by the end of next year. Over the past year, almost 5,000 arrests were made and more than $30 million in criminal fines, restitutions and civil judgments acquired from worksite enforcement. Use of E-Verify, a Web-based system that electronically verifies newly hired employees’ employment eligibility, is growing by roughly 83 percent annually."
Press release: "Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and Rep. Tom Allen introduced the Non-Prescription Drug Modernization Act which would permit FDA to act quickly to protect consumers from unsafe or ineffective over-the-counter drugs. An FDA advisory panel recently recommended that over-the-counter (OTC) cough and cold medications for children under the age of six should be banned after it found that those products lacked evidence of efficacy, and, in rare cases, could cause serious harm. Yet, under current law, to follow its committee’s recommendations, FDA must go through a rulemaking process that could take years to complete. In the interim, these drugs, which may cause serious harm, could continue to be marketed. The Non-Prescription Drug Modernization Act (Bill Fact Sheet) would give FDA the authority to act quickly to revoke authorization to market such drugs without a lengthy rulemaking. The Act would also transfer oversight of OTC drug advertising from the FTC to the FDA, which already regulates the advertising for prescription drugs, and would require FDA to review the current OTC regulatory regime to assess whether it is outdated."
The New Yorker: Digitization and its discontents, by Anthony Grafton, November 5, 2007
Press release: "The Secretary of the Interior today released the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (FPEIS) for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Alternative Energy and Alternate Use (AEAU) Program and announced an interim policy for authorization of the installation of offshore data collection and technology testing facilities in federal waters."
"For the seventh year, FOREIGN POLICY partners with A.T. Kearney to measure countries on their economic, personal, technological, and political integration. Find out who’s climbing the ranks, and who’s sliding down."
"The Internet is becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life. Drawing on an expanding array of intelligent web services and applications, a growing number of people are creating, distributing and exploiting user-created content (UCC) and being part of the wider participative web. This study describes the rapid growth of UCC and its increasing role in worldwide communication, and draws out implications for policy. Questions addressed include: What is user-created content? What are its key drivers, its scope and different forms? What are the new value chains and business models? What are the extent and form of social, cultural and economic opportunities and impacts? What are the associated challenges? Is there a government role, and what form could it take?"
Press release: "Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) offered White House Counsel Fred Fielding yet another opportunity to negotiate terms and agree on compliance with the committee's subpoenas issued to Joshua Bolten, for documents, and Harriet Miers, for documents and testimony. The two were subpoenaed earlier this year as part of the ongoing U.S. Attorney investigation. Conyers sent a letter to Fielding today, laying out a final proposed compromise solution - the ninth such letter sent. The committee will also file its contempt report with the House clerk when the House begins its legislative business at 2:00 p.m., which would allow a contempt of Congress vote in the full House to move forward if Fielding rejects this final offer."
The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change, Kurt M. Campbell, Jay Gulledge, J.R. McNeill, John Podesta, Peter Ogden, leon Fuerth, R. James Woolsey, Alexander T.J. lennon, Julianne Smith, Richard Weitz, and Derek Mix, November 2007
Audit of Security and Controls Over the National Driver Register, October 29, 2007, Project ID: FI-2008-003 (32 pages, PDF)
Press release: "U.S. natural gas proved reserves increased 3 percent in 2006, rising to over 211 trillion cubic feet, the highest level since 1976 according to estimates released today by the Energy Information Administration. Additions to reserves replaced 136 percent of the dry natural gas produced in 2006. This was the eighth year in a row that U.S. natural gas proved reserves have increased...U.S. crude oil proved reserves declined 4 percent in 2006. The Gulf of Mexico Federal Offshore and Alaska, two of the largest oil producing areas, respectively reported 10 and 7 percent declines in crude oil proved reserves. This was due to downward revisions and fewer new discoveries. Utah reported the largest increase in crude oil proved reserves, adding 78 million barrels (a 30 percent increase from 2005), followed by Colorado and New Mexico."
"A credit freeze (sometimes called a security freeze) lets you stop the disclosure of your credit report by a credit bureau. As of November 1, 2007, the three credit bureaus are allowing all consumers nationwide to set a security freeze. Some states have specific security freeze laws; a list of states with security freeze laws may be found here. However, even if you live in a state without a security freeze law, you can still set a security freeze."
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released new rankings on fuel economy for 2008 models. Rankings include: Top ten leaders in fuel economy • Ten models with the lowest overall fuel economy • In each class, models with the best fuel economy • In each class, models with the lowest fuel economy.
"CBS News’ 60 Minutes exposure last night of the Iraqi agent known as CURVEBALL has put a major aspect of the Bush administration’s case for war against Iraq back under the spotlight. Rafid Ahmed Alwan’s charges that Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological weapons and the mobile plants to produce them formed a critical part of the U.S. justification for the invasion in Spring 2003. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s celebrated and globally televised briefing to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, relied on CURVEBALL as the main source of intelligence on the biological issue. Today the National Security Archive posts the available public record on CURVEBALL’s information derived from declassified sources and former officials’ accounts."
Press release: "A new World Bank study ranking 150 countries pinpoints the places where it’s easy or difficult to ship goods across countries, into and out of ports, and over borders. The Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and accompanying study, Connecting to Compete: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy, find that the countries with the most predictable, efficient, and best-run transportation routes and trade procedures are also the most likely to take advantage of technological advances, economic liberalization, and access to international markets."
"The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) announced the release of a report to Congress on the interagency regulatory burden reduction effort spearheaded by OTS Director John Reich. The report details progress of the federal bank, thrift and credit union agencies on eliminating outdated, unnecessary and overly burdensome regulations. The 259-page report, issued by the member agencies of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, examines issues such as easing requirements for regulated institutions to file reports on currency transactions and suspicious activities under the Bank Secrecy Act, and streamlining customer identification requirements under the USA Patriot Act. The report, which fulfills requirements of the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996, was issued by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision."
"The United States tops the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008. Switzerland is in second position followed by Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Singapore, respectively. The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the Report. This year, over 11,000 business leaders were polled in a record 131 countries."
Press release: "Import legislation under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (H.R. 3610, the Food and Drug Import Safety Act) would be valuable, but would still only partially solve the food safety problems threatening Americans, according to a new white paper published today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. In it, CSPI reviews a dozen food safety bills being considered by Congress."
"The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School is pleased to present the results of the sixth year of our project, "Surveying the Digital Future." The six years of longitudinal research comprise an absolutely unique data base that completely captures broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and, now, social networking. This year's report contains a large module looking at on-line communities and social networking in great detail. Readers can compare the social networking data and correlate it to six years of attitudes and behaviors on-line. As usual, the report continues to track off-line media use, purchasing both off-line and through e-commerce, social and political activity and a wealth of other data."
accenture 2007 Leadership in Customer Service: Delivering on the Promise, Executive Summary - "For nearly a decade, Accenture has tracked the progress governments have made in moving toward high performance through leadership in customer service. In this, our eighth and most far-reaching report to date...we find governments at an important crossroads. After years of focusing primarily on improvements to the front end of service, governments and other public service organizations have bred expectations of an entirely new customer experience. Their approach for years was to focus on existing services in multiple channels (particularly the online ones) in an approximation of citizen-centricity...We pull together many elements—a "point in time" picture of government's current performance, hard-earned wisdom from public service executives, feedback from citizens and our own insights and recommendations built on extensive research and client experience—to point governments and other public service organizations toward the customer service competencies they must now develop to close that loop between promise and practice, and to truly deliver the public service value citizens expect and rightfully demand."
Fact Sheet: Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards: Appendix A
Finding Canadian Statistics, sponsored by JournalismNet.com, includes the following topical categories: state sponsored news on country, Provincial and territorial statistics; profiles of cities, districts; census data; economic data.
M-08-02, Report to Congress on FY 2007 Competitive Sourcing Efforts (October 31, 2007) (14 pages, PDF).
Via FAS, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism: Background and Issues for Congress, November 1, 2007 (19 pages, PDF): "Inherent in the National Strategy are a number of issues for Congress. These include (1) democratization as a counterterrorism strategy; (2) the validity of the Strategy’s assumptions about terrorists; (3) whether the Strategy adequately addresses the situation in Iraq including the U.S. presence there as a catalyst for international terrorism; (4) the Strategy’s effectiveness against rogue states; (5) the degree to which the Strategy addresses threats reflected in recent National Intelligence Estimates; (6) mitigating extremist indoctrination of the young; and (7) the efficacy of public diplomacy. To the degree that the 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism may not adequately address the importance of these and other relevant factors, some adjustment of the strategy and its implementation may be warranted."
The National Centre for Text Mining: A Vision for the Future: "Sophia Ananiadou describes NaCTeM and the main scientific challenges it helps to solve together with issues related to deployment, use and uptake of NaCTeM's text mining tools and services."
October 30, 2007 Quarterly Report to Congress: "Two notable developments provide a backdrop for SIGIR’s work this quarter. First, total relief and reconstruction investment for Iraq from all sources–the United States, Iraq, and international donors–passed the $100 billion mark. And second, total attacks on Coalition forces and Iraqis dropped to their lowest levels in over a year, primarily because of successes achieved through the surge strategy. SIGIR’s oversight team also achieved two noteworthy milestones this quarter. Both the total number of audits produced and the total number of inspections produced by SIGIR since we began our oversight mission passed the 100 mark. This collective body of published reporting, together with the many investigations SIGIR has carried out, stands as a testament to the important benefits that consistent and rigorous oversight can contribute to the important mission in Iraq."
Supplement to: Energy Market and Economic Impacts of S. 280, the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 (11/01/2007)
Long-Term Unemployment, October 2007 (34 pages, PDF), Prepared at the Request of the House Budget and Ways and Means Committee.
Press release: "A nationwide survey released [November 1, 2007] by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows the number of Americans who hold anti-Semitic attitudes remains constant from its 2005 findings, demonstrating once again that "anti-Semitic beliefs endure in America." The 2007 Survey of American Attitudes Towards Jews in America, a national telephone survey of 2,000 American adults conducted October 6 through October 19, found that 15% of Americans - or nearly 35 million adults - hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic," compared to 14% in 2005. Previous ADL surveys over the last decade had indicated that anti-Semitism was in decline (graph). Seven years ago, in 1998, the number of Americans with hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs had dropped to 12% from 20% in 1992. The survey was released at the annual meeting of the League's National Commission."
"The government today unveiled a new Web site for the public and civic managers to monitor U.S. drought conditions, get forecasts, and know how drought impacts their communities or what mitigation measures exist. Called the U.S. Drought Portal, the www.drought.govs ite was developed for the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). A seemingly slow and nomadic natural disaster threat, drought blankets about a third of the United States at any given time."
Corporate Fraud Data Base: "Last spring, as the five-year anniversary of the Corporate Fraud Task Force approached, The American Lawyer set out to review its record of fraud prosecution. This turned out to be a difficult undertaking. The U.S. Department of Justice, after repeated inquiries, finally explained that it collects its statistics from individual U.S. attorney’s offices and does not maintain a centralized record of the corporate fraud cases that produced the 1,236 convictions cited by then–attorney general Alberto Gonzales at the task force’s anniversary celebration last July. So we developed our own database of significant corporate fraud prosecutions. In this we were guided by the Corporate Fraud Task Force Web site, which identified about 80 investigations deemed important by the Justice Department. We added criminal cases cited in reports published by the task force, as well as more recent prosecutions mentioned by Justice Department officials in speeches or testimony. In all, we analyzed 124 corporate fraud investigations, which resulted in 440 indicted defendants. Our sources were publicly available case records, as well as interviews with hundreds of prosecutors and defense lawyers. This database contains information about when and where these 440 cases were brought, the lawyers on both sides, and how the cases turned out. In all, we believe the database provides a historic portrait of corporate fraud prosecution in the post-Enron age."
Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today released staff comments to the federal banking agencies – the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the National Credit Union Administration – in response to their request for comments on proposed illustrations of consumer information for subprime mortgage lending."
"EPA has not established objectives to define an acceptable level of quality for National Emissions Inventory data used in the residual risk process."
United States Conference of Mayors, 2007 Best Practices Guide "showcases a broad range of environmentally driven and energy efficiency projects in 50 U.S. cities."
Related documents:
"The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) has released a research report on the growth of low income children in the South’s public schools. The report finds that public schools in the region have enrolled a majority of low income students in each of the last three years (2004-2006) and today the South is the only region in the nation where low income students are 50 percent or more of public school enrollment."
Press release: "Today at a National Archives press conference, Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, Michael Kurtz, Assistant Archivist for Records Services and Robert M. Edsel, author of Rescuing Da Vinci and President of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, announced the discovery of two original leather bound photograph albums documenting art that was looted by the Nazis during World War II, both of which Mr. Edsel will donate to the National Archives under separate terms."
"The United Nations, Google and Cisco today unveiled a pioneering online site that tracks progress towards decreasing global poverty by 2015, a global campaign known as the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. Visit the website at www.mdgmonitor.org"
The National Veterans' Training Institute Veterans' Program Letters Database is now searchable for the period of 1991-2007. "NVTI was established in 1986 to further develop and enhance the professional skills of veterans' employment and training service providers throughout the United States."
HHS OIG Memorandum Report: Laboratory Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza, October 24, 2007 (OEI-04-07-00670), 10 pages, PDF.
See also:
Press release: "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has launched the first of two public comment periods on the draft voluntary voting system guidelines (VVSG) prepared by EAC’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC)."
Press release: "Starting November 1, consumers in all 50 states will be able to freeze access to their credit files at all three major credit bureaus to prevent identity thieves from opening fraudulent accounts in their names. By that date, all three major credit bureaus will offer “security freeze” protection to all consumers living in the eleven states that have not passed laws requiring it and the five states that currently limit this protection to identity theft victims. To help consumers learn how to take advantage of this powerful identity theft safeguard, Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, is making available online an updated Guide to Security Freeze Protection."
"State Court Organization, 1987-2004 presents trend data from State Court Organization data collections covering the years 1987-2004. The report examines changes in the organization and operations of the Nation’s state trial and appellate courts over this time period. Topics include the selection and educational requirements of judges, regulations of criminal and civil juries, the development of unified court systems, and adjustments in court management and staffing to address growing caseloads."