Freedom of Information
Finding Agency FOIA Regulations a Shockingly Difficult Task
“Today the National Security Archive published its latest Freedom of Information Act audit to assess which agencies have best followed the FOIA. The audit highlights outdated agency FOIA regulations (the principal tool agencies use to process their FOIA requests) government-wide, and made the disheartening discovery that fifty-six out of ninety-nine government agencies have not updated their regulations since the most recent amendment to the FOIA. Along with being outdated, formatting inconsistencies, broken links, and in one case a complete lack of regulations, made tracking down each agency’s latest FOIA regulations unduly cumbersome.”
http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/finding-agency-foia-regulations-a-shockingly-difficult-task/
Transparency and the Obama presidency: Looking Back and Looking Forward – Video and Event Recap
“How transparent has President Barack Obama’s administration been? While the first term seemed to start with several bold initiatives, members of the transparency community have been disappointed with the apparent lack of initiative since then. Panelists gave the administration mixed reviews at the Dec. 3, 2012 Advisory Committee on Transparency event examining what’s happened over the past four years and what in store for the next four. . . The video of the event is available on C-Span.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/12/07/transparency-and-the-obama-presidency-looking-back-and-looking-forward-video-and-event-recap/
House Rules Changes: Sunlight’s Proposals for the 113th Congress
“Congress runs on rules. With the upcoming changeover from the 112th to the 113th Congress, the House of Representatives will adopt new regulations that innervate every aspect of legislative life. The last time it did this, in 2010, the House set the stage for greater openness and transparency in the lower chamber. At that time, Sunlight issued a series of recommendations, some of which were adopted. The House of Representatives made significant progress toward ensuring the people’s house belongs to the people, from the new transparency portal docs.house.gov to expanded video coverage of House proceedings to retaining the Office of Congressional Ethics. In advance of the 113th Congress, we’re issuing an updated set of transparency recommendations, each of which would mark a significant step towards increased transparency.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/12/06/house-rules-changes-sunlights-proposals-for-the-113th-congress/
OGP transparency officials chosen to hold ‘government’s feet to fire’
“The Open Government Partnership (OGP) has officially unveiled the senior advisors that will oversee transparency commitments made by member countries to coincide with the launch of the Open Data Institute (ODI).”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2012/dec/01/ogp-odi-francis-maude-digital-data
Advisory Board Urges White House to Lead Secrecy Reform
“In a long-awaited report to the President, the Public Interest Declassification Board urged the White House to take the lead in fixing the national secrecy system. The Public Interest Declassification Board is an advisory committee that was established by Congress to help promote possible access to the documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. In 2009, President Obama asked the Board to develop recommendations for “a more fundamental transformation of the security classification system.””
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/12/pidb_report.html
Privacy Concerns
Updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
“Yesterday was a watershed moment in the fight for electronic privacy: the Senate Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly passed an amendment that mandates the government get a probable cause warrant before reading our emails. The battle isn’t over — the reform, championed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), still needs to pass the rest of the Senate and the House, and be signed by the President to become a law. But yesterday, thanks to thousands of people speaking out, we were able to begin the process of overhauling our archaic privacy laws into alignment with modern technology.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/deep-dive-updating-electronic-communications-privacy-act
Warrantless Surveillance 101: Introducing EFF’s New NSA Domestic Spying Guide
“On December 14th, EFF is back in federal court challenging the NSA’s domestic spying program in our long-running case Jewel v. NSA. In anticipation of our court appearance, we’ve launched a new section of our website to give everyone a clear understanding how the NSA warrantless wiretapping program works and why we’re challenging it as unconstitutional.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/warrantless-surveillance-101-introducing-our-new-nsa-domestic-spying-guide
Intellectual Property
Copyright Laws Slow DPLA
“As the Digital Public Library of America approaches its April 2013 launch, copyright laws still hinder the library’s ability to make a wide array of written materials accessible to the public. Two years into its initial efforts—the DPLA was first envisioned in October 2010, soon after Harvard withdrew its collections from the Google Books digitization project due to legal concerns—primary founding member and Harvard University librarian Robert C. Darnton ’60 boasts that the DPLA has the potential to become the “mother of all libraries.” But as the project moves forward, the problem of digitizing copyrighted material, essential for public collections, remains unsolved.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/7/dpla-copyright-slows-progress/
Copyright for a digital age
“We live in a digital age and therefore we should have a fully functioning knowledge-based economy. Why then do we remain saddled with a copyright framework more suited to the 19th century than the 21st? At the British Library we estimate that by 2020 75 per cent of all books and journals will be published in digital form. Add to that the exponential growth of the internet and the explosion of mobile technology, and we see that the world is a dramatically different place to the 1980s (the era of the Betamax and personal cassette recorder) when the last major change to copyright legislation took place.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/cultural-capital/2012/11/copyright-digital-age
Appeal Filings Outline Authors Guild’s Objections to HathiTrust Opinion
“With a new round of filings hitting the docket last week, the Authors Guild appeal of Judge Harold Baer’s landmark copyright decision in the the HathiTrust case is underway. The broad appeal raises a handful of key questions on which the Guild is seeking review by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, including whether the district court erred in finding the scan plan to be fair use.”
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/54982-appeal-filings-outline-authors-guild-s-objections-to-hathitrust-opinion.html
TPP: Why it Matters in the USA
“The U.S. and other governments are meeting yet again to hash out the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), this time in New Zealand. International trade agreements may seem far removed from our daily lives. Why should people in the U.S. take action against TPP? Although we don’t know what’s in the draft treaty, and the U.S. Trade Representative refuses to publish it, the leaked drafts we’ve seen are alarming. TPP is likely to export some of the worst features of U.S. copyright law: a broad ban on breaking digital locks on creative work, even for legal uses, a copyright term of life plus seventy years (the current international norm is life-plus-fifty), ruinous statutory damages with no proof of actual harm, and government seizures of computers and equipment involved in alleged infringement.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/tpp-why-it-matters-usa
US Isolated In Opposition To WIPO Treaty For The Blind, Group Says
“The United States now stands alone in its opposition to a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty on copyright exceptions for blind and and other print-disabled readers, the World Blind Union (WBU) said today.”
http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/12/03/us-isolated-in-opposition-to-wipo-treaty-for-the-blind-group-says/
International Outlook
European Commission Embarks On Process To ‘Modernise’ Copyright
“The European Commission today (5 December) agreed on a process to ensure copyright is best suited for the digital age with the aim of possible legislative reform in 2014. Commissioners in a meeting decided to launch a stakeholder dialogue immediately, and to complete market studies, impact assessment and legal drafting work.”
http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/12/06/european-commission-embarks-on-process-to-modernise-copyright/
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.