Slashdot Mirror

This is what he did on his first day: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderPresidentialRecords/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrder-EthicsCommitments/ Not too shabby.

I feel exactly the same. I would urge every person here commenting to leave a similar message on whitehouse.gov 's comment page. http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Perhaps if they are flooded with opinions they will get the message that we care about due process and rule of law. I can appreciate wanting to tread carefully as many of the people involved in these activities are still in influence, but facts are facts and if it is determined by courts and due process indicts and convicts Bush, his cronies and/or his policies, then all actions should follow accordingly. If this [in]action was an act of self-preservation, then I am still disappointed in that he is simply not as courageous as he was purported to be.

There is nothing constitutional on the surface or otherwise about warrantless wiretapping and the extensively black-ops/secretive government run by Bush-Cheney and co. Obama scored points with me when various policy making was halted pending further examination and more when he took further measures against the revolving door. But this undoes that and more. It taints everything he has done and will do in the future with doubt and suspicion.

"Thirdly, Obama has already made it clear that this White House is going to be much more transparant. Finally"

And Bill Clinton Promised to be the 'most ethical administration in history', W promised to 'change the partisan tone', ..., ...

Its frightening that you take a politician *especially one from the Chicago political machine* at his word..

The difference was that Bush always did the exact opposite of what he said, but this Obama puts his presidential powers where his mouth is:

PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDA

January 21, 2009

        * Freedom of Information Act
        * Pay Freeze
        * Transparency and Open Government

The CNET article says that YouTube sets a cookie when you view a White House page with an embedded video. So the Inaugural Address page, which does not label the video as being from YouTube, would give you a YouTube cookie.

Incidentally, what happened to the Press Room pages? Where's the daily briefing? Where are the past press event pages? What a bunch of web maroons.

They do have the videos up on their site, go to the link posted in the summary, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/ and check the download link. It's a direct whitehouse.gov link.

The advantage they have in posting the streaming version to YouTube is that now the videos are seen by more than just the folk who follow whitehouse.gov. YouTube is the #1, no contenders, site for sharing videos. Myspace, Facebook, nothing else comes close to it's viewer base. Even the "don't upload, just watch" sites are below it in terms in traffic.

Allowing more people to hear your message = good as far as I'm concerned. If I ever have an issue, it'll be when I start seeing "Five for Five!" ads in the middle of his speeches.

Partisan stuff asside, dont forget that you can just slap on a "ROBOTS=NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX, NOCACHE" meta tag on any page you dont want indexed.

This actually begs the question--what kind of issues surround something like Google caching pages?

What are the ethical issues of having external links that are not tagged "no-follow"? If you don't "no-follow" the external links, a government website would be giving an external site "link juice" (i.e. pagerank) that could be seen as favoritism.

Issues like this are actually pretty interesting. Government websites are very much a legal gray area right now. They have to balance important things like "can't just change junk without a history of changes" against the very dynamic nature of the web. They have to balance "create a page that looks good, provides useful content, and is economically feasible" against "must be accessible by all, must have crazy records requirements, etc". I mean, are they required to translate most of the content to Spanish? What about Chinese or Vietnamese? What about mobile content? I dont see a link for that (could be a work in progress though).

(ps: damn does the Google Chrome spell check suck. how can it be their search engine is so good at spell checking but their browser sucks so hard?)

I found this very interesting:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt

The WhiteHouse.gov website's robots.txt file has been trimmed to:

User-agent: * Disallow: /includes/

Under previous administrations it was pages long. I suppose this may bode well for openness.

-CR

Well at least we know which directory has the incriminating evidence.

And of course "The One" can be trusted to keep official communications off his Blackberry. Yeah, sure. Imagine the kerfuffle were it revealed there were no recorded communications between Bush 43 and oh say Karl Rove on any known official e-mail system, the ACLU and the Dhimmicreeps would go berzerk.

Um, I don't really get the point of your post. The Bush administration had a pretty solid record of keeping things secret. They had a policy to hide information, use non-government email servers for government communications, and invoke "presidential privilege" at the drop of a hat. People that are interested in transparent government don't like that.

Obama has already enacted a policy of greater transparency and made it clear to his administration that he intends to operate more openly. Maybe he'll actually follow it. Maybe he won't. But things are looking up.

And "The One" and "Dhimmicreeps"? This foaming-at-the-mouth categorical hatred is just as stupid on the "right" as it is on the "left."

I found this very interesting:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt

The WhiteHouse.gov website's robots.txt file has been trimmed to:

          User-agent: *
          Disallow: /includes/

Under previous administrations it was pages long. I suppose this may bode well for openness.

-CR

Does this executive order seem a little contradictory to anyone else (boost the "executive privilege" stonewall)?

Admittedly, I may be misreading or misunderstanding it. My question is sincere.

If your wife was shooting you a text on your personal phone about waiting for you naked when you got home

Not applicable in this case. Obama works at his home now.

I don't think the linked article provides links directly to the memos, but propublica did, so here they are:

Memo on Transparency and Open Government

Memo on the Freedom of Information Act

And here's the Executive Order on Presidential Records, which makes clear that claims of secrecy by the former president and his subordinates will be evaluated, and accepted or rejected, by the current president.

...Macon Phillips, and don't slip it in the web site when you don't think anyone will notice. Hero? Are you kidding? Why don't we wait 4 years before we make that determination?

www.whitehouse.gov/assets/hero/624x351/hero_photo_624x351_econ.jpg

I'll reply to your flamebait. In no way was I saying that it is Obama's fault. I was clearly laying blame at parents who will not raise their kids and the government ends up raising them, which is not their job. I would invite you to go to www.whitehouse.gov so you are at least informed in what you are saying.

"Change has (already) come to America."

That was fast! I was skeptical at this change business, but now that it has happened, I have to admit I was wrong, and now I am a believer.

Does he know how to hunt? That's what I wanna know!

Apparently not. As he explicitly points out under the "Sportsman" section:

President Obama did not grow up hunting and fishing, but...

Well, at least he won't blast any colleagues in the face with bird-shot...

What's not yet official—doing away with the opening bracket on anchor tags. -sigh- source

Looks like they've already got a Technology Agenda posted. This is change I can stand behind. Believe in? When I see it in action. Don't let this make us any less vigilant in protecting our freedom to share information in an open and uninhibited manner.

Watch the White House site for the changeover at noon EST.

Good evening. This is an extraordinary period for America's *****. Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their ***** and their fu***. I understand their worry and their f******. We've seen triple-digit swings in the s***. Major f**** have teetered on the edge of ****, and some have f*****. As uncertainty has grown, many ba*****s have restricted ****. C*** markets have f*****. And families and businesses have found it harder to ******.

  We're in the midst of a serious f****** crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action. We've boosted confidence in mo***********, and acted to prevent major *******s from intentionally driving down s*** for their own personal ****.

[remainder redacted]

The uncensored version is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080924-10.html

There is no genetic rights. Businesses can exclude you from working for them due to it. Health insurance can disclaim all the "bad gene" illnesses, that is if they accept you at all. The government can pidgeonhole you in some god-awful plan in which you cannot escape.

Why don't you lie a bit more and spread some more FUD?

There is ALREADY LEGISLATION AGAINST THIS!!!

> ... there is no law against being a Dick

Obviously

NASA is being set up to fail, because of the prevailing pro-corporate attitude in the US. The idea is that private entities are efficient, responsible, and capable of long-term planning and technological development. So nobody wants to be accused of being 'socialist' by giving more money to a government agency.

The original Apollo program cost $135 billion in modern(ish) money over about 10 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_costs_and_cancellation

Whereas Constellation is being given $3 billion a year for about 20 years, or about $60 billion in current money.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail/10004394.2006.html

So the US government is expecting a great deal more, for a lot less money, when there has been no real development in interplanetary manned travel since Apollo.

The reason is that people now believe that the federal government has authority over all things, and that the President is the one in charge of it, as opposed to, you know, presiding. Because of the massive power grab by Washington over the last century or so, it really does have the power to, say, allocate a few million dollars to fix a bus station in your town. Not the legal authority, but the power.

It's not an Obama-specific problem. All Presidential candidates these days boast about how when they're elected, they'll create new spending programs and fund this and that, as though Congress weren't involved. It's also standard practice to use executive orders as stealth legislation. Did you know, for instance, that the US has been in a continuous state of national emergency since 1979 due to the Iran Hostage Crisis?

By the way, as little as I like Obama, I don't see any problem with him using the Net to solicit opinions. At worst it'll be like the UK petition site where the Queen's subjects protest and get ignored.

One thing that G W Bush got right is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/rss you can download thousands of speeches by G W Bush.

I hope EVERY talk Obama gives will be posted. History deserves this record, and the noise media will do everything they can to prevent it. (recall the copyright suits over "The Prise.")

Andy

- "We don't believe we're going to have a recession though." [Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/08]
- "I think the experts will tell you we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 2/10/08]
- "The answer is, I don't think we are in a recession right now." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 2/11/08]
- "First of all, we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 4/22/08]
- "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 5/7/08]
- "I don't think we are" in a recession. [Director of the National Economic Council Keith Hennesy, 6/3/08]
- "I think we have avoided a recession." [White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, 7/31/08]
- "I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not" [Dana Perino, 10/7/08]

- "We don't believe we're going to have a recession though." [Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/08]
- "I think the experts will tell you we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 2/10/08]
- "The answer is, I don't think we are in a recession right now." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 2/11/08]
- "First of all, we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 4/22/08]
- "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 5/7/08]
- "I don't think we are" in a recession. [Director of the National Economic Council Keith Hennesy, 6/3/08]
- "I think we have avoided a recession." [White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, 7/31/08]
- "I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not" [Dana Perino, 10/7/08]

- "We don't believe we're going to have a recession though." [Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/08]
- "I think the experts will tell you we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 2/10/08]
- "The answer is, I don't think we are in a recession right now." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 2/11/08]
- "First of all, we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 4/22/08]
- "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 5/7/08]
- "I don't think we are" in a recession. [Director of the National Economic Council Keith Hennesy, 6/3/08]
- "I think we have avoided a recession." [White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, 7/31/08]
- "I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not" [Dana Perino, 10/7/08]

LC, and especially it's under-appreciated traditional services, like cataloging, classification and authority control are so underfunded that they actually need to charge money to libraries to keep those projects alive. Alas.

The Library doesn't have a choice about charging for its services. The Federal government requires agencies to do "cost recovery" for data that they disseminate to the public. So if you want a copy of their catalog records (in bulk) they must charge the cost of making the copy available.

Fortunately, they allow you to download individual records from their database, skirting the Federal rules somewhat. And note that every record has a permanent URL, so you can download a record if you have the recordID (which is NOT visible in the OCLC WorldCat database, for this very reason). Also note that copies of LC data for books (millions of records) have been made available on the Internet Archive by the Open Library folks.

Has anybody else noticed that this web site is in violation of the cookie policy in http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/m00-13.html ?

It may not be a big deal to most people, but someone might be peeved at this:

Online Comments and Personal Information: We treat your name, city, state, and any comments you provide as public information. We may, for example, provide compilations of your comments to national leaders and other individuals participating in our efforts, without disclosing email addresses. We may also make comments along with your city and state available to the press and public online.

So, in order to tell them what you think via this site, make sure you want it in the Public Domain, as this implies you agree to that condition to comment. Huh. I wonder if they can do that? Anyone know?

Probably not, here is the White House policy:

Information Collected and Stored Automatically If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;

2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;

3. The date and time you access our site;

4. The pages you visit; and

5. If you linked to the White House website from another website, the address of that website. We use this information to help us make our site more useful to visitors -- to learn about the number of visitors to our site and the types of technology our visitors use. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

And

The information you provide is not given to any private organizations or private persons. The White House does not collect or use information for commercial marketing.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/privacy.html

Another thing that bothers me is change.gov has a copyright notice on it. With a few exceptions United states Government work is in the Public domain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_of_the_United_States_Government

The only people who can't agree on who fault the mess was/is are the partisan hacks who are attempting to see political gain by accusing the other side. If you listen to most economist who present their piece in political neutral tones, you will clearly see that the mess was caused by high energy prices combines with policies dating back to the Clinton administration and following through the bush administration. These policies where championed by both parties and were gimmicks that should have ended before confounding into the mess we have. Of course the one policy (CRA)was started under Carter and a democrat controlled congress but it wasn't much of an issue until the 90's when it was changed under Clinton and the republicans and the risk requirements were raised.

Don't elevate your opinion to a higher status than it deserves.

The partisan hacks is my opinion and yes, it deserves to be used. As for the causes of the problems, that isn't my opinion, it is the opinion of some very sound people who looked at the situation very closely. Just because your not willing to see past the hyperbole and rhetoric that the campaigns threw at us isn't my fault at all.

BTW, if the dems are blaming the republicans and the republicans are blaming the dems, and it wasn't some unknown problem in the making, then why would you think that only one side was the problem? TO boil it down as bluntly as possible, the cause was improper manipulation from one side with the lack of oversight by the other. But both needed to be taken care of in order to have avoided it all together, patching one or the other would have only changed the amount of damage slightly because the trigger was sky high energy costs that took every last dime from people struggling already. You can pick and choose who was behind what- Both parties are to blame.

.

Don't make being 1st such a huge milestone in history--this was in fact, expected.

Expected? Clinton was there when the internet was being built. Bush term 1 had no idea how to use it since there was no data! (i.e. 1999-2003 saw a huge effort to get information digitized). And Bush term 2 finally got a sense of what the internet coud do as three tier architectures, and spiral development were well understood, broadband was cheap and the databases were populated with data. And 2/3's the population has tapped the internet in some form.

.

For Obama to not recognize IT would have been news. Obama embracing IT is not, it was expected. If Bush ran a term 3, would he utilize the Internet the same way? Likely not, but he would likely use the Internet nonetheless.

Really, any president would have tapped the Internet too in their administration in the fashion Obama is managing. It's obvious: information is power and gov't power is through information, the Internet is a natural fit. Remember the eGov initiative?

By that measure FDR would qualify as "evil" - his policies (including the US' insistence on the gold standard long after other nations abandoned it) extended the Depression for the US for at least 6 years and caused suffering to millions of people.

I agree with your sentiment, but I have to say that your "facts" about FDR are a little off. First, most people say that FDR took the US off the gold standard.

Second, the claim that he "extended the Depression" is based, from what I can tell, entirely on work by Cole and Ohanian that is not exactly universally accepted by economists. It assumes that neoclassical growth theory is correct and then tries to explain why it fails to account for the slow recovery from the Great Depression.

They only 'prove' that FDR's policies were at fault if you assume that their theory correctly accounts for the growth that didn't actually occur. Yes, sounds pretty convoluted - that's the great part about the social sciences. You can make claims about causes based on data that doesn't exist.

The 3rd please. The 1st wasn't president, but he was George Prescott Bush, making GWB a "3rd" :D

I know of no "George Prescott Bush". I know of a Prescott Sheldon Bush, father of George Herbert Walker Bush; George Herbert Walker Bush was, in turn, father of George Walker Bush.

The use of armed forces against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. [Bushâ(TM)s Letter to Congress, 3/21/03]

From what I can tell on Wikipedia, the Dept. of Defense gets 16.6%, 5% on the GWOT, 1.4% on the Dept. of Veteran Affairs. That adds up to far less than the 30% you recommend.

Here's a link to the USA Government Budget. The number you're looking for is in table S-3 to the tune of $410.7 billion.

There is a reason that, e.g., America's founders did not view a popularly elected government with unlimited unauthority as a suitable safeguard of liberty, and instead set up an almost totally hamstrung government and then, when that was clearly on the road to failure from lack of sufficient authority to get things done, a more powerful but still tightly restricted government.

Agreed. And reasons why they implemented the Electoral College (which deliberately dilutes the votes from the most populous areas), did NOT implement a national bank and forbid direct election of Senators (which was sadly repealed around the same time that the privately owned Fed and the IR"S" were created).

The two party system evolved fairly quickly after George Washington stepped out, but it has been a bad idea implemented poorly all along. This most recent election cycle has been notable for the dearth of candidates[1] possessing the most basic of traditional American values and displaying more than a room temperature IQ.

So now we're left with a "choice" between a man who was in the past a war hero, but currently exhibits symptoms of dementia and a man who has no past that he cares to reveal and is likely not even eligible to run for the office (why did he not provide any of the basic identity documents that the Democrat lawyer Berg asked him to produce in a lawsuit? - I have to prove I am a US citizen by producing documentation before I am allowed employment. Why is Obama exempt?).

Sigh.

[1] One could that Warren G. Harding's
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/wh29.html
election year of 1920 was worse (my US history in CA high school class in the 1970's instructor used Warren G. Harding as the shining example of mediocrity), but I think that's unfair. Actually, I think if McCain used the quote in the whitehouse.gov bio attributed to Harding, he'd rise a couple of % points in the polls.

Take a look at http://www.dwheeler.com - in particular, Open Source Software and Software Assurance (Security) and Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!.

As you already know, this claim that "anyone can edit the open source software" is nonsense. They're conflating editing a file with getting that file into the supply chain. Anyone can edit a proprietary program, too; just open up a hex editor and start modifying. The issue is, can a malicious attacker modify the program AND get their changes into the binary you end up with? This isn't easy at all in the major OSS projects (the kind your company is likely to consider). Any OSS project has some kind a "trusted repository", the "official" version that people pull from. For a change to get into your system, the trusted repository has to be subverted AND not detected later. We already know of an attempt to subvert Linux that failed, so it's not as easy as they think it is. If they are REALLY concerned that they "don't know what the binary is", then get the source and recompile it.

Don't expert proprietariness to save you. Indeed, because the source code isn't being widely examined, any malicious code that gets in will be more difficult to find later.

The U.S. Department of Defense's policy is consider OSS equally with proprietary software, as does the entire U.S. government. In fact, the U.S. Department of Defense heavily depends on open source software, and they almost certainly have more stringent security requirements than your company.

If a company can't handle technological shifts in information technology, they risk their own long-term survival. OSS is now mainstream and widely used.

Full Fennec details here : http://www.whitehouse.gov/

How about registering this paedophile abuser of children?

...encapsulated in one, simplistic know-it-all sentence.

The so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) no longer exists, and hasn't since 17 January 2007.

All surveillance was happening under the guise of the Protect America Act, which was designed exclusively to allow foreign intelligence collection without a warrant when the traffic travelled through the United States, whether incidentally or by design. Foreign intelligence collection is always allowed without court oversight; the changes explicitly allowed such collection on US soil as long as the target was reasonably believed to be a non-US person physically outside of the United States, regardless of the other end of the conversation.

Now the Protect America Act has expired with its automatic sunset, and all surveillance must again happen only via FISA, as amended.

Also, TSP, in its entirety, was never as clear cut as being simply "legal" or "illegal" (court decisions on individual aspects aside). Those who claimed that it was "illegal" did so largely for political reasons. The other mistake is equating "traffic that *could be* listened to" with "traffic that *is* listened to" -- unfortunately, they are not at all the same. This also ignores that to even determine whether traffic is subject to legal collection, it must -- to be blunt -- actually be able to be collected. Thus the things like "secret rooms" at telecom facilities.

Having the capability to instantaneously examine traffic of international origin, where one or both endpoints of a communication are international, necessitates such wholesale monitoring capability. However, such capability being present does not imply its use for all traffic.

There are two issues here:

1. Monitoring the contents of a communication

2. Monitoring the metadata or "envelope" (source and destination information) of a communication

The first is allowable without a warrant or court oversight when one or both endpoints of the communication are international, and when the target of such monitoring is a non-US Person outside of the United States. Such foreign signals intelligence collection does not require a warrant or court oversight.

The second point above has multiple functions. One is using advanced data mining techniques to look for troubling patterns in communications.

Such collection has been found to be legal without a warrant or court oversight by the US Supreme Court:

The telephone company, at police request, installed at its central offices a pen register to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioner's home. Prior to his robbery trial, petitioner moved to suppress "all fruits derived from" the pen register. The Maryland trial court denied this motion, holding that the warrantless installation of the pen register did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Petitioner was convicted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed.

Source: Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)

Courts have subsequently found that pen register statutes apply similarly to computer network addresses known as IP addresses, lists of web sites visited, and the "envelope" of an email message -- its To: and From: addresses and related information. The NSA itself has long understood that while the capture of the "metadata" of communications is fair game, the capture of the *contents* of the conversations of US Persons is not, without a warrant:

A former senior NSA official said that the agency also worried that because these groups understood privacy laws so well, they knew how to avoi

the only thing i have to say is

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

please read it in full..

then look up the history of Presidential Directives and what in history they have changed including overruling the supream court - (freeing of slaves, the march of tears, WWII jap camps to name a few)

then ask - why - if it isn't to be used, was it passed at all?

then realize that economy is listed

"(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions; "

and just look around..

and again ask.. if it isn't to be used then why was it put in place?

For anyone who is going to respond to this.. please read it in full first.

...but I'm guessing you probably meant to link to the President's website rather than a mildly humorous farcical spinoff. I mean, sure, you're a mindless troll, but even trolls should "Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!"

For us middle-class first worlders a tick up or down isn't a big deal but getting out of grinding subsistence agriculture and moving up the ladder to a merely crappy factory job means the difference between losing one sibling or three in the 3rd world.

What to keep more of the money you work to earn, and help the population in the Third World? Force government to stop giving hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and other agricultural businesses. This year alone congress approved a $280 Billion farm bill by a veto proof margin. With these subsidies ADM and Cargill can export food to the Third World to sale it there for less than Third World farmers can grow food. Other First World nations are just as bad as the US. Australia, Canada, the EU, and Japan give large subsidies as well.

Falcon

"Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-9.html

The Naval Observatory is the location of the residence of the Vice President of the United States.

Perhaps it'll show up here one day.

Federal Enterprise Architecture

-fragbait

From the summary: A federal judge has ruled that a school district didn't violate a student's free speech rights when it suspended her for a parody MySpace page she created calling her principal a sex addict who "hits on students".

The act in question may have occurred off campus property - however, it is within jurisdiction of the school since it targets the principal within his official capacity, and is likely provided to other members within the campus. Also, accusations like that are extremely damaging to the institution, and as a result they may take necessary steps to prevent said damage (see laws concerning slander/libel in the appropriate state for more information.)

The summary also mentions that it's a "parody Myspace" page. Depending on how it's done (e.g. an earlier version of http://weeklyradioaddress.com/, which copied the layout of the original site), it may appear to be directly from the principal or campus. In those cases, it's automatically their jurisdiction since it's pretends to be campus-related.

By the way - did you see the MySpace page in question? It didn't appear linked on a quick glance, and as such there's a lot of context missing.

Just because it was about the principle of their school, and identified him as such, doesn't make it school business. You're also taking my comment out of context as I was addressing the original statement saying that this was similar to students breaking a school "code of conduct". You are also correct that there's a lot of context missing, so it's unclear on whether this represents a case of libel or not. If it does, then it's the responsibility of the principle to take the student to court for libel and let the court decide if it constitutes libel or not. If it isn't then the student is within her rights under the first amendment. In either case the school has no part to play in this.

A page like that is evidence of libel - it shows the act of libel itself. Unless the student has something that wasn't published, it's also done without intent of checking accuracy - possibly out of malice. Given the few first paragraphs of the article, it appears the student was claiming it was "off-campus" rather than it not happening or that it was someone else.

First, as you admit, the page isn't linked so everything must be based on the snippets available in the article. Second, the snippets provided are evidence that there might be libel, but a lot of that hinges on whether or not the page was setup in such a way that a reasonable person would believe it had actually been written by the person in question. Based on the limited snippets and the description as a parody page (parody is explicitly exempted from libel laws) it doesn't seem likely anyone would mistake the page in question for a non-parody page.

So do adults. In this case, the principal has the right not to be cruelly and unusually punished when knee-jerk reactionists throw him in jail and put him on a sex-offender list. There's already more than enough stories where students accuse principals for shits and giggles, while remaining immune to any real punishment, and neither the campus nor the principal want another story added to the growing list.

You're correct, but in the first instance it's the knee-jerk reactionists that are in the wrong, and the proper thing is to punish people for making knee-jerk reactions, and in the second instance that's an entirely different situation. There's a major difference between creating a parody page in which you make fun of your principle, and accusing him in court or to police of molesting yourself or other children. It's apples and oranges. One is potentially libel, and the other is making false accusations. It's the difference between making jokes about OJ Simpson getting off with murder, and calling the police to claim you have a video of him doing it (not that it matters in this case as even if you did he's already been found innocent).

First, students cannot be punished for failing to abide by any "code of conduct" while off campus.

From the summary: A federal judge has ruled that a school district didn't violate a student's free speech rights when it suspended her for a parody MySpace page she created calling her principal a sex addict who "hits on students".

The act in question may have occurred off campus property - however, it is within jurisdiction of the school since it targets the principal within his official capacity, and is likely provided to other members within the campus. Also, accusations like that are extremely damaging to the institution, and as a result they may take necessary steps to prevent said damage (see laws concerning slander/libel in the appropriate state for more information.)

The summary also mentions that it's a "parody Myspace" page. Depending on how it's done (e.g. an earlier version of http://weeklyradioaddress.com/, which copied the layout of the original site), it may appear to be directly from the principal or campus. In those cases, it's automatically their jurisdiction since it's pretends to be campus-related.

By the way - did you see the MySpace page in question? It didn't appear linked on a quick glance, and as such there's a lot of context missing.

Second, it's not clear whether there was sufficient evidence of libel in this case or not, and even if there was, being a minor the punishment would probably not be particularly severe.

A page like that is evidence of libel - it shows the act of libel itself. Unless the student has something that wasn't published, it's also done without intent of checking accuracy - possibly out of malice. Given the few first paragraphs of the article, it appears the student was claiming it was "off-campus" rather than it not happening or that it was someone else.

Third, minors do have full constitutional rights,

So do adults. In this case, the principal has the right not to be cruelly and unusually punished when knee-jerk reactionists throw him in jail and put him on a sex-offender list. There's already more than enough stories where students accuse principals for shits and giggles, while remaining immune to any real punishment, and neither the campus nor the principal want another story added to the growing list.