Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
Officials Who Failed to Put Hijackers on Watch List Not Named. “Seven months after telling Congress he would do so, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has yet to provide the names of agency officials responsible for one of the most glaring intelligence mistakes leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, according …
EPIC published an FBI memorandum (pdf) the organization obtained via a FOIA lawsuit that details how commercial database services are used in accordance with DOJ guidelines to facilitate data mining and “intelligence investigations.”
From FAS Congressional Watch, Members Say Pentagon “Transformation” Involves Unprecedented Exemptions from Oversight, letter from Reps. Waxman, Skelton, Obey and Spratt, May 13. “As ranking members of committees charged with overseeing the Department of Defense (DOD), we are writing to raise serious objections to the Department’s legislative “transformation” proposal, also known as the Defense Transformation …
From the Washington Times, Hill assumes oversight role on airline screening: “Congress has given itself special oversight authority to track a new airline screening process criticized by some lawmakers as an infringement on privacy and civil liberties.” This article refers to the enrolled version of S. 165 (pdf), an act to improve air cargo security, …
On May 8, Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts introduced S. 1025: “An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.” See also the accompanying report …
This New York Times article, Library’s robot is a real page-turner, available via the International Herald Tribune, describes a fascinating, ambitious, costly, technically challenging and also interesting from the perspective of fair use, project underway at the Stanford University Libraries. Using a robotic book scanner from 4DigitalBooks, the libraries are undertaking projects to digitize their …
A new 28 page ACLU report (pdf), Freedom Under Fire: Dissent in Post-9/11 America, documents instances of “censorship, surveillance, detention, denial of due process and excessive force” on the part of the government. See the press release here.
Several sources have recently reported on the White House refusal to release data and related sources on events that led up to the 9/11 attacks which comprise a 800-plus page Congressional study completed last December. Reasons for the unwillingess to provide the public with access to the currently ‘secret’ report range from the need to …
From Steven Aftergood, May 6 Secrecy News (from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy): “The total amount of intelligence spending for 2002 should be declassified over the objections of the Central Intelligence Agency, a federal court was told May 5 in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists.” See …
From the National Security Archive: “The proposed FY 2004 Defense Authorization Act (S. 747) would throw a cloak of secrecy over valuable National Security Agency (“NSA”) records now released under the Freedom of Information Act, including important historical records on the use of signals intelligence and cryptology in U.S. defense history.” For related information, see …
Homeland Security Privacy Suit Dismissed: “U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly earlier this week signed a dismissal agreement between the Justice Department and the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, which had sought records about the office’s activities.”
On April 23, the Florida House passed HB 415: Relating to Internet Access in County and Municipal Libraries. The related Senate Bill, CS/SB 1250: Relating to Public Libraries/Computers has been referred to the Criminal Justice Committee.
