Resources of the Week — Recent CRS Reports of Interest to Information Professionals
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
Many of us are hoping, with the advent of a new administration, that Congressional Research Service reports will finally be made directly available to the public. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is among the most recent legislators trying to make this happen, as reported here on ResourceShelf earlier this month.
Of course, a number of entities have already harnessed the power of the Internet to make vast numbers of these valuable reports readily available online — OpenCRS, Wikileaks, the Federation of American Scientists… We routinely check these sites for reports to post on DocuTicker, our sister site. Recently, we spotted several that looked like excellent current awareness resources for information professionals, and we thought we’d share.
+ Presidential Records: Issues for the 111th Congress
Most records of recent former Presidents and former Vice Presidents are required by statute to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of each administration. These records are then disclosed to the public, unless the Archivist of the United States, the incumbent President, or the appropriate former President claims the records should be kept private. On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued an executive order (E.O. 13489), rescinding E.O. 13233, changing substantially the presidential record preservation policies promulgated by the George W. Bush Administration. E.O. 13489 grants the incumbent President and the relevant former Presidents 30 days to review records prior to their being released to the public.
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This report will analyze President Barack Obama’s E.O. 13489, and discuss its departure from the policies of the previous administration. Additionally, this report will examine H.R. 35 and its possible legislative effects on the presidential records policies of the Obama Administration.
+ The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act
Lawmakers incorporated the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1), the economic stimulus bill that the President signed into law on February 17, 2009 (P.L. 111-5). The HITECH Act is intended to promote the widespread adoption of health information technology (HIT) to support the electronic sharing of clinical data among hospitals, physicians, and other health care stakeholders.
+ Net Neutrality: The Federal Communications Commission’s Authority to Enforce its Network Management Principles
In 2007, through various experiments by the media, most notably the Associated Press, it became clear that Comcast was intermittently blocking the use of an application called BitTorrent™ and, possibly, other peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs on its network. Comcast eventually admitted to the practice and agreed to cease blocking the use of the P2P applications on its network. However, Comcast maintains that its actions were reasonable network management and not in violation of the Federal Communications Commission’s (”FCC” or “Commission”) policy.
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If the court finds that the FCC does not have the authority to adjudicate based on its Internet Policy Statement, Congress may face the question whether to act to give the FCC such authority in order to prevent anticompetitive conduct by broadband access providers. If the court finds that the FCC acted properly, the agency may continue to enforce these broad principles on a case-by-case basis.
+ The Evolving Broadband Infrastructure: Expansion, Applications, and Regulation
Over the past decade, the telecommunications sector has undergone a vast transformation fueled by rapid technological growth and subsequent evolution of the marketplace. Much of the U.S. policy debate over the evolving telecommunications infrastructure is framed within the context of a “national broadband policy.” The way a national broadband policy is defined, and the particular elements that might constitute that policy, determine how and whether various stakeholders might support or oppose a national broadband initiative. The issue for policymakers is how to craft a comprehensive broadband strategy that not only addresses broadband availability and adoption problems, but also addresses the long term implications of next-generation networks on consumer use of the Internet and the implications for a regulatory framework that must keep pace with evolving telecommunications technology.
Consumers have been integrating communications technologies into their lives at unprecedented rates. Trends include increased use of smartphones, increased subscribership on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, increased expectations of cross-platform accessibility, and development of “cloud computing” applications. Each of these trends taken alone likely would have had a significant impact on consumer behavior, but taken together they create a heretofore unseen demand for real-time access to information and an ability to share that information from wherever the consumer happens to be. Policy choices related to consumer use of the Internet, such as user authentication, privacy, digital rights management, filtering of unwanted information, wireless Internet standards, instant messaging, the deployment of IPv6 (”Internet protocol version 6″), and how to link the telephone network to the Internet will all have a profound impact on how broadband and next generation networks evolve. The challenge facing today’s policymakers is to develop a regulatory environment that not only addresses these more recent trends, but that also contains the flexibility to accommodate future and possibly unanticipated changes in technology, applications, and consumer demands.
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Additionally, as broadband becomes an integral component of society, regulators have been called upon to consider how these trends may affect social goals that may or may not have been associated with traditional telephony. Social objectives such as the advancement of universal service goals, timely and accurate emergency services, disability access, and consumer protection that are part of traditional telephony regulatory policies are migrating to the broadband policy environment.
+ The Google Library Project: Is Digitization for Purposes of Online Indexing Fair Use Under Copyright Law?
The Google Book Search Library Project, announced in December 2004, raised important questions about infringing reproduction and fair use under copyright law. Google planned to digitize, index, and display “snippets” of print books in the collections of five major libraries without the permission of the books’ copyright holders, if any. Authors and publishers owning copyrights to these books sued Google in September and October 2005, seeking to enjoin and recover damages for Google’s alleged infringement of their exclusive rights to reproduce and publicly display their works. Google and proponents of its Library Project disputed these allegations. They essentially contended that Google’s proposed uses were not infringing because Google allowed rights holders to “opt out” of having their books digitized or indexed. They also argued that, even if Google’s proposed uses were infringing, they constituted fair uses under copyright law.
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On October 28, 2008, Google, authors, and publishers announced a proposed settlement, which, if approved by the court, could leave these and related questions unanswered. However, although a court granted preliminary approval to the settlement on November 17, 2008, final approval is still pending. Until final approval is granted, any rights holder belonging to the proposed settlement class—which includes “all persons having copyright interests in books” in the United States— could object to the agreement. The court could also reject the agreement as unfair, unreasonable, or inadequate. Moreover, even assuming final court approval, future cases may raise similar questions about infringing reproduction and fair use.
+ Federal Statutes: What They Are and Where to Find Them
This report provides a brief overview of federal statutes and where to find them, both in print and on the Internet.
+ Infrastructure Programs: What’s Different About Broadband?
Broadband network deployment projects represent large scale, long term investments that affect the overall productivity of economic activity in the geographic areas in which they are built, and thus fit the conventional definition of infrastructure. But they also have several characteristics that distinguish them from traditional infrastructure projects. These unique characteristics may dictate that government programs in support of broadband deployment be structured differently than conventional infrastructure programs.
+ Postage Subsidies for Periodicals: History and Recent Developments
Recently, financial challenges have compelled a number of publishers of periodicals (e.g., magazines and newspapers) to downsize their operations and to cease printing certain publications. To cite just two examples — Time Inc. has said it will cut 600 jobs, and the century-old Christian Science Monitor newspaper, which is delivered via U.S. mail five days per week, is to cease publishing in paper format in April 2009. In light of these high profile incidents, and because of a possible U.S. Postal Service postage increase in 2009, the 111th Congress may be asked to help periodical publishers by providing them with increased postage subsidies.
+ Information Security and Data Breach Notification Safeguards
The following report describes information security and data breach notification requirements included in the Privacy Act, the Federal Information Security Management Act, Office of Management and Budget Guidance, the Veterans Affairs Information Security Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Also included in this report is a brief summary of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), an industry regulation developed by VISA, MasterCard, and other bank card distributors.
+ Privacy Law and Online Advertising: Legal Analysis of Data Gathering By Online Advertisers Such As Double Click and NebuAd
To produce revenue, websites have placed advertisements on their sites. Advertisers will pay a premium for greater assurance that the advertisement they are purchasing will be seen by users that are most likely to be interested in the product or service offered. As a result, technology has been developed which enables online advertisements to be targeted directly at individual users based on their web surfing activity. This practice is widely known as “behavioral” or “e-havioral” advertising. This individual behavioral targeting has raised a number of privacy concerns.
