From the blog Ars Technica:
The State of Oregon takes exception to Web sites that republish the state’s Revised Statutes in full, claiming that the statutes contain copyrighted information in the republication causes the state to lose money it needs to continue putting out the official version of the statutes. Oregon’s Legislative Counsel, Dexter Johnson, has therefore requested that legal information site Justia remove the information or (preferably) take out a paid license from the state.
All citizens are legally presumed to know the law, so claiming copyright over it might seem like an odd position for a state to take; wouldn’t massive copying be a goal rather than a problem? But in his letter to Justia, Johnson makes a more nuanced case. While the text of the law is not copyrighted, the “arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables, index and annotations and other such incidents” are under copyright.
Since Tom Henry & Co. don’t want a transparent and open city government, maybe this idea will help him put more of a damper on the local blogosphere. I’ve been waiting over 17 days for a response from Ozzie Mitson on a simple road project question, (which I finally got within minutes from Dave Ross, the city engineer). Thanks Dave.
Full article is here.
I usually use American Legal Publishing Company’s web site to research Fort Wayne city code, but in looking tonight I see they’re behind on updating their Fort Wayne’s information.
Here’s their listing for City Officials.
ELECTED CITY OFFICIALS
MAYOR Graham A. Richard
CITY CLERK Sandra E. Kennedy
CITY COUNCILMEMBERS
1ST DISTRICT Thomas Smith
2ND DISTRICT Donald J. Schmidt
3RD DISTRICT Thomas F. Didier
4TH DISTRICT Thomas E. Hayhurst
5TH DISTRICT Timothy Pape
6TH DISTRICT Glynn A. Hines
AT-LARGE Samuel J. Talarico, Jr.
AT-LARGE John N. Crawford
AT-LARGE John H. Shoaff
APPOINTED CITY OFFICIALS
CITY ATTORNEY Timothy A. Manges
CITY COUNCIL ATTORNEY Joseph Bonahoom and/or
Philip Larmore
CONTROLLER Patricia Roller
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS
AND UTILITIES Greg Meszaros
CHIEF OF POLICE Russell P. York
CHIEF OF FIRE Timothy M. Davie
AWB
If you find this article informative? Consider donating any amount you choose.
No related posts.
Entries (RSS)
It is quite obvious that most people in government, from City Council up to the United States Congress, do not want the public to know what is going on. Yet they are required to at least make some feigned effort to appear that they are giving out the information.
They announce meetings and their agendas only shortly before they are to convene. They include so much unecessary verbage that the average person gets confused trying to figure out what the hell they are even saying. Then, they leave out the relevant information, forcing citizens to write certified letters or threaten to sue in order to get the information. Basically, they make it so complicated to get the information that about the only ones who can truely keep up are members of the news media and the elected officials themselves.
These people are only able to be so informed because they are being paid to do that as their job. Meanwhile, the average citizen has to work for a living, and can not afford to invest the time necessary just to decode all the B.S. that is put out or to make numerous requests for withheld information.
I have an idea. Perhaps government officials should just print all their documents in Latin. Technicall speaking, this would fulfill their legal obligation of publicly releasing the information. It’s not their fault that the public is too stupid or lazy to understand it. If they did this, all those citizens that keep pestering them would just go away because you can’t complain about what you can’t read. Our government would be able to accomplish great things then, being freed of the buden of having to answer to the people that they govern.
Careful, Phil….you might be onto something.
B.G.