Day archives: December 22nd, 2007

Declassified Hoover Plan on Suspending Habeas Corpus

New York Times, Hoover Planned Mass Jailings in 1950: “A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Energy Saving Tips for the Holidays, and Thereafter

Official Google Blog: “Here’s a suggestion for everyone to save energy over the holidays (and at other times!): turn off your computer and monitor or put them into “sleep” mode when you’re not using them. Why? The typical desktop PC uses 100-200 watts even when it’s idle. That’s the equivalent of 1-2 bright incandescent (read: …

Subjects: Internet

Federal Election Commission, Lacking Confirmed Panel, Shuts Down

Washington Post: “The federal agency in charge of policing the torrent of political spending during the upcoming presidential primaries will, for all practical purposes, shut its doors on New Year’s Eve. The Federal Election Commission will effectively go dark on Jan. 1 because Congress remains locked in a standoff over the confirmation of President Bush’s …

Subjects: E-Government, Government Documents

FBI Building Next Generation Identification Database

Washington Post: “The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, Government Documents, Internet

State Dept. OIG Report on Blackwater Released After FOIA Request

TPMmuckraker, State Dept Document from 2005 Shows Fraud in Blackwater’s Iraq Contract: “A report prepared for the State Department’s inspector general in January 2005, and obtained by TPMmuckraker, shows Blackwater’s accounting system for its no-bid, multimillion dollar Iraq contract was “not considered adequate for accumulating costs on government contracts.” The report is an audit of …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents

U.S. Teen Birth Rate Rises for First Time in 15 Years

CDC National Center for Health Statistics: “The teen birth rate in the United States rose in 2006 for the first time since 1991, and unmarried childbearing also rose significantly, according to preliminary birth statistics released [December 3, 2007] by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…The report shows that between 2005 and 2006, the …

Subjects: E-Government, Government Documents

Third Edition of Report Examines Uninsured Children in the South

“Commissioned by the [Kaiser] Foundation, a new report by the Southern Institute on Children and Families provides state-by-state estimates of uninsured children in the southern region of the country, which contains 17 states and the District of Columbia. The report contains fact sheets showing estimates of uninsured children for each of these states. It shows …

Subjects: Government Documents

Norway's E-Gov Sites Required to Use Open Source Formats

The Inquirer: “Norway’s Government has mandated that its websites must use Open Document Format (ODF) for files published for use by the Norwegian public. “The government has decided that all information on governmental websites should be available in the open formats HTML, PDF or ODF. With this decision the times when public documents where only …

Subjects: E-Government, Internet, Microsoft

Awareness of Digital TV Transition Grows, but Substantial Consumer Education Still Needed, Cable Research Shows

Press release: “There’s growing awareness of the nation’s February 2009 transition to digital television by TV broadcasters, yet the group of Americans with the lowest level of awareness about the transition includes those that are most deeply affected – households that receive television programming exclusively “over the air.” These are among the results from the …

Subjects: Government Documents