Daily Archives: September 25, 2004

Taxpayers get to pay Twice?

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A number of government agencies are circumventing open public records access via fees or “National Security. The result is that we get to pay twice, or more (collection and management of information along with overlapping distribution costs). Here are some examples:

  • “subscription”: Access Dane
  • The state’s highest court will now decide a landmark public records case involving access to aerial reconnaissance photographs and maps of Greenwich, CT. The town maintains the images in a tightly kept database known as a geographic information system, which a judge declared to be public records last December. The Connecticut Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear the town’s appeal of that ruling, expediting the case by leap-frogging the state Appellate Court. The move virtually coincides with the third anniversary of the initial complaint in the case, which Greenwich resident and computer consultant Stephen Whitaker filed with the state Freedom Information Commission after the town denied his request for an electronic copy of the entire database for security and privacy reasons.”

The Greenwich case is absurd. We (taxpayers) pay for all of this…. Via Slashdot.
Email Mayor Dave (mayor at madison dot com ) and County Exec Kathleen Falk (falk at co.dane.wi.us) and let them know your thoughts on taxpayer funded public records access.
Most importantly, support the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Protect your electronic rights.

True Broadband & Economic Development

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James Carlini:

Horse-and-Buggy Infrastructures:
More politicians will eventually wake up and smell the fiber.
There was at least one speaker who put it squarely on the shoulders of local and state politicians ?who just don?t get it? when it comes to understanding what?s needed to keep this country viable. It was refreshing to hear a politically accurate statement come out of D.C.
In Iowa where 80 percent of the state is rural, they built the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), which was the nation?s first fiber-optic network owned and administered by the state. Its original intent was so rural students would have the same access and advantages that students had in urban Iowa.
The first locations were lit in 1993. By 1997, the ICN logged 182,386 hours. In 1999, there were more than 800 sites with session hours at more than 400,000. This network has improved the infrastructure of Iowa and they have increased the applications to telemedicine and other capabilities.