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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 …
“TexasLawHelp.org is a project of the Texas Access to Justice Commission and the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, in partnership with participating legal aid organizations.” Users may locate information according to county or zip code, and services are provided on issues that include: civil rights, disability, health, immigration, employment and housing. From the site’s …
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.”
According to this article, Bradley University has joined over 200 other universities participating in the ultra-high speed broadband Internet2 consortium. This project is a collaboration between academia, government and industry, and not available to the public. According to Jeff Huberman, dean of Bradley’s communications school, “Boundaries become irrelevant with Internet2. It’s an entirely different playing …
The May 1, 2003 edition of the Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information, by Marian Dworaczek, is now available. It “deals with all aspects of electronic publishing and include print and non-print materials, periodical articles, monographs and individual chapters in collected works. This edition includes over 1,500 indexed titles and is updated …
See these two articles, one free and the other from the New York Times ($$), that discuss how a user community “unintentionally left out of the so-called digital revolution has been the severely disabled.”
Contrary to the EU Data Protection Directive (pdf), a recent study determined that approximately 44% of European websites surveyed lack required privacy protection policies. The results indicated the greatest complaince was evidenced by UK sites and the worst by French sites.
The entertainment industry is working with software developers, such as Overpeer Inc., to create applications that will thwart P2P filing services and networks. Although such efforts pre-date the recent decision in favor of filing sharing companies Grokster and Morpheus, the focus on a software solution appears to have a renewed purpose and impetus. According to …
Point: The Truth About The Peer to Peer Privacy Prevention Act, by Rep. Howard L. Berman. “In July, three colleagues and I introduced H.R. 5211, the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act. The bill ensures that copyright owners won’t face liability for using reasonable, limited self-help to prevent the theft of their works on peer-to-peer …
Marylaine Block reviews a new book by Mary Minow and Tomas A. Lipinski which focuses on the many legal issues that confront today’s libraries, including the Patriot Act, fair use, web filtering, censorship and web site accessibility. The Library’s Legal Answer Book is targeted at the public library community, but this work by two expert …
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.