Daily Archives: June 12, 2008

Harvard Law Library Director in the News

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John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet & Society and new library director at HLS, was featured in a terrific story in USA Today on Wednesday, “Pioneers steer the course of cyberspace.”  The article references John’s forthcoming book, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives

The digital generation gap

Berkman Executive Director John Palfrey posits the digital revolution’s most enduring change is neither the new business models nor Google’s search algorithms: It’s the massive generation gap between those who were “born digital” and those who were not.

Palfrey’s forthcoming book, Born Digital, is an offspring of the center’s extensive work on “digital natives,” children who were born into and raised in the digital world.

“We’re talking about the future behavior of human beings on the Internet,” says Palfrey, who is head of the Harvard Law School Library. “Digital natives use technology to either be more productive or distracted. The challenge is making the most of (their skills).”

South American Union of Nations

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On May 23, 2008, 12 South American countries signed a treaty creating the South American Union of Nations. Although no formal institutions are functioning at this time, the treaty does envision a Secretariat in Quito, Ecuador (article 10)  and a Parliament in Cochabamba, Bolivia (article 17). It will be interesting to see what documents are produced by this new transnational body and how it affects Mercosur and the Andean Community. The nations involved are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uriguay and Venezuela. The South American Union of Nations Constitutive Treaty is available in English, Spanish, Portuguee and Dutch from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Realtions: http://www.mre.gov.br/portugues/imprensa/nota_detalhe3.asp?ID_RELEASE=5466

 

 

Improving Public Access to Documents Act – Hearing

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Statement Of Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org

Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, Committee on Homeland Security

H.R. 6193, The “Improving Public Access to Documents Act,”
Hearing: Wednesday, June 11, 2008

[excerpt from the prepared testimony]

“We have experienced a trend in our country away from trust in the public to a “need-to know”
mind set. A few, primarily federal, departments and entities have either, in a few
cases, been designated or have arrogated to themselves the power to say who has a need-to-
know and only governments and a few private sector entities have been deemed
worthy. The public and the press have been almost entirely excluded. At one point, the
Department of Homeland Security even attempted to make Congressional staff sign nondisclosure agreements in order to prove they could be trusted into the inner circle of those
legitimate few.

Again, there is absolutely some finite amount of information that, for a certain amount of
time, needs to be shared only in a limited fashion. The problem for the public is that we
have “translucence, not transparency, i.e., transparency within the network, but opacity to
those outside.”*  The “need-to-share”" cannot be limited to agencies within governments
and defense and homeland security contractors; it also must include, to the greatest extent
possible, sharing relevant information with the public. The White House Memorandum
and this legislation both recognize this by requiring “portion marking,” so that
information in a document that is eligible for disclosure can be made public.”

*Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, “Translucence Not Transparency: Reviewing Alasdair Roberts, Blacked Out: Government Secrecy In The Information Age.” I/S: A Journal Of Law And Policy For The Information Society, Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2006).