Search Results from beSpacific

Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-250 pickup, and Infiniti G37 top list of highest insurance claims for theft

News release, includes a data chart: "The rate at which people file insurance claims for theft is highest for versions of the 2007-09 Cadillac Escalade, a luxury SUV, followed by the Ford F-250 crew pickup, Infiniti G37 luxury car, and...

WSJ: Historic Finance Bill Includes Major New Rules Affecting Nearly Every Corner of Investing World

Follow up to Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act - HR 11-517 and Senate passage of the bill by a 60-39 vote on July 15, 2010, via WSJ: "Buried in the bill's 800-odd pages are the most sweeping...

President Obama, Vice President Biden Announce $8 Billion for High-Speed Rail Projects Across the Country

Follow up to previous postings on high speed rail in America, this news release: "President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden...[announced] that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is awarding $8 billion to states across the country to develop...

White House: The National Security Strategy

"The National Security Strategy, released May 27, 2010, lays out a strategic approach for advancing American interests, including the security of the American people, a growing U.S. economy, support for our values, and an international order that can address 21st...

White House Letter to Congressional Leaders Requests $50 Billion in Emergency Aid

In his letter to bi-partisan Congressional leadership President Obama highlights "the devastating economic impact of budget cuts at the state and local levels that are leading to massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters." Je goes on to request support...

VP Biden: Middle Class Task Force white paper on Helping Americans Get Back To Work

Subsidized Jobs: Helping Americans Get Back To Work - "Because the Recovery Act is a temporary stimulus designed to boost job creation through a period of great labor market distress, programs in the Act sunset according to a preset schedule....

President Obama Issues New National Security Strategy

National Security Strategy, May 2010 "The two decades since the end of the Cold War have been marked by both the promise and perils of change. The circle of peaceful democracies has expanded; the specter of nuclear war has lifted;...

Administration Releases Surface Transportation Security Priority Assessment

White House - Surface Transportation Security Assessment, March 2010 "Securing the Nation’s surface transportation network requires a coordinated effort among all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, communities, and individual citizens. While much has been accomplished to date...

DHS Announces New Measures to Strengthen Aviation Security

News release: "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will begin implementing new enhanced security measures for all air carriers with international flights to the United States to strengthen the safety...

Presidential Statement and White House Memorandum on the FOIA Issued During Sunshine Week

FOIA Post: "On March 16, 2010, during Sunshine Week, the White House issued both a Presidential Statement and a Memorandum on the FOIA. First, President Obama issued a statement on the FOIA. In his Statement, the President applauded the work...

Pew Presentation: Teens and the internet -The future of digital diversity

Teens and the Internet: The Future of Digital Diversity, Kristen Purcell, Ph.D. Associate Director, Pew Internet Project, Fred Forward Conference, March 23, 2010....

The President’s Biofuels Interagency Working Group released its first report – Growing America’s Fuel

Growing America’s Fuel An Innovation Approach to Achieving the President’s Biofuels Target. Vision: "New jobs and greater economic vitality in rural America, increased energy independence, reduced economic vulnerability to volatile oil prices and uncertain supplies, technological and industrial leadership in...

Report: Social Networking in Government: Opportunities & Challenges

Report: Social Networking in Government: Opportunities & Challenges, Human Capital Institute, January 2010 "Social networking (SN) has become the new online rage. Blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have provided creative ways to...

What's New in THOMAS

News release: "Several changes have been made to THOMAS for the second session of the 111th Congress. These changes include: Bookmarking and Sharing Widget; Top Five Bills; New RSS feed: Bills Presented to the President; Contacting Members of Congress; Tip...

Am Law Tech Survey 2009

"Fully one-third of the 110 Am Law 200 firms participating in our fourteenth annual survey of technology directors reported that their capital budgets were down more than 10 percent this year. Staffing levels and salaries have taken hits, and equipment...

FedThread is new open source way of interacting with the Federal Register

FedThread "gives you: collaborative annotation: Attach a note to any paragraph of the Federal Register; start a conversation. advanced search: Search the Federal Register (back to 2000) on full text, by date, agency, and other fields. customized feeds: Turn any...

FBI - Major Cyber Fraud Takedown

FBI news release: "The largest number of defendants ever charged in a cyber crime case have been indicted in a multinational investigation conducted in the United States and Egypt that uncovered a sophisticated “phishing” operation that fraudulently collected personal information...

HHS Releases Findings on State and Local Pandemic Influenza Preparedness

HHS OIG Audit Report: State and Local Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Medical Surge, September 2009: "An influenza pandemic is a global outbreak of a highly infectious influenza virus that can cause serious illness in humans. The Department of Health and Human...

Army's Warrior Mind Training Program

Time: "Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to...

Consumer Reports: Patient satisfaction with PPOs driven down by administrative hassles

American Medical News staff. Posted Aug. 17, 2009: "The latest health plan ratings by Consumer Reports shows PPO members less satisfied than those who belong to HMOs, primarily because of poor scores for PPOs' customer service and billing practices. Overall,...

DoD Web 2.0 Guidance Forum

DoD Web 2.0 Guidance Forum - Value of Web 2.0 Capabilities: "In examining how the Department of Defense should take maximal advantage of Web 2.0 capabilities (including social networking services, social media, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, etc.), we are looking...

U.S. Climate Change Science Program Final Reports

Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 5.2 (Best practice approaches for characterizing, communicating, and incorporating scientific uncertainty in decisionmaking) is posted. See also press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (posted 16 Jan 2009) Final Report...

Report: Mortgage-Related Litigation on the Rise

American Lawyer: "Mortgage-related lawsuits are on the rise, with homeowners and investors alike suing over allegedly being duped by the mortgage industry. According to a litigation report from MortgageDaily.com, an online mortgage news analyst, the number of mortgage-related lawsuits filed...

GovFresh - Government 2.0 - Offers Live RSS Updates

"GovFresh is a live feed of official news from U.S. Government Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more, all in one place." See also White House Website Adds Links to FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace...

THOMAS Launches First RSS Feed

"The Congressional Record Daily Digest is now available as the first RSS feed from THOMAS. The Daily Digest from THOMAS is one of five RSS feeds available from the Law Library of Congress as described on our RSS Feeds and...

New crash tests demonstrate the influence of vehicle size and weight on safety in crashes

News release: "Three front-to-front crash tests, each involving a microcar or minicar into a midsize model from the same manufacturer, show how extra vehicle size and weight enhance occupant protection in collisions. These Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests are...

Roof strength is focus of new rating system; small SUVs evaluated

"The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is launching a new roof strength rating system to help consumers pick vehicles that will help protect them in rollover crashes. Twelve small SUVs are the first to be put to the test. Only...

Upcoming: Competitive Intelligence Workshop at Computers in Libraries 2009

Post-Conference Workshop on Competitive Intelligence, April 2, 2009 - 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM, Sabrina I. Pacifici, Law Librarian, & Founder/Editor/Publisher, LLRX.com and beSpacific.com Librarians, competitive intelligence (CI) experts, and knowledge specialists will all benefit from this seminar focused on...

New Web 2.0 Tools on USA.gov

"Visit Government 2.0 for the latest tools available on USA.gov and other federal websites. With these tools, USA.gov hopes to engage the public and improve access to government information and resources. Here are just a few of the Web 2.0...

New on LLRX.com: Collaboration Through Wikis at Hicks Morley

Collaboration Through Wikis at Hicks Morley - Heather Colman explains how wikis were an ideal KM solution for her law firm. Quick and easy to set up, requiring little IT support, wikis support central data repositories and provide features including...

Dramatic Change Comes to WhiteHouse.gov

"Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. A short time ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. One of the first changes is the White House's new...

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announces 2009 Top Safety Pick winners

News release [includes list of winners]: "Seventy-two vehicles earn the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Top Safety Pick award for 2009. This is more than double the number of 2008 recipients and more than 3 times the number of 2007...

New on LLRX.com - The Government Domain: Tracking the Transition

The Government Domain: Tracking the Transition - Peggy Garvin's thorough and concise guide to free online presidential transition trackers allows you to stay current with all the latest news, rumors and commentary about the incoming administration, via reliable websites, blogs...

Consumers Can Sign Up for Free Electronic Vehicle Recall Alerts From NHTSA

News release: "Vehicle owners across the nation can be instantly informed of a safety recall under a new automated alert system announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters. The recall alerts can be received via e-mail or RSS-feeds...

Nation's First Chief Technology Officer Will Face Significant Challenges

Dan Farber, CNET News: "Obama will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety...

Protections for America’s Disabled Workers Expanded Under New Law

Follow up to September 17, 2008 posting, Congress Passes ADA Amendments Act, this America.gov article, Protections for America’s Disabled Workers Expanded Under New Law: "A new law restores workplace protections for the disabled that had eroded as a result of...

Association of Research Libraries: Social Software in Libraries

News release: "The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Social Software in Libraries, SPEC Kit 304, which provides an overview of ARL libraries’ implementation of software that people use to connect with one another online...In the last few years,...

New on LLRX.com: Technology Tools for Information Management

Technology Tools for Information Management - Roger V. Skalbeck and Barbara Fullerton's share a fast paced presentation of 19 practical, low cost and innovative tech tools they respectively use on a regular basis. So if you are looking for ideas...

ODNI Launches New Web Site

News release: "The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today launched a redesigned Web site featuring expanded content, improved navigation tools, and a new digital subscription service. The site's fresh content includes a Frequently Asked Questions section and...

WSJ: Foreclosure Rate Outpaces Bank Sales

By James R. Hagerty, From The Wall Street Journal Online: "Foreclosures are occurring at the highest rate in decades -- and as a result, lenders are acquiring homes faster than they can sell them off. Last year, sales of foreclosed...

Upcoming Computers in Libraries Workshop - Monitoring & Current Awareness: Mining Blogs & RSS for Research

Workshop 8 – Monitoring & Current Awareness: Mining Blogs & RSS for Research, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Sunday April 6, 2008 - Sabrina I. Pacifici, Law Librarian, Founder/Editor/Publisher, LLRX.com and Author, beSpacific.com. This workshop focuses on identifying and leveraging...

AIDS.gov Has a New Look

"The new AIDS.gov home page provides easier access to site information and offers new features." Prominently displayed at the top right side of the page are links to: a well designed and organized Blog, Podcasts to which users may listen...

Tail Report - Survey of Web Revenue

"Tail Report has launched with the goal to map out how money is made in the blogosphere. Tail Report works by asking users to anonymously submit information about their site's traffic, rank and monthly revenue. In return, the user receives...

WSJ: Tracking Housing Prices

Tracking Housing Prices - Why the Numbers Conflict, By David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal Online. "Predicting how much worse the U.S. housing market will get is tough. The future is never certain. But when it comes to home prices,...

Judiciary Committee Chairman Renews Request For White House Legal Documents On Torture

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...

Free Federal Court Opinions Website Now Searchable From 2004 to Present

Tim Stanley: US Federal District Court Opinions with Full Text Search: "We have put online the Federal District Court case opinions and orders that are available using the opinion report in the Federal Courts' ECF. These are updated daily. We...

Current Awareness Search Engine Indexes 1,400 RSS Feeds on Library Related Topics

"LibWorm Beta is intended to be a search engine, a professional development tool, and a current awareness tool for people who work in libraries or care about libraries. LibWorm collects updates from about 1400 RSS feeds (and growing). The contents...

Medical RSS Filter Engine Offers Over 4000 Authoritative RSS Feeds

"MedWorm is a medical RSS feed provider as well as a search engine built on data collected from RSS feeds...MedWorm collects updates from over 4000 authoritative data sources (growing each day) via RSS feeds. From the data collected, MedWorm provides...

Iraqi State Library Again in Danger

The Guardian: "Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday."...

Sunlight Foundation Launches Search Engine for Federal Documents

June 14, 2007 press release: "The Sunlight Foundation today launched a new search engine called LOUIS – the Library Of Unified Information Sources – to improve public access to federal documents through an all-inclusive, catalogued and cross-referenced collection of official...

International News and Problems with the News Media's RSS Feeds

"A new ICMPA study takes a look at the media's use of RSS and concludes that RSS feeds work very poorly for those who use news for more than infotainment. The study looked at 19 of the world's top news...

Policy Center's Study Shows Flaws in News Media's Use of RSS

From the Center for Media and the Public Agenda at University of Maryland, College Park: International News and Problems with the News Media's RSS Feeds: "This study was constructed to determine which news outlets use RSS well—which outlets give users...

washingtonpost.com Launches Presidential Campaign Tracker

Via Adrian Holovaty, see the "washingtonpost.com's Presidential Campaign Tracker uses information from campaigns, media reports and other sources to compile a listing of events involving presidential candidates and their spouses. The tracker covers events since January 2007. It does not...

USA.gov Launches Redesigned Site

Follow up to January 11, 2007 posting, FirstGov is Now USA.gov, today USA.gov relaunched with a new design, navigation and accessibility platform that significantly enhances user interface with the site. The site maintains a red, white a blue theme, with...

Corporate Data Loss Cost Calculator

Tech//404® Data Loss Cost Calculator: "Data loss resulting from network security breaches and identity theft has become a regular occurrence. While the number of affected records can vary widely in any given data loss scenario, a recent study by the...

Viacom Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against YouTube

FindLaw: Viacom Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against YouTube and Google Over Unauthorized Use Of The Company's Shows: Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., YouTube, LLC, and Google, Inc., March 13, 2007. Viacom statement: Suit Seeks Court Ruling To Require YouTube...

Tracking Federal Regulations, Rules, Proposed Rules and Notices

"Justia has released the free Justia Regulations Tracker, (currently in beta). Justia Regulations Tracker allows a user to focus on regulations originating from a specific federal agency and subscribe to an RSS feed of those regulations."...

New, Free Searchable Database of Federal Register Rules and Notices

Tim Stanley and the Justia team keep rolling out new services for the legal community that assist us in accessing essential government documents via user-friendly websites, with accompanying RSS feeds and customized search capabilities. Today news is about the launch...

RSS Service Tracks Price Changes on Amazon Products

"RSStalker.com provides RSS feeds to track price changes of Amazon.com products. Generate a feed for a single product or for an entire wishlist. Add it to your favorite aggregator and you will be automatically notified when the price changes. Simply...

Commentary on Whether Newspapers Will Endure in Print

Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2007 - The Race, by Robert Kuttner: "By the usual indicators, daily newspapers are in a deepening downward spiral. The new year brought reports of more newsroom layoffs, dwindling print circulation, flat or declining... Assuming that...

White House Launches Redesigned Website

Whitehouse.gov, or what is now titled Welcome to the White House, has a new look, inclusive of links, on the top of the homepage, to podcasts (there appears to be a very shallow archive - with availability beginning on February...

New on LLRX.com for February 2007 - Part I

Creating Intranet Applications for Knowledge Sharing Within Law Firms, by Jason Eiseman Technology and Policy Issues With Acquiring Digital Collections, by Roger V. Skalbeck and Iva M. Futrell Seven Legal Technology Trends for 2007: Widening the Digital Divide in Law...

Justia Launches Free Federal District Court Filings Database Search

Another terrific project from the Justia team, this database [still under development] of recently filed Federal District Court civil cases allows users to browse by State, Nature of Suit and Cases, as well as seach by Party Name, jurisdiction, type...

House and Senate Websites Are Redesigned and Relaunched

There are many changes as a result of the power shift on the Hill, not the least of which appears tangibly in the websites of various committees. This is a result of committee name changes [see New House Committee on...

CDC Analysis Tool Plays Pivotal Role in Fight Against Foodborne Illness

"The CDC system, called PulseNet, stores the electronic DNA fingerprints of bacteria sent by health officials around the country after severe illness cases appear in local communities. PulseNet can be accessed by health officials to look for wider patterns that...

DHS Provides RSS Fees for News, Press Releases, Speeches and Testimony

Links to the RSS feeds are as follows: Department of Homeland Security News Department of Homeland Security Press Releases Department of Homeland Security Speeches Department of Homeland Security Testimony...

Library of Congress Launches RSS Feeds

List of Library of Congress RSS Feeds News - A bulletin service of the latest news from the world's preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing resources to Congress and the American people Upcoming Events - Listing of the dozens of free...

OYEZ Project Blog Provides Quick Access to Range of Supreme Court Documents and Data

With a wide range of content formats, from podcasts to RSS and searchable databases, the OYEZ blog is a unique and content richs online resource to locate cases, information on the justices, Listen to or download the official version of...

Internet Censorship Circumvention Tool Becomes Available This Week

The New York Times reported that the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab will launch a censorship circumvention solution called psiphon. According to the Citizen Lab, "psiphon is...a human rights software project...that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access...

New on LLRX.com for November 2006 - Part 2

The complete November 2006 issue is available at www.llrx.com There are 15 new articles in total, so please visit the homepage for links to and abstracts of all this month's content. Many thanks to all the authors, and have a...

New on LLRX.com for November, 2006 - Part 1

Developments in Legal Outsourcing and Offshoring, by Ron Friedmann and Joy London CongressLine: New Congressional Leadership, by Paul Jenks Using RSS to Create and Enhance Current Awareness Services, by Jason Eiseman Deal or No Deal – Licensing & Acquiring Digital...

ChoicePoint Redux: Restoring Reputation and Brand

Follow up to previous postings on ChoicePoint and data breaches, today's New York Times article, Keeping Your Enemies Close, provides a chronology of how the company has made inroads in rehabilitating its reputation. See also Who will speak for customer?...

VOA - America Votes - US Elections 2006

VOA News: "On November 7, Americans will elect a new Congress -- a process mandated every two years by the U.S. Constitution. At stake are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 U.S. Senate...

Appeals Court's Website Features RSS, Audio Recordings

Press release: "...the Seventh Circuit is the first federal court of appeals to make RSS feeds of opinions and audio recordings of oral arguments available from its Web site ....

NY Public Library Adopts LC Classification System

New York Times Editorial today: Where the Books Are. See also this related posting, NY Public Library Project to Update Access to Reference Works....

NY Public Library Project to Update Access to Reference Works

New York Times - With a New Classification System, the New York Public Library Makes a Change for the Clearer: "Librarians have begun a yearlong project to reorganize, reclassify and update the roughly 25,000 reference works on the room’s open...

Request for Medicare Guidance Letters to be Posted on CMS Site

"Rep. Waxman asks that guidance letters provided to state Medicaid programs be provided on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services website in a format generally accessible to standard computer users." [Note: a redesign of the CMS site earlier this...

American Lawyer Survey on Law Librarians 2006

Law Librarians Look Beyond Books - "Once endangered, librarians have expanded their role to include such duties as market research and competitive intelligence." The Librarian's Expanding Role Electronic Research Staffing Resources Finances...

Judge Rules Search of Congressman's Office Constitutional

IN RE: SEARCH OF RAYBURN HOUSE BUILDING ROOM NO. 2113, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515, July 10, 2006: "A federal judge rules that the FBI's search of Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's House office pursuant to a court-ordered search warrant was constitutional,...

Will FBI Prevail in Expanding Net Surveillance Program?

Declan McCullagh reported: "The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping." Related postings on CALEA, and this...

DHS Fact Sheet: On Securing Our Nation’s Rail Systems

Fact Sheet: Securing Our Nation’s Rail Systems, July 7, 2006 - "Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the 7/7 London subway bombings, and the Madrid rail bombings, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken several steps to...

Profile of an Identity Thief

New York Times: Identity Thief Finds Easy Money Hard to Resist...

Google Continues Expansion With Home Grown Infrastructure Development

New York Times: A Search Engine That's Becoming an Inventor...

Senate Defeats Net Neutrality

In an 11-11 vote today, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation defeated the Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Net Neutrality). Senate Panel Narrowly Rejects Net Neutrality - Broadband equality proposal may...

Government Mines Global Financial Data in War on Terror

New York Times, Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror: "Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and...

New Service Lets RSS Users Filter Subscriptions

"Feed Rinse is an easy to use tool that lets you automatically filter out syndicated content that you aren't interested in. It's like a spam filter for your RSS subscriptions."...

New York Public Library Continues to Excel at Phone Reference Services

New York Times: Library Phone Answerers Survive the Internet...

Corporate Internet Filtering Polices May Impede Work Product

Reports on monitoring of employee website usage are not uncommon, but today's New York Times article highlights how blocking specific sites can impede work product. This can certainly be the case not only in the newsroom but in law firms...

FDA Drug Screening Approval Process Under Attack

Center for Medical Consumers: Dodgeball - The Pharmaceutical Companies' Direct Marketing to Doctors and the Impact on Health Care Costs and Patient Safety, June 2006 (45 pages, PDF) LA Times (reg. req'd) - Liver Failures Linked to Antibiotic Ketek Renew...

Responding to Controversy Over Inaccuracies, Wikipedia Amends Editing Policy

Following up on previous postings, Authority of Vast Collaborative Online Encyclopedia Questioned and Wikipedia Continues to Confront Controversy and Wikipedia Continues to Generate Headlines, related news today from the New York Times: Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy...

Law Professors and Blogging

The Law Professor as Public Intellectual, by Cynthia Cotts, The American Lawyer, June 1, 2006 Blawgs on a Roll - Legal reporting is sometimes decried as boring and inaccurate. But a band of savvy law professors have changed all that,...

CIA Releases Additional Nazi War Crimes Documents

NARA: "CIA Name Files and Subject Files compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency in response to the Disclosure Acts. These files are comprised of documentation from several CIA filing systems and are organized under the names of individuals and subjects....

DOJ Wants ISPs to Retain Customer Data For Potential Law Enforcement Action

The New York Times reported today that the "Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so." Related news...

DHS Anti-Terror Cuts to NYC Met With Strong Negative Response

"Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Peter T. King commented on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) announcement to cut New York City’s Anti-Terrorism funding by nearly 40% from last year: As far as I'm concerned, DHS and the Administration have...

New York Times Reports Arizona A Hot Spot for ID Theft

According to the New York Times, Arizona's rapid population growth combined with a "heavy traffic in methamphetamine" are signficant factors in the state's ranking at the top of the list for ID theft complaints recorded by the FTC. Related news...

Public Access to SEC Comment Letters Still Denied

This New York Times article describes the obstacles used by the SEC to obstruct public access to corporate records, even if a third party expert is used to facilitate document retrieval using a FOIA request....

Theft of Data on Over 25 Million Veterans Renews Calls for Greater Security

Statement of Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson on the Status of the Veterans Data Theft (5/24/06): "I am outraged at the loss of this veterans' data and the fact an employee would put it at risk by taking...

Commentary on Book Scanning Projects Prognosticates On Future of Reading

New York Times Magazine, Scan This Book!, by Kevin Kelly, "senior maverick" at Wired magazine and author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World....

Info On Pentagon Phone Surveillance Program Generates Legal and Political Ramifications

Follow-up to May 11, 2006 posting, Domestic Call Records Mined for Expansive Pentagon Database Program, see the following related news and commentary: USAToday.com: NSA secret database report triggers fierce debate in Washington USAToday.com: Gathering data may not violate privacy rights,...

Leaks of Gov't Info: Who Gets Prosecuted and Why

Crime or Privilege? Leaking Classified Information, by Joan Indiana Rigdon, Washington Lawyer, May 2006. "Public discussion of state secrets has come under attack many times in the past, especially during times of war. But now, as the government tries to...

Gen. Hayden Nominated to Head CIA

From the White House: President Nominates General Michael Hayden as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Fact Sheet: General Michael V. Hayden: the Right Leader for the CIA. And from the press: New York Times: White House Begins Push...

Federal Court Challenges FCC's Power to Enforce Broadband Internet Surveillance

Follow-up to yesterday's posting, FCC Orders VoIP and Broadband IP Compliance With Law Enforcement Surveillance - today Reuters reports that in a case [American Council of Education v. FCC, 05-1404] before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of...

E-Gov Site on Avian and Pandemic Flu Resources

PandemicFlu.gov: "One-stop access to U.S. Government avian and pandemic flu information. Managed by the Department of Health and Human Services. In the event of a pandemic, this will be the authoritative site for U.S. government information on the pandemic." The...

Network Neutrality Act of 2006 Introduced Today By Markey

Press release: "This network neutrality bill has essentially three parts. The first part articulates overall broadband and network neutrality goals for the country, and spells out exactly what network neutrality means and puts it into the statute so that it...

Court Responds to Public Disclosures of Info in Libby Case

Follow-up to yesterday's posting, New Libby Filing Demands Release of Documents Related to Iraq Intel ["The defense intends to show the jury that the controversy over intelligence failures during the spring and summer of 2003 led certain officials within the...

Government Allows Lifting of Librarian Gag Order in Patriot Act Investigation

Follow-up to previous postings on a Connecticut library oranization that was the target of a National Security Letter gag ordered, today the New York Times reported, Librarians Win as U.S. Relents on Secrecy Law: "After fighting ferociously for months, federal...

President Defends Declassification of Pre-War Iraq Intel

Follow-up to April 9, 2006 posting, Reports Substantiate WH Plan to Discredit Iraq War Critic Via Plame CIA Leak, President Bush Discusses Global War on Terror at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University,...

New York Times Expands Into Blogging

The Public Editor - The Times's New Blogs: More Information, Fewer Filters, by Byron Calame....

Reports Substantiate WH Plan to Discredit Iraq War Critic Via Plame CIA Leak

Follow-up to April 7, 2006 posting, Plame Leak Controversy Focused on President With Release of New Info, see: today's Washington Post: Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story: "As he drew back the curtain this week on...

AG's Statements to House Judiciary Cmte. Maintain Authority of Domestic Surveillance

New York Times: Gonzales Suggests Legal Basis for Domestic Eavesdropping House Judiciary Committee, April 6, 2006, Oversight Hearing on The United States Department of Justice. Related postings on domestic surveillance...

DHS Director Does Not Use Email

New York Times interview with DHS Director Michael Chertoff,by Deborah Solomon, April 2, 2006: Chertoff states, "I don't use e-mail. One reason is when you write an e-mail, you have to be mindful of the fact that nothing ever disappears....

Hearing on Call to Censure the President

An Examination of the Call to Censure the President, Senate Judiciary Committee, Full Committee, March 31, 2006 Sen. Feingold's Resolution to Censure the President Testimony: Bruce Fein, Partner, Fein & Fein Lee Casey, Partner, Baker & Hostetler Sen. Patrick Leahy...

Former FISA Court Judges Voice Opinions on Domestic Surveillance Program

Follow-up to yesterday's posting, Judiciary Cmte. Holds Hearing on NSA Wiretapping, in today's New York Times, Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program. Related postings on domestic surveillance...

The Challenges of "Researching" in An Age of "Searching"

New York Times Op-Ed, March 26, 2006: Searching for Dummies, by Edward Tenner....

Librarian Remains Under Gag Order Due to Patriot Act

Following up on previous postings concerning the FBI's use of National Security Letters to obtain library patron records, the New York Times reports today, Librarian Is Still John Doe, Despite Patriot Act Revision...

New Book Analyzes Obstacles to Advancement for Women in Law Firms

New York Times, March 18, 2006: Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms? Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law, by Lauren Stiller Rikleen...

DOJ IG Audit Report on Electronic Surveillance

The Implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Audit Report 06-13, [Redacted] March 2006 (PDF) Executive Summary: "Criminal organizations and individuals frequently use the telecommunications systems of the United States to further serious violent crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping,...

Sabrina Presents Workshop on Best Sites and Services for Research

Computers in Libraries 2006, Post Conference Workshops – Saturday, March 25 - Workshop 17 — 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., presented by Sabrina I. Pacifici (LLRX.com and beSpacific) This workshop focuses on leveraging the best of free and low-fee Web...

Archivist Responds to Gov't Reclassification of Docs.

NARA press release: "Archivist of the United States Announces New Steps in Response to Withdrawal of Declassified Records from Open Shelves at the National Archives" Related documents, news and postings: Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000 Public Interest Declassification Board...

Patriot Act Reauthorization Passed by Senate

The vote was 89-10, with the following senators voting against the reauthorization: Sen. Akaka (D-HI); Sen. Bingaman (D-NM); Sen. Byrd (D-WV; Sen. Feingold (D-WI); Sen. Harkin (D-IA); Sen. Jeffords (I-VT); Sen. Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Levin (D-MI); Sen. Murray (D-WA) and...

Phishing, Pharming, Key Logging, DDOS Attacks Require Net Users to Remain Vigilant

New York Times: Cyberthieves Silently Copy Your Passwords as You Type USA Today, Increasing Web attacks disrupt commerce Related postings on cybercrime...

NSA Expands Data Mining Progam With Purchase of New Tech Tools

Follow-up to National Journal Article Claims Curtailed Gov't Surveillance Program Still Active, from today's New York Times, Taking Spying to Higher Level, Agencies Look for More Ways to Mine Data: "...by fundamentally changing the nature of surveillance, high-tech data mining...

Recent Decision on Google's Use of Thumbnails May Impact Book Scan Project

New York times: Ruling May Undercut Google in Fight Over Its Book Scans See also this related commentary: The Google Library Project: The Copyright Debate, by Jonathan Band The Authors Guild v. The Google Print Library Project, by Jonathan Band...

Dow Jones Announces Reorganization to Leverage Digital Media

New York Times: Dow Jones Plans to Merge Online and Print Divisions...

New EU Job Portal

EURES - The European Job Mobility Portal: The easy way to find information on jobs and learning opportunities in Europe. Related resources: The Tao of Law Librarianship: Do-It-Yourself Professional Development, Part II, by Connie Crosby Job Swaps and Library Exchanges,...

Proposed Sale of Port Operations Raises Serious Concerns on the Hill

Press release: "Senator Susan Collins, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman sent letters today to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Treasury Secretary John Snow expressing...

Security Issues Escalate With Popularity of Handheld Devices

New York Times: Too Many New Gadgets, Too Much Information at Risk: Loss, theft and viruses are major issues as corporate use of handheld devices and pocket PCs increases. Pre-emptive security options are available however, as this article describes....

Gov. Docs. Available to the Public Reclassified and Access Denied

National Security Archive press release: "The CIA and other federal agencies have secretly reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to a report published today on the...

The Mashup of MSM and Blogs

New York Times: That Which We Call a Blog... Referenced in the article is the recent Technorati posting on how many blogs the site is now tracking....

Congress and White House Continue to Clash on NSA Surveillance Authority

AP: Rockefeller Questions NSA's Authority Vice Chairman Rockefeller's Statement on the Senate Intelligence Committee's Failure to Vote on Whether to Authorize an Investigation into the NSA Surveillance Program New York Times: Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program [Please...

More NASA Personnel Report on Limiting Public Access to Global Warming Docs.

Follow-up to a series of recent postings on the growing controversy concerning NASA's policy to limit public access to accurate scientific documents on global warming. New York Times - Call for Openness at NASA Adds to Reports of Pressure: "Top...

UN Report Calls on US to Close Guantanamo Bay Prison

"Five independent investigators of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights are calling on the United States to close immediately the detention centre in Guantánamo Bay and bring all detainees before an independent and competent tribunal or release them." (The...

DOJ Creates Roadblocks To Spy Program Investigations

Follow-up to yesterday's posting, Investigation into Domestic Spying Program Blocked, today AP reports Justice Argues Against Ashcroft Testimony, and the New York Times reports Senate Panel Decides Against Eavesdropping Investigation, at Least for Now. From AP, this report tonight that...

The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?

House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, February 15, 2006 Hearing, The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression? Links to statements and testimony below are in PDF: The...

State Dept. Establishes Task Force on Global Internet Freedom

Following up on recent postings: Yahoo Issues Statement on Chinese Net Censorship, Net Censorship Abroad - Free Speech Colides With E-commerce? and Hearing Focuses on Internet Censorship in China, related news today via this State Dept. press release - statement...

Report Attributes Extensive Government Failures In Hurricane Response

New York Times: Republicans' Report on Katrina Assails Administration Response Washington Post: Katrina Report Spreads Blame, Homeland Security, Chertoff Singled Out Related government documents: DHS Fact Sheet: Strengthening FEMA to Maximize Mission Performance, February 13, 2006 - "Homeland Security Secretary...

U.S. Trade Deficit Exceeds $725 Billion

U.S. Census Bureau: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services Highlights, February 10, 2006. Goods and Services Deficit Increases in 2005. Also from Census, U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services - Current, Prior and Compressed New York Times: U.S....

How and What Pre War Intel Was Used in Iraq Invasion

Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq, by Paul R. Pillar, From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006 Summary: "During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded...

Net Censorship Abroad - Free Speech Colides With E-commerce?

Follow-up to February 2, 2006 posting, Hearing Focuses on Internet Censorship in China, this WSJ free feature today: Internet Censorship - Web Firms Face Grilling on China. Related news: New York Times, So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China...

Feds Aggressively Pursue Leak of Domestic Spying Info to Public

New York Times, Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens: "Federal agents have interviewed officials at several of the country's law enforcement and national security agencies in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding a New York Times article published...

FirstGov Adds News RSS Feeds

"FirstGov.gov Updates - News and Features - Stay on top of important government news and information with the FirstGov Updates - News and Features RSS feed [link to feed]. We'll update this feed when we update news and featured content...

Misinformation Issues At NASA Result in Resignation Amidst Continued Controversy

Follow-up to Gov't Climate Change Expert Contends Censorship of Data and NASA Chief Calls for "Scientific Openness" Amidst Claims of Gov't Secrecy, today this report from the New York Times on the resignation of a presidential appointee at NASA responsible...

AG Gonzales Testimony to Judiciary Cmte. Generates Strong Response

Follow-up to yesterday's posting, AG Alberto R. Gonzales Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Cmte. Today, the following transcript of the AG's answers to Sen. Specter's questions (11 pages, PDF), via CDT. Related references: New York Times: Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls...

Review of Book That Sparked Controversy on Domestic Spy Program

'State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,' by James Risen - Spies and Spymasters, Review by Walter Isaacson....

VP Informed Libby About Plame Identity

New York Times: New Details Revealed on C.I.A. Leak Case: "Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told prosecutors that Mr. Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the...

Customer Info Collected By Search Engines Increasingly Subject to Scrutiny

FAQ: When Google is not your friend, by Declan McCullagh: "Google's recent legal spat with the U.S. Department of Justice highlights not only what information search engines record about us but also the shortcomings in a federal law that's supposed...

Sale of Cell Phone Records Subject of House Hearing and State AG Action

Phone Records For Sale: Why Aren't Phone Records Safe From Pretexting?, Full Committee on Energy and Commerce, February 1, 2006. Statement of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee FCC Chairman Martin's Statement (10 pages,...

SEC Proposed Rule on Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure

SEC Proposed Rule on Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure, January 28, 2006 (370 pages, PDF) Related reference, New York Times, January 29, 2006: The Case for Cutting the Chief's Paycheck: "Corporate America has made some progress in cleaning up...

Commentary on Gov't Rationale for Domestic Surveillance

New York Times editorial, January 29, 2006, Spies, Lies and Wiretaps: "A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that...

Gov't Climate Change Expert Contends Censorship of Data

New York Times: Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him Editor & Publisher: Two Top Papers Ask: Is the Earth Heading for Doom--With an Assist from the White House?...

Google Resists Complying With DOJ Demand For Data to Shield Trade Secrets?

In a shift from previous responses to and commentary about DOJ's subpoena for Google's search data, this New York Times article, In Case About Google's Secrets, Yours Are Safe, recasts the probe with a focus on protecting corporate trade secrets,...

Surveillance Increasingly Woven Into Fabric of Online World

This New York Times essay, A Growing Web of Watchers Builds a Surveillance Society, by David Shenk, offers especially cautionary insight in light of the growing public and political response to revelations about the government's domestic surveillance program. After Subpoenas,...

Gov't Warned Prior to Katrina Hit Of Storm's Impact and Cost

A 39 page report from the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, titled: Fast Analysis Report (Update to Reflect Category 5 Status) to DHS 1P on Hurricane Katrina, Gulf Coast, dated August 28, 2005, provides detailed...

Administration Defense of Domestic Surveillance Program Escalates

Notable articles today: New York Times: Delicate Dance for Bush in Depicting Spy Program as Asset Washington Post (reg. req'd) Bush Defends Domestic Spying - Deputy National Intelligence Chief Says Program is Targeted on Al Qaeda President Discusses Global War...

Limited Congressional Briefings on NSA Spying "Inconsistent With the Law" Says CRS Memo

On January 4, 2006, Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) sent a letter to President Bush stating that "... the practice of briefing only certain Members of the intelligence committees [on NSA programs] violates the specific requirements of the National Security Act...

Effectivensss of Domestic Surveillance Program Challenged By Intel Officials

New York Times: Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends: "President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program, which focused on the international communications of some Americans and others in the United States, as a "vital tool"...

Gore Speech Targets Executive Powers and Domestic Surveillance

The New York Times reports on a speech given today in Washington D.C. at DAR Constitutional Hall by former Vice President Al Gore, the focus of which was presidential authority, government secrecy, domestic surveillance, and the decline of congressional power....

Outsourcing Legal Research?

This January 13, 2006 New York Times article, Even Law Firms Join the Trend to Outsourcing, raises questions about outsourcing expert legal services....

Senate Hearing on Nomination of Samuel A. Alito , January 9, and 12, 2006

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for Monday, January 9, 2006 at 12:00 p.m. in...

Corruption Scandal Impacting Capitol Hill Leadership

Series of articles related to the corruption scandal impacting a growing number of individuals on the Hill, as well as lobbying firms. AP: DeLay Gives Up Bid to Reclaim House Post New York Times: Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm...

Pentagon Study Publicly Available Cites Fatal Flaw in Body Armor

New York Times: Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor: 80% of Marine fatalities could have been prevented if higher quality body armor, which has been available since 2003, had been distributed to these troops....

CRS Report Evaluates Presidential Authority for Warrantless Surveillance

CRS Report, January 5, 2006: Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information (44 pages, PDF) Related references: New York Times, Report Questions Legal Basis for Bush's Spying Program: "President Bush's rationale for authorizing eavesdropping on...

CRS Report on National Security Whistleblowers

From FAS, this link to a new CRS report, National Security Whistleblowers, December 30, 2005 (47 pages, PDF): "To discharge its constitutional duties, Congress depends on information obtained from the executive branch. Domestic and national security information is provided through...

Release of New Documents Complicates Understanding of NSA Actions Post 9/11

Several articles available today expand upon the discussion about, and information related to, the escalating controversy generated by revelations of a post 9/11 domestic surveillance program. Listed below are the articles and links which collectively shed new light on the...

WSJ.com Launches New Law Page and Law Blog

The Law Page is a new, centralized webpage from which readers may link to a range of information and commentary on law and business related issues that the Journal is aggregating from current content as well as additional sources. This...

After Much Hype, Is RSS Fatigue Setting In?

In 2005, there was alot written about RSS, from the standpoint of marketing, enterprise-wide communications, current awareness monitoring, and as an app that perhaps could significantly diminish the use of email. Interesting, therefore, to note this article, It's time to...

Domestic Surveillance Program: Opposition Within DOJ and Administration Defense of Actions

Several news items today regarding the domestic surveillance program revealed in a December 15, 2005 New York Times article, the ramifications of which are subject to Congressional and DOJ investigation, continued commentary and perhaps further response by other judges on...

NSA Website Discontinues Tracking Users After Objections

Following up on yesterday's posting, NSA Website Uses Cookies Despite Prohibition, from today's New York Times: Spy Agency Removes Illegal Tracking Files. See also U.S. to probe contractor's Web tracking...

Washington Post Extends Free Access to Content

As reported by ClickZ News, the Washington Post.com will now provide access to articles for a 60 day period following publication, according to James M. Brady, Executive Editor. Prior to this, articles were archived after 14 days. Extending access to...

NSA's Post 9/11 Domestic Data Mining and Surveillance Programs

New York Times: The Agency That Could Be Big Brother: "...the N.S.A. has suddenly taken center stage in a political firestorm. The controversy over whether the president broke the law when he secretly ordered the N.S.A. to bypass a special...

Congressional Review of Domestic Spying To Expand

New York Times: NSA spying inquiry may be expanded, "Congressional officials said Saturday that they wanted to investigate the disclosure that the National Security Agency (NSA) had gained access to some of the country's main telephone arteries to glean data...

Powell's Former Chief of Staff Challenges Administration Policies

Ex-Powell Aide Moves From Insider to Apostate CBS/AP: Powell Supports Eavesdropping...

Microsoft Announces Details of RSS Integration With Outlook

RSS Aggregation - Part 1: The Partnership...

Archives Releases Additional Documents Relating to Judge Samuel Alito

NARA press release: "The National Archives at College Park will release 45 documents relating to Samuel Alito. These records total 744 pages from Record Group 60, Records of the Department of Justice, Files of John Bolton, Michael Carvin, Roger Clegg,...

Debate Escalates on Domestic Spying Program

Following up on news that Judge Robinson resigned from the FISA court in protest over the administration's warrantless surveillance program, related commentary and articles: Warrantless Wiretapping: Why It Seriously Imperils the Separation of Powers, And Continues the Executive's Sapping of...

FISA Court Judge Resigns In Response to Domestic Surveillance Program

Via FAS: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created by section 103(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1803(a)). It was originally comprised of seven district judges from seven circuits named by the Chief Justice of...

Domestic Spying Targeted Animal Rights and Environmental Activitists

Press release: "According to new documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI is using counterterrorism resources to monitor and infiltrate domestic political organizations that criticize business interests and government policies, despite a lack of evidence that...

Google Satellite Imagery Stirs Security Concerns Here and Abroad

Google Offers a Bird's-Eye View, and Some Governments Tremble Google Earth Aerial Images Provided by Leading Search Engines All the Rage...

Patriot Act Reauthorization Blocked By Senate

As noted, this week marked a dramatic shift in Senate support for Patriot Act reauthorization without substantive reforms to the White House backed bill. Today a bipartisan group of Senators blocked the the bill's approval (the vote was 52-47), noting...

Report Reveals Post 9/11 Gov't Surveillance of Americans

New York Times: Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say, by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau: "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans...

Report Documents Continuing Government Failures in Response to Katrina

Press release: "House Democrats released a new report today outlining the failures of the Republican Congress to meet the immediate needs of families impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Americans endured unprecedented tragedy and destruction from hurricanes Katrina and Rita but the...

Bipartisan Coalition Seeks 3 Month Extension on Expiration of Patriot Act Provisions

Follow-up to Deal Reached on Patriot Act Reauthorization Amid Wide Disagreement, this press release today: "Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, has forged a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators that introduced a bill...

Commentaries Contrast Use of Blogs By Politicians and Scientists

New York Times: Conservative Blogs are More Effective Nature - Science in the web age: Joint efforts: "At its best, academia is a marketplace of ideas. But many scientists are reluctant to embrace the latest web tools that would allow...

The Government's "Information War" In Iraq Raises Many Questions

News about administration use of propaganda is further documented in this December 10 New York Times article, Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive. Related link: Lincoln Group press release, December 2, 2005: "Lincoln Group has consistently worked with...

Deal Reached on Patriot Act Reauthorization Amid Wide Disagreement

News reports this afternoon on the compromise reached by the House and Senate on Patriot Act reauthorization include the strong caveat that not all Senators are satisfied (see statements as follows, from Leahy and Feingold), and opposition continues (specifically from...

GAO Launches RSS Feeds

GAA now provides daily updates of reports and testimony via RSS. Just click on the orange RSS button on the front page, for further information. [JoAnna Berry, Reference and Research, Government Accountability Office]...

Washington Post Launches U.S. Votes Database

Today the Washington Post launched a news website, The U.S. Congress Voters Database, that allows users to browse data from the 102nd Congress (1991) to the 109th Congress (present). A search engine and other features will be forthcoming. "This site...

Spear Phishing Target Specific Individual, Corporate, Gov't Data

Following up on previous postings about phishing, the New York Times yesterday published an article, Gone Spear-Phishin' detailing the extent, impact and intent of cybercriminals who launch Trojans to steal the data of individuals and corporations, for both profit and...

Authority of Vast Collaborative Online Encyclopedia Questioned

Growing pains for Wikipedia: "...founder Jimmy Walee [is]going to change the ground rules for the popular anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia..." Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar How wikis are changing our view of the world AP: Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia...

CIA Leak Prosecutor Agrees to Release of Additional Court Documents

Follow up to Media Challenges Withholding Publication of Plame Investigation Documents, November 14, 2005: New York Times, Leak Ruling Has Mystery, 8 Blank Pages Government Response to Motion Motion of Dow Jones & Co. to Unseal Redacted Portion of the...

DOJ Memo Determined Voting Rights Violations Resulting From Texas Redistricting

News today about the DOJ's 2003 memo concerning the Congressional redistricting plan enacted by the Texas Legislature (Texas House Bill 3). The text of the document (73 pages, PDF), has been published by the Lone Star Project. From the document:...

Researchers Report on Flaw in Wiretapping Security

Signaling Vulnerabilities in Wiretapping Systems, Micah Sherr, Eric Cronin, Sandy Clark and Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania, November/December 2005 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy (21 pages, PDF). Overview New York Times, Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to Be Evaded, Study...

Proposed Export Controls Regs Impact Foreign Research Scholars in U.S.

Universities Say New Rules Could Hurt U.S. Research Related resources: March 28, 2005 Federal Register, Department of Commerce advance notice of proposed rulemaking, Revision and Clarification of Deemed Export Related Regulatory Requirements. DOD IG Report: Export Controlled Technology at Contractor,...

Growing Number in Congress, Public At Odds With Administration Revision of Iraq War Intel

White House press release, November 15, 2005, Setting the Record Straight: The New York Times Editorial on Pre-War Intelligence. WSJ free feature: Majority Believe White House Misleads Public, Poll Shows New York Times: Even Supporters Doubt President as Issues Pile...

Collaborative Version of RSS Under Development By Microsoft

PC World: Microsoft Makes RSS a Two-Way Street - Proposed 'extensions' to specification allow multidirectional synchronization. Microsoft: Frequently Asked Questions for Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) Ray Ozzie's Weblog: Really Simple Sharing...

A Look Inside the Google Book Search Program at Harvard University

This profile of Sidney Verba, Harvard University Library Director, professor of government, and author of numerous books and articles, addresses key aspects related to the university's participation in the Google Book Search project. Related references: Books Online: The Fee versus...

Debate Between Publishers, Authors and Google Over Book Search Program

New York Times: Googling Literature: The Debate Goes Public Related references: Google, Authors, Publishers, and Library Officials in Discussion at The New York Public Library: Panel with Library President Paul LeClerc, Google VP David Drummond, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, Wired...

Patriot Act Reauthorization Encounters Strong Opposition

Following up on reports of civil liberties protections having been stripped from the draft Patriot Act reauthorization and information that the bill contains "poison pill measures," news today that a bipartisan group of Senators (including Feingold and Sununu) is attempting...

High Profile Journalist Surfaces in Ongoing Plame Leak Investigation

Following up on postings concerning the expanding circle of journalists involved in the Plame investigation, news today that the grand jury heard testimony this week from Bob Woodward, heretofore not named. Washington Post (reg. req'd), Woodward Was Told of Plame...

Public Broadcasting IG Issues Report on Ethics and Statutory Violations By Ex-Chair

From the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Office of the Inspector General, Review of Alleged Actions Violating the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, as Amended (67 pages, PDF), November 15, 2005. "We found evidence that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)...

Trail of Data Revisions Adhere to Documents

Law tech guru Dennis Kennedy is quoted in this article in today's New York Times: Beware Your Trail of Digital Fingerprints. He suggests practical ways to eliminate data deleted in revisions when it is determined that documents have been finalized....

Names of Library Organization Members Gagged by FBI

Follow-up to previous postings on FBI use of National Security Letters to obtain data on library patron use of online services in Connecticut: Washington Post,The FBI's Secret Scrutiny. The Washington Post researched and reveals the names of the "John Doe's"...

Origin of Fabricated WMD Intel Known To Administration Prior to Push For War

New York Times: Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions: "A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that...

The Expanding Reach, and Power, of Google's Plans for Future Services

New York Times, Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies, speculates on Google's potential plans to broaden the company's e-commerce endeavors, including property listings in conjunction with mapping, searching, and satellite projects currently extant, and comparison pricing for a...

Tracking Oklahoma Court and AG Opinions Using RSS

Oklahoma Courts Now Offer RSS Newsfeeds: "You can now receive Oklahoma appellate court opinions and Oklahoma Attorney General opinions via RSS newsfeeds at no charge." As Jim indicates, Oklahoma joins two other trailblazing states, West Virginia and Louisiana, who also...

Data Breaches Remain A Concern for Consumers and Lawmakers

New York Times: Data Security Laws Seem Likely, So Consumers and Businesses Vie to Shape Them Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, A Chronology of Data Breaches Reported Since the ChoicePoint Incident, updated October 19, 2005 H.R. 4127, the Data Accountability and Trust...

Miers Withdraws Her Nomination

In a Letter to President Bush, White House Counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. GOP senators assert independence in wake of Miers withdrawal New York Times: Miers Failed to Win Support of...

Are Indictiments of Rove and Libby Forthcoming?

New York Times: Grand Jurors Hear Counsel on Leak Case Washington Post, Grand Jury Hears Summary of Case On CIA Leak Probe - Decision on Charges May Come Friday New York Times: Prosecutor in C.I.A. Leak Case Is Said to...

Indictments Expected Tomorrow, But Investigation May Be Extended

See the following sources for additional information: Financial Times: Indictments in CIA leak 'about to be handed down' New York Times: Leak Counsel Is Said to Press on Rove's Role Washington Post: White House Aides Brace For CIA Leak Charges...

News of VPs Role in Plame Leak Raises More Questions

From the New York Times today: Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report...

National Security Archive Posts Third Kerr Report on National Intelligence and Iraq

Intelligence and Analysis on Iraq: Issues for the Intelligence Community, 29 July 2004; approved for release August 2005. (12 pages, PDF) "This is the third in a series of reports by the Kerr Group (Richard Kerr, Thomas Wolfe, Rebecca Donegan,...

Schumer Asks For Details About Rove-Bush Conversations On Plame

Press release from New York Senator Charles Schumer: "Today, Sen. Chuck Schumer sent the attached letter to President Bush asking him to detail his conversations with his top political adviser, Karl Rove, about the White House's leak of the identity...

Yahoo! White Paper on RSS

Yahoo! White Paper on RSS (12 pages, PDF)...

Supreme Court Nominee Miers' Responses to Judiciary Questionnaire, Financial Data and Texans United for Life

From the New York Times (reg. req'd), links to the following documents in PDF: Senate Judiciary Committee's Questionnaire (57 pages, PDF) 1989 Questionnaire From Texans United for Life (2 pages, PDF) Financial Statement/Net Worth (2 pages, PDF) Financial Disclosure Report...

IBM Announces Privacy Policy Will Extend to Genetic Information

IBM's Chief Privacy Officer Harriet Pearson is quoted today as pledging her company will not use genetic information to determine employment, or health care benefits for current employees. Related references: Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2005 (H.R. 1227) Genetic Information...

Google RSS and News Reader Launched Today

Google launched a beta version of Google Reader, a service that requires users to have a gmail account. Google Reader Help FAQ...

Web Guides Provide Links to Documents Pertaining to Harriet Miers

From the University of Michigan Law Library, Information on Harriet Miers, Nominee for Justice of the Supreme Court. This page was created with the collaborative effort of Kincaid C. Brown, Barbara H. Garavaglia, Aimee S. Mangan and Jennifer Selby. SMU...

CIA Review of Agency 9/11 Performance Yields No Action

CIA Director Porter J. Goss statement on CIA Office of the Inspector General Report, "CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks". "I will not convene an accountability board to judge the performances of any individual CIA officers." Related links:...

Open Content Alliance Launched With Support From Yahoo and Internet Archive

"The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content. Content in the...

GAO Determines Bush Administration Violated Propaganda Policy

Follow-up to my previous posting, Controversy Surrounds Government Sponsored News, new developments and related links: press release: GAO Blasts Illegal Propaganda Campaign at the U.S. Department of Education: "Today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled that the Bush Department of...

SurfWax Service Easily Scans RSS Feeds

A new service from SurfWax: Scan Top RSS Feeds by Title: (updated hourly; covers past seven days; sorted by date)...

Federal Reserve Board Bulletin Will Be Online Only Beginning 2006

Federal Reserve Board press release, September 22, 2005: "The Federal Reserve Board announced on Thursday that beginning in 2006, the content of the Federal Reserve Bulletin will be published on the Board's public web site on a continuing basis, as...

New on LLRX.com

From 0 to 360 in Seconds – How to Get Up to Speed with Thomson's Firm360, by Donna Cavallini CongressLine by GalleryWatch.com: The American Town Meeting, by Paul Jenks The Government Domain: RSS and Uncle Sam, by Peggy Garvin FOIA...

CRS Report on Chief Justice of the United States

The Chief Justice of the United States: Responsibilites of the Office and Process for Appointment, updated September 12, 2005 [thanks to GalleryWatch.com]...

Controversy Continues to Percolate Over Google Print Program

From AP today, this article highlights the battlelines that have been drawn, and are hardening, between publishers and Google concerning the expansive plan to digitize significant library collections from throughout the world, thus allowing users to search content on the...

Part of 9/11 Commission Report Reissued With Redacted Text Restored

Press release: "After a second review by the executive branch, a September 12, 2005 version of the 9/11 Commission Staff Monograph on the Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security has been released by the U.S. Department of Justice and transferred...

Hearings For Judge Roberts Begin September 12

Judge Roberts, the Committee Is Interested in Your View on . . . Democratic Members Of Senate Judiciary Committee Announce Witness List For Hearings On Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts Jr.: ...those on the list consist "national leaders, legal scholars...

Pew Charitable Trusts Adds Resources Focused on Hurricane Katrina

From Stateline.org, this RSS feed on Hurricane Katrina provides regular updates on specific efforts underway by states impacted by the disaster, as well as others throught the country that are responding with increased efforts directed toward disaster planning....

Challenge to FBI's Use of National Security Letter Provision of Patriot Act Gains Ground

Following up on my September 1 posting, Will Librarian Go To Prison Over Patriot Act Challenge?, see this September 9 press release from the ACLU: "A federal judge today ruled that the FBI must lift a gag that is preventing...

Hurricane Katrina Congressional Updates

A new website was launched by the Congressional information services company Gallerywatch.com, called USCongress.com. The site, whose content and sources will expand in upcoming weeks and months, is already a significant resource for government documents on a wide range of...

Oversight Hearings Will Review Feds Response to Katrina

Reid Letter to Chairman Collins on Oversight Hearing, Wednesday, September 7, 2005: "Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 sent a clear signal that we needed to be better prepared for major catastrophes on U.S. soil, the American...

Significant Questions Concerning Scientific Integrity in Federal Research Persist

New York Times Magazine, September 4, 2005: Political Science Related references: Questions Surround Editing of U.S. Report on Global Warming Science Advisor to President Works Amidst Controversy...

Unfunded Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) Project and Dire Ramifications

Statement by President Bush during an interview with Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, September 1, 2005: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a...

What's New on GPO Access Now Available Via RSS

GPO's "What's New" website updates which provide links to full-text versions of significant government documents, is now also available via an RSS feed....

E-Gov Hurricane Katrina Recovery Resources, Along With Blogs, Websites Inform Public

FirstGov has posted a new website that includes the following topical areas which in turn include numerous useful links: What To Do If You Are A Victim; How To Help Victims; and Disaster Cleanup and Agency Resources. NOAA Atlantic Hurricane...

FDA Embraces RSS Feeds

The FDA has a website that provides links to all of the agency's RSS feeds, which currently include: press releases, recalls, food safety news and medical device information and news....

Gartner identifies Trends for Technology Adoption

"Gartner...released its 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, assessing the maturity, impact and adoption speed of 44 technologies and trends over the coming decade." [press release] Key collaboration technologies in the "hype cycle" include: Podcasting, Peer to Peer (P2P) voice...

Search Engine Provides Personal Data on Everyone From Consumers to CEOs...There's the Rub

Google Anything, so Long as It's Not Google, by Randall Stross. For context see: Google balances privacy, reach Google CEO defends privacy policies Google's Boycott Misses the Mark...

Techological and Bioethics May Be Focus of Future Supreme Court Cases

Roberts v. the Future, by Jeffrey Rosen: "...in the next 10 or 15 years, as technology and science continue to advance and America's demographic profile continues to change, the Supreme Court will, in all likelihood, be asked to decide a...

Patriot Act Used to Demand Library Patron Records

Several articles today highlight the significance of yesterday's ALCU announcement that the government has used authority granted by the Patriot Act, Sec. 505, on National Security Letters, to obtain copies of patron internet related activities from a library institution whose...

Google Continues to Capture Headlines With Free Services and Upgraded Features

Google has been the topic of several articles in the New York Times this week. Yesterday the focus was on corporate expansion, and today there is news about Google Desktop 2, an IM application called Google Talk, and Gmail for...

As David Becomes Goliath, Competitors Balk

From the New York Times, Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain addresses a range of concerns about the expanding profits, plans, and profile of the company that has set its sights on dominating the information technology marketplace....

Bloggers Create RSS Feeds for USPTO News and Releases

The patent law experts at rethink(ip) have created RSS feeds for all news items and notices released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Terrific resource, and thanks to Dennis Kennedy for the link....

MSN Search Makes RSS Easy

From Jim Moore's Journal: Reporting on systems evolving, the following posting yesterday provides step by step details on how researchers can easily and effectively leverage RSS: RSS-oriented search engines are appearing, including MSN search, with RSS output and one-click subscriptions...

Additional Features Enrich Yahoo Local Search

From the Yahoo! Search Blog, details about new features launched last night on Yahoo! Local: "..city pages...built for every city, neighborhood, and zip across the US of A...highlight upcoming events, top user recommendations for restaurants and other favorite local spots...

Does RSS By Any Other Name Work the Same?

Microsoft exec defends RSS rebranding - Renaming to 'Web feeds' spurs debate among bloggers Another day, another story...Microsoft Rethinks RSS Name Change...

Yahoo vs. Google - Whose Index is Bigger?

Following up on my August 9, 2005 posting, Yahoo Claims Larger Search Engine Index Than Google, see this new survey challenging Yahoo's claim: A Comparison of the Size of the Yahoo! and Google Indices, by Matthew Cheney, Mike Perry, and...

Publishers Continue Opposition to Google Print Program

The Assn. of American Publishers comments on Google's announcement yesterday to delay Google Print Program within the context of this LA Times article today (reg. reg'd). Today's Washington Post article, Google Delays Book Scanning (reg. req'd) also addresses the factor...

Search For Facts on Pre-9/11 Intelligence Broadens in Scope With New Revelations

Following up on my posting yesterday, Government Data Mining Detailed Info on 9/11 Hijackers Back in 2000, this article from today's New York Times, 9/11 Panel Seeks Inquiry on New Atta Report....

Government Data Mining Detailed Info on 9/11 Hijackers Back in 2000

According to an August 9, 2005 article in the New York Times, "More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of...

RSS Feeds for Google News Now Available

From Google: About Feeds and Terms of Use: "Google News section feeds: You can get a feed for any Google News section. For instance, if you select a feed link while you're on the Business page, you'll get a feed...

9/11 Public Discourse Project Denied Documents on Terror Prevention

The 9/11 Public Discourse Project today released a series of letters sent by the organization to the White House and 11 other government agencies seeking documentation of efforts made to implement the recommendations made by the organization's predecessor, the 9/11...

Corporations Reluctant to Reveal Incidents of Cyberextortion

From the New York Times, The Rise of the Digital Thugs chronicles the under-reported, yet growing, threat to corporations from "cyber extortionists" seeking bribes in return for withholding data and information obtained by breaching networks. Related reference: Enumerating and Reducing...

Online Guide to NYC Transit Systems

An article in today's New York Times spotlights a website called HopStop.com, an online transit guide that "provides door-to-door subway and bus directions and maps for New York City."...

Commentary on the E-Commerce Market for Used Books

Reading Between the Lines of Used Book Sales. Related references from the article: Ghose, Anindya, Smith, Michael D. and Telang, Rahul, Internet Exchanges for Used Books: An Empirical Analysis of Welfare Implications and Policy Issues (August 25, 2004). Goolsbee, Austan,...

Data Mining Provision Part of Proposed Patriot Act Extension

The New York Times reported that the House version of the Patriot Act reauthorization would require the DOJ to report to Congress on data mining activities....

Guide to RSS and Libraries

What is RSS and Why Should I Care?, presented by Marianne Lenox, Staff Training and Development Coordinator, Huntsville Madison County Public Library, July 2005. [Peter Scott]...

Expiring Patriot Act Provisions Reauthorized by Congress

The House (H.R. 3199) and the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to renew provisions of the Patriot Act which sunset by year's end. House Supports PATRIOT Act Reauthorization in Solid, Bipartisan Vote - Sensenbrenner: The American people are safer today because...

Public Awareness of New Technologies and Terminology Lagging

Public Awareness of Internet Terms, 7/20/2005: "The average American internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term phishing means." The data memo is 7 pages, PDF....

Coping With Information Overload and Remaining Productive

Driven to distraction by technology: "The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into...

Senate Hearing on Reporter Shield Law

Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Reporters' Privilege Legislation: Issues and Implications, Wednesday, July 20, 2005 [Free Flow of Information Act of 2005, S. 1419. See also the House companion bill, H.R. 3323.] Link to testimony and member statements....

New on LLRX.com

All the articles listed are available in Part 1 of the July 2005 issue of LLRX.com: Delivering Actionable Information To Front-Line Lawyers - John Alber details the effective implementation of business intelligence (BI) systems within law firms. The Government Domain:...

Pharming, Phishing, Online Fraud, ID Theft, Worms, and PCs Thrown Out With the Trash

From WSJ free content, Information Security - Where the Dangers Are: The threats to information security that keep the experts up at night -- and what businesses and consumers can do to protect themselves. See also Corrupted PC's Find New...

FBI Acknowledges Monitoring Websites of Range of Advocacy Groups

FBI says it has files on ACLU, Greenpeace, other rights groups Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on...

Privacy Compromised for Convenience of E-ZPass?

As a follow-up to my December 12, 2003 posting, E-ZPass Technology, Law Enforcement and Privacy, see this article, A Pass on Privacy, from the Sunday New York Times Magazine: "The computer system to which you have surrendered your payment information...

Comparison of RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0

RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0, Compared: "People who generate syndication feeds have a choice of feed formats. As of mid-2005, the two most likely candidates will be RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0. The purpose of this page is to summarize,...

Internet Archive Sued in Case Involving DMCA and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Keeper of Expired Web Pages Is Sued Because Archive Was Used in Another Suit Internet Archive the complaint, filed in District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania (48 pages, PDF)...

Portions of Patriot Act on Intelligence Law Made Permanent by House Committee Vote Today

H.R. 3199, To extend and modify authorities needed to combat terrorism, and for other purposes. Introduced July 11, 2005 U.S. Newswire - "The House Judiciary Committee today passed legislation (H.R. 3199) reauthorizing the USA-PATRIOT Act by a 23-to-14 vote with...

Once Secret Reports From Special Trial Judges Available For First Time Since 1983

From the New York Times today, Secrecy Is Lifted in Some Tax Court Trials...

Current Administration Classifying Documents at Unprecedented Rate

New York Times editorial today, The Dangerous Comfort of Secrecy: "The Bush administration is classifying the documents to be kept from public scrutiny at the rate of 125 a minute. The move toward greater secrecy has nearly doubled the number...

NY Times Editorial Today on Patriot Act

"Unnecessary Powers: The Patriot Act already gives government too much power to spy on ordinary Americans, but things could get far worse. Congress is considering adding a broad new investigative power, known as the administrative subpoena, that would allow the...

Expanding the Reach of Online Advertising Through RSS

This New York Times article discusses the growing interest in, and testing of, delivering adverts to consumers via RSS feeds, which may in some measure be an inevitable result of the hype the technology has been receiving from both the...

Substantial Increase in Classification of Gov't Docs Raises Concerns For Public and Media

As a follow-up to my April 2, 2005 posting, Significant Rise in Classification of Gov't Docs Focus of New Reports, this July 3, 2005 New York Times article, Increase in the Number of Documents Classified by the Government, reports on...

Online Retailers Employ Blogs With Caution

The pros and cons of e-tailers using blogs are reviewed in this New York Time article today....

President Responds to WMD Commission Recommendations

Fact Sheet: Bush Administration Implements WMD Commission Recommendations, June 29, 2005. "Today, President Bush Announced Actions To Implement Recommendations In The WMD Commission's Report To Make America Safer And To Ensure The Intelligence Community Is Prepared To Address The Threats...

Italian Lawyers Group Embraces Open Source Software for Document Management

NewsForge has a detailed and very interesting posting on how a group of Italian attorneys have formed a consortium to facilitate the distribution of, and training programs about how to efficiently use open source applications for a range of document...

News Continues to Warn Consumers on Perils of ID Theft

The cover story of the July 4, 2005 issue of Newsweek is on ID theft. Following are links to several articles from the issue, as well as a link to a relevant article from the New York Times Sunday Week...

Microsoft Announces Its New OS and Browser Will Implement RSS

The Microsoft Development Center has extensive and detailed documentation on RSS implementation in Longhorn: "This paper describes RSS in the context of a vision for how web content is and will be consumed, explores opportunities enabled by incorporating RSS functionality...

Really Fast, Pricey WiFi Access Now An Option for Those on the Go

David Pogue provides details on how a pricey, private and very fast WiFi access option is now available to business travelers who need to work wherever they may be...on the road, or at the beach, or in the airport....

FOIA Request By Advocacy Group Reveals Social Security Data Released Post 9/11

Social Security Opened Its Files for 9/11 Inquiry: "The Social Security Administration has relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands of its files at the request of the F.B.I. as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,...

Latest Round of Data Breaches Intensifies Consumer Focus on ID Theft

From CNN Money, ID data breaches: as rampant as it seems documents the circumstances of the most recently reported incident of hacking, called skimming, that involved the illegal acquisition and storage of credit card data, the exact impact of which...

Downing Street Memo Continues to Provoke Responses from Hill and Media

From the June 17, 2005 New York Times: Antiwar Group Says Leaked British Memo Shows Bush Misled Public on His War Plans The Secret Downing Street Memo published by the Sunday Times on May 15, 2005 Follow-up to Conyers' "Downing...

Audit Report on Terror Watch List Database

Questions about the adequacy of the data and structure of the federal government's terror watch list continue, and today's New York Times reports on the the results of a recently released DOJ OIG study documenting significant weaknesses with the project,...

Questions Surround Editing of U.S. Report on Global Warming

On June, 2005 the New York Times published this article, Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming, which states that Philip A. Cooney, White House Council on Environmental Quality's chief of staff, formerly with the American Petroleum Institute,...

Major Challenges Undermine Efforts to Shore Up Leaks That Lead to Loss and Theft of Financial Data

The Scramble to Protect Personal Information, from today's New York Times, addresses the issue of significant vulnerabilities in the transfer mechanisms used for financial data, which have resulted in numerous recent headline grabbing reports on the loss and theft of...

Theft of Personal Data By Healthcare Related Personnel Subject of New DOJ Memo

On June 7 the New York Times reported on the availability of a significant new Justice Department memo that addresses limitations to the prosecution of personnel in the healthcare arena who have violated patient privacy by stealing personal data. Today,...

The Changing Landscape of Corporate Blogging

From Wall Street Journal free features, Blogging Becomes A Corporate Job provides a general overview of how several companies, including Microsoft and Stonefield Stonyfield Farm Inc., are diversifying their marketing and corporate communications with the addition of talented bloggers to...

Debate Continues Behind Closed Doors on PATRIOT Act Extension

The Proposal to Reauthorize and Expand Parts of the USA PATRIOT Act: Why It's Unnecessary and, In Some Respects, Dangerous, By Anita Ramastry. Patriot Act Extension Debated at Closed Congressional Meeting American Civil Liberties Union Testimony at an Oversight Hearing...

Is Mainstream Embrace Around the Corner for RSS?

What is the future for Web sites in a world of RSS? by Matt McAlister, VP & General Manager, Online, InfoWorld. [Micro Persuasion] "We've all joined onto a platform, a common standard for pushing/pulling/sharing individual items. Those items might be...

Are Facts Lost Underfoot in the Rush to Blog on Scandals

From the New York Times, Are Bloggers Setting the Agenda? It Depends on the Scandal. Refers to the Pew Internet and American Life Project report issued last week, "Buzz, Blogs and Beyond: The Internet and the National Discourse in the...

More Than Half Million E-Mail Messages from Enron Scandal Mined by Research Groups

Enron Offers an Unlikely Boost to E-Mail Surveillance This article references the work of Dr. David B. Skillicorn and Dr. Kathleen M. Carley...

Commentary on RSS, Spam and Privacy

Nick Bradbury's May 20 post, RSS, Spam and Spyware, raises significant questions about security and privacy issues arising from the push for RSS ubiquity. Scroll down and read the comments as well....

Federal Investigation into LexisNexis Data Breach Ramps Up

From today's Washington Post: Computers Seized in Data-Theft Probe - Federal Investigators Remove PCs, Discs From Several Locations; LexisNexis Break-In Linked to Paris Hilton Phone Hacking Related beSpacific postings on this story are here and here. See also this article...

Website Offers Detailed Info on Crimes Reported in Chicago

A non-profit, non-government affiliated project, this free, browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago (with source data from the Chicago Police Department's Citizen ICAM website), makes use of Google for map views, and RSS feeds "for every block and police...

FirstGov Reference Center on Libraries

The FirstGov.gov Reference Center Libraries. An alphabetical list of links to resources including: national, federal and local libraries, online library databases, email listservs, Government RSS Library, and lots more. Worth a look....

Auto Recal Update Website Launches

Follow-up to my April 29, 2005 posting: New Justia Web Site Enables Consumers to Easily Track Auto Recalls: "Justia, an innovative provider of legal marketing services and resources for law firms, today announced the launch of a comprehensive auto recalls...

Guide to U.S. Government RSS Library

From FirstGov.gov, this U.S. Government RSS Library webpage aggregates links to a wide range of resources, including news releases, press briefings, transcripts, reports, advisories, statistics and technical documents, in one easy to use location, providing content on the following topical...

Guide to VoIP at Home

From the New York Times, Internet Phones Arrive at Home (And Some Need No Computer)...

Hope Springs Eternal

In the Swamp, an 'Extinct' Woodpecker Lives, and Ivory-billed woodpecker flies back from the dead....

New Website Documents Auto Recall Info

Tim Stanley and crew have been busy, with the usual outstanding results. See his latest launch, Auto Recalls, an A to Z listing of makes and models, with accompanying RSS feeds. This site is easy to use, fast, comprehensive...and I...

From ID Theft to Gadget Theft

Theft of high-end gadgets such as iPods have recently been the subject of articles in major papers, including this April 28 New York Times article and this Washington Post (reg. req'd) article, from April 16. These thefts have in turn...

Commentary on Congress and ID Theft

From today's New York Times Magazine, You've Been Sold, by Richard A. Clarke. "What Congress can do now to bust the boom in identity theft." Related beSpacific postings on ID theft...

Supreme Court Justice Kennedy in the Headlines

DeLay Outlines Strategy Against Federal Judges: "Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, sharply criticized Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court on Tuesday and said the House Judiciary Committee would explore what the authors of the Constitution intended...

Google Seeks to Shut Down Froogles

Various sources have reported on Google's trademark infringement lawsuit against Froogles.com, and a copy of the complaint (68 pages, PDF), filed April 8, in District Court for the Eastern District of New York, is available courtesy of Search Engine Watch...

Blogging Within the Enterprise

Blogs, Wikis, RSS: Walking the enterprise tightrope...

Yahoo! News Launches Redesigned Site in Beta

The current Yahoo! News site has been transformed with this beta that sports a more sophisticated and user-friendly design, layout, and navigation features, using well placed content tabs, as well as more prominent display and organization of sources and time...

Job Search Using Websites, Listervs and Email Sources

From the WSJ Free Content, Librarians Reference These Sites When Seeking Work, by Sarah E. Needleman...

A Reminder About the National Debt

U.S. National Debt Clock - The Outstanding Public Debt as of 12 Apr 2005 at 02:28:37 AM GMT is: $7,797,789,055,078.33 Related references: from the April 10, 2005 New York Times, A Tax Increase That Bush Didn't Mention, and from the...

Commentary on Restoring Civil Liberties and Revising Patriot Act

New York Times Editorial, April 10, 2005 - Revising the Patriot Act...

Commentary on Electronic Snooping and Its Impact on Privacy

Goodbye to Privacy, by William Safire, April 10, 2005 New York Times Book Review, focuses on the pervasiveness of electronic data collection of personal information on U.S. citizens, by a range of companies. Two recent books, No Place to Hide...

BBC Campaign Weblog

"Welcome to the Election Monitor, the BBC News website's campaign weblog. From now until polling day, we will be bringing you first-hand reports from around the country from our team of correspondents, as well as the best of the newspapers,...

Congressional Access to Intelligence Documents Narrows Precipitously

White House Has Tightly Restricted Oversight of C.I.A. Detentions "By law, the White House is required to notify the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of all intelligence-gathering activities. But the White House has taken the stance that the secret detention...

How to Guide on RSS

Syndicating Web Sites with RSS Feeds For Dummies, by Ellen Finkelstein....

WMD Report Distributed to Congress

From the New York Times, Report Calls U.S. Intelligence 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq Weapons. See also related references. Report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, March 31, 2005 About the...

WMD Report Will Be Released on March 31

From AP, WMD Panel to Fault Intelligence Agencies, and the New York Times, Panel's Report Assails C.I.A. for Failure on Iraq Weapons. Flashback: President Bush Announces Formation of Independent Commission...to look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons...

Extensive Coverage of Supreme Court's Review of File Sharing

From News.com, Supreme Court may redefine file swapping From AP, High Court Hears Arguments on File-Sharing Technology From SCOTUSBlog, Court conflicted over file-swapping From Technology Daily, Attorneys for the entertainment industry and file-sharing companies square off in a pivotal intellectual...

Supreme Court to Hear Arguments Tomorrow in File Sharing Case

From the New York Times, A Supreme Court Showdown for File Sharing. Related references...

Insights into How Special Libraries Leverage RSS For Current Awareness

RSS: Moving Into the Mainstream, by Randy Reichardt, Cameron Science and Technology Library, University of Alberta....

New York Times Announces Demise of Technology "Circuits" Section

"Change in Format of Print Edition - Beginning next Thursday, as part of a reorganization of technology news coverage, the weekly Circuits pages will appear in Business Day." [Link] Bummer....

Public Remains Concerned With Privacy and Patriot Act

At a presentation today titled, "They Want Your Secrets: Personal Information Privacy in the Post-9/11 World, during the Emerging Issues in National and International Security conference, Valerie Caproni, General Counsel of the FBI stated in reference to issues concerning Section...

President's IT Advisory Committee Issues Recommendations on Cyber Security

The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee report, Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization, released March 18, 2005 (72 pages, PDF) Related news from the New York Times, Study Criticizes Government on Cybersecurity Research...

Announcing BlogWiki2005 Workshop

Announcing BlogWiki2005 Workshop, May 19-20, 2005, Coral Gables FL Presented by: Gerry McKiernan, Science and Technology Librarian and Bibliographer, Iowa State University Library; Sabrina I. Pacifici, Founder, Editor, Publisher and Web Manager of LLRX.com and Author, beSpacific.com; and Marcus P....

Searchable Database of OCLC Research Publications

OCLC Research Publications: "This repository contains metadata for works by and about OCLC Research and, whenever possible, links to full text. The repository is under construction; it contains current publications back to 1997, all "born digital" publications, and at least...

Wi-Fi Networks Generally Lacking Security Features

Growth of Wireless Internet Opens New Path for Thieves...

Google Launches RSS Feeds for

The Google Codewebsite ("Google's place for Open Source software") indicates the launch on March 17 of two RSS feeds: "the updates feed and the featured program feed, in which we pick a great app that uses some Google tool or...

Controversy Surrounds Government Sponsored News

White House Defends Video News Releases Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News Related reference: GAO Report: Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)--Video News Release, B-303495, January 4, 2005: "By its own records, ONDCP's prepackaged news stories...

More Rumblings About Fees for New York Times Online

Following up on my post from January, Will New York Times on Web Remain Free?, more machinations on the topic of anticipated fees for online access to the Times and other papers: Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?...

Blogshine Sunday

Bloggers Look for "Sunshine" on Public Access to Government Documents - FreeCulture.org announces Blogshine Sunday "On March 13, news organizations across the United States will participate in "Sunshine Sunday" by running stories and editorials in support of public access to...

New Features Allow Users To Customize Google News

What is customized news?: "We've made a number of improvements to Google News that allow you to customize your News front page by creating sections that focus on topics you care about...You can also design your custom front page by...

LexisNexis Reports ID Theft Scam

Press release from Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV: LexisNexis investigates compromised customer IDs and passwords to Seisint U.S. consumer data. "Reed Elsevier today announced that LexisNexis, its global legal and business information business, has identified a number of...

Stateline.org Launches New, Improved Website

The Pew Charitable Trusts funds Stateline.org, and this terrific resource that "provides timely, trustworthy information on state policy innovations and trends," has a new design, an updated technology platform, and additional features. The site now offers RSS feeds: three news...

First Press Pass Issued To Blogger By White House

The New York Times reports that Garrett M. Graff, editor of FishbowlDC, has been issued a press pass by the White House. Better yet, read Garrett's chronicle of how the events unfolded....

Increase in Phishing Attacks Spurs Interest in Security Technology

From the Washington Post, New Industry Helping Banks Fight Back - Sleuths Hit Online Identity Thieves With 'Takedowns,' 'Poisoning'. A patch-work of emerging technology applications are available targeted to financial services and e-commerce, seeking to address growing consumer concerns with...

Sen. Schumer Pursues Database Vendors on Issue of ID Theft and Sale of Personal Data

What follows is a group of recent, relevant articles and documents associated with the escalating critical evaluation of database aggregation and sale of personal data and associated digital scams and ID theft. From the New York Times, Senator Says Data...

Rhode Island Sec. of State Implements RSS Feeds Providing Real Time Data Updates

Press release, February 16, 2005: "Secretary of State Matt Brown today unveiled a groundbreaking web data-sharing initiative, which will give citizens and Rhode Island government agencies real-time, ongoing access to the databases maintained by his office. RSSonate...was developed to provide...

Directory for Corporate RSS Feeds

"Welcome to the Nooked RSS Directory (beta). You can search for corporate RSS feeds by keyword or browse the categories below. If you publish corporate RSS feeds, you can submit them to our directory." [Moonwatcher]...

AP Has Added Newsfeeds

AP currently has 13 newsfeeds....

Congress Tentatively Begins to Embrace Blogging

The Latest Initiative in Congress: Blogging As referenced here on February 13, Rep. Pence has a blog; Sen. Patrick Leahy has been blogging since January 4, 2005; Rep. Mark Kirk launched his blog January 9, 2005; and Rep. Katherine Harris...

Interview Details GM's Take On Blogs, RSS and Podcasting

From NeOn, An open conversation with Michael Wiley, Director New Media, GM Communications about: "GM FastLane Blog, GM's experiments with podcasting and GM's plans for further developments with communication channels like blogs, podcasting and RSS." "We're big into getting feedback...

Microsoft Now Offers RSS Feeds for Corporate News Updates

There are two feeds available via this Microsoft PressPass RSS Feeds link: Microsoft PressPass - Press Releases and Microsoft PressPass - Top Stories....

Push is on to Digitize Health Records

Health Industry Under Pressure to Computerize: "The federal government has delivered a warning to the health care industry: move into the computer age or the government will probably impose a solution." Related resources: Panel: Cultural Shift Needed to Make Health...

Giving Voice to Range of Information on Issues, Hobbies and Events Through Nascent Recording Technology

The New York Times sort of catches the wave on the increasingly popular new grass roots broadcasting format, in this article, Tired of TiVo? Beyond Blogs? Podcasts Are Here. Created by tech pioneers Adam Curry and Dave Winer, podcasting offers...

Newsfeeds Now Available From Financial Times and The Economist

The Financial Times and The Economist now provide RSS feeds. The Financial Times requires a subscription to portions of its respective content, so be aware that the newsfeeds will be likewise restricted if you are not a subscriber. The paper...

Web Resource For Newspaper RSS Feeds

From SIDEWALK/theory, a continually updated guide to the RSS feeds provided by national and local newspapers, which currently comprises an alphabetical list of 73 titles....

Data Mining Aggregator Reports Widespread ID Theft

Reports today from MSNBC, Reuters (via CNN Money), and New.com on the theft of between 30,000 to 35,000 personal digital data profiles of California residents, which occured last fall. Related postings....

House Members Call For Hearings on Delayed Release of 9/11 Info

Reps. Waxman and Maloney ask for hearings on whether political considerations caused the Administration to delay release of findings by the 9/11 Commission about pre-attack warnings: "We are writing to request that our Committee hold hearings to investigate two extremely...

More Facts on National Security Issues Prior to 9/11 Released to Public

Commentary and newly released documents concerning national security issues prior to 9-11, from the New York Times, 9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings, and from the National Security Archive, 9/11 Commission Staff Report on FAA Failings Published on Web....

Another Look at WikiNews

As a follow-up to my November 29, 2004 posting, Open Source Encyclopedia Publishers Expand Mission to Global News, a commentary on WikiNews from the New York Times....

How to Integrate RSS Feeds Into Your Library Website

Always Fresh: Fast Content For Library Web Site with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) [Slides PDF], by Darlene Fichter: "Keeping a library web site up to date with fresh content is a challenge for any webmaster. Learn how to publish, merge...

Editorial Stresses Pivotal Role of Archivist of the U.S.

As a follow-up to my July 28, 2004 posting, Archivist of the U.S. Forced to Resign? the Washington Post (reg. req'd) once again addresses the issue, this time in an editoral, A New Archivist. The current status of the nomination...

PR Battle Escalates in Anticipation of P2P Antipiracy Case Before Supreme Court

As Piracy Battle Nears Supreme Court, the Messages Grow Manic Legal documents related to the case....

CIA Must Provide Records On Detainees In ACLU FOI Case

From the ACLU, Court Orders CIA to Comply With Request For Torture Records and the New York Times, A.C.L.U. Gains in Its Quest for C.I.A. Documents on Detainees. American Civil Liberties Union, et al., Plaintiffs, Opinion and Order Denying Application...

Junk Email Careens Out of Law's Control

Law Barring Junk E-Mail Allows a Flood Instead. Another article joins the chorus complaining about the failure of the CAN-SPAM Act to stem the tide of junk email, and highlights how industry, government and advocacy groups continue to do battle...

Competition Between Search Engine Leaders Accelerates

Search Sites Play a Game of Constant Catch-Up: Google and Yahoo are in a neck and neck competition as they each launch new services at a steady pace, broadening the scope of applications available to users. See also Danny Sullivan's...

Blogs Are Proliferating, RSS Gains Foothold, and Internet News Sites Shine Again

From PubSub, news that they are tracking over 8 million blogs. This represents a huge increase within the past year in the number of blogs now available. Along with this increased visibility, ethical concerns about blog content. From Radio Userland,...

Private Control of Government Data Funded By the Public

From the New York Times (reg. req'd), Bush Didn't Invent the Internet, but Is He Good for Tech? James Fallows examines the continuing struggle over how and when government data, collected using taxpayer funds, is made available to the public....

PBS Launches Online Science Magazine

"NOVA turns its lens on the timeliest developments and most intriguing personalities in science and technology in a new magazine series, NOVA scienceNOW." Subscribe to the scienceNOW RSS feed...

Will This Generation Embrace "Push Technology"

Almost a decade ago, PointCast was a cutting edge "push technology" that streamed updated, cutomized news feeds to your desktop. I sure liked it, although it routinely crashed my PC. Fast forward, and here is new twist on the application,...

MSN Search Now Live, and My MSN Supports News Feeds

Microsoft is done beta testing MSN search, and it is now "offically" live. Related news about MSN - Really Simple Syndication: Getting Started, is a useful guide to implementing news feeds on the My MSN service. See also MSN Removes...

New Scientist Offers Lots of News Feeds

New Scientist provides a roster of RSS feeds (in a choice of Atom, RSS, XML and RDF), on breaking news, topical areas including Info-Tech, Health, and Being Human, as well as a range of special reports such as Motoring Technology...

Science Magazine Launches RSS Feeds

News feeds now available include: the magazine's Table of contents (current issue), News Summaries, This Week in Science, Editors' Choice, NetWatch, and ScienceNOW daily headlines. [Link to the complete newsfeeds' list]...

Yahoo Finance Offers Free Company News Feeds

"Yahoo! Finance is now offering company news feeds in the RSS format. Using the RSS URL Generator (located on this page), you can construct the URL you'll need to subscribe to news about your favorite companies."...

UK's National Library for Health Website

The National Library For Health website is currently providing four topical RSS feeds: Hitting The Headlines; What's New; Document Of The Week and FocusOn. In addition, as reported by Managing Information, the site now offers a universal search feature for...

IBM Donates 500 Patents to Open Source Developers

IBM press release: "IBM has pledged open access to key innovations covered by 500 IBM software patents to people and groups working on open source software. The pledge applies to any individual, community, or company working on or using software...

Blogs Receive Accolades and Criticism From Mainstream Press

Yesterday I posted on recent articles and reports highlighting the expanding profile of blogs. As a follow-up to these accolades, see today's New York Times article, Myths Run Wild in Blog Tsunami Debate, a critique of the merits and credibility...

The Increasing Influence of Blogs Is Highlighted in Magazines, Reports and Articles in 2004

AP documents the increasing influence of blogs, which are recognized as having made a significant impact this past year in reporting on breaking news events, political issues, and technology innovations, as just a few examples. In addition, the December 27,...

Starting Back At Square One to Be Rid of Spyware

Terminating Spyware With Extreme Prejudice chronicles efforts to be rid of spyware and adware programs using the extreme method of reformatting a PC hard drive, after all other avenues had failed....

Search Application For Handwritten Archival Documents

This article from the New York Times discusses pioneering work by Prof. R. Manmatha and colleagues to develop a digital application to read and search collections of archival, handwritten manuscripts. This software will be of tremendous value to researchers and...

Desperately Seeking Customer Support

Having recently been caught on a treadmill to nowhere in my quest for "customer care" and "technical support" from two major vendors for hardware issues, this New York Times article hits home. It describes the frustrations of trying to locate...

Blogs Once Again Provide Valuable Real Time Reports on Breaking News

The New York Times reports on examples of how blogs are providing readers around with world with real time updates, photos and first person accounts of the earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the resulting tsumanis. Additional sources that are...

The Growing Impact of Blogs in the Corporate Arena

Fortune.com has an extensive article on the slippery slope effect of relying on the "viral" linking aspect of blogs to promote products, as well as highlighting recent examples of the enormous impact of bloggers' responses to instances of what they...

A Look At Desktop Search Tools Still Under Development

James Fallows reviews cutting edge work underway in the area of desktop search applications, with a focus on I.B.M.'s Unstructured Information Management Architecture Project. "An Unstructured Information Management (UIM) application may be generally characterized as a software system that analyzes...

Website Provides Searchable Database and Free Downloads of Thousands of E-Books

Manybooks.net, Free eBooks for your PDA "This site contains more than 10,000 eBooks (see Project Gutenberg) formatted for reading on your Palm, PocketPC, Zaurus, Rocketbook, eBookWise-1150, or Symbian cellphone. When eBooks are added to the site they're listed on the...

Billion Dollar Anti-Spam Judgment

AP reports that Judge Charles R. Wolle, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, awarded CIS Internet Services $1 billion in a case involving three companies accused of flooding the service with up to 10 million spam emails...

Commentary on the History of the Quest for Universal Knowledge

From the New York Times, The Pursuit of Knowledge, From Genesis to Google. Related reference, A Reading Diary, by the author of the article, Alberto Manguel....

Perspectives on Google's Library Digitization Plan

A thoughtful and provocative commentary on all the hype surrounding Google's announcement this week, by Michael Gorman, dean of Library Services, California State University, Fresno, and president-elect of the American Library Association, in today's Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd). See...

Google to Partner With Major Libraries on Digitizing Collections

From the press release: "...Google Inc. today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from...

The Evolving Role of Digital Services Available At Public Libraries

From e-books and audiobooks to blogs and wireless web access, America's public libraries have embraced digital technology tools to expand and diversify services to users. See this New York Times article, Libraries Reach Out, Online and while you are on...

FDA Recall Info Available Via RSS Feed

The RSS feed for Food and Drug Administration Recalls, Market Withdrawals and Safety Alerts is http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/rssRecalls.xml....

Pew Internet Survey Findings on How Musicians View Internet and P2P File Sharing

"A national survey of self-described artists and an online survey of 2,755 musicians find: Artists and musicians on all points of the spectrum from superstars to starving singers have embraced the internet as a tool to improve how they make,...

New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year

100 Notable Books of the Year, includes the 9/11 Commission Report. See also MPR's Winter Picks: Hidden Gems from Indie Bookstores...

Federal Gov't Wants To Mine College and University Student Data

According to articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times and the Boston Globe, the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the Dept. of Education) is investigating a new system to significantly broaden the collection of...

Third Party Google News Feed Worth a Try

From Justin Pfister, this new site "Converts News.Google to RSS." Create a search query, indicate the number of entries to return (from 5-100) and see if it works for you....

Plans Take Shape for E-Health Records

From the New York Times, this article reviews the challenges involved in work underway by NIH, industry and providers to coordinate and implement a digital health network....

Gadgets for Your Holiday Gift List

From the New York Times, The Circuits Holiday Buying Guide, covers products in the following areas: Toys and Games, Mobile Devices, Recreation, Music, Entertainment, Cameras and Video, and Home Office. See also Engadget and Gizmodo for product reviews and news....

Government Agencies Slowly Adopt RSS Feeds

From Wired, RSS Edges Into the Bureaucracy. See also RSS in Government...

Soft Launch of MSN Search Beta

MSN Search (beta) About MSN Search Microsoft Unveils Its Internet Search Engine, Quietly Microsoft Web Searcher Isn't as Good as Google, But in Time It Could Be...

Challenges to Preserving Personal and Institutional Digital Data Are Huge

Even Digital Memories Can Fade: "So dire and complex is the challenge of digital preservation in general that the Library of Congress has spent the last several years forming committees and issuing reports on the state of the nation's preparedness...

Chapter of 9/11 Report on Airline Security Remains Unavailable to Public

As reported by the New York Times, a chapter comprising some 60-70 pages, submitted as part of the 9/11 Commission Report, has never been released by the administration. It focuses on airline security issues associated with the hijackings of 9/11,...

Indictments Issued in Global ID Theft Ring

From AP, via the New York Times, Authorities Indict 19 on Online Identity Theft Charges....

High Speed Net Connection Over Power Lines May Be Around the Corner

From the New York Times: Plugging Into the Net, Through the Humble Wall Outlet....

New York Times Report Focuses on Growth of ID Theft

This extensive examination into ID theft in America indicates that U.S. law enforcement have determined that a large proportion of these crimes are planned offshore, and that outsourcing has been a contributing factor....

Learn More About Google Desktop Search

David Pogue of the New York Times reviews (reg. req'd) the recently introduced, free Google Desktop Search. The author provides a witty, concise, informative narrative (he also contrasts this app with rival offerings), and if you have Real Player, you...

ABC News Launches Major Website Redesign

ABC News unveiled a completely new design for its website, which includes the use of XHTML web publishing standards, and enhanced features for users (such as Flash and RSS). The changes are extensively documented in this posting by Mike Davidson,...

Google Launches Feature to Read Book Excerpts and Links to Purchase

This news may remind readers of Amazon's Search Inside the Book service, launched last October. But this time the source is Google, who announced that their Google Print service is no longer in testing mode: "Google's mission is to organize...

Recruiters and Job Seekers Turn to Blogs

From the New York Times, Need a New Job? Check Out a Blog. "Job seekers use blogs to establish a strong online presence, display their skills and advertise their availability...Corporate recruiters, in turn, use blogs to draw in qualified candidates,...

New Search Engine Features Clustered Results

Press release: Vivísimo Launches Clusty.com - Unique New Search Site Brings the Power of Clustering to Web Search, Shopping, People Finding, Wikipedia and More [Link] Vivísimo...today unveiled Clusty.com, the first full-service search site powered completely by breakthrough clustering technology. Instead...

Senate May Vote Next Week on Controversial Bill to Limit File Sharing

From the September 30 New York Times: Panel Considers Copyright Bill Related posting, Discouraging Online Networked Trafficking Inducement Act of 2004 For reference, see also the Resource Room for the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004 (formerly known as...

Yahoo Really Gets RSS - A Big Step Forward

In his September 27 posting on the Yahoo! Search Blog, Scott Gatz from the My Yahoo! Team details the new RSS features incorporated in the redesigned My Yahoo! beta release. For additional information, see also New My Yahoo Beta, Featuring...

RocketNews Adds RSS Feeds

From WebProNews, via Search Engine Guide, this update that RocketInfo, a terrific news portal, has added a feature allowing users to create RSS feeds for specific searches. How to generate an RSS feed on RocketInfo: 1) create and run a...

NY Times Magazine Offers Perspective on Bloggers Impact in Political Arena

September 26, 2004, Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail: Insights into the expanding profile of bloggers whose views are changing the reading habits of many readers by allowing them highly interconnected online channels through which they can satisfy their...

Members of 9/11 Commission Continue Work Through Non-Profit Organization

9/11 Panel Members Form Group to Press Recommendations See the 9/11 Discourse Project: "The ten members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9-11 Commission) have initiated a nationwide public education campaign for...

Welcome to the World of E-Voting

Ready or Not (and Maybe Not), Electronic Voting Goes National "Just over six weeks before the nation holds the first general election in which touch-screen voting will play a major role, specialists agree that whatever the remaining questions about the...

Official Release of Amazon's Search Engine

Amazon's search engine, A9, released as a beta in October 2003, received its offical launch last night. See this FAQ for more information about features. Related news: A9.com To Make Searching The Internet More Effective and Amazon to Take Searches...

British Library Publishes Digitized Copies of Shakespeare Plays

"The British Library is putting online 93 high-resolution digitised copies of 21 of Shakespeare's plays." [Link] "On this site you will find the British Library's 93 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the theatres were...

Free and Legal Music Downloading Resources on the Web

"Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and — most important — worth hearing." [Link] Musicians, record labels, public radio stations and the Library of Congress are among the groups that provide free,...

Pennsylvania Website Blocking Law Struck Down By Federal Court

From the Center for Democracy and Technology: "A Pennsylvania federal court today struck down a state Internet censorship law as a violation of the First Amendment. CDT had challenged the law because it had resulted in the blocking of more...

NY Times Review of Popular VoIP Service

In Internet Calling, Skype Is Living Up to the Hype See also Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Opportunity Arises With New Skype Application by Chris Hayes, February 2004....

OCLC Research Publications Repository Provides Searchable Interface

"This repository contains metadata for works by and about OCLC Research and, whenever possible, links to full text. The repository is under construction; it contains current publications back to 2001, all "born digital" publications, and at least 40% of OCLC...

NYTimes Weighs in on P2P Copyright Battle

Grokster and the Information Exchange...

Judge Posner's Commentary on the 9/11 Commission Report

From the Sunday, August 29 New York Times Book Review section, The 9/11 Report: A Dissent, by Richard A. Posner. Related references: The 9/11 Commission Report and 9/11 Commission Releases Two Staff Reports. A Joint Committee on Intelligence: Proposals and...

New Executive Orders Issued Today on Intelligence Community

Executive Order Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community Executive Order National Counterterrorism Center Executive Order Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans Executive Order Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans Executive Order Establishing the President's...

Independent Panel Delivers Detention Operations Report

Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations, August 2004. (PDF, 126 pages). Related references: from the Washington Post and The New York Times....

Department of Defense RSS Feeds

Current DefenseLINK RSS News feeds: AFPS News Articles DoD Press Advisories DoD News Releases DoD Contract Announcements DoD Transcripts DoD Speeches...

Surveilling VoIP - Challenges Abound

The Call Is Cheap. The Wiretap Is Extra. Related reference from the FCC, August 4, 2004: FCC Adopts Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Declaratory Ruling Regarding Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. See also the text of the Communications Assistance...

Google and Yahoo's Impact on Web Searching

More Is Not Necessarily Better "Few people realize that 95 percent of all Web searches in the United States are handled by two companies, Google and Yahoo, either directly or through other sites that use their technology...The influence of search...

Innovative Search Applications To Browse Data Collections on Web and Hard Drives

Making a Web Search Feel Like a Stroll in the Library...

Blogs as Teaching Tools in Elementary School

In the Classroom, Web Blogs Are the New Bulletin Boards....

Blogs, RSS, Marketing, Collaboration and More

Blogs: The Marketing Killer. This article reviews how major corporates are leveraging blogs and RSS feeds for marketing, collaboration and current awareness monitoring....

Alternative Browsers Offer Useful Features Along With Learning Curve

In Search of a Browser That Banishes Clutter According to this article only 5% of the market uses a browser other than IE, but the alternatives, such as FoxFire, are gaining new users at a rapid pace....

Maryland Citizens and Advocacy Groups Seek to Decertify E-Voting Machines

"Lawyers representing eight Maryland citizens today filed a petition with the state supreme court seeking to decertify or fix Diebold voting machines that computer security experts have deemed insecure. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with over a dozen organizations...

Review of RSS Readers for Windows

Jeremy Wagstaf's briefly annotated list of RSS Readers includes useful reader comments and suggestions about several applications that may be new to you. Take a look....

Creating Search Queries to Generate RSS Feeds

Tara (Research Buzz) is just terrific. See her posting today on keyword-specific RSS feeds from headlinenews.com. This type of feature is also available from FindForward (formulate a query and choose "Get RSS" from the drop-down menu, and you will be...

Hearings on Counterterrorism and News on Terror Alerts

U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs hearing: Assessing America's Counterterrorism Capabilities, August 3, 2004. Link to Member Statements and Witness Testimony Related news, from the Washington Post and New York Times respectively (both requiring registration): Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts...

Online Hoaxes Now Include Fake Blogs

Wry Hoaxes Enliven the World of Web Diarists...

9/11 Commission Report Tops Reader Lists

The New York Times reports that sales of the 9/11 Commission's 567 page report, released on July 22, have reached 350,000 copies, and the authorized publisher of the book anticipates printing several hundred thousand additional copies. See also this San...

NPR Joins the RSS Bandwagon

RSS Feeds: NPR News and Information Delivered to Your Desktop...

Bloggers and the DNC

Bloggers Offer Inside View of Convention Web Diarists Are Now Official Members of Convention Press Corps Blogging Against Convention A Guide to Following Weblogs During the Conventions From the WSJ, this free feature profiles 30 credentialed bloggers at the DNC...

9/11 Commission Report Focuses on Facts

Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail...

Lost and Found Military Records

Pentagon Finds Bush's Guard Records. This AP article states that the records located do not provide any information about the President's whereabouts the summer of 1973. In June, AP filed a FOIA lawsuit to obtain copies of all the President's...

WSJ on Sentencing Law Blog and New RSS Feeds

Today's WSJ has another article on blogs (that's two this month!), Law Professor's Web Log Is Jurists' Must-Read In addition, the Journal has launched a range of RSS feeds as follows (please note - "Headlines are available to all users,...

New Gov't E-Health Records Info Network

HHS Press release: Strategic Report Outlines Steps to Implement Widespread Adoption of Electronic Health Records and New Nationwide Interoperable Health Information Network. Full-text of the report, (176 pages, PDF), The Decade of Health Information Technology: Delivering Consumer-centric and Information-rich Health...

RSS Feeds For High Traffic Tech Sites Stress IT

The implementation of RSS by InfoWorld.com has caused a significant increase in hourly traffic to the site which has resulted in "some aggravating scaling issues," according to the site's CTO. [Hot Links]...

Campaigns Will Closely Monitor Voting Irregularities

Kerry Building Legal Network for Vote Fights: both parties are implemeting legal strategies in anticipation of a possible recount in the November election. Related information: for links to "comprehensive databases on more than 40,000 candidates and incumbents," see Project Vote...

TIME Reports on Commission Info Linking Iran and al-Qaeda

This article from TIME states that the 9/11 Commission's upcoming final report will provide information linking Iran with Al Qaeda. In addition, CNN reports that the Commission's report will be approximately 600 pages, with the text subject to review and...

RSS Feeds From Alexa

"Free RSS feeds - Now you can access Alexa's Hot Search Terms, Movers & Shakers, or Top Sites with RSS." [Link]...

Senate Intelligence Cmte. Report on WMDs

Today the Senate Committee on Intelligence released a report detailing intelligence failures prior to the invasion of Iraq. Report Says Key Assertions Leading to War Were Wrong Conclusions Excerpted From Full Report, Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments...

Survey Finds Steep Decline in Literary Reading

From the New York Times today: Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in America, Survey Finds Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline, According to National Endowment for the Arts Survey Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America (60 pages,...

Review of Blogs and RSS in WSJ

From the WSJ Personal Technology site, Blogs Can Help You Cope With Data Overload, If You Manage Them, addresses how newsreaders can help blog aficionados stay current with all the latest postings from a burgeoning community of content. Of note,...

Check-Out the Blog for the AALL Conference 2004 in Boston

The AALL Blog: Boston 2004 (includes RSS feed) provides program and meeting updates, info on receptions, roundtables, and links to local area resources, both practical (such as a page on Internet access in the area) and pleasurable (recommended dining, book...

Campaign Websites and the Politics of Open Source

Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use. Democratic campaign party websites are using open source apps, and the Republicans are using Microsoft. See also Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign, (56 pages, PDF), a study by GW's...

Commentary on Supreme Court Term

From the New York Times: The Year Rehnquist May Have Lost His Court ACLU Summary of the 2003 Supreme Court Term: Major Civil Liberties Decisions (24 pages, PDF) Supremes Tackle Some Issues, Punt Others...

E-Marketing Looks to RSS to Bypass Spam

Company Plugs RSS as Alternate to E-Mail Marketing...

Many Public Libraries Choose Not to Implement Filters

Libraries Choose to Filter or Not to Filter As CIPA Deadline Arrives Related news and references: Internet Filters Are: [Good] [Bad] [Both], and Supreme Court Rules Against Child Online Protection Act....

RSS to Track FedEx Packages

Ben Hammersley created an RSS FedEx Package Tracker....

New York Times Expands RSS Feeds

The New York Times is now providing 28 topical RSS feeds. Examples include Campaign 2004, Circuits, NYTimes.com Home Page, Technology, and Week in Review. Related resource: From PCWorld.com, News on Demand - Tired of browsing around the Web for timely...

Directory of RSS Readers

Rss Readers is a wiki on RSS services, tools and technology. It is an expansive, informative guide with current updates. [via Darlene Fichter]...

RSS Feeds for State Weather Advisories

Experimental Listings of Watches, Warnings, and Advisories by State and Territory: "This page provides access to NWS watches, warnings and advisors, listed by state in three different formats. Select a state name to view a list of active alerts in...

Microsoft Adds RSS Feeds for IT Pros

The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is now providing 22 RSS feeds for its developer centers. [therssweblog]...

Two New Articles on RSS

RSS: Grassroots Support Leads to Mass Appeal approaches evaluating RSS in the context of e-learning as well as KM, with useful resource links and additional value added by a discussion of the Open Archives Initiative. News on Demand: "Tired of...

Conferences Focuses on How to Fix E-Mail Overload Problems

The Changing Face of E-Mail: Speakers at the recent INBOX conference discussed a wide range of applications/solutions to address the information overload that has become an intrinsic part of enterprise email use....

Primer on RSS and Commentary on Its Limitations

The New York Time provides a useful guide to RSS and newsfeed applications, noting free and fee-based services, as well as limitations of the technology. This article is not a comprehensive review, so for more information check my previous topical...

New Website Devoted to RSS

From Dave Winer, Really Simple Syndication, Everything a non-tech user needs to know about RSS 2.0. See also RSS History and RSS resources on beSpacific, here and here....

Baltimore Circuit Ct. Institutes WiFi Access

Baltimore courthouses join wireless age. See also this press release, which states "the Baltimore City State's Attorney’s Office has joined with the Baltimore City Circuit Court to provide a wireless Internet subscription service to attorneys and courthouse visitors."...

RSS Feeds for Time.com

See this page, and scroll down to locate the list of links provided to 9 different feeds, including Top Stories, Election 2004 and the latest work from TIME's columnists....

FindForward Provides Search Specific RSS Feeds

Google Blogoscoped reported on a useful new service from the search engine FindForward that allows you to enter search terms and then request that results be provided to you via an RSS feed....

Review of RSS Readers and Useful Links to Feeds

J.D. Lasica evaluates a range of news readers and other related productivity enhancing applications, RSS news services, and links to newsfeeds from prominent and reliable sources....

News Aggregators Can Present Challenges to Bloggers

Will RSS Readers Clog the Web?...

New Zealand E-Gov Program Using RSS

From the Overview portion of a report issued by the E-government Unit, State Services Commission (New Zealand), A standard for the publication of government news summaries. "This document proposes a technical standard for the publication of government agency news on...

Google Blocks Third Party RSS Feed

"An experimental convertor that takes a Google News search and turns it into RSS" from Julian Bond at Voidstar resulted in a cease and desist response from Google....

New DOJ Task Force on Copyright Violations

Ashcroft creates task force for copyright violations (The agency press release.) Feds Crank Up Heat on P2P See also the Piracy Deterrence and Privacy Act of 2004 (H.R. 4077), "to enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, to educate the...

Presentation on Blogging and RSS

Jenny Levine and Steven Cohen's 110 page pdf presentation, from the 2004 Computers in Libraries conference....

Guide to Sites to Search for and to Post RSS Feeds

RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites...

World's Biggest RAM Drive Purchased by U.S. Gov't

From TechWorld (via Slashdot): "The US government has just bought the world's biggest ever solid state disk from Texas Memory Systems." "The 2.5TB system is the largest SSD installation in the world so far, without question, the executive VP for...

Proposal To Merge RSS Syndication Formats

From Dave Winer's blog, this posting proposes a series of talking points on the possible merger of the RSS and Atom syndication formats....

Amazon Now Delivers Product Info Via RSS Feeds

Amazon.com Syndicated Content now provides users with the option of receiving product updates in hundreds of categories on "the top 10 bestsellers in that category," via RSS feeds....

More Kudos for RSS

How To Speed-Read the Net - Ditch your browser—RSS makes surfing for news a joy....

Finding RSS feeds

Find That Feed allows users to located RSS feeds by key word search request, "Search for a feed whose name is like..."...

Growing Popularity of Web Feeds for Current Awareness

From the LA Times, via BizReport, Enthusiasts Call Web Feed Next Big Thing: "The U.S. Product Safety Commission just began providing recall notices via RSS. General Motors offers feeds on topics including safety and automotive tech. And a growing number...

Commentary on Enhancements Required to Leverage the Power of RSS

RSS: A Big Success In Danger of Failure: "What RSS desperately needs are enhancements that will allow users to take advantage of the breadth of RSS feeds without being buried in irrelevant information."...

New Tool for Updating Campaign Blogs

"Feedster is working to ensure everyone's voice is heard by making political Feedpapers, up-to-the-minute digests of RSS-based news and blog commentary, available to all the campaigns and bloggers. In less than a minute, you can associate your blog with the...

A Good Intro to RSS

An Introduction to RSS Feeds, by Jessica Baumgart, Winter 2004, News Library News (pdf). News Library News is the quarterly bulletin of the Special Libraries Association News Division....

Google Owned Weblog Tool Chooses Alternate Syndication Format

Blogger, purchased by Google last year, will implement the Atom syndication publishing format, rather than RSS, the widely known application with a larger user base and significant associated documentation. See also this Blogger FAQ on Atom, as well as this...

More Resources on RSS

From the RSSWinterfest blog, links to some useful resources on RSS: RSS and the Future of Internet-Based Content Syndication (free access to 18 pages, inclusive of an executive summary and an abstract of the 135 page report, $$). 2RSS.com, a...

Harvard Law School's New Resource on Internet Law and Policy

From Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Law and Technology, the "Berkman Briefings is a reading series that provides background information about major questions related to Internet policy, technology, and law. Every month, the Briefing will cover a new topic."...

Quick Guide on RSS

From Free Range Librarian by K. G. Schneider, Getting Started with RSS: The No-Brainer Method....

New on LLRX.com

The following new articles were published this week on LLRX.com: How Dewey Classify OCLC's Lawsuit Knowledge Management is a Business Imperative The Future of RSS - Is E-Mail Publishing Dead? WTO/GATT Research Update to Introduction to the Swiss Legal System:...

PC Magazine Reviews News Readers

RSS News Readers Browse for You identifies the top news aggregators as: FeedDemon 1.0, Feedreader 2.5, NewsGator 1.3 and SharpReader 0.9.2.1....

Another Guide on Info Syndication Format

RSS - A Primer for Publishers & Content Providers: "This document is aimed at publishers and content providers with the intention of introducing & explaining the concepts behind RSS and addressing some commonly expressed concerns...the guidelines do provide recommendations for...

A Librarian's Perspective on RSS and News Aggregators

RSS and News Aggregators: What Do You Really Need To Know To Keep Up? by Steven J. Bell, Director of the Library, Paul J. Gutman Library, Philadelphia University....

News Aggregators Gain Popularity

Aggregators Attack Info Overload : "Maniacally wired netizens who read a hundred blogs a day and just as many news sources are turning to a new breed of software, called newsreaders or aggregators, to help them manage information overload." See...

Copyright of RSS Blogging Tool Transfered to Harvard

News.com reports that the "Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is the new keeper of the specification for a popular Web log tool. The Berkman Center took over ownership of the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.0...

More Multi-Platform RSS Readers

This wiki-weblog has dozens of annotated resources and links to RSS readers, including those for use on PDAs, Linux, Mac and Windows....

News Websites, Free Archives, and RSS

NY Times Archive, Weblogs and RSS Accessing the NY Times archive through their RSS feeds...

Directories of Blogs

RSS Directory, from blogStreet, "contains a listing of 11,000+ RSS feeds of blogs, making it one of the largest directories of RSS. An added advantage is that the latest feeds of the listed blogs can be read through RSS Discovery...

Commentary and Resources on the Anti-Spam Battle

From Declan McCullagh, Spam blockers may wreak e-mail havoc, and a series of informative postings (all available at this one link) at his Politechbot.com site, on spam blacklists/blocklists. In related news, see also: How to Unclog the Information Artery....

RSS Feeds For Summaries of Recent Supreme Court Decisions

From Thomas R. Bruce, Co-Director, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School: "As part of some extensive (and ongoing) renovation of our Supreme Court collection, we've added RSS feeds that offer summaries of recent decisions. There are two: http://supct.law.cornell.edu:8080/supct/rss/0.91/supct_today.rss Actually the...

RSS: An Alternative to Search Engines?

Danny Sullivan presents Part II of his review of RSS services and applications that facilitate access to the continuously expanding world of news, blogs and topical information. He recommends several RSS search engines, including Feedster and rssSearch. Part I of...

OCLC Research Announcements Available Via RSS

OCLC Research announcements are now available via RSS 2.0....

RSS Offers Growing Access to News

RSS: Gateway to News and Blog Content, Part 1 This column examines how content from blogs, news sites, and other sources is distributed via RSS feeds. Feeds are a great way for anyone to receive customized new information from a...

Resources on News Aggregators

Jenny, the Shifted Librarian, has linked to her April 9 PowerPoint presentation, Keeping Current Using RSS, from the 5th Annual Government Information Locator Service (GILS) Conference. She also provides a link to an informative workshop outline, Publish and Syndicate Your...

Search Engine for RSS Feeds

My previous posting on a new search engine for RSS feeds indicated the site was seeking a new name, and here it is, Feedster. See also this article, Search engines target Weblogs....

Database of RSS Feeds

Via Slashdot, here is a new search engine for RSS feeds, whose name was briefly Roogle, but currently remains nameless so as to deflect a trademark issue....

News Aggregators Become Mainstream

J.D. Lasica, blogger and senior editor for the Online Journalism Review, details the advantages of the increasingly popular free and fee-based news aggregator applications in News That Comes to You. These programs allow researchers who are suffering from information overload...