On June 11, the five major library associations – AALL, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association and Special Libraries Association – submitted a statement for the record in support of Davita Vance-Cooks for Public Printer of the United States. The letter cites her extensive knowledge of the Government Printing Office (GPO) and her exceptional management skills, which we believe will allow her to effectively lead the agency in the digital age.

The letter states:

Since becoming Acting Public Printer in January 2012, she has led a rebranding of GPO as the “official, digital, secure resource for producing, procuring, cataloging, indexing, authenticating, disseminating, and preserving the official information products of the Federal Government.

In her role as Acting Public Printer, Ms. Vance-Cooks has established a positive and productive relationship with the library community. In May 2012, representatives from our library organizations joined Ms. Vance-Cooks to discuss our priorities and challenges. We appreciated the opportunity to share our concerns and ideas with her.

On June 12, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration held a nomination hearing for Vance-Cooks. The hearing was chaired by Senator Angus King (I-Maine) and attended by Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-Kans.) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised Vance-Cooks in a written statement, calling her “uniquely qualified” to lead the agency and urging his colleagues to move quickly to confirm her as the 27th Public Printer. Many other members of Congress have issued statements in support of her nomination, including the Democratic members of the Committee on House Administration who tweeted their support. If confirmed, Vance-Cooks would be the first woman and the first African-American to serve as Public Printer.

A group of 13 senators has called for an independent investigation by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) into the National Security Agency (NSA)’s domestic spying programs. NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that the NSA would cooperate with an investigation and said  the agency met with PCLOB earlier in the week.

In a letter sent to PCLOB yesterday, Senators Tom Udall (D-NM), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and 11 colleagues requested the board examine whether the NSA data and phone record collection programs are legal as authorized by Congress and whether they adequately protect the privacy of Americans. The senators further asked that the investigation’s results be produced in an unclassified report for public release.

Established as an entity of the White House in 2004 by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (P.L. 108-458) at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and reconstituted as an independent agency by Congress in 2007, PCLOB was a long-dormant agency created to advise the Executive Branch on privacy and civil liberty issues impacted by U.S. counter-terrorism programs. With the August 2012 confirmation of four members of the Board and recent renewed focus on government oversight in surveillance program, it appears PCLOB will finally have the opportunity to begin its important work.

AALL has long supported PCLOB, most recently calling for the Board’s “focus on a variety of issues related to national security policies and programs…including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), cybersecurity, state secrets privilege, National Security Letters (NSLs), and the PATRIOT Act” in a November 2012 Blawg post.

A bipartisan group of eight senators has introduced legislation to require the Attorney General to declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions governing controversial government surveillance programs. In light of the recent revelation of the National Security Agency’s secret data collection programs, the bill aims for greater transparency of the legal authority claimed for surveillance under the USA PATRIOT Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is a special U.S. federal court charged with overseeing requests by federal law enforcement agencies for surveillance warrants within the United States. FISC is a “secret court” and its rulings and orders are highly classified. The proposed legislation would unseal some classified opinions by the court that authorized requests for surveillance. If a FISC opinion cannot be declassified without undermining national security interests, the Attorney General can instead release a declassified summary of the opinion or provide a report to Congress describing the surveillance that would be implemented.

Sponsors of the bill include several key privacy advocates, including Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Senators Merkley and Lee introduced the same bill as an amendment to FISA’s five-year extension in December 2012, but were defeated 37-54. Had it passed, the amendment would have covered the declassification of rulings related to the provisions used to authorize the controversial Verizon telephone records collection and PRISM program.

AALL has long called for stronger oversight and transparency of government surveillance programs that monitor public communications, having opposed the extension of the FISA Amendments Act and changes to FISA under the USA PATRIOT Act, which permitted government surveillance in criminal investigations without a showing of probable cause.

As reported by The Nation and Albany Tribune, AALL strongly supports this important bill, which has also been endorsed the New York Times and numerous open government groups, including OpenTheGovernment.org, of which AALL is a founding member.

Earlier this week, news broke that the National Security Agency is collecting the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers under a dragnet, top secret court order which provides location information, time, date, duration, and telephone numbers for all customer calls within the U.S. and between U.S. callers and foreign phone numbers. It appears the Section 215 order to obtain phone records is a regular renewal of a program that has occurred in secret every three months for the past seven years. Then, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine U.S.  Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets. The program, code-named PRISM, had not been made public until now. Even the targeted Internet companies say they weren’t aware of the program, which was confirmed by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

The level of secrecy surrounding these surveillance programs is astounding, and as the ACLU states, it has “stymied our system of checks and balances.” AALL urges Congress to immediately conduct an investigation into the Executive Branch’s surveillance authority and enact reforms that protect Americans’ right to privacy and ensure effective oversight of our government.

AALL believes the protection of personal privacy is a core value of our society and has long called for greater oversight of surveillance programs. As our Government Relations Policy states, “AALL supports a comprehensive national and state framework for privacy protection to safeguard the rights of all Americans. We oppose any current or future legislation, regulation, or guideline that erodes the privacy and confidentiality of library users or that has the effect of suppressing the free and open exchange of ideas and information.” The government has a responsibility to protect the privacy of library users, including the confidentiality of library circulation and research records.  Changes to existing laws to protect electronic communications and effective oversight of laws that expand surveillance of library users are crucial to citizens’ privacy.

The PRISM program appears to be based on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISA), which authorizes surveillance of communications if one party is believed to be outside the US. During FISA debate last year, Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) last raised concerns about the possibility of a loophole in section 702 that “could be used to circumvent traditional warrant protections and search for the communications of a potentially large number of American citizens.” FISA does not require the government to identify targets of their surveillance.  AALL joined a number of groups to oppose the reauthorization of FISA last fall and urged members to contact their members of Congress opposition.

Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been used to justify the surveillance of Verizon phone records.  Section 215 expanded the government’s power to collect information about innocent Americans by requiring the production of “any tangible thing” (including books, records, papers and documents) it claims to be relevant to authorized foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. For more than a decade, AALL has urged Congress to reform the PATRIOT Act to balance the government’s interest in protecting national security with defending the constitutional rights of the American people. When the Act last came up for renewal, we joined other library associations in supporting language that would tighten Section 215 to require the government to show relevance to an authorized investigation and a link to a foreign group or power in order to obtain library circulation records or patron lists.

The news of this week makes clear that these reforms and greater oversight of surveillance programs are imperative to the health of our democracy.  We call on Congress to act now to safeguard the rights and civil liberties of all Americans, while fulfilling the obligation to protect our citizens and national security.

IN THIS ISSUE
Vol. 2013, Issue 06

A LOOK AHEAD

• Law Libraries and the FDLP: Excerpts from an Interview with Sally Holterhoff

ACT NOW

• Legislative Advocacy Training Update: Register Now!
• Tell Congress to Support ECPA Reform

AALL IN THE STATES

• UELMA Enacted in Eight States, Implementation Set to Begin
• Chapter Government Relations Get-Together July 14

ROUNDUP AND REVIEW

• Committee on House Administration rejected NAPA Recommendation to Charge for FDSys
• Senate Confirmed PCLOB Chair
• New White House Open Data Plan
• AALL and LLAGNY Statements on Closure of New York’s Inmate Law Libraries
• Weekly Advocacy Tips
  

What is the history and purpose of AALL’s FDLP Task Force? How did it come about?

Our task force was created in the Spring of 2012 by then-president Darcy Kirk, in response to shifting circumstances in the depository library community. At that time, concerns had been raised about the future direction of the FDLP. Also, the Government Printing Office had announced plans to begin a new process of gathering information about the changing needs of depository libraries. AALL clearly had a stake in these matters and in making sure that law librarians would be represented in the discussion and the outcomes. Forming a task force was also an indication of the Association’s long-standing and still-strong commitment to the FDLP.

At the Fall 2011 Federal Depository Library Conference, Superintendent of Documents Mary Alice Baish announced that GPO would be asking each state to respond to a forecast questionnaire that would solicit information about the depository library community in the state and what needed to be changed for the future. States would use the survey results to create state-focused action plans, which would all be brought together to form a national plan. As it happened, many of the librarians attending the conference commented that they would like to complete surveys for their own libraries.  In response, GPO expanded the original proposal to include individual library forecast questionnaires. So, in early 2012, the depository coordinator of each FDLP library was asked to complete a detailed survey, with a June 30 deadline.

With a national conversation on the FDLP’s future underway, it was clearly important to ensure that the issues and perspectives of law librarians would be represented in the process. Two hundred law libraries participate in the FDLP and many others rely on them for government information resources and expertise. It also seemed like a good time to reexamine and reemphasize the valuable participation of law libraries in the program now and through the years.  The Task Force was given a charge directing us to highlight the benefits of the program, to identify changes that would encourage continued participation by law libraries, and to facilitate a broader role for law librarians in discussions on the future of the FDLP.

How have law librarians been involved in the FDLP Forecast Study?

Our new Task Force received some visibility right away when I was asked to give the introduction for a webinar that AALL and GPO were sponsoring jointly: Law Librarians and the Federal Depository Library Program: Working Together for a Successful Future. The webinar included an in-depth look at GPO’s FDLP Forecast Study, presented by two GPO staff members, explaining its purpose, goals, and how law librarians could get involved. In my remarks, I emphasized the long history that law libraries and the FDLP have shared for over 100 years, including the 1972 law that added the highest appellate courts of the states to the program and the 1978 law that made academic law libraries eligible for depository status. In making these additions to the program, Congress acknowledged the natural fit between the service and research mission of law libraries and the goals of the depository program. Approximately 150 law school libraries and 50 state, court, county, and government law libraries are currently part of the FDLP.  As we know, the influence of the depository program extends far beyond those 200 libraries.  The legal profession depends on the federal government to provide official, authentic versions of the primary sources of law. The working partnership between law libraries and the FDLP serves the public by providing access to justice.

To encourage law librarians to respond to the Forecast questionnaire, I posted several messages on the e-group list of the Government Documents SIS and in June I wrote a guest post for the Washington Blawg. Because the questionnaire included a number of open-ended questions, it offered an opportunity for law librarians to mention such high priority concerns as digital authentication, online court opinions, permanent public access, and primary legal sources in print.  As it turned out, the rate of responses by law librarians to the survey was quite good overall. In the academic law library category, 71 percent submitted a completed questionnaire. For the highest state court library category, the response rate was 70 percent.  The lowest response percent was from the federal court library category, at 46 percent. Law librarians also worked together very effectively with colleagues in public, government and other academic libraries to create state action plans in a number of states. Just last month (May 2013) GPO began releasing data reports on the answers to some of the Forecast questions. The Task Force has started to analyze the responses from law librarians in the categories of academic, highest state court, & federal court, and to come to some logical conclusions based on the results. Since future releases are scheduled after our Task Force term is over, the analysis of the data will have to be continued by the GRO or some other AALL group.

What are some of the highlights of the last year and a half?

The Task Force decided it was important to “take the pulse” of law libraries involved in the FDLP. Doing phone interviews with AALL members was the method we chose to do that. In June 2012 the other Task Force members and I together spoke with about 40 AALL members who have a connection with or interest in the depository program. From these conversations we identified some common concerns of law librarians and came up with some specific suggestions for what law libraries need to stay in the program. Following our charge to provide feedback to GPO, we arranged to meet with Mary Alice Baish, Superintendent of Documents, during the 2012 AALL Annual Meeting in Boston, so we could discuss our findings with her.  Common concerns included preservation of government information in all formats and the digitization of legacy print collections. AALL members would like FDsys to have a more user-friendly interface and to include more federal court opinions. There is still strong support for the FDLP from law libraries of all types. The individuals we contacted say their libraries intend to stay in the program. Here are some representative quotes that sum up a general attitude of support:

• “The FDLP is the public face of the U.S. government for the public.”
• “GPO is the central agency for organizing government information and adding value to it by making it accessible.”
• “A real strength of the FDLP for law librarians is authentication of legal resources, so that they can be taken to court or used in a contract.”
• “Thanks to GPO, the U.S. is a model of digital authentication for the 50 states and for countries around the world.”

Making law library depositories more visible was another goal for us. Thanks to outreach to the AALL Public Relations Committee by Task Force member Camilla Tubbs, a new category of “Government Information Librarians or Libraries” was added this year to the AALL Day in the Life photo contest. There were a number of entries in that category and three winners were selected. We plan to use some of the photos for displays at the 2013 AALL Annual Meeting in Seattle.

Communication with the Government Printing Office was part of our charge. We decided that one important contact would be with the Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks. We worked with the AALL GRO to draft a letter which was signed jointly by AALL President Jean Wenger and by me (on behalf of the Task Force). In the letter, which was sent in early February, we offered GPO the praise and  support of AALL, as well as encouragement to do more of certain activities. We also suggested a possible in-person meeting between the Acting Public Printer and Jean (who was coming to D.C. in April for other reasons). We were pleased that the meeting did take place and that it resulted in an excellent discussion. We are hopeful that this is the first of more meetings of this sort in future years.

What does the Task Force have planned for this year’s Annual Meeting in Seattle?

=We want to focus the attention of Annual Meeting attendees on the important role of law libraries in the depository program. Thanks to Task Force member Kate Irwin-Smiler, we will be presenting a Poster Session, “Law Libraries and the FDLP: Still a Winning Partnership”. We will be spotlighting both policy and practice in the modern-day law library depository. We investigated law library collection development policies and found some good examples of language mentioning federal depository status and resources. These could serve as good models for others to use and our poster will feature them. We will also be proudly displaying some of the “Day in the Life” photos from the “Government Information” category, which show law librarians at work providing access to government information resources in a depository setting.

With only four members of the Task Force (and one of us not able to be in Seattle), we all should be very busy taking part in various other activities in addition to the Poster Session. We plan to be represented at the CONELL Marketplace, at the Legislative Advocacy workshop, in the Activities Area of the Exhibit Hall (sharing table with GD-SIS), at the Coffeehouse Chat with the Superintendent of Documents, and at the GD-SIS business meeting and breakfast. We hope to spread the word on what we have learned and accomplished as a Task Force and to recruit others to carry on some of our ongoing projects.

The Task Force will soon be wrapping up its work. Will you have recommendations for the future? 

We are working on a final report from our Task Force to the AALL Executive Board for its July meeting. In our recommendations we are trying to make sure that FDLP issues will continue to be addressed by other appropriate entities within AALL.  We are recommending that the work of the Task Force be continued in some form by a new committee or working group of the AALL Government Documents Special Interest Section. There is still plenty to do and lots of chances for others to become involved!

We are completing work on some new resources that will be linked to from the FDLP page in the Advocacy section of AALLNET. One is a listing of all law library depositories, with name and contact information for the depository coordinator in the library.  Another is a list we’ve compiled of Selected Resources Concerning Law Libraries and Librarians as Participants in the Federal Depository Library Program, including articles, webinars, Annual Meeting programs, presentations at Depository Library Council Meetings & Federal Depository Library Conferences, and AALL Testimony on the FDLP (starting with the 104th Congress, 1995-96). Another is A Brief History of the Relationship of Law Libraries and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) with the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Finally, we have created a list of all the law librarians who have served on the Federal Depository Library Council to the Public Printer through the years, since its beginning in 1972. All these resources seem to us to reinforce the strong ties that law libraries have had with the FDLP through the years and to emphasize the need to work together to develop a program that works well for the 21th Century. Watch for these resources to be posted soon!

The five major library associations – AALL, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association and Special Libraries Association — joined  together this week to thank the Committee on House Administration for opposing the suggestion in the National Academy of Public  Administration’s (NAPA) report, “Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age,” that GPO charge public user fees for FDsys. As we stated in February, charging for FDsys would violate AALL policy that digital government information disseminated via government websites must be available at no cost.

On May 21, the  Committee on House Administration sent a letter to Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks in support of GPO’s role in providing no-fee access to government information and rejecting the NAPA suggestion to charge end users for FDsys content. CHA’s statement is in line with the letter that the Acting Public Printer sent to Bernadine Abbott Hoduski and CASSANDRA in March saying that GPO would not charge the public for access to FDsys content. CHA’s letter was first announced during the Committee’s Legislative Data & Transparency Conference last week.

Following up on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s April announcement to undertake a comprehensive review of copyright law, the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Subcommittee held its first hearing yesterday. Titled “A Case Study for Consensus Building: The Copyright Principles Project,” the hearing featured five witnesses who had participated in the three-year Copyright Principles Project (CPP):

• Jon Baumgarten, retired Proskauer Rose attorney, former General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office, and noted litigator on copyright matters, including music and movie issues
• Laura Gasaway, Professor, University of North Carolina Law School, co-chair of the Section 108 Study Group, and AALL past president
• Daniel Gervais, Director, Vanderbilt Law School Intellectual Property Program, with a focus on international issues
• Pam Samuelson, Professor, University of California at Berkeley Law School, and convener of the CPP
• Jule Sigall, Assistant General Counsel for Copyright, Microsoft and former Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs of the U.S. Copyright Office

The CPP concluded its work in 2010 with a 68-page report of recommendations for copyright reform. Though certainly not without disagreement, Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) touted the CPP’s work as a starting place for the conversation on copyright. He also made clear that the committee is “not in a rush” to focus on specifics in copyright reform without first fully understanding the fundamentals of copyright.

In his opening statement, Rep. Goodlatte stated that he is particularly interested in the following questions:

• How do we measure the success of copyright and what metrics are used?
• How do we ensure that everyone’s voice is heard?
• How is copyright working for individual artists?
• How is copyright working for our nation’s economy?

You can find the written testimonies of the witnesses available online. AALL past president Lolly Gasaway used her time to make a compelling case for libraries, museums, and archives, focusing on three areas for reform: 1) Total revision of the Copyright Act to make it flexible and technology neutral; 2) Repeal Sec. 108 and rely on Sec. 107; and 3) Enact and update the Sec. 108 Study Group recommendations, particularly focused on orphan works and mass digitization.

During the course of questioning, Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble (R-NC) asked all witnesses to identify their top priorities for copyright reform. Notably, all five witnesses named orphan works as a priority issue. Other priorities included Section 108, statutory damages, licensing structure, and reformalization. Surprisingly, at no point during the course of the hearing was the topic of shortening copyright terms discussed. In response to a question by Rep. Suzan Delbene (D-WA) on the changes in copyright since the 2010 report, the panel noted the role of the courts on fair use and public dissemination, particularly in the Second Circuit. Witness Jule Sigall, Assistant General Counsel for Copyright Microsoft Corporation, noted the decision in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley as an “unpredictable” change in the copyright discourse since the 2010 CPP report. Others noted the proliferation of mass digitization projects as a predictable but important change

Other interesting discussion focused on barriers in copyright for students and faculty. Gasaway noted that while law schools’ licenses with Thomson Reuters and Lexis enable access to law texts, multimedia resources are not always available to students, nor do smaller institutions or public libraries have licenses.

At various points, members of the committee expressed disappointment at the exclusion of “creators” from the CPP, though Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble (R-NC) noted that the committee will receive testimony from creators in hearings in the months ahead.

The Chairman did not specify a timeline for future hearings but it seems it will be an exciting few months ahead. Stay tuned to this space and AALL’s Copyright Committee blog for updates.

In a new executive order and policy directive issued last week, the Obama Administration took steps to increase public access to government information by requiring federal agencies to make data publicly available in machine-readable formats, while appropriately safeguarding privacy, confidentiality, and security. The new policy gives agencies six months to create inventories of all the government-produced datasets they collect and maintain; a list of datasets that are publicly accessible; and an online system to collect feedback from the public as to how they would like to use the data. In turn, previously inaccessible federal data will be “more open and accessible to innovators and the public, to fuel entrepreneurship and economic growth while increasing government transparency and efficiency,” the White House said in its press release.  The new policy builds on the earlier White House Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

In the video below, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel explain the importance of the new open data policy in promoting transparency, innovation, and economic growth:

In addition to the release of the open data policy, the White House announced several “complementary actions” in its plan, including new services for developers with Project Open Data and updates to Data.gov. The Library of Congress’s digital preservation blog has a great roundup of the new policy’s guidance about active management of datasets and resources on dataset preservation.

The Senate has voted to confirm David Medine as Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), one year after he was favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee and nine months after the Senate moved to confirm four other nominees to the Board. In a statement earlier today, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) lamented the delay in taking up Medine’s nomination, but noted that after a year of obstruction the PCLOB “will finally be able to begin to carry out its important work on behalf of the American people.”

Created in 2004 by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act(P.L. 108-458) at the recommendation of  the 9/11 Commission, the PCLOB is charged with reviewing privacy and civil liberties issues impacted by the government‘s national security policies and programs. But hampered by politicking, the board made little progress in the first several years of its existence. AALL has repeatedly expressed concern that without nominated and confirmed members, the PCLOB could not perform its critical mission to ensure post-9/11 intelligence collection efforts  do not improperly infringe on Americans’ rights. Although the Senate had confirmed the other four members of board last summer, the chair is the board’s only full-time member and only member with the authority to hire a staff.

AALL applauds the confirmation of David Medine today as a considerable step forward. We have recently joined several civil liberties organizations to urge the PCLOB’s focus on a variety of issues related to national security policies and programs, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), classification policy, cybersecurity, state secrets privilege, National Security Letters (NSLs), and the PATRIOT Act.  The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which recently passed the House, would assign additional oversight responsibilities to the Board regarding the government’s use of data collected from private companies. It is our hope that with the confirmation of Chairman Medine, the Board will finally be able to begin to make progress on its crucial mission.