Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

the California State Library, in partnership with the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System has been involved in a project over the past year to evaluate the current California state document depository library program and begin planning for development of a digital repository system for California state government publications and published information. As part of this project, a research study by Judith Cobb and Gayle Palmer of the OCLC Digital Collections and Metadata Services Division was issued last week. This study provides an overview of the current publishing environment in California state government and the depository library program, and presents models and recommends action in several areas, including partnerships, legislative change, copyright considerations, data capture and management, digital preservation, governance, funding and sustainability.

The report is available on the CA State Library’s web site (PDF).

On the plus side, the OCLC study calls for a revamping of the CA depository system with the goal of a digital repository of CA state documents. Surprisingly, though, the study calls for a 9-15 year timeline for implementation.

DIY radio with PODcasting | Doc Searls’ IT Garage

That’s do-it-yourself radio by creating MP3 audio files
that folks can listen to on their iPods and other music/audio players!

Thanks to Dan Gillmor

No Joke: Daily Show Viewers Follow Presidential Race

According to a study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Daily Show viewers are “more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy.” The data can be found in their Sept. 21, 2004 press release.

The blog, On Lisa Rein’s Radar has a nice archive of Daily show clips to get you up to speed on the political process.

What if the IRaqi war were happening in the US?

While I haven’t made it a practice to comment on the war in Iraq, I found this short sobering blog post by Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, to be insightful and disturbing.

[thanks to the Votemaster at electoral.vote.com where you'll find an un-to-the-minute electoral vote predictor and lots of other information!]

Wired News: Activists Find More E-Vote Flaws

A programmer wrote a 5 line script that changes vote totals in the Diebold e-voting Global Election Management System (GEMS).

Diebold says not to worry. The system wasn’t designed to be used that way. And anyway, “no one would risk manipulating votes in an election because it’s against the law and carries a heavy penalty.”

A computer scientist says that the security hole may not be intentional, but, “…the vulnerabilities do show incompetence and indicate that Diebold programmers simply don’t know how to design a secure system.”

OMB Watch - Administration Obstructs Regulation Across Agencies, Fails to Complete 70% of Rules

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 15, 2004, Noon — An analysis of four key federal agencies charged with safeguarding the public’s air, water, food, health, transportation and workplaces reveals consistent and widespread obstruction, neglect and weakening of protections. The report attributes the pattern to a pro-corporate bias of the Bush administration and appointed agency heads favoring narrow special interests over the public good.
Download Report

EFF: E-voting

The Electronic Frontier Foundation provides this page of links to information about electronic voting. Categories include: Electronic Voting Machine Quick Reference Guides, an audio of a Technical presentation at a conference, court cases (e.g., ACLU v. Connor (Texas), Stewart v. Blackwell (Ohio)),
Standards for Electronic Voting Machines, Independent Research into E-voting Security, Media Coverage, and Links to Related Off-Site Resources.

ACNM library - what’s new! : ACNM free journals information guide

The Australian College of Natural Medicine provides this lists of “Lists Of Free Full-Text Journals Online.”

Special Investigations

Rep. Henry A. Waxman has released a comprehensive examination of secrecy in the Bush Administration. The report analyzes how the Administration has implemented each of our nation’s major open government laws. It finds that there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration’s actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government.

National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild last month released a report entitled, “The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent.” (PDF) In it, they interviewed people from across the United States and documented the “ongoing reaction of law enforcement to the legal exercise of free speech in the US.” In short, they found that our various law enforement officials and departments are engaged in an agressive, concerted and overt effort to destroy lawful public expressions of dissent and free speech.

To read the testimony is to know that the American democracy is in serious trouble. Not because the country lacks for a successful
economy or a splendid military equipage, but because the wisdoms in office find the practice of democratic self-government vulgar and unsafe. Too loud, too uncivil and disrespectful, too many people in the room who donÕt belong to a health club or the Council on Foreign Relations, not enough marble in the ceilings and the walls. The corporate and political gentry disapprove of the company and deplore the noise; whether seated in the Senate, installed in a television studio, charged with the management of an insurance
company or a police precinct, they donÕt like to be reminded that democracy is by definition a work in progress, a never-ending argument between the inertia of things-as-they-are and the energy
inherent in the hope of things-as-they-might-become.

–Forward by Lewis Lapham