The background information regarding U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor at our earlier posting has been updated to include her completed questionnaire which was delivered to the Committee of the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate on Thursday June 4, 2009. For those who have not seen it, that posting which is at:
https://www.criminallawlibraryblog.com/2009/05/judge_sonia_sotomayor_backgrou.html
Web based criminal justice issues cannot be addressed in a rational manner without also the establishment and ongoing maintenance of a trusted and resilient information and communications infrastructure. Realizing the paramount importance of these objectives the Obama administration has been engaging in a mumber related activities including President Obama’s recent call for the creation of a cybersecurity coordinator who will orchestrate and integrate federal cybersecurity policies and agendas, and the release by the White House of a Report: Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information Infrasturcture
These measures could not be more timely. The increasing rate that information on the web is being compromised in many ways including identity theft, willful distortion of information,and illegal wiretapping to name a few. Other organizations such as the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) have long been concerned with issues related to the continuing integrity or authenticity of information on the web and are actively engaged in developing recommendations and helping others understand the importance of achieving and maintaining information authenticity of the web but additional help and support is needed. It is therefore most encouraging to see indications that the Obama administration is interested in taking an active role in addressing these and related issues.
The following are links to documents and articles discussing recent cybersecurity initiatives of the Obama administration.
In Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Online News, Keith Perine writes: “…Obama, speaking with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a backdrop, defended his order to close the detainee prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and outlined several tenets of his own counterterrorism strategy. The president tried to reframe the complex problem of how to treat the Guantánamo detainees as one that requires pragmatism above politics and bipartisan deliberation over partisan attacks.
“As president, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. I refuse to pass it on to somebody else,” Obama said, in one of several thinly veiled digs at the George W. Bush administration. ‘It is my responsibility to solve the problem. Our security interests will not permit us to delay. Our courts won’t allow it. And neither should our conscience.’ ” To see the entire article, including an account of a rebuttal speech by former Vice President Cheney, delivered from the American Enterprise Institute, click here.
In its preliminary statistics released on May 11, 2009 the FBI reports that 41 of our nation’s law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2008. All but five were killed with firearms. The number of officers feloniously killed was 17 fewer than in 2007. A more detailed explanation of these numbers is provided in the Press Release announcing the release of these statistics:
FBI Press Release May 11, 2007
The U.S. government’s CIO recently appointed by President Obama told Congress this week that obsolete regulations are blocking agencies from serving the people by participating in top Web sites and social media. Regulations governing the use of cookies and — ironically — disclosure laws are keeping government stuck in the 20th Century. See:
Obsolete Regulations Block Government Adoption Of Social Media
Volume 2009, Issue 4 April 30, 2009
Published by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Government Relations Office
Through its Washington E-Bulletin, the AALL Government Relations Office keeps the AALL membership abreast of governmnt policy news important to law libraries and law law librarians.
Library of Congress Report: Information Technology Strategic Planning: A Well Developed Framework is Essential to Support the Library’s Current and Future Information Technology (IT) Needs
The Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General.
Library-Wide
The Brennan Center at NYU Law School just released a report grading the Obama Administration on its transparency efforts.* There is a report card and a longer report at this link.
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/report_card_table
_____________________________ * The above information is from an e-mail sent by Barbara Brandon of the University of Miami School of Law Library on April 30, 2008. We thank Barbara for both compiling and sharing this material.
OMBWatch has posted four useful documents summarizing the Obama Administration’s record at 100 days.*
The first link is an assessment of improvements on the right to know front. The second link is to a brief YouTube summary on the topic from Washington NGOs.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican since 1966, said on Tuesday April 28 that he will switch to the Decmocratic Party and will run as a Democrat in 2010, thus presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters.
Here is a link to Senator Specter’s statement made earlier today 4-28-09
Criminal Law Library Blog