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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 …
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a strategic plan (PDF) detailing the goals and objectives of the Total Information Awareness Program, as required by the Senate as part of the Defense Authorization Act of 2003.
Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment.
The Department of Commerce is extending the use of the .edu domain beyond colleges and universities to now include a wide range of “educational institutions,” according to this Reuter’s report.
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 …
Postings will be lighter than usual this week due to travel schedule. Please stay tuned, and thank you.
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. …
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 …
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 …
Palo Alto California’s Mayor Dena Mossar announced a settlement of lawsuits brought against the City Council by The Palo Alto Weekly and the San Jose Mercury News concerning e-mail correspondence that was not disclosed to the public. The Council held a closed door meeting on October 30, 2002 during which time they disseminated e-mail concerning …
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 …
GPO Access recently made available The Privacy Act Issuances, 1995, 1997 1999, and 2001 Compilations Online. The fully searchable database uses a template to enter information in the following fields: Full text of the Privacy Act Notices, Agency, System Number, or System Name, and also supports Boolean searching. The data entails “descriptions of Federal agency …