Author archives

Senate Resolution on CRS Reports

According to Mary Alice Baish, Associate Washington Affairs Representative, American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), there are more than 30 organizations who support providing public access to all CRS reports on the Internet. Please see Senate Resolution 54, submitted by Senators Leahy, Lieberman, and Harkin, “…to make Congressional Research Service, CRS, reports, and other Senate …

Subjects: E-Government, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legislation

House-Senate Conferees Block TIA Funding

The efforts of Senators Ron Wyden and Harry Reid to block the progress of the Total Information Awareness surveillance program through an amendment (S. 59) added to the omnibus spending bill to discontinue its funding, have been successful. For additional information on this legislation and the Democratic-led initiative to terminate this government sponsored data mining …

Subjects: Privacy

Report Backs Public Access to CRS Reports

Congressional Research Service Products: Taxpayers Should Have Easy Access. From the report: “$81 million of tax-payer money funded the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in FY 2002. CRS authors products at the request of current Members of Congress, many of whom become lobbyists, but CRS products are made difficult if not impossible for the public to …

Subjects: Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legislation

Draft of New Patriot Act Legislation

The advocacy group Public Integrity issued a press release on February 7 detailing their research on a previously secret 120 page draft of what is being called the “Patriot Act II” legislation, which apparently has not been shared with the House Judiciary Committee. This draft was written by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft. …

Subjects: Courts, Patriot Act, Privacy

More Opposition to Gov't Data Mining

The National Journal reports that opposition to the government’s Total Information Awareness Project continues to gain momentum. Sen. Ron Wyden, who spearheaded a bill to limit spending on the program, spoke this week with a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU, in an effort to ensure that the upcoming conference report will adopt the …

Subjects: E-Government, Internet, Privacy

Joint Study to Improve Health-Related Web Searches

The URAC (a non-profit charitable organization that establishes standards for the health care industry) and Consumer WebWatch (a non-profit that “seeks to improve the credibility of online information”, are partnering on a project to improve consumer access to health data on the web. Their study will entail benchmarking the quality of health related information on …

Subjects: Search Engines

E-Lawyering

There has been an increased focus on e-lawyering lately, although the provision of free and fee-based services online has been underway for years. Two recent resources from the ABA on how lawyers are using email and the Web to market and deliver services to clients are: Some Call It eLawyering: Is It a Brave New …

Subjects: Marketing