Cloud computing will give rise to the 'power collaborator', who will "connect with people and find dispersed information across an organization and make it relevant," said speaking in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference continuing through Thursday.
The concept of cloud computing and Enterprise 2.0 Web-based applications and interactivity has apparently struck a positive chord with a fair number of businesses. Up to 69% cite collaboration as a key reason for the appeal of such environments, according to a survey released this week by AIIM, a non-profit group that tackles issues involving document management, content, records, and business processes. Other factors include: Improved agility and responsiveness (56%), faster communications (55%); increased innovation (39%); and a reduction in IT costs (36%).
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 12 Sep 13
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EFF Victory Results in Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconst... - 1 views
www.eff.org/...inion-finding-nsa-surveillance
eff victory secret court opinion finding nsa surveillance unconstitutional
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"Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional. For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated "the spirit of" federal law."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Jun 14
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A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops | l3net - a layer 3 networking blog - 0 views
l3net.wordpress.com/...arison-of-light-linux-desktops
linux light desktop comparison open source free software environments
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"After I install a new version of Linux, I usually take a good look at the screen. Does it have a task bar? Can I find my window after it was minimized? The direction some desktops are going is not clear. Making it easier for current users or for the people coming from Windows or Mac is not a goal anymore. User complains are dismissed, chalking it up to the fact that people don't like change."
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"After I install a new version of Linux, I usually take a good look at the screen. Does it have a task bar? Can I find my window after it was minimized? The direction some desktops are going is not clear. Making it easier for current users or for the people coming from Windows or Mac is not a goal anymore. User complains are dismissed, chalking it up to the fact that people don't like change."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Jun 14
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Patent abuse litigation laws passed or pending in over twenty U.S. states | Opensource.com - 0 views
opensource.com/...tate-laws-target-patent-trolls
patent abuse laws u s states twenty opensource against trolls their end
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"Patent reform may have stalled this year at the federal level, but patent trolls may soon find their actions curtailed by a number of patent abuse litigation laws that have been passed or are pending in over twenty U.S. states."
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"Patent reform may have stalled this year at the federal level, but patent trolls may soon find their actions curtailed by a number of patent abuse litigation laws that have been passed or are pending in over twenty U.S. states."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Sep 14
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Jury finds CBS infringes podcasting patent, awards $1.3 million | Ars Technica - 1 views
arstechnica.com/...ting-patent-awards-1-3-million
jury finds cbs podcasting patent awards million Personal Audio
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Apr 15
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When AT&T promises broadband-but delivers only 300Kbps | Ars Technica - 0 views
arstechnica.com/...band-but-delivers-only-300kbps
broadband internet services provider ISPs lies fail contract government intervention worldwide
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 13 Jul 15
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US government's reported number of wiretaps don't add up | Ars Technica - 0 views
arstechnica.com/...number-of-wiretaps-dont-add-up
government wiretapping numbers lie democracy betrayed
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"The government published its latest Wiretap Report on July 1. The headline finding was that encryption wasn't foiling federal and state law enforcement officials, despite a growing chorus of people suggesting that we're all gonna die unless the tech sector builds backdoor access into their products to enable government access."
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"The government published its latest Wiretap Report on July 1. The headline finding was that encryption wasn't foiling federal and state law enforcement officials, despite a growing chorus of people suggesting that we're all gonna die unless the tech sector builds backdoor access into their products to enable government access."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 08 May 15
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Music Industry Reports 200 Millionth Pirate Link to Google | TorrentFreak - 1 views
torrentfreak.com/h-pirate-link-to-google-150507
music industry reports pirate link google useless pirates go sites directly not through search engines move against engine itself
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[ # ! This is a movement against Google itself and for other causes- as 'real pirates' do not need Google to find the sites. They go directly as download/share webs are met through other mechanisms... ] [ ..."Google, however, believes that it has done enough and repeatedly argues that the entertainment industries can themselves do more. "Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply," the company noted earlier. "The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can." ...]
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[* # ! This is a movement against Google itself and for other causes- as 'real pirates' do not need ggGoogle to find the sites. They go directly as download/share webs are met through other mechanisms... ] "Google, however, believes that it has done enough and repeatedly argues that the entertainment industries can themselves do more. "Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply," the company noted earlier. "The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.""
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shared by Alexandra IcecreamApps on 21 May 15
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Best Free Music Apps - Icecream Tech Digest - 0 views
icecreamapps.com/...best-free-music-apps
music music apps rdio youtube vimeo 8tracks tunein iheartradio songza
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Music is not just a form of art, it is a great source of inspiration. Even if you think your day/week/current situation/life is the worst, find the right song that can captivate you and wind you up and all the … Continue reading →
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Music is not just a form of art, it is a great source of inspiration. Even if you think your day/week/current situation/life is the worst, find the right song that can captivate you and wind you up and all the … Continue reading →
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 10 Sep 15
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8 of the most unsettling things you'll find on the darknet | ITworld - 1 views
www.itworld.com/...youll-find-on-the-darknet.html
things find darknet disidence alternatives communicaion
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Apr 15
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Music Mavericks: From Amanda Palmer To Wu-Tang, Seven Names Cashing In Outside The Majo... - 0 views
www.forbes.com/...side-the-major-label-framework
music mavericks success outside major recording labels muisc
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"What do Amanda Palmer, John Oates, Lindsey Stirling, Hanson and the Wu-Tang Clan have in common? Perhaps not much on the surface, but upon closer inspection, there's one common thread: they're all finding ways to have success outside of the major label framework."
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"What do Amanda Palmer, John Oates, Lindsey Stirling, Hanson and the Wu-Tang Clan have in common? Perhaps not much on the surface, but upon closer inspection, there's one common thread: they're all finding ways to have success outside of the major label framework."
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A Cloudy Forecast for the Enterprise - Here comes Google | InternetNews Realtime IT News - - 0 views
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Google moves into the Enterprise Cloud arena, and has some interesting things to say: Cloud computing will give rise to the 'power collaborator', who will "connect with people and find dispersed information across an organization and make it relevant," said speaking in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference continuing through Thursday.
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Live Roulette from Australia, Fun and Free! Now you can play Real "www.funlivecasino.com.au" Live Roulette for Fun in Australia on a brand new website, FunLiveCasino.com.au. Using the latest internet streaming technologies, Fun Live Casino lets you join a real game happening on a real table in a real casino, all broadcast Live! You can see other real players in the casino betting on the same results you do giving you ultimate trust in the results as they are not generated 'just for you', like other casino gaming products such as 'live studios' or computer generated games. Its amazing to think next time your really in the casino that you might be on camera, and people online might be watching! The future is scary! Imagine that one day soon this will be the only way people would gamble online because the internet is full of scams, you have to be super careful, and why would you play Online Roulette any other way except from a Real Casino you can visit, see, hear and trust! Amazingly this site is completely Free and has no registration process, no spam, no clicks and no fuss. Just Instant Fun "www.funlivecasino.com.au" Free Live Roulette! Give it a try, its worth checking out! "www.funlivecasino.com.au" Australia's Online Fun Live Casino! Backlink created from http://fiverr.com/radjaseotea/making-best-156654-backlink-high-pr
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UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights - ... - 0 views
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The United Nations’ top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the “Special Rapporteur”) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. “The hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively does away with the right to privacy of communications on the Internet altogether,” the report concluded. Central to the Rapporteur’s findings is the distinction between “targeted surveillance” — which “depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization” — and “mass surveillance,” whereby “states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites.” In a system of “mass surveillance,” the report explained, “all of this is possible without any prior suspicion related to a specific individual or organization. The communications of literally every Internet user are potentially open for inspection by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the States concerned.”
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Mass surveillance thus “amounts to a systematic interference with the right to respect for the privacy of communications,” it declared. As a result, “it is incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for States to collect all communications or metadata all the time indiscriminately.” In concluding that mass surveillance impinges core privacy rights, the report was primarily focused on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty enacted by the General Assembly in 1966, to which all of the members of the “Five Eyes” alliance are signatories. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1992, albeit with various reservations that allowed for the continuation of the death penalty and which rendered its domestic law supreme. With the exception of the U.S.’s Persian Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), virtually every major country has signed the treaty. Article 17 of the Covenant guarantees the right of privacy, the defining protection of which, the report explained, is “that individuals have the right to share information and ideas with one another without interference by the State, secure in the knowledge that their communication will reach and be read by the intended recipients alone.”
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The report’s key conclusion is that this core right is impinged by mass surveillance programs: “Bulk access technology is indiscriminately corrosive of online privacy and impinges on the very essence of the right guaranteed by article 17. In the absence of a formal derogation from States’ obligations under the Covenant, these programs pose a direct and ongoing challenge to an established norm of international law.” The report recognized that protecting citizens from terrorism attacks is a vital duty of every state, and that the right of privacy is not absolute, as it can be compromised when doing so is “necessary” to serve “compelling” purposes. It noted: “There may be a compelling counter-terrorism justification for the radical re-evaluation of Internet privacy rights that these practices necessitate. ” But the report was adamant that no such justifications have ever been demonstrated by any member state using mass surveillance: “The States engaging in mass surveillance have so far failed to provide a detailed and evidence-based public justification for its necessity, and almost no States have enacted explicit domestic legislation to authorize its use.”
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Instead, explained the Rapporteur, states have relied on vague claims whose validity cannot be assessed because of the secrecy behind which these programs are hidden: “The arguments in favor of a complete abrogation of the right to privacy on the Internet have not been made publicly by the States concerned or subjected to informed scrutiny and debate.” About the ongoing secrecy surrounding the programs, the report explained that “states deploying this technology retain a monopoly of information about its impact,” which is “a form of conceptual censorship … that precludes informed debate.” A June report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights similarly noted “the disturbing lack of governmental transparency associated with surveillance policies, laws and practices, which hinders any effort to assess their coherence with international human rights law and to ensure accountability.” The rejection of the “terrorism” justification for mass surveillance as devoid of evidence echoes virtually every other formal investigation into these programs. A federal judge last December found that the U.S. Government was unable to “cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack.” Later that month, President Obama’s own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies concluded that mass surveillance “was not essential to preventing attacks” and information used to detect plots “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.”
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That principle — that the right of internet privacy belongs to all individuals, not just Americans — was invoked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden when he explained in a June, 2013 interview at The Guardian why he disclosed documents showing global surveillance rather than just the surveillance of Americans: “More fundamentally, the ‘US Persons’ protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it’s only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%.” The U.N. Rapporteur was clear that these systematic privacy violations are the result of a union between governments and tech corporations: “States increasingly rely on the private sector to facilitate digital surveillance. This is not confined to the enactment of mandatory data retention legislation. Corporates [sic] have also been directly complicit in operationalizing bulk access technology through the design of communications infrastructure that facilitates mass surveillance. ”
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The report was most scathing in its rejection of a key argument often made by American defenders of the NSA: that mass surveillance is justified because Americans are given special protections (the requirement of a FISA court order for targeted surveillance) which non-Americans (95% of the world) do not enjoy. Not only does this scheme fail to render mass surveillance legal, but it itself constitutes a separate violation of international treaties (emphasis added): The Special Rapporteur concurs with the High Commissioner for Human Rights that where States penetrate infrastructure located outside their territorial jurisdiction, they remain bound by their obligations under the Covenant. Moreover, article 26 of the Covenant prohibits discrimination on grounds of, inter alia, nationality and citizenship. The Special Rapporteur thus considers that States are legally obliged to afford the same privacy protection for nationals and non-nationals and for those within and outside their jurisdiction. Asymmetrical privacy protection regimes are a clear violation of the requirements of the Covenant.
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Three Democratic Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote in The New York Times that “the usefulness of the bulk collection program has been greatly exaggerated” and “we have yet to see any proof that it provides real, unique value in protecting national security.” A study by the centrist New America Foundation found that mass metadata collection “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism” and, where plots were disrupted, “traditional law enforcement and investigative methods provided the tip or evidence to initiate the case.” It labeled the NSA’s claims to the contrary as “overblown and even misleading.” While worthless in counter-terrorism policies, the UN report warned that allowing mass surveillance to persist with no transparency creates “an ever present danger of ‘purpose creep,’ by which measures justified on counter-terrorism grounds are made available for use by public authorities for much less weighty public interest purposes.” Citing the UK as one example, the report warned that, already, “a wide range of public bodies have access to communications data, for a wide variety of purposes, often without judicial authorization or meaningful independent oversight.”
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The latest finding adds to the growing number of international formal rulings that the mass surveillance programs of the U.S. and its partners are illegal. In January, the European parliament’s civil liberties committee condemned such programs in “the strongest possible terms.” In April, the European Court of Justice ruled that European legislation on data retention contravened EU privacy rights. A top secret memo from the GCHQ, published last year by The Guardian, explicitly stated that one key reason for concealing these programs was fear of a “damaging public debate” and specifically “legal challenges against the current regime.” The report ended with a call for far greater transparency along with new protections for privacy in the digital age. Continuation of the status quo, it warned, imposes “a risk that systematic interference with the security of digital communications will continue to proliferate without any serious consideration being given to the implications of the wholesale abandonment of the right to online privacy.” The urgency of these reforms is underscored, explained the Rapporteur, by a conclusion of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that “permitting the government to routinely collect the calling records of the entire nation fundamentally shifts the balance of power between the state and its citizens.”
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Free Software, Free as in Beer - Datamation - 0 views
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"Being available at no cost may not define free software, but it is responsible for many of its ups and downs over the years. Free software, Richard Stallman famously wrote, is "free as in free speach, not free as in beer." The phrase has always sounded clumsy to me -- after all, how often do you find free beer?"
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"Being available at no cost may not define free software, but it is responsible for many of its ups and downs over the years. Free software, Richard Stallman famously wrote, is "free as in free speach, not free as in beer." The phrase has always sounded clumsy to me -- after all, how often do you find free beer?"
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 22 Dec 14
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Linux Distribution Chooser - 0 views
distrochooser.0fury.de/#en [# share source note...]
linux distribution chooser choose GNU_Linux distro online web www German English
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[# ! Por cortesía de vinagreasesino.com a través de Google Alerts 'Linux'] "This test should help you while choosing the best Linux Distribution for you. The test contains several question to find the suitable distribution for you. Please note that the result is only a suggestion." [# ! #choose # ! … #Your #Perfect #FreeSoftware #Match. (# And don't scare about the opening home page written in #German… # ! #English version available, too)]
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[# ! Por cortesía de vinagreasesino.com a través de Google Alerts 'Linux'] "This test should help you while choosing the best Linux Distribution for you. The test contains several question to find the suitable distribution for you. Please note that the result is only a suggestion."
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Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload: A Tale of the Long Tail?... - 0 views
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" Christian Peukert University of Zurich - Department of Business Administration Jörg Claussen Copenhagen Business School - Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics Tobias Kretschmer Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München - Faculty of Business Administration (Munich School of Management); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) August 20, 2013 Abstract: In this paper we make use of a quasi-experiment in the market for illegal downloading to study movie box office revenues. Exogenous variation comes from the unexpected shutdown of the popular file hosting platform Megaupload.com on January 19, 2012. The estimation strategy is to compare box office revenues before and after the shutdown, controlling for various factors that potentially explain intertemporal differences. We find that box office revenues of a majority of movies did not increase. While for a mid-range of movies the effect of the shutdown is even negative, only large blockbusters could benefit from the absence of Megaupload. We argue that this is due to social network effects, where online piracy acts as a mechanism to spread information about a good from consumers with low willingness to pay to consumers with high willingness to pay. This information-spreading effect of illegal downloads seems to be especially important for movies with smaller audiences."
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" Christian Peukert University of Zurich - Department of Business Administration Jörg Claussen Copenhagen Business School - Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics Tobias Kretschmer Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München - Faculty of Business Administration (Munich School of Management); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) August 20, 2013 Abstract: In this paper we make use of a quasi-experiment in the market for illegal downloading to study movie box office revenues. Exogenous variation comes from the unexpected shutdown of the popular file hosting platform Megaupload.com on January 19, 2012. The estimation strategy is to compare box office revenues before and after the shutdown, controlling for various factors that potentially explain intertemporal differences. We find that box office revenues of a majority of movies did not increase. While for a mid-range of movies the effect of the shutdown is even negative, only large blockbusters could benefit from the absence of Megaupload. We argue that this is due to social network effects, where online piracy acts as a mechanism to spread information about a good from consumers with low willingness to pay to consumers with high willingness to pay. This information-spreading effect of illegal downloads seems to be especially important for movies with smaller audiences."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Jan 15
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Licensing under Creative Commons to reach more people | Opensource.com - 0 views
opensource.com/...e-commons-publishing-classroom
opensource creative commons licensing reach people commons
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"There was a time not long ago when publishing was difficult and expensive. Thanks to services like Lulu.com and Lulujr.com, that's changing. Open source and Creative Commons licensing has also opened the door for teachers and students to inexpensively and easily find a new and authentic audience for their work."
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"There was a time not long ago when publishing was difficult and expensive. Thanks to services like Lulu.com and Lulujr.com, that's changing. Open source and Creative Commons licensing has also opened the door for teachers and students to inexpensively and easily find a new and authentic audience for their work."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 Jan 15
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No, Department of Justice, 80 Percent of Tor Traffic Is Not Child Porn | WIRED [# ! Via... - 0 views
www.wired.com/...percent-tor-traffic-child-porn
tor traffic pornography official statistics false lies stiffle people's right privacy spurious interests politics
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The debate over online anonymity, and all the whistleblowers, trolls, anarchists, journalists and political dissidents it enables, is messy enough. It doesn’t need the US government making up bogus statistics about how much that anonymity facilitates child pornography.
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he debate over online anonymity, and all the whistleblowers, trolls, anarchists, journalists and political dissidents it enables, is messy enough. It doesn’t need the US government making up bogus statistics about how much that anonymity facilitates child pornography. At the State of the Net conference in Washington on Tuesday, US assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell discussed what she described as the dangers of encryption and cryptographic anonymity tools like Tor, and how those tools can hamper law enforcement. Her statements are the latest in a growing drumbeat of federal criticism of tech companies and software projects that provide privacy and anonymity at the expense of surveillance. And as an example of the grave risks presented by that privacy, she cited a study she said claimed an overwhelming majority of Tor’s anonymous traffic relates to pedophilia. “Tor obviously was created with good intentions, but it’s a huge problem for law enforcement,” Caldwell said in comments reported by Motherboard and confirmed to me by others who attended the conference. “We understand 80 percent of traffic on the Tor network involves child pornography.” That statistic is horrifying. It’s also baloney.
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In a series of tweets that followed Caldwell’s statement, a Department of Justice flack said Caldwell was citing a University of Portsmouth study WIRED covered in December. He included a link to our story. But I made clear at the time that the study claimed 80 percent of traffic to Tor hidden services related to child pornography, not 80 percent of all Tor traffic. That is a huge, and important, distinction. The vast majority of Tor’s users run the free anonymity software while visiting conventional websites, using it to route their traffic through encrypted hops around the globe to avoid censorship and surveillance. But Tor also allows websites to run Tor, something known as a Tor hidden service. This collection of hidden sites, which comprise what’s often referred to as the “dark web,” use Tor to obscure the physical location of the servers that run them. Visits to those dark web sites account for only 1.5 percent of all Tor traffic, according to the software’s creators at the non-profit Tor Project. The University of Portsmouth study dealt exclusively with visits to hidden services. In contrast to Caldwell’s 80 percent claim, the Tor Project’s director Roger Dingledine pointed out last month that the study’s pedophilia findings refer to something closer to a single percent of Tor’s overall traffic.
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So to whoever at the Department of Justice is preparing these talking points for public consumption: Thanks for citing my story. Next time, please try reading it.
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[# Via Paul Merrell's Diigo...] "That is a huge, and important, distinction. The vast majority of Tor's users run the free anonymity software while visiting conventional websites, using it to route their traffic through encrypted hops around the globe to avoid censorship and surveillance. But Tor also allows websites to run Tor, something known as a Tor hidden service. This collection of hidden sites, which comprise what's often referred to as the "dark web," use Tor to obscure the physical location of the servers that run them. Visits to those dark web sites account for only 1.5 percent of all Tor traffic, according to the software's creators at the non-profit Tor Project."
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[# Via Paul Merrell's Diigo...] "That is a huge, and important, distinction. The vast majority of Tor's users run the free anonymity software while visiting conventional websites, using it to route their traffic through encrypted hops around the globe to avoid censorship and surveillance. But Tor also allows websites to run Tor, something known as a Tor hidden service. This collection of hidden sites, which comprise what's often referred to as the "dark web," use Tor to obscure the physical location of the servers that run them. Visits to those dark web sites account for only 1.5 percent of all Tor traffic, according to the software's creators at the non-profit Tor Project."
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shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 17 Mar 15
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State of VoIP in Linux - Datamation - 0 views
www.datamation.com/...state-of-voip-in-linux.html
state VoIP linux voice over IP communications personal PC state of the art GNU GNU_Linux
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"Like most people, I find myself using the same VoIP options everyone else is using. Thankfully, these days there are far more options available than what we might think. Today, I'll look at these options and also explore up-and-coming alternatives as well."
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"Like most people, I find myself using the same VoIP options everyone else is using. Thankfully, these days there are far more options available than what we might think. Today, I'll look at these options and also explore up-and-coming alternatives as well."
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Most Agencies Falling Short on Mandate for Online Records - 1 views
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Nearly 20 years after Congress passed the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments (E-FOIA), only 40 percent of agencies have followed the law's instruction for systematic posting of records released through FOIA in their electronic reading rooms, according to a new FOIA Audit released today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org to mark Sunshine Week. The Archive team audited all federal agencies with Chief FOIA Officers as well as agency components that handle more than 500 FOIA requests a year — 165 federal offices in all — and found only 67 with online libraries populated with significant numbers of released FOIA documents and regularly updated.
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Congress called on agencies to embrace disclosure and the digital era nearly two decades ago, with the passage of the 1996 "E-FOIA" amendments. The law mandated that agencies post key sets of records online, provide citizens with detailed guidance on making FOIA requests, and use new information technology to post online proactively records of significant public interest, including those already processed in response to FOIA requests and "likely to become the subject of subsequent requests." Congress believed then, and openness advocates know now, that this kind of proactive disclosure, publishing online the results of FOIA requests as well as agency records that might be requested in the future, is the only tenable solution to FOIA backlogs and delays. Thus the National Security Archive chose to focus on the e-reading rooms of agencies in its latest audit. Even though the majority of federal agencies have not yet embraced proactive disclosure of their FOIA releases, the Archive E-FOIA Audit did find that some real "E-Stars" exist within the federal government, serving as examples to lagging agencies that technology can be harnessed to create state-of-the art FOIA platforms. Unfortunately, our audit also found "E-Delinquents" whose abysmal web performance recalls the teletype era.
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E-Delinquents include the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, which, despite being mandated to advise the President on technology policy, does not embrace 21st century practices by posting any frequently requested records online. Another E-Delinquent, the Drug Enforcement Administration, insults its website's viewers by claiming that it "does not maintain records appropriate for FOIA Library at this time."
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The federal government has made some progress moving into the digital era. The National Security Archive's last E-FOIA Audit in 2007, " File Not Found," reported that only one in five federal agencies had put online all of the specific requirements mentioned in the E-FOIA amendments, such as guidance on making requests, contact information, and processing regulations. The new E-FOIA Audit finds the number of agencies that have checked those boxes is now much higher — 100 out of 165 — though many (66 in 165) have posted just the bare minimum, especially when posting FOIA responses. An additional 33 agencies even now do not post these types of records at all, clearly thwarting the law's intent.
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The FOIAonline Members (Department of Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Labor Relations Authority, Merit Systems Protection Board, National Archives and Records Administration, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Department of the Navy, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Federal Communications Commission) won their "E-Star" by making past requests and releases searchable via FOIAonline. FOIAonline also allows users to submit their FOIA requests digitally.
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"The presumption of openness requires the presumption of posting," said Archive director Tom Blanton. "For the new generation, if it's not online, it does not exist." The National Security Archive has conducted fourteen FOIA Audits since 2002. Modeled after the California Sunshine Survey and subsequent state "FOI Audits," the Archive's FOIA Audits use open-government laws to test whether or not agencies are obeying those same laws. Recommendations from previous Archive FOIA Audits have led directly to laws and executive orders which have: set explicit customer service guidelines, mandated FOIA backlog reduction, assigned individualized FOIA tracking numbers, forced agencies to report the average number of days needed to process requests, and revealed the (often embarrassing) ages of the oldest pending FOIA requests. The surveys include:
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Justice Department guidance undermines the statute. Currently, the FOIA stipulates that documents "likely to become the subject of subsequent requests" must be posted by agencies somewhere in their electronic reading rooms. The Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy defines these records as "frequently requested records… or those which have been released three or more times to FOIA requesters." Of course, it is time-consuming for agencies to develop a system that keeps track of how often a record has been released, which is in part why agencies rarely do so and are often in breach of the law. Troublingly, both the current House and Senate FOIA bills include language that codifies the instructions from the Department of Justice. The National Security Archive believes the addition of this "three or more times" language actually harms the intent of the Freedom of Information Act as it will give agencies an easy excuse ("not requested three times yet!") not to proactively post documents that agency FOIA offices have already spent time, money, and energy processing. We have formally suggested alternate language requiring that agencies generally post "all records, regardless of form or format that have been released in response to a FOIA request."
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Disabilities Compliance. Despite the E-FOIA Act, many government agencies do not embrace the idea of posting their FOIA responses online. The most common reason agencies give is that it is difficult to post documents in a format that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act, also referred to as being "508 compliant," and the 1998 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act that require federal agencies "to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities." E-Star agencies, however, have proven that 508 compliance is no barrier when the agency has a will to post. All documents posted on FOIAonline are 508 compliant, as are the documents posted by the Department of Defense and the Department of State. In fact, every document created electronically by the US government after 1998 should already be 508 compliant. Even old paper records that are scanned to be processed through FOIA can be made 508 compliant with just a few clicks in Adobe Acrobat, according to this Department of Homeland Security guide (essentially OCRing the text, and including information about where non-textual fields appear). Even if agencies are insistent it is too difficult to OCR older documents that were scanned from paper, they cannot use that excuse with digital records.
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Privacy. Another commonly articulated concern about posting FOIA releases online is that doing so could inadvertently disclose private information from "first person" FOIA requests. This is a valid concern, and this subset of FOIA requests should not be posted online. (The Justice Department identified "first party" requester rights in 1989. Essentially agencies cannot use the b(6) privacy exemption to redact information if a person requests it for him or herself. An example of a "first person" FOIA would be a person's request for his own immigration file.) Cost and Waste of Resources. There is also a belief that there is little public interest in the majority of FOIA requests processed, and hence it is a waste of resources to post them. This thinking runs counter to the governing principle of the Freedom of Information Act: that government information belongs to US citizens, not US agencies. As such, the reason that a person requests information is immaterial as the agency processes the request; the "interest factor" of a document should also be immaterial when an agency is required to post it online. Some think that posting FOIA releases online is not cost effective. In fact, the opposite is true. It's not cost effective to spend tens (or hundreds) of person hours to search for, review, and redact FOIA requests only to mail it to the requester and have them slip it into their desk drawer and forget about it. That is a waste of resources. The released document should be posted online for any interested party to utilize. This will only become easier as FOIA processing systems evolve to automatically post the documents they track. The State Department earned its "E-Star" status demonstrating this very principle, and spent no new funds and did not hire contractors to build its Electronic Reading Room, instead it built a self-sustaining platform that will save the agency time and money going forward.