Digital History:
The very first "Intersect Alert"
Once I post this, some of you may come up with an older Alert, but the oldest one found (thank you, Anne Barker) is one from July 21, 2004. It was called Public Policy News then, and the posts were by the then Government Relations Chair, Michele McGinnis. Here are the posts from that issue:
US Patriot Act Survey – deadline today for survey!
A group of alternative papers will investigate attempts by the US government to spy on citizens in libraries using provisions of the Patriot Act. This investigative report will appear in as many as 150 papers this summer.
Freedom to Read Protection Act of 2003 was not passed
Rep. Bernie Sanders has recently been engaged in an attempt to amend the Patriot Act to remove those portions that allow federal authorities to search library and bookstore records.
Schwarzenegger names new state librarian
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday named a new state librarian to replace Kevin Starr, who stepped down April 1 to become state librarian emeritus after 10 years.
Over $14.7 Million to Recruit New Librarians for 21st Century
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the federal agency that supports the nation’s museums and libraries, has awarded $14,790,543 to library schools and library service organizations to recruit and educate new librarians to help offset a looming national shortage.
Fugitive documents published on the Web are not being preserved
The Federal Depository Library Program has fallen behind in cataloging and preserving access to government documents published only on the Web.
GAO Changes its name
Effective July 7, 2004, the GAO’s legal name became the Government Accountability Office.
http://www.exo.net/sla-sf/hypermail/0617.html.
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Intellectual Property:
Confused about copyright? Tweet us your questions on Jan. 7th
Can you legally photocopy pages from that textbook? Can students legally remix music for school assignments? What does fair use mean, and how can it be applied in the school library or classroom? If you are a school librarian or educator who is confused by copyright law, you’re not alone. School principals, superintendents, educators and librarians have specific questions about copyright law but often find themselves without guidance on the subject.
On January 7, 2014, from 6:00-7:00p.m. EST, school leaders will have the opportunity to have their questions answered during an interactive tweetchat with copyright expert and bestselling author Carrie Russell. Participants can submit questions and take part in the free tweetchat by using the #k12copylaw hashtag.
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/12/tweet-us-copyright-questions-jan-7th/.
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Freedom of Information:
ACLU urges NY judge to force release of documents
The American Civil Liberties Union has urged a federal judge to force the U.S. government to quickly turn over documents it needs to help reform a system in which thousands of immigrants are detained for months or years. The ACLU told U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman in a letter on Thursday that the government should be forced to follow his orders so the public can see if immigrants are subject to “prolonged” detention as their immigration statuses are reviewed. The judge had asked for the ACLU’s opinion a day after government lawyers insisted they needed 15 months to deliver 385 out of 22,000 files.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/ACLU-urges-NY-judge-to-force-release-of-documents-5096619.php.
Internet founder hails Snowden
Edward Snowden did the world a favour by revealing the scale of surveillance by governments, according to the inventor of the internet. Tim Berners-Lee said he believed the former CIA agent had behaved responsibly in leaking material about web and phone monitoring. Guest editing BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, Mr Berners-Lee was asked if he thought Mr Snowden had “done us all a favour”. “In a word, yes,” he replied. “Was there anything else he could have done? Was there any other channel he could have gone through? I think it has been established that there was not.”
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/internet-founder-hails-snowden-29867759.html.
‘Tintin’ comics to remain in Amherst library children’s room despite parents’ objections
A graphic novel series containing racial stereotypes that some parents argue is inappropriate for pre-teens will not be removed from the children’s area at the Jones Library as a group has requested. But library officials are pledging to be part of a community dialogue focused on racial issues and to better inform the public about the children’s room policies and how books are chosen. The Jones Board of Trustees Thursday took no action on a request from five parents asking that ‘Tintin’ books be moved from a shelf at the entrance to the children’s area to either the young adult or the adult section of the library.
http://www.gazettenet.com/home/10041349-95/jones-library-stands-firm-on-leaving-materials-questioned-by-parents-in-its-childrens-section.
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Privacy Issues:
New Decision Shows How Businesses Can Challenge Warrantless Records Collection, Even if You Can’t
Much of the debate over modern surveillance—including the NSA mass spying controversy—has centered around whether people can reasonably expect that records about their telephone and Internet activity can remain private when those records belong to someone else: the service providers. But a decision released on December 24th by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals looks at the issue from the point of view of businesses, providing a glimpse into how service providers and technology companies could challenge the government’s unconstitutional surveillance.
In Patel v. City of Los Angeles, the Ninth Circuit found a city ordinance that required hotels and motels to turn over guest records without any judicial process violated the Fourth Amendment. The ordinance mandated hotels and motels keep a record for 90 days containing things like a guest’s name and address, the make, model and license plate number of the guest’s car, and the room number assigned and rate charged. The court found that the hotels and motels had an expectation of privacy in their business records, even if those records didn’t contain anything of great personal value to the hotel.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/new-decision-shows-how-businesses-can-challenge-warrantless-records-collection.
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International Outlook:
A permanent hacker space in the Brazilian Congress
On December 17, the presidency of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution that creates a permanent Laboratório Ráquer or “Hacker Lab” inside the Chamber – a global first. The resolution mandates the creation of a physical space at the Chamber that is “open for access and use by any citizen, especially programmers and software developers, members of parliament and other public workers, where they can utilize public data in a collaborative fashion for actions that enhance citizenship.” The idea was born out of a week-long, hackathon (or “hacker marathon”) event hosted by the Chamber of Deputies in November, with the goal of using technology to enhance the transparency of legislative work and increase citizen understanding of the legislative process.
http://blog.openingparliament.org/post/72099651071/a-permanent-hacker-space-in-the-brazilian-congress.
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Open Access:
Meet the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia’s Massive Data Trove
There are websites, and then there’s Wikipedia. The internet behemoth boasts 30 million articles written in more than 285 languages, tweaked by 70,000 active editors and viewed by 530 million visitors worldwide each month. As mountains of information go, it’s Everest. Teasing out trends from the open source encyclopedia’s archives is a task few would even attempt. Yet Erik Zachte did just that.
Zachte used his statistical intuition to create “Wikistats,” an online statistics package that’s more than a trove of charts and graphs for data geeks. It’s the most direct measure yet of Wikipedia’s success in achieving its central objective: making the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone everywhere.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/.