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“Pacific Bell Internet Services, a unit of SBC Communications Inc., claims subpoenas filed by the Recording Industry Association of America and Titan Media Inc. threaten the privacy rights of its subscribers, most of whom live in California.” [Link] Thanks to Ella V. Delaney, who also provided the following information: Pacific Bell Internet Services v. RIAA …
From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: “Last night, July 31, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), introduced the “Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act.” (S. 1552) This bill contains many provisions that will help to restore some protections of civil liberties weakened by the USA PATRIOT Act. Several provisions are of …
Storing e-text for centuries describes the LOCKSS (for “lots of copies keep stuff safe”) project for permanent publishing on the Web, which is the brainchild of Stanford University librarian Vicky Reich and researcher David Rosenthal. From the LOCKSS website: “LOCKSS creates low-cost, persistent digital “caches” of authoritative versions of http-delivered content. The LOCKSS software enables …
Special Report: E-Gov under construction “A look at three prominent programs reveals how far government has come and how far it has to go.” “When the Office of Management and Budget two years ago unveiled its e-government program, e-gov became a buzzword, and OMBs 25 high-profile projects requiring extensive collaboration among agencies became synonymous with …
Privacy Act: OMB Leadership Needed to Improve Agency Compliance. GAO-03-304, June 30. Highlights “More than one in four federal agencies, or 29 percent of those surveyed by the GAO, did not have procedures to ensure that personal data about individual Americans that they disclosed to nonfederal groups was complete, accurate, relevant and timely, as required …
From the US Association for Computing Machinery: CM’s Internet Governance Committee released a white paper entitled Internet Governance: A View from the Trenches, Participation Needed for Successful Advocacy in the ICANN Arena. “This paper discusses ICANN’s history, structure, and scope and focuses on the ability of ICANN to create private rules and regulations that impact …
From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: “On July 31, 2003, Senator Feingold (D-WI), joined by Senators Bingaman (D-NM), Kennedy (D-MA), Cantwell (D-WA), Durbin (D-IL), Wyden (D-OR), Corzine (D-NJ), Akaka (D-HI), and Jeffords (I-VT), introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S. 1507). The bill would amend the PATRIOT Act to protect …
Today’s WSJ and Washington Post report that TIA Director John Poindexter will resign in the wake of the debacle over the proposed “FutureMAP research project…to explore the power of futures markets to predict and thereby prevent terrorist attacks.” See my posting on the background of, and Congressional response to, the FutureMAP research project here. In …
GSA Launches USA Services: “New Initiative Rapidly Connects Citizens with the Federal Government Service Answers Citizens’ Web, E-mail and Telephone Questions in 2 Days or Less.” “USA Services is built on the foundation of three successful information channels, each of which has been providing comprehensive access to federal information and services within its particular medium: …
FBI targets Net phoning: Internet telephone calls are fast becoming a national security threat that must be countered with new police wiretap rules, according to an FBI proposal presented quietly to regulators this month. Learn more about Net telephony – Tutorial on Internet Telephony.
How to Win the Information Battle Lessons from a Modern War “Communication is moving from being a peripheral, specialist responsibility to being an essential and integral element of corporate leadership. No matter the organization government, business, nonprofit the roles of professional communicators who lead communications functions are being reinvented and reinvigorated.”
Bertelsmann will sell BarnesandNoble.com back to Barnes and Noble for $164 million. Barnes & Noble press release on the purchase.