I hadn’t been to the CLA’s site in a while (wish they had RSS!). Here are two new highlights of interest:
- USA PATRIOT Act ~ Implications for Cdn. Libraries. A nice briefing note explaining the dangers of outsourcing library patron data (or any Canadian data) to US companies. That made me think of something even more scary. Apparently the Canadian government is outsourcing its data collection for the 2006 Census to Lockheed Martin! (yes! the weapons manufacturer!). That means that all of the data on Canadian citizens will be in the hands of an american weapons manufacturer! And by extension ALL of that information will be searchable under the PATRIOT Act. Big Brother really is watching now.
- Is the WTO/TRIPS Agreement User Friendly? I haven’t had a chance to read this 46 page analysis of international copyright law in the context of Canadian copyright law, but the executive summary seems to say that nothing in TRIPS can be forced onto Canadian law, but “user groups” should still advocate for acceptable models of copyright law. When the copyright law is tabled (soon?), we’ll see if user groups will have had any influence compared to big business and international pressure.