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Telecommunications: Options for and Barriers to Spectrum Reform. GAO-06-526T, March 14, 2006. Full text | Highlights. “The radio-frequency spectrum is used to provide an array of wireless communications services that are critical to the U.S. economy and various government missions, such as national security. With demand for spectrum exploding, and most useable spectrum allocated to …
Press release: “The first-ever government-wide audit of the ways that federal agencies mark and protect information that is unclassified but sensitive for security reasons has found 28 different and uncoordinated policies, none of which include effective oversight or monitoring of how many records are marked and withheld, by whom, or for how long. The audit …
Sunshine Week press release: “Two national polls conducted on the eve of the second national Sunshine Week open government initiative, March 12-18, show a public that equates open government with effective democracy and is concerned about the rise in official secrecy at the national, state and local levels.” Scripps Survey Research Center poll Washington State …
Press release: “Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced a settlement to address what may have been the largest breach of privacy in internet history. The settlement with Datran Media, a leading e-mail marketer, follows an investigation that identified the improper disclosure of the personal information of more than six million American consumers.” Assurance of Discontinuance
“Press release: The oldest Freedom of Information requests still pending in the U.S. government date back to 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to the Freedom of Information Audit released [March 12] by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University.”
U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration: Taxpayers Beware of Widespread Phishing Schemes Involving the IRS IRS: Phishing, Identity Theft and Scams
Confronting Digital Age Head-On GPO Aims to Secure All Government Documents Online:” For most of U.S. history, any government agency that needed to print many copies of a document went to the GPO. Now, about half of government documents go straight online, forcing the printing agency to find new ways to make itself relevant in …
Project for Excellence in Journalism: “The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism. Our goal is to put in one place as much original and aggregated data as possible about each of the major journalism sectors …
Research on the Case Management/Electronic Case File system (PACER), conducted by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), documented 469 missing criminal cases and 65 missing civil cases over the five-year period of Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2005. Also from the RCFP: This related editorial, In search of the secret docket …
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Pre-Acquisition Planning for and Controls over the Sentinel Case Management System, Audit Report 06-14, March 2006 (PDF) “In March 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) terminated a 3-year, $170 million effort to develop a modern case management system called the Virtual Case File (VCF) and announced a new project …
Press release: CIA Wins 2006 “Rosemary Award” for Worst Freedom of Information Performance by a Federal Agency “The Central Intelligence Agency has won the second annual Rosemary Award, recognizing the worst performance by a federal agency in complying with the Freedom of Information Act. The Award is named after President Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods and …
Press release: “U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution (text – in PDF) in the U.S. Senate on Monday to censure the President of the United States. Feingold’s resolution condemns the President’s actions in authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of …