Author archives

New on LLRX.com

Internal Blogs: So, Are They Different From External Blogs? by Dennis Hamilton Notes from the Technology Trenches: Advisen: A Unique Approach to Business Background Information, by Cindy Carlson The Government Domain: GovTrack.us: Under Development, by Peggy Garvin Software Rundown: Adobe Acrobat 7.0; ZoneAlarm Security Suite 5.5; Diskeeper 9 and Norton SystemWorks 2005, by Brett Burney …

Subjects: Blogs, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Marketing, PC Security, Privacy

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 reached more than 22 million households, without disclosing to any of those viewers — the …

Subjects: E-Government, Government Documents

More FOIA Resources for Sunshine Week

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security hearing, Openness in Government and Freedom of Information: Examining the OPEN Government Act of 2005, March 15, 2005. Includes links to testimony and member statements (HTML format) Sen. John Cornyn’s (R–Texas) speech on bipartisan bill to promote openness in government Arbiter would ease FOIA disputes, experts say ‘Strange …

Subjects: Freedom of Information

FOIA Letter Regarding Exclusion of Foreign Nationals

Press release: “ACLU Seeks Records on Use of Patriot Act to Deny U.S. Entry to Prominent Foreign Scholars – Citing a serious and growing threat to academic freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records concerning the government’s practice of excluding scholars and other prominent individuals …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Patriot Act

LexisNexis Launches Privacy Facts Website

“LexisNexis has created a Web site with helpful information regarding data privacy at http://privacyfacts.lexisnexis.com.” Related news: Kurt Sanford, President and CEO of LexisNexis Corporate and Federal Markets stated during his testimony today to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Committee that: “LexisNexis plans to further restrict access to such sensitive information as …

Subjects: Cybercrime, ID Theft, Legal Research, Privacy

House Hearing on Protecting Consumer’s Data

Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing today on Protecting Consumer’s Data: Policy Issues Raised by Choice Point. Prepared Testimony (PDF) is available from the following: Deborah Platt Majoras, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission; Kurt P. Sanford , President and CEO, U.S. Corporate and Federal Government Markets, LexisNexis; Derek Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, …

Subjects: Congress, Cybercrime, ID Theft, Privacy

Report on the State of the American News Media

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has published the State of the News Media 2005 report (navigate the contents of the 500 plus pages via this link) which reviews two distinct categories of media: the first is identified as text-based media, and includes newspapers and Internet news sites; the second is electronic media, inclusive of …

Subjects: Internet

ID Theft Scams Provoke Deeper Investigation of Data Collection Services and Targeted Consequences

Two articles worth reading from The Los Angeles Times (reg. req’d): from today’s paper, this one examines the remarkably straighforward, low-tech tools (including fax machines and Wite-out) and methods that have been successfully used to carry out ID theft scams. and from yesterday’s edition, Did ChoicePoint End Run Backfire? The data-collecting company has managed to …

Subjects: Congress, Cybercrime, ID Theft, Legal Research, Privacy