Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 20:29:37 -0700 From: Jim Warren Subject: GovAccess.082: court info, NC, poli conf, NY, list subpoenaed [With this and the next several GovAccesses, I will be finally flushing-out to you some elderly items, along with current GovAcc gargoyles. --jim] GOVACCESS POSTINGS AVAILABLE ON CORE AND LOS ANGELES FREE-NET From: aa104@lafn.org (Mel Roseman) Oct 18 20:08:07 1994 I have been re-posting your GovAccess messages on both CORE and on the LA Free-Net. By the time you read this, your GovAccess archives will be a featured part of our "Government Center" menu (a main menu selection) on the LA Free-Net. Please look us over: telnet> lafn.org (or 198.211.120.1) Your suggestions are welcome. ------------------------------ 8th FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS BEGINNING TO PUT INFO ONLINE? *This is early, preliminary, hearsay, rumor, heads-up.* And I am telling you everything I know about it. As I know more - especially as I get more authoratative information, I will most-certainly post it to GovAccess. I recently received some tentative messages indicating the one of the federal circuit courts is experimentally making court information somehow available for dial-up or online access. It appears that the Court Clerk responsible for the system/experiment may be a/the leader of a group/committee of such clerks moving to make court records available electronically. I'm told that he is open-minded and likely to listen to various perspectives. I have his name but only as an informal reference, and am awaiting more information and, hopefully, direct contact with him before I pass it along. Currently, the information/access is free, but there is apparently some discussion of beginning to charge for it by next June. Whether it will be an at-cost system, or will be used as a revenue-generator for the court is an unknown. This is information from a source who said that he had actually used the system and personally had access. Please don't ask me for more - you got what I got. :-) As I know mo', you'll know mo'. --jim ------------------------------ NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY GOVHER - AND SOME CITIZEN'S LEGAL VIEWS >From: tara@allen.com (Tara Calishain) Mon Jul 11 13:51:08 1994 Organization: Allen Marketing Group, Inc. - Raleigh, NC The North Carolina General Assembly has done a tremendous job of putting the huge amounts of current legislation online. The real problem with it is this: no matter how you present a proposed law, whether in electrons or on paper, it's still a proposed law. It's still lots of legalese that requires a certain amount of special education to understand. I believe that even to get "the gist of it", one would require an upper-level education. What's the point of making this stuff universally accessable if it's not universally understandable? Another thing that's missing is a guide to using the information that's presented. The NC gopher breaks up NC senators by county, by district, by committee, etc. I thought it was very amusing and interesting to present the same information in about a dozen different ways, but it was (beyond the obvious information of who represents where) meaningless to me. My husband, once I told him about it, got all enthusiastic and exclaimed that special interest groups are served well by getting committee breakdowns, county representation could be cross-referenced with census information, etc. He knows about these possibilities because he's very politically active. I'm more computer literate, but I wasn't able to understand these possibilities until he explained them to me. It's great to have the information that the NC Gopher has, but citizens also need to be informated about how to use the tools available. ------------------------------ A NETWORK OF ONLINE POLITICAL CONFERENCES From: john.perz@hvbbs.com (John Perz) Fri Jul 8 20:09:36 1994 I run the Hudson Valley BBS in New York state. We are a member of USPolnet, a network of political BBS's. There are about a hundred or so of us, scattered around the country. In addition to national conferences, many states have state political conferences carried only by the boards within their state. I moderate the NY conference. ------------------------------ A LOCAL LESSON FROM NEW YORK From: JACKNIS.LIMHS@limhs.ssiny.com (Jacknis, Norm) Apr 11 14:01:33 1994 I read with interest your item about computer-aided grassroots political action. Like you, I am a believer in this, but I have to tell you that my initial experience with it was not all that successful. I set up a local-phone-call BBS for a major candidate for County Executive in Westchester County, NY (population 900,000 -- just north of New York City). He put every press release, position paper, etc. on the BBS. He accepted and returned any electronic mail left for him. He put the BBS number on every piece of printed literature which went out. Well, in an affluent county with a high penetration of computer users (more than 50%) and the headquarters for companies like IBM and Prodigy, how many people do you think dialed in? Unfortunately, the answer is a couple of dozen. The story is not all bleak, however. The BBS ended up being used extensively by the grass roots campaign organization behind this candidate. It saved a considerable amount of money and energized people. As a result, by election day, he only had to spend about half what his opponent did. Alas, he lost by 1% in a two way contest. (Despite what they teach in universities, knowledge -- and technology -- is not always power.) Regards, Norm Jacknis ------------------------------ I ASKED, "HAVE LITIGATORS *REALLY* SUBPOENAED AN EMAIL MEMBERSHIP LIST?" YUP! From: Marc Rotenberg Apr 11 10:28:23 1994 Yes. The case concerns a wrongful death action brought by a widow against the American Tobacco company. Lawyers for American Tobacco have subpoened the membership list of SCARCNET, an on-line private network for anti- smoking activists operated by the Advocacy Institute. The court will rule first on American Tobacco's summary judgement motion, before turning to the subpoena. The motion to quash the subpoena, filed by Public Citizen, raises important Constitutional questions, including the potential impact that disclosure would have on future on-line organizing. [Note that this is from last April . Don't know the results. --jim] ------------------------------ 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 . <<