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Project Gutenberg was established in 1971 as a volunteer effort to make important texts freely available in electronic form to readers around the world. To date, the collection comprises 6,267 e-books. See Any Text. Anytime. Anywhere. (Any Volunteers?) for background on this well known project and the challanges it faces.
The Department of Homeland Security quickly issued, without benefit of public comment, new final interim regulations limiting public access to secret and sensitive agency information under the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Procedures.
Senators Feinstein, Leahy and Gregg introduced new legislation, The Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act, S. 228, to remove social security numbers from public records that are available on the web. Feinstein’s press release is here, and Leahy’s is here. For background on this legislation, which was introduced in 2001 (as S. 848), with the …
NextWave has prevailed in their case to maintain wireless spectrum licenses purchased from the FCC prior to its bankruptcy reorganization. An article on the decision from AP is here. The NextWave press release is here, and a copy of the decision is here. The Supreme Court oral argument transcript is here.
The first web-based open source encyclopedia, Wikipedia, celebrated its second anniversary with the milestone of publishing 100,000 articles in its English language version, all contributed by volunteers who maintain a non-partisan perspective. See this Wired article for background on this resource that is well worth a visit.
According to this AP article, House Speaker Dennis Hastert commented on the TIA program via his spokesman, Pete Jeffries, that its fate “is questionable,” setting the stage for what appears to be an uncertain road ahead for funding of the controversial program when it reaches the conference committee in February.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced the launch of a new blog, Behind the Homefront, “a daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public’s right to know.” The launch date was chosen to coincide with the official establishment of the Department of …
Oral arguments on the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) case are scheduled for March 5. Solicitor General Ted Olson’s 55 page brief (PDF) in U.S. v. American Library Association (ALA) is now available here. Olsen argues that the lower court decision (210 F. Supp 2d 401) overturning the requirement that federally funded libraries must filter …
A series of three articles on leveraging web sites and related applications such as e-mail newsletters for law firm marketing is available via law.com: Web Sites Can Net Attorneys More Clients, Firm Sites Must Click, and More Marketing Tools: It Ain’t Just the Web Site.
On January 13, the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, denied Search King’s motion for preliminary injunction against Google for tortious interference with contractual relations. See also this Slate article, Google-Opoly: The Game No One but Google Can Play.
Senate Feinstein carries over the fight against ID theft, begun in the 107th Congress, to the new Congress as cosponsor of the Identify Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, S. 153. See her press release here, which details requirements for additional penalties of two and five years respectively for “aggravated identity theft” and for “anyone who commits …
Via Larry Lessig’s blog, The Economist published an editorial, A radical rethink, stating “The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws.” Also, see this commentary, Copyright extensions put profits ahead of the public.