The recent version of the EFFector Online had some information about the House of Representative's Bill HR830. They say that this bill is being rammed through Congress and would cripple FOIA. It would seemingly change any public information that is given value to non-public information. Does anyone have any further information?
Mike
In response to your post I am passing on some info that came my way on Tuesday, please excuse the length. Apart from the message below there is a letter written by James Love of TAP to Honorable William Clinger, Jr. the Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, but due to it's length I have not included it here. I can E-mail it to anyone who is interested. Julian Burke ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 02:45:55 -0800 Send reply to: love@Essential.ORG From: James Love <love@Essential.ORG> To: Multiple recipients of list <law-lib@ucdavis.edu> Subject: Help! West Publishing seeks broad change in FOIA (fwd) Originally to: law librarians <law-lib@ucdavis.edu>, Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List (subscription requests to listproc@tap.org) TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - Juris, Legal Information February 7, 1995 We need help from everyone!!!!!!!! Please distribute this widely. jamie love (love@tap.org, 610/658-0880 or 202/387- 8030) - Hearings set for today (Tuesday February 7) on bill containing special interest provision for West Publishing. Hearings will be held before the subcommittee on "Regulatory Affairs." - House republicans have slated quick action on the bill. Subcommittee Mark-up is set for thursday and full committee mark-up is set for friday. (Telephone and Fax numbers of committee members given below) - House republicans introduce legislation with a section requested by West Publishing that will provide sweeping changes in federal freedom of information act, and prevent federal agencies from creating a public database that use the West Publishing page numbers to reference case law. - The "West Provision" would also end its lawsuit with Tax Analyst, a Virginia publisher, who is seeking access to the Department of Justice JURIS database of court decisions in order to put the information into the public domain. Tax Analysts alleges the JURIS database of court decisions are subject to FOIA and not protected by copyright. A victory by Tax Analysts in this case will lead to a public domain database of federal court decisions. - The West Provision in the legislation would extend far beyond West Publishing's struggle to maintain its grip on the market for legal information. It would exclude all contractor generated records from the federal Freedom of Information Act. Examples of databases that would be affected by provision would be the SEC's EDGAR database and the Department of Education ERIC database. - Help needed in removing this special interest provision. Telephone and fax numbers for the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs are given below.
From best we can determine, the so called "Paperwork Reduction Act" bill was introduced late yesterday or will be introduced early today. We do not have a bill number yet. There will be a hearing on today (Tuesday February 7) before the "Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs," more commonly referred to as the subcommittee on "Regulatory Affairs." Subcommittee Mark-up is set for thursday and full committee (the apparently misnamed Committee on Government Reform and Oversight) mark-up is set for friday.
A provision in this bill [Section 3518 (f) of the "Chairman's Mark"] would do the following. If any person "adds value" to public information, the federal government would not have "any right to obtain, collect, acquire, disseminate, use or convert," the data, database or information product, or "any method used by the person to identify such resulting data, databases or information product," except "under terms that are expressly agreed to by such person." This provision is being sold as a simple restatement of the law, but that is a far from true (or more bluntly, a lie). The provision in the bill is so broad that it covers all contractor performed work on behalf of agencies, and effectively exempts contractor generated records from the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). For example, since LEXIS "adds value" to the EDGAR database by taking the incomming filings from the government and putting them in a database, even if the government had a copy of the database, it could not dissmeinate the records without the consent of LEXIS. Likewise, many databases, such as the Department of Education ERIC database, are largely put together by private contactors. Indeed, if Oliver North had used a private contractor for the White House email system, those records would appear to be off limits to both FOIA and a government supeana. Moreover, the provison would apply even in cases where the firm did not have a copyright or any other protectable intellectually property right, a huge change in federal law. The provision would specifically apply to an active federal lawsuit between West Publishing and Tax Analysts, over the Department of Justice JURIS database. West Publishing was a contractor on JURIS, an online system run by the Department of Justice, which contains several decades of federal court decisions. West Publishing is trying to prevent Tax Analysts from obtaining copies of court decisions contained in the government's JURIS database. Tax Analyst believes the records are subject to FOIA, and not protected by copyright. If Tax Analysts (fmi, Tom Field, 703/533-4400 or Eleanor Lewis 301/652- 3453) wins the law suit, which has been very expensive, it plans to put the data into the public domain, creating a public database of federal court decisions -- something that West Publishing is fighting against. Moreover, the West assertion of its copyright of legal citations is being challenged in federal court in New York by Hyperlaw, a small CD-ROM publisher (fmi, Alan Sugarman, President, 212/877-1371, sugarman@panix.com). If Sugarman wins his case, the West provision would prevent the Department of Justice from using the West citations in a public database. --------------------------------------------------------------------- TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP). TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data, government funded R&D, spectrum allocation and other government assets. TAP-INFO reports on TAP activities relating to federal information policy. tap-info is archived at essential.org and cpsr.org. Subscription requests to tap-info to listproc@tap.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name --------------------------------------------------------------------- Taxpayer Assets Project; P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176; internet: tap@tap.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------