Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Library of Congress Collecting Law Blogs

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

This email I received today appears from the headers to be a genuine message:

To Whom It May Concern:

The United States Library of Congress has selected your Web site for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blogs. The Library's traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and to the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including Web sites. We request your permission to collect your Web site and add it to the Library's research collections. We also ask that we be allowed to display the archived version(s) of your Web site.

The following URL has been selected:

www.discourse.net

With your permission, the Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your Web site at regular intervals over time. The Library will make this collection available to researchers onsite at Library facilities. The Library also wishes to make the collection available to offsite researchers by hosting the collection on the Library's public access Web site. The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving Internet materials and permitting researchers from across the world to access them. If you agree to permit the Library to collect your Web site, please click the following link to signify your consent. This link also includes a separate consent for permitting the Library to provide offsite access to your materials through the Library's Web site.

[very long url]

For several years, the Library of Congress has collected Web sites within certain themes or topics for which we were required to seek permission for each new collection developed by the Library, even if permission had been granted in the past. As our collections have grown, we have had to contact some Web site producers repeatedly. To reduce this duplication and to save site owners from having to respond to multiple requests for information, we are now requesting permissions for the Library to collect, over time and in varying frequency, sites of research interest. Your site has been identified as a Web site of interest related to Legal Blogs. If you grant this permission, we will capture your site for inclusion in our Legal Blogs Web Archive and may also include it in any future collections. If in the future you no longer wish to be included in the Library's Web archives, please contact us and we will cease collection of your URL.

Our Web archives related to government and law are important because they contribute to the historical record of national events, capturing information that could otherwise be lost. With the growing role of the Web as an influential medium, records of historic events could be considered incomplete without materials that were born digital and never printed on paper. For more information about our Web Archive collections please visit our Web site at (http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/).

If you have questions, comments or recommendations concerning the Legal Blogs Archive project,please e-mail the Library's Web Capture team at webcapture@loc.gov at your earliest convenience. For more information about other Web Archive collections please visit http://www.loc.gov/webcapture

Thank You,

Web Capture Team Library of Congress Washington, D.C. webcapture@loc.gov http://www.loc.gov/webcapture

———- LC Reference: Legal Blogs 90311 CD

What a great idea. I'm delighted to be a (tiny) part of it.

Posted in Discourse.net | 5 Comments

Rev. Yearwood Update

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Curiouser and curiouser.

Rev Lennox Yearwood, Jr., who had his leg broken by Capitol Police the last time he tried to get into a congressional hearing had most of the charges against him stemming from that incident dropped, but he still is having a hard time getting into hearings. No one has come forward to explain why.

We shall overcome… harassment and intimidation | Iraq Veterans Against the War

Yesterday I announced that the US Attorney dropped the charges against me of assaulting a police officer (http://www.citizensforethics.com *).

Today, Tuesday Oct 2nd, I was in line for the Blackwater hearing on Capitol Hill at 9:15 in the morning. When I got to the front of the line at 11:30, Capitol Police stopped the line. I stood there for two hours while the same officers who leapt on me three weeks ago outside of the Petraeus hearing, pointed and stared at me. I stood there, humming “we shall overcome.”

Congresswoman Maxine Waters showed up at 1:30 and saw me standing there. She demanded that I be let into the hearing. Cops were swarming the door, and the honorable Congresswoman from California escorted me into the hearing. Once I got in, three cops stood near me, so I would not forget that I was in their territory.

It is just incredible that as a peace activist, a former Chaplain candidate in the Air Force Reserve, and a Minister, I would be treated so disrespectfully in the halls of Congress.

But, this is part of the struggle, and like my brothers and sisters before me, I know that we shall overcome.

* Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who represents me in this case, have been incredible allies, and show true courage in their work to expose corruption and injustice in Washington.

As I understand it, there's still a charge of disturbing the peace outstanding from the earlier incident, but the man is presumed innocent isn't he?

Earlier related posts:

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on Rev. Yearwood Update

Slashdot Turns 10; Users To Throw Distributed Parties

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Slashdot Turns 10 But You Get The Presents. Well, sorta.

Mostly, Slashdot is asking users to throw their own parties, with users from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station – South Pole, AQ to University of Miami responding.

I hope they have beer.

Other notable venues:

Posted in Internet | 1 Comment

Didn’t We Used to Call This Bribery or a Slush Fund or Something?

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Money for nothing, but it surely makes for 'friendships'.

Air Force Arranged No-Work Contract: While waiting to be confirmed by the White House for a top civilian post at the Air Force last year, Charles D. Riechers was out of work and wanted a paycheck. So the Air Force helped arrange a job through an intelligence contractor that required him to do no work for the company, according to documents and interviews.

For two months, Riechers held the title of senior technical adviser and received about $13,400 a month at Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, a nonprofit firm in Johnstown, Pa., according to his resume. But during that time he actually worked for Sue C. Payton, assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, on projects that had nothing to do with CRI, he said.

Riechers said in an interview that his interactions with Commonwealth Research were limited largely to a Christmas party, where he said he met company officials for the first time.

“I really didn't do anything for CRI,” said Riechers, now principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. “I got a paycheck from them.”

And how did Congress confirm him? Did they know about this? If not, why not?

Plus, it seems like Commonwealth is a GOP piggy bank.

Concurrent's top three executives each earn an average of $462,000. The company reported lobbying expenditures of $302,000 for the year ending in June 2006, more than double what it spent on lobbying four years earlier.

Concurrent and its subsidiaries receive grants and contracts for an eclectic variety of other activities, including support of faith-based initiatives and specialized welding work. Last year, Commonwealth Research got a $45 million sole-source arrangement to provide reports to the National Security Agency, CIA and other intelligence agencies.

It's a charity, it pays folks big bucks, and it lobbies too. And it's rewarded for all this with money from the black (secret) budget, plus 'faith-based' money which we know is a cover for the GOP feeding its base.

Speaking of which, is there any chance that a Democratic administration will cut off this 'faith-based' funding or will the GOP machine still be at the federal trough?

Posted in National Security | 4 Comments

Meme Watch: “Stink Tanks”

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

I like this new phrase, “stink tanks” — organizations masquerading as think tanks but which don't pass the smell test.

Bruce Kushnick, Nieman Watchdog, Corporate-funded research designed to influence public policy, It is clear that we are in the age of “stink tanks,” in which corporate-funded think tanks and well-paid, credentialed academics are hired to make corporate arguments and give the appearance of being independent experts.

…

The think tanks often describe themselves as non-partisan, independent, free-market, free-enterprise, limited-government, or market-oriented. Their expert witnesses often bear credentials such as “professor of” or “former” FCC, FTC, state commissioner, Congressman, staffer.

Some have good reputations for serious studies on economic, political and foreign policy issues, albeit perhaps with an ideological slant. But good reputation or no reputation, when it comes to the telecoms and such issues as broadband, often these groups are nothing more than consulting firms that pursue the goals of the large corporations that are their clients and financial supporters.

Posted in Readings | 2 Comments

Icelandic Army of One Heads Home from Iraq

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

It seems that Iceland was one of the countries counted in the 'coalition of the willing' in Iraq — even though it had exactly one soldier on the ground, a press aide. And now, the coalition is down one member because he's going home.

Comedian Andy Cobb has done a video to commemorate this event:

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on Icelandic Army of One Heads Home from Iraq