Note: My thanks to PC Magazine for naming ExLibris one of the top five sites for Info Junkies, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,912123,00.asp.
TRACKING OUR GOVERNMENT
by Marylaine Block
It's 3 p.m. Do you know what America's government is doing? Has already done today? Finding out is a challenge even at the best of times, because the major American news media don't spend much time covering the daily doings of Congress, let alone the routine activities of, say, the Department of Agriculture or the Office of Management and Budget. Now that the news media have gone to an all-war-all-the-time format, it's even harder to find even a mention of what our government has done today.
Call me cynical, but I'm worried that some politicians might regard this as an excellent opportunity to pass more stupid laws or disastrous incursions on our liberties or giveaways to campaign donors without the news media noticing. So, herewith, a selection of resources for keeping track of what they're up to.
Fortunately, the Washington Post is the newspaper of a company town, the company being the federal government. This means that it regularly covers the Federal Beat. Start with the Federal Page, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/fedpage/, where the bigger news stories from various branches of government are posted. Then follow the navigation bar to click on Congress or Today in Congress, the Administration, the Supreme Court, Elections, and the Issues. You can also view polls, columns and editorial cartoons. Click on "Live Online," and you'll get Free Media, "the weekday political talk show on washingtonpost.com, where Post reporters and editors and the people they cover put the news of the day in perspective."
The Hill, http://www.hillnews.com/, is "the newspaper for and about the US Congress." In addition to daily news about action in the House and Senate, its regular features include Campaign 2004, Business & Lobbying, Editorials, Op-Eds, and Columns. It also includes a political calendar (which provides proof positive that no important business in Congress is scheduled for Mondays or Fridays). Its Government Guide not only helps you locate your elected officials and declared candidates for elections, but an Alert Spotlight (action alerts from a variety of organizations on a variety of issues), the opportunity to read Americans' letters to their leaders, and congressional roll call votes on selected legislation. This service is also available by way of PDAs. (Note that while Roll Call, http://www.rollcall.com/, also calls itself "the newspaper of Capitol Hill," much less of its content is available for free.)
Federal News Radio, at http://www.federalnewsradio.com/, is a site where you can read about and listen live to Government News (from all branches), the Outlook on Capitol Hill, the Federal Case File, Ask the CIO, the Pentagon Report, and FedTalk -- "Tune into FederalNewsRadio.com every Friday at eleven for an hour long look into issues facing federal workers." Be sure to click on Federal Resources, where in addition to standard links to government agencies you also get summaries and status information on current legislation, roll call votes, and "Capitol Hill Basics," which offers "tips about communicating with Members and general information about Hill staffers, the legislative process and more."
FedNet, http://www.fednet.net/, is "a privately held news service (not supported by any industry or organization) with a clear mission to improve the access to the United States government and its proceedings." It offers broadcast coverage of floor debates and some committee meetings of the United States Congress. It's a prime resource for C-SPAN junkies deprived of their TVs.
Government Computer News (GCN), http://www.gcn.com/, is largely targeted at federal employees, but because of its technology focus, it's an excellent place to find out about federal and state legislators' newest ingenious proposals to control technologies they are clueless about. Along with daily news, it offers regular coverage of e-government, homeland security, knowledge management, new products and technology, the web, section 508, etc.
Declan McCullagh's technology and politics list (PoliTech, http://politechbot.com/) also covers the places where politics and technology intersect, often with unfortunate results. Recent news items include "Penn State warns students that P2P trading can be a federal felony ," "An analysis of Michigan and Colorado "mini-DMCA" bills," "Wired News on release of REVOLUTION OS, a non-scrambled DVD," and (here's a treat!) "Neil Gaiman on the risks of unintelligent email filtering."
OMBWatch, http://ombwatch.org/, should be a basic source for librarians because its focus is on access to government information: "OMB Watch was formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which oversees regulation, the budget, information collection and dissemination, proposed legislation, testimony by agencies, and much more. By then, it was quite apparent that OMB's actions were having an enormous impact on agency operations and the pursuit of social justice." Its regular areas of concern are the Federal Budget, Regulatory Matters, Nonprofit Issues, and the Right To Know. Among the topics addressed in the most recent issue of its biweekly e-zine, The Watcher, are "New Website Comparing State Openness Laws," "Audit finds mixed agency response to Ashcroft FOIA Memo," "Faith-Based Initiative Update," "Istook-Type Gag on Advocacy in House Disability Education Bill," and "Model State Bills for Data Quality and Access."
It's not surprising that Patrice McDermott, of the ALA Washington Office, recently interviewed in ExLibris, http://marylaine.com/exlibris/xlib171.html, formerly worked for OMBWatch; there's a substantial overlap of concerns between the two organizations. The ALA Washington Office web site, http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Our_Association/
Offices/ALA_Washington/Washington_Office.htm, includes news and issue briefs on key current legislation such as the Freedom To Read Protection Act, the Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act, GPO, LSTA appropriations, the Boucher-Doolittle Bill to amend the DMCA, etc., and on other issues of concern like copyright, UCITA, the e-Rate, filtering, privacy, and government information. You can read online current and archived issues of its newsletter, ALAWON.
Federal Times, http://federaltimes.com/index.php, is a subscription service, aimed at government employees, that offers a fair amount of news for free; so do its companion sites, Defense News, Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Times. It offers regular coverage of information technology, homeland security, management issues, postal news, and business.
Government Executive Magazine, http://www.govexec.com/, is targeted at government employees, not the general public, and yet it offers useful articles for anyone interested in e-Government, homeland security, defense, and procurement. It's a key source on the outsourcing of government functions (a hot issue since the current administration wants to open up most government work to outside contractors). Other features include a bill tracker and an entertaining show-by-show analysis of how the TV show, West Wing, misrepresents the way government actually works.
Stateline, http://www.stateline.org/, is an essential source for keeping up with not only legislation but the continuing budgets crises in the fifty states. You can search by your own state, which will get you a backgrounder on the state, key statistical and political data, state government news, and in many cases, the governor's state of the state address. You can also browse by issue to see what the various states are doing about anti-terrorism, crime, campaign finance, the economy, education, land use, etc.
And finally, if you want to know about recent government-sponsored research, GovSpot.com's Government Reports, http://govspot.com/news/reports/, offers a roundup of reports it considers meaningful or noteworthy, with annotations and links. You can also browse the archive of chosen linked reports by topic. GovSpot.com itself contains links to all kinds of information resources -- government documents, the federal government, state governments, political news, etc.
So if it's 5:00 and you have no idea what America's government has been up to today, you may have been watching too much TV news. Get thee to the Internet.
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COOL QUOTE:
The quality and self-respect of a people can be gauged -- not exclusively, but succinctly -- in their libraries. The open door of a library says we are ignorant without excuse. The boarded-up door says we are simply ignorant.
Carol Megathlin. "The quality of a community can be gauged by its libraries." Savannah Now, March 1, 2003 http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/030103/OPEDopedmegathlin.shtml
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Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2003.
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