The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism. It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency. The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where Conyers is Chairman, and where he has consolidated his power since … Read more The Conyers Bill is Back (copyright)
The most frustrating thing about eight years of Bush Administration nefariousness and stupidity, from a librarian’s point of view, was their attitude of secrecy and contempt for the public. It is important for government to be open and transparent, and to avoid rather than seek corrupt relationships with moneyed interests. In that regard the Bush … Read more Obama’s Policy Agenda on Government Ethics
President-elect Obama’s letter declaring intentions regarding the EPA, including EPA libraries: October 20, 2008 John Gage National President American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO 80 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Dear President Gage, I am writing to share my views with you regarding the importance of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in an Obama … Read more Obama’s letter on the EPA
It’s a new dawn in more ways than one. One of the things I hated most about the Bush administration, from a librarian’s point of view, was their ever increasing secrecy. Every year it seemed that more and more government information, information that people needed in order for democracy to function, was being hidden in … Read more Talk about government transparency and sunshine
Minerva Research Initiative: Searching for the Truth or Denying the Iraqis the Rights to Know the Truth? by Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library and Archives “What has prompted me to write this paper is the continuing refusal of the U.S. to pay serious attention to Iraqi calls for the repatriation of the Iraqi records illegally … Read more The Minerva Controversy (Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library)
Open letter from Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archives, June 21, 2008 An Open Letter to the Director of Hoover Institute I have read Mr. Sousa’s letter to Mr. Mark Greene, President of the Society of American Archivists (dated 06-06-08), Mr. Al-Jaberi’s statement (dated 27-04-08) and the article published by Stanford … Read more Saad Eskander’s open letter to the Hoover Institution
CLOSED EPA LIBRARIES TO RETURN IN LAVATORY-SIZED SPACES; Political Appointee Asserts Control over All Libraries, Repeals 30-Year-Old Manual “Ordered by Congress to re-open its shuttered libraries, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is grudgingly allocating only minimal space and resources, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).”… Thanks to Jonathan … Read more EPA libraries restored in miniature form
This is rather unbelievable. Two shipping containers of records from the Baath Party of Iraq – about seven million pages – are being transferred to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, over the objections of Iraq’s archivist, the celebrated Saad Eskander. They have been in the possession of a non-profit run by Kanan Makiya, an … Read more Hoover Institution to Accession Looted Documents
Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 Author: Lara Moore Expected: Spring 2008 Printed on acid-free paper Between 1789 and 1793, the revolutionary French state nationalized thousands of libraries and archival depositories, thus becoming the proprietor of many millions of books and documents, ranging from Montesquieu’s … Read more Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 (forthcoming)
Elaine Harger, outgoing coordinator of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, compiled a list of resolutions by ALA Council on the War on Terror, for distribution to congressional offices on Tuesday, which was a day of lobbying during the ALA Conference in Washington, DC. The list is online in PDF form, and also here: American … Read more American Library Association statements re: the “War on Terror”
From ALA’s Washington Office: Please contact your Senators and ask them to support the OPEN Government Act of 2007 (S. 849), and to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid or Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to support bringing the bill to the floor in early June. Unfortunately — and ironically, since this is an open government bill … Read more OPEN Government Act of 2007
Arch Conservative Bush advisor Grover Norquist has been pushing the “Starve the Beast” strategy for a long time. This is the strategy that says run up a huge budget debt and then a future Congress will be unable to support government spending. The “War on Terror” is obviously the great implementation of the starve the … Read more Savanna River Ecology Laboratory closing, thanks to Bush Administration small-esse
Bernadine Abbott Hoduski shared this information with ALA Council today… The ALA Washington Office and ALA Council’s Committee on Legislation have started a wiki on federal libraries. The wiki says: The purpose of this wiki is to share and track information on federal library threats, re-organizations, and closings. Based on discussions with members, the main … Read more Federal Libraries Wiki
Another example of the Bush Administration’s information evil. Marjorie Heins has some commentary on the Free Expression Policy Project’s website about Guantanamo prisoners’ recantations of abuse charges in exchange for release from custody. The government knows they got the wrong guy, but won’t release him unless he signs off on a promise to back off … Read more Guantanamo secrecy through plea-bargains
I urge everybody to read Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s post on her main blog, Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate. She hits the nail on the head: the key to the our urgent political problems right now are in the Bush Administration’s governance by manipulation of information. She puts a … Read more Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate
This is so f-ing typical of the Bush Administration… White House staffers are using private internet domains for much of their work by email in order to avoid the accountability of a paper trail. White House correspondence is supposed to be part of the public record, eventually. Here’s a snippet: “…[I]t is better not to … Read more White House using private email to avoid the accountability of a public paper trail
I am going to take another stab at outlining my views on “library and non-library issues.” Last time I did it I was sloppy in the way that I stated my views, and I surprised and disappointed some people who I think would not have been so surprised and disappointed if I had been clearer … Read more Library and non-library issues
The Presidential Records Act of 2007 is a bill presently in Congress that would overturn Bush’s Presidential Order 13233 of 2001, which was one of many outrageous secrecy measures of the Bush Administration, this one case giving former presidents the power to prevent access to their papers for many years. Kathleen de la Peña McCook … Read more The Presidential Records Act of 2007
Just a link to a handy website, brought to you by Public Citizen, guiding you through all the ins and outs of one of the Bush Administration’s clearest and strongest changes to government policy: drastically increased government secrecy and public disinformation. The website is Bushsecrecy.org, and it is divided into a few simple sections: Regulatory … Read more Bushsecrecy.org
My friend John Gehner just told me about this watershed piece of investigative reporting by James Bamford, an article from Rolling Stone that won the 2006 National Magazine Award in the “Best Reporting” category: The Man Who Sold the War. It is about John Rendon, who heads the “perception management” firm that was hired by … Read more John Rendon – the Goebbels of our era