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Free weekday coverage on current issues
June 21, 2007
Headlines - Oversight Committee Reports Cheney Exempts His Office from Requirements for Protecting Classified Info
- Study Examines Private Security Companies in Iraq
- Interview With Law Professor Who is Founder of Peer-to-Patent Project
- Bill to Provide for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and for Other Purposes
- EPA OIG Audit on Overcoming Obstacles to Measuring Compliance
- New GAO Reports and House Hearing on Misuse of Social Security Numbers
- Declassified CIA Documents Posted on Web by National Security Archive
- DOD OIG Audit - Use of Commercial Sealift
- Surveys Examine the Impact of the Growing Cell-Only Population
- EU: eGovernment in the European countries
 Oversight Committee Reports Cheney Exempts His Office from Requirements for Protecting Classified Info : "The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch." As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President's position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President's staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President's executive order." Documents and Links: Chairman Waxman's Letter to the Vice President Letter from National Archives to the Attorney General Second Letter from National Archives to the Vice President's Office First Letter from National Archives to the Vice President's Office Fact Sheet on the Vice President's Efforts to Avoid Oversight and Accountability Study Examines Private Security Companies in Iraq From the Project for Excellence in Journalism study overview: "Exactly how many Americans are serving in Iraq and what they are doing there might not seem like complicated questions. Stories in the media regularly talk about the 150,000 U.S. military personnel in the Iraq theater. Coverage of events inside Iraq, which includes the actions of U.S. troops there, was the third-biggest news story in the American media for the first quarter of 2007, according to PEJ research. But those numbers do not include some 30,000 employees of U.S. and European-based Private Security Companies (PSCs), who work in some of Iraq's most dangerous areas. These PSC employees are not like other contractors in Iraq. Many of them carry weapons and are hired to protect important people, facilities and convoys. They have been involved in firefights and scores of them, the exact number is unclear, have perished. Yet there are many basic unanswered questions about these armed forces, which add by 20% the number of foreign troops in the country." A Media Mystery - Private Security Companies in Iraq: A PEJ Study Bill to Provide for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and for Other Purposes Bill to Provide for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and for Other Purposes, S. 1639 - Currently being debated in the Senate. EPA OIG Audit on Overcoming Obstacles to Measuring Compliance 2007-P-00027 Overcoming Obstacles to Measuring Compliance: Practices in Selected Federal Agencies, [ Report PDF - 36 pages] [ At a Glance PDF] June 20, 2007. New GAO Reports and House Hearing on Misuse of Social Security Numbers Social Security Numbers: Federal Actions Could Further Decrease Availability in Public Records, though Other Vulnerabilities Remain, GAO-07-752, June 15, 2007: "Various public records in the United States, including some generated by the federal government, contain Social Security numbers (SSN) and other personal identifying information that could be used to commit fraud and identity theft. Public records are generally defined as government agency-held records made available to the public in their entirety for inspection, such as property records and court records. Although public records were traditionally accessed locally in county courthouses and government record centers, in recent years, some state and local public record keepers have begun to make these records available to the public through the Internet. While it is important for the public to have access to these records, concerns about the use of information in these records for criminal purposes have been raised." Social Security Numbers: Use is Widespread and Protection Could Be Improved, GAO-07-1023T, June 21, 2007: "Since its creation, the Social Security number (SSN) has evolved beyond its intended purpose to become the identifier of choice for public and private sector entities, and it is now used for myriad non-Social Security purposes. This is significant because a person's SSN, along with name and date of birth, are the key pieces of personal information used to perpetrate identity theft. Consequently, the potential for misuse of the SSN has raised questions about how private and public sector entities obtain, use, and protect SSNs. Accordingly, this testimony focuses on describing the (1) use of SSNs by government agencies, (2) use of SSNs by the private sector, and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting SSNs."
Related: "The Federal Trade Commission today told the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Social Security [link to Witness List and Testimony] that to prevent thieves from obtaining consumers' personal information, including Social Security numbers (SSNs), and using it to steal identities, government and businesses should collect only information that is necessary to meet clear legal or business needs, and protect the data they do collect. Other steps to reduce identity theft should include improved authentication techniques, which ensure that consumers are who they claim to be." In testimony (pdf) before the House Ways and Means Committee, EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg urged Congress to adopt legislation to address the misuse of the SSN and the growing problem of identity theft. Citing a recent report (pdf) from the Federal Trade Commission that finds that identity is the number one concern of American consumers, EPIC called for "strong and effective legislation that will limit the use of the SSN" and context-dependent identifiers "that will encourage the development of more robust systems for identification that safeguard privacy and security." Declassified CIA Documents Posted on Web by National Security Archive Press release: "The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency." Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the so-called CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers--hard-target analyses of Soviet and Chinese leadership internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations from 1953-1973, a collection of intelligence on Warsaw Pact military programs, and hundreds of pages on the A-12 spy plane." Surveys Examine the Impact of the Growing Cell-Only Population Follow up to May 14, 2007 posting, Nearly 16% of U.S. Homes Have No Landline Phone, see also these related studies: The Landline-less Are Different and Their Numbers Are Growing Fast, by Scott Keeter, Director, Survey Research, Pew Research Center, June 20, 2007 What's Missing from National RDD Surveys? The Impact of the Growing Cell-Only Population, by Scott Keeter (Pew Research Center), Courtney Kennedy (University of Michigan and Pew Research Center), April Clark (Pew Research Center), Trevor Tompson (The Associated Press), and Mike Mokrzycki (The Associated Press). EU: eGovernment in the European countries EU: eGovernment in the European countries, 19 June 2007: "As part of its mission to inform the European eGovernment community about key issues of common interest, the eGovernment Observatory maintains a series of Factsheets presenting the situation and progress of eGovernment in 32 European countries: EU-27, Croatia, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, providing for each one of them a wide and consistent range of information...As a general rule, factsheets are updated every 6 months with a new Edition."
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