Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 10:08:05 -0400 (EDT) From: James McDonough Subject: EPIN Summary ********************************************************** SUMMARY OF ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER VOL. 5, NO. 11; June 2, 1995 ********************************************************** INDEX: 1. POTENTIAL SEEN FOR NATIONAL ELECTRONIC OPEN MEETINGS 2. WEST ATTACKS AALL TASK FORCE REPORT ON LEGAL CITATIONS 3. ADVISORY PANEL ON GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS TO MEET **************************************************************** For more information on the complete ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER or to receive a FREE sample of the complete printed copy send an email message to EPIN Publishing at epin@access.digex.net. Include your snail mail address. ***************************************************************** 1. POTENTIAL SEEN FOR NATIONAL ELECTRONIC OPEN MEETINGS: There seems to be a general consensus that the May 1-14 electronic Open Meeting showed great potential, but as a communication tool between government and its people is now only in its infancy and needs a lot of molding and development. The Open Meetingþ"People and Their Government in the Information Age"þwas sponsored by the Clinton Administration's Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), and is only the second held by the federal government. It attracted some 3000 comments and 10,000 registrants. The first Internet Open Meeting was held last November by NTIA on the subject of universal service. Paige Darden, spokesperson for the National Information and Telecommunications Agency (NTIA), one of the sponsoring agencies, said, "Certainly we think it (Open Meeting) has a lot of potential and 3000 comments is a lot more than you can get from traditional inquires." Another federal official said he was encouraged by the fact that a large fraction of the discussion was substantive, although others have disputed this. The Prof. Henry Perritt, Jr. of Villanova University Law School and the moderator of the Participatory Democracy Forum, said, "I thought the number and diversity of the participantsþobviously they were not all sophisticate computer scientists or lawyersþenforced the idea that the Internet can reach broadly across the American population." However, Perritt said the technical difficulties that occurred with the lists and the newsfeeds were "troublesome," and that the "noise level," created by the sheer volume of responses, was so high that it was "very difficult to extract meaning" from the Open Meeting. 2. WEST ATTACKS AALL TASK FORCE REPORT ON LEGAL CITATIONS: The recommendation of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Task Force on Citation Formats favoring a medium-neutral legal citation sysem was opposed by the West Publishing Company, Shepard's/McGraw-Hill, and Association of Reporters of Judicial Decisions. Dissenting opinions from the three were included as part of the Task Force's final report (3/95). The Task Force recommended the adoption of the Wisconsin legal citation system, which it calls "medium-neutral, vendor-neutral, and in the public domain." The report is scheduled to be acted upon at AALL's annual convention in July. The West position, written by Donna M. Bergsgaard and William H. Lindberg, was the most extensive and vehement in its opposition. The dissenting opinion stated the final report "consists of a thinly-veiled attack on West Publishing and its National Reporter System," and that Task Force Chair Lynn Foster of University of Arkansas at Little Rock failed to engage in "rigorous fact finding" pertaining to the needs of the legal community. 3. ADVISORY PANEL ON GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS TO MEET: Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy will hold its first public meeting on June 6 in Washington, D.C. The Committee was reestablished on August 11, 1994, under Ambassador Vonya B. McCann, United States Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State, in order to provide a formal channel for regular consultation on major economic, social and legal issues in international communications and information policy. Of special concern to the group are how these issues involve users of information and communication services, providers of such services, technology research and development, foreign industrial and regulatory policy, the activities of international organizations with regard to communications and information, and developing country interests. *************************************************************** ARCHIVE: EPIN Summaries are being archived on the Electronic Frontier Foundation system. To access past summaries, use the following addresses: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/E-journals/EPIN gopher://gopher.eff.org/hh/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ ***************************************************************** James McDonough, Editor Electronic Public Information Newsletter epin@access.digex.net; Tel:/Fax: (301) 365-3621