Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 21:39:37 -0700 From: Jim Warren Subject: GovAccess.073: Fed leg online, Cal voter info, Euro envir, DC net-fax FEDERAL LEGISLATION NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE ... FOR A PRICE (SO FAR) >From 75300.2105@compuserve.com Wed Oct 5 09:52:13 1994 From: "Lawrence J. Magid" <75300.2105@compuserve.com> The U.S Government Printing Office (GPO) now has all Congressional bills available online. For the time being, there is a price attached to much of that information, but public activists hope to convince the government that citizens should have "free" access to information for which they have already paid taxes. According to the GPO, The Congressional Bills database contains all published versions of House and Senate bills introduced since the start of the 103rd Congress. The Congressional Bills database joins the official Government versions of the Congressional Record and the Federal Register that have been offered in electronic format over the Internet through the GPO Access service since June. Cost to access the databases can be as high as $105 per month and that charge was the focus of a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 4, between Wayne Kelly, the Superintendent of Documents and representatives of the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable in Washington. On the agenda is a Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP) proposal, "Free after Six," which would suspend all database access charges during non-business hours. TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data. The Congressional Bills and the Record and Register databases are also available for free electronic searches to walk-in patrons of many of the nation's 1,400 depository libraries under a "GPO Access" program authorized by law and launched in June. The Depository Library System includes academic, public, law, and Federal libraries. There is at least one Federal depository library in every Congressional district. Information about how to subscribe to the Congressional Bills, Record, or Register databases is available by calling GPO at 202-512-1530 or by fax at 202-512-1262. Internet E-mail (GO MAIL) should be sent to help@eids05.eids.gpo.gov. --James Moran ------------------------------ CALIFORNIA ONLINE VOTER GUIDE >From kimalex@netcom.com Tue Oct 4 15:25:29 1994 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kim Alexander Tuesday, October 4, 1994 (916) 737-6270 email: kimalex@netcom.com CALIFORNIA VOTING INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET The California Voter Foundation announced today the availability of the California Online Voter Guide, an electronic resource of voting information accessible to the public free of charge on the Internet. Pacific Bell has donated a storage site for the information in a specialized computer called a "server". Users may access the guide by using the "gopher" tool and typing "gopher.kn.pacbell.com" (no parentheses). The Online Voter Guide contains a wealth of information provided by California statewide candidates, the California Journal, and the Center for Civic Literacy. Candidates in the races for Governor, U.S. Senate and Superintendent of Public Instruction have supplied biographies, press releases, endorsements, speeches and position papers, either electronically or on computer disk. The guide also includes job descriptions that detail the duties, salaries and past and present officeholders of each statewide office. CVF will be seeking and uploading information from other statewide candidates over the next two weeks. "The Online Voter Guide provides statewide candidates with an extraordinary opportunity to get their message out to thousands of voters and students at no cost to the campaigns. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved," said Kim Alexander, Executive Director of the California Voter Foundation (CVF). "Most voters want to make informed electoral decisions, and every campaign develops materials such as biographies, press releases and speeches, but they simply can't afford to mail this material to California's 14 million registered voters. We all know that campaigns should be longer on substance and shorter on sloganeering, but the truth is that candidates have never had a communication medium that allows them to broadly disseminate significant information in a cost-effective manner - until now." Experts estimate that there are over one million Internet users in California. "New communication technologies allow for fast, inexpensive and widespread dissemination of information, and may, in the long run, decrease the cost of campaigning by lessening a candidate's reliance on more expensive and less efficient communication mediums, such as direct mail and television," Alexander said. The California Voter Foundation developed the Online Voter Guide in cooperation with Pacific Bell's Knowledge Network Gateway program, which is testing a service to provide California students with high-speed computer access to the Internet and other education resources. "The Online Voter Guide is being incorporated into the educational curriculums of 19 Knowledge Network Gateway schools throughout California, involving an estimated 10,000 students," said Austene Hall, Knowledge Network Gateway Product Manager. "Pacific Bell is pleased to help students use new information technologies to enhance their educational experience while expanding their knowledge of the election process," Hall added. The Online Voter Guide will also be used in the Kids Voting programs in Sacramento and San Jose, which introduce students to the electoral process by holding mock elections. "Kids Voting teaches students about the rights and responsibilities of voting. We are promoting the Online Voter Guide as a resource for schools to use in conjunction with our curriculum," said Ken Loman, Executive Director of Kids Voting California. "California's continuous decline in voter turnout is partly due to the apathy of young Californians," Alexander said, "If we want to boost voter turnout in the future, we must begin now by teaching California's students how to be informed and conscientious voters," she added. In the last twelve years, the percentage of the 18-29 year olds that comprise the California electorate has shrunk by fifty percent. In 1982, 18 percent of voting Californians fell into the 18-29 age bracket; by 1994 that percentage had dropped to nine percent. "Young Californians may not be reading the newspaper or watching the evening news, but they have a higher propensity to use computers compared to most other people. We can now reach a large segment of non-voters simply by approaching them in a medium they use and understand," Alexander said. Evidence of the demand for on-line civic information can be found in a recent Macworld survey, which indicates that the public wants to use the information superhighway for civic and educational purposes. The survey found that the highest-ranking service the public hopes the highway will deliver is the ability to vote on-line. "Another advantage of online communication is that the information is there when the public wants it; voters who miss important newspaper articles or television reports will now have another way to become informed," Alexander said. CVF is also promoting the Online Voter Guide through public libraries, which will soon be installing 177 computer terminals dedicated solely for public access to the Internet. "The State Library wants to increase access to non-partisan voting information. They funded the development of an Easy Reader Voter Guide which condenses the Secretary of State's Ballot Pamphlet into 16 easy-to-skim pages," said Susan Clark, Executive Director of the Center for Civic Literacy. "We are pleased to have the Easy Reader guide included in the Online Voter Guide because it provides a much broader distribution of this material. Our research also shows that voters want election information in a variety of formats that are suited to their own lifestyles and schedules," Clark added. The Online Voter Guide was funded through contributions from Oracle, the Intel Foundation, Pacific Telesis, Pacific Bell, Pacific Gas and Electric, GTE, Apple, AT&T and Macworld. "The California Voter Foundation is thankful for the generous support and contributions we've received for this project," said Michael Twombly, CVF President. "Pacific Bell has performed a tremendous public service for California voters and students by providing technical support and an Internet server for this project. We are also grateful to the California Journal and its talented writers for providing us with their insightful and informative election articles," Twombly said. "For the students who will be using our guide to learn about California elections, it is important to provide them with some balance and objective analysis about these candidates and measures," he added. The California Voter Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)3 organization founded in 1989 by former California Secretary of State March Fong Eu. Comments, questions and feedback about the Online Voter Guide should be sent via e-mail to: ovg@kn.pacbell.com. [Okay, all you other states ... what are *you* doing like this? --jim] ------------------------------ EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL DISCUSSION LIST >From owner-new-list@VM1.NODAK.EDU Fri Sep 23 15:08:56 1994 From: Rossen Roussev REC Organization: The Regional Environmental Center Subject: NEW: ENVCEE-L - Environmental Issues in Central and Eastern Europe ENVCEE-L on listserv@REC.HU Environment in Central and Eastern Europe The ENVCEE-L was formed as an open, unmoderated discussion list by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) in order to discuss Environmental Issues in the following countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The main mission of this list is to promote cooperation among diverse environmental groups and interests in Central and Eastern Europe; to act as a catalyst for developing solutions to environmental problems in this region; and to promote the development of a civic society. To subscribe to ENVCEE-L, send the following command to listserv@REC.HU in the BODY of e-mail: SUBSCRIBE ENVCEE-L yourfirstname yourlastname Archives of ENVCEE-L mail items are kept in monthly files. You may obtain a list of the available files in the archives by sending the command INDEX in the BODY of e-mail to listserv@REC.HU. Plese note that this is not the L-Soft revised LISTSERV. Send a message with a BODY containing the word HELP in order to get more information about the listserver. Owner: Rossen Roussev ------------------------------ WASHINGTON NET-FAX TECH FACTS - YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE >From mech@eff.org Thu Oct 6 14:50:50 1994 From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: correction to net-faq ("remote printing") article The tpc.int net-fax ("remote printer") service does NOT cover Washington DC govt. numbers (at least, it does not cover the obvious ones, like Congress.) This is due to abuse of the gateway by people sending flames and spam to Congressfolks, and abuse of the gateway by govt. employees to fax for free to other govt. employees to shave a little off their budgets. Currently the only DC-area exchanges covered are: Canada and the United States (+1) +1-202- (Only exchanges 219 234 268 366 395 456 482 628 647 687 720 842) Washington, D.C. [note absence of Congress: 224, 225, 226] +1-301 Capital Heights, MD +1-410 [suburban MD; not as close to DC as 301] Note absence of coverage for +1-703 (DC-area northern VA) ------------------------------ "He's an honest politician. He stays bought." -- Robert Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land" Mo' as it Is. --jim GovAccess is an email distribution-list of irregular postings, maintained by Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/<# upon request> jwarren@well.com -or- jwarren@autodesk.com >> Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation.<< >> Past postings are at ftp.cpsr.org:/cpsr/states/california/govaccess << >> To add or drop the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.com . <<