[Air-L] Fwd: [liberationtech] URGENT: U.S. Dept of the Interior: Records Destruction Request. Public Comment Period.

[Irani, Lilly]

In addition to formal commentary and reaching out to congress, are there other measures that would be possible such as requesting the archives and creating copies? Michelle Murphy and Patrick Keilty at University of Toronto in partnership with librarians at universities organized an archiving hackathon to download EPA data in anticipation of attempts to destroy the records.

This is not an area of expertise for me but of course this is urgent.
________________________________
From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 10:54:38 PM
To: air-l
Subject: [Air-L] Fwd: [liberationtech] URGENT: U.S. Dept of the Interior: Records Destruction Request. Public Comment Period.

Dear AoIRists,
I'm not sure this intersects much with internet research - though
someone might want to document the effort, if nothing else, under the
internet and social activism.
AoIRists who are U.S. citizens - is this as Orwellian and disturbing as
it looks?
If so, please act and forward as appropriate.
glumly,
- charles ess


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:         [liberationtech] URGENT: U.S. Dept of the Interior: Records
Destruction Request. Public Comment Period.
Date:    Tue, 23 Oct 2018 16:35:57 -0700
From:    Yosem Companys <ycompanys at gmail.com>
Reply-To:        liberationtech <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu>
To:      Liberation Technologies <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu>
CC:      Mr. James R. Jacobs <jrjacobs at stanford.edu>



From: Mr. James R. Jacobs <jrjacobs at stanford.edu
<mailto:jrjacobs at stanford.edu>>

       I wanted to alert you to a very disturbing thing happening in the
National Archives world that may severely impact research, especially
historical and scientific research. The Dept of interior is asking for
permission to destroy records about oil and gas leases, mining, dams,
wells, timber sales, marine conservation, fishing, endangered species,
non-endangered species, critical habitats, land acquisition, and lots
more. Basically records from every agency within the Interior
Department, including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park
Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, Bureau of
Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and
others. This is all content that would normally go to NARA for
collection and preservation. This is disturbing because previous
administrations would obfuscate records by classifying/reclassifying
records. This admin is basically just destroying records so they’ll
never be accessible.

      There’s an October 29 deadline for comment to NARA:
request.schedule at nara.gov <mailto:request.schedule at nara.gov> /// fax:
301-837-3698 /// NARA (ACRA), 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park MD
20740-6001. (Be sure to say that you’re referring to
DAA-0048-2015-0003.) Please forward to your networks and researchers who
may be effected.

      More information: https://altgov2.org/doi-records-destruction/

      NARA’s appraisal memo
https://altgov2.org/wp-content/uploads/DAA-0048-2015-0003_Appraisal_Memo.pdf


      this is tragic and terrible.

      james



      --
      James R. Jacobs
      US Government Information Librarian
      123D Green Library
      Stanford University
      P: 650.862.9871
      E: jrjacobs at stanford.edu <mailto:jrjacobs at stanford.edu>
      Gchat: freegovinfo
      T: @freegovinfo
      W: freegovinfo.info <http://freegovinfo.info>
lockss-usdocs.stanford.edu <http://lockss-usdocs.stanford.edu>
library.stanford.edu/people/jrjacobs
<http://library.stanford.edu/people/jrjacobs>
freegovinfo.info/about/jrjacobs <http://freegovinfo.info/about/jrjacobs>

      "The art of research is the ability to look at the details, and
see the passion."
      -- Daryl Zero, "The Zero Effect" (1998)
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