The Texas professoriate and public political discourse before and after 9/11

Robert Jensen's critique of the participation of academic intellectuals in Texas in public political discourse after the 9/11 terrorist attacks underestimates what professors have done to inform a politically apathetic public about warfare, American foreign policy, civil liberties, and cultural and humanitarian issues. Jensen undervalues non‐confrontational political strategies and broader forms of intellectual political engagement. Confrontational strategies mobilize citizens inclined to activism, but less overtly political strategies invite larger numbers of citizens to think seriously about politics. Jensen's locally famous post‐9/11 Houston Chronicle editorial is analyzed as rhetorically egocentric and alienating, and ultimately counter‐productive in the post‐9/11 political environment.     

The Enigmatic Lynndie England: Gendered Explanations for the Crisis at Abu Ghraib

This essay examines the gendered explanations for the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. Specifically, I examine how mainstream news media's selective focus on Lynndie England encouraged the public to read Abu Ghraib primarily as a gender crisis rather than as a crisis in US military culture. This framing not only deflected attention away from the other soldiers involved in the scandal (particularly the men who were involved) but also diverted criticism away from more comprehensive discussions regarding the US military's use of abuse and torture, the unlawful detainment of suspected terrorists, and the erosion of civil liberties in the post-9/11 era. Moreover, these representations of Abu Ghraib as a gender crisis prompted new criticism regarding gender integration in the military and constructed feminism as the new villain in the American melodrama.     

O'Neill,Digital Radio in Europe: Technologies,Industries, and Cultures

The U.S. Government's role as overseer of the World War II airwaves was significant, given the government's task of establishing a supervisory mechanism for the radio industry that would serve the need of national security and, at the same time, minimize the need for bureaucratic intrusion into program decision making. A mechanism also was needed to police the domestic airwaves for unlicensed intruders and to monitor the international airwaves for enemy propaganda. To accomplish these tasks, the government enlisted the services of three agencies: the Federal Communications Commission, the Defense Communications Board, and the Office of Censorship. This paper examines the structure, operation, and contribution of each.     

From Belgium to The Hague via Berlin and Moscow: documenting war crimes and the quest for international justice, 1919-2019

ABSTRACT

Exploring new sources on the Great War a hundred years after it ended is a unique and exciting experience for any First World War historian. The very nature of the documents that we are dealing with in the present case makes it even more thrilling: hundreds of investigation and prosecution files documenting the invasion and occupation of Belgium, produced by both military and civil jurisdictions in an effort to prosecute war criminals. These fascinating records – repatriated to Belgium from Moscow in 2002 – offer new material on issues such as the German atrocities and everyday life under the occupation, but they also provide highly valuable insights into the history of international criminal law. This exploratory article will trace the unexpected trajectory of these archives, contextualise their creation and highlight some of the treasures they contain. In doing so, this article will attempt to discuss the thorny issue of archive repatriation and the questions this raises from an archival and historical perspective. It also seeks to show that the establishment of an International Criminal Court, despite the fact that it is now being called into question more than ever before, rests on solid and far-reaching historical foundations.     

Information rights and national security

The changes in the global information landscape, as epitomized by the reaction of governments to the 9/11 attacks, resulted in legislation, policy, and the formation of agencies that have affected many issues related to information and its use. This article examines the recent multiplicity of challenges that affect citizens' control and use of information. In the name of the war on terror, greater national security, and globalization trends, information laws, and policies often go further than is necessary and impact on the information rights of citizens. In this article, we advocate for bringing together what are at times disparate information issues under one label, namely, “information rights” (which include privacy, freedom of expression, access, etc.). Information rights are apprehended from a user-centered perspective (i.e., users as citizens, not just consumers). They cover many different aspects of the information life cycle and the roles and responsibilities of individuals and communities. Such an approach provides an alternative way of framing current information issues as they relate to national security policies and civil liberties in the broader sense.     

News Coverage of U.S. Mothers of Soldiers During the Vietnam War

The press of World Wars I and II depicted patriotic mothers as Spartan-like in their support of the nation's war effort. During the Vietnam War, another maternal image emerged to share cultural space with the Spartan mother, that of the goddess Thetis who objected to her son's participation in the Trojan War. This alternative maternal symbol more closely resembles the archetypal image of the peacetime good mother, who cares for her children and resists sending them into harm's way. This study documents coverage of maternal opposition to the Vietnam War against the backdrop of coverage of US mothers of soldiers in the earlier world wars. The comparison suggests that the Great Father's failure to control the press and promote the war to US citizens provided an opportunity for Thetis' rising.     

Pornography Consumption and US Adults' Attitudes toward Gay Individuals' Civil Liberties,Moral Judgments of Homosexuality,and Support for Same-Sex Marriage: Mediating and Moderating Factors

This study compared views on homosexuality among US adults who varied in their consumption of pornography. Nationally representative cross-sectional data generated by the General Social Survey (GSS) between 2000 and 2012 were employed. Pornography consumers expressed more positive attitudes toward gay individuals' civil liberties, more moral acceptance of homosexuality, and more support for same-sex marriage. Moderation analyses indicated the importance of consumers' views on personal freedom and morality. Associations between pornography consumption and positive views on homosexuality were strongest when consumers placed a premium on personal freedom and adopted a relativistic perspective on morality. Mediation analyses indicated that pornography consumption indirectly predicted more positive views on homosexuality through a nontraditional attitude toward sex. Supplementary analysis of nationally representative three-wave GSS panel data confirmed the temporal sequencing of these links. Prior pornography consumption predicted a more positive subsequent attitude toward nontraditional sex, which in turn predicted more positive subsequent views on homosexuality.     

Facial recognition systems in policing and racial disparities in arrests

This study examines the association between police facial recognition technology (FRT) deployment and racial differences in arrests across 1136 U.S. cities in 2016. We estimated doubly robust propensity score models using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, FBI Uniform Crime Report, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Results show that agency FRT use contributes to greater racial disparity in arrests. This relationship was underpinned by statistically meaningful and positive FRT effects on Black arrest rates and negative effects on White rates. We also observed more sizeable and significant impacts for adult arrests, indicating that FRT's association with adult rates primarily drives the overall disparity finding. Results suggest a need for civic leaders to scrutinize the relative contributions of structural factors, agency policies, and government directives to officer decision-making before widely deploying FRT in jurisdictions. For agencies currently using this technology, it would imply the need for policies and supervision that guide, and in some cases restrict, officer discretion in FRT-assisted contexts.     

Ways to think about user fees for federal information products

With budget cuts looming, Federal agencies are revisiting user fees for information products. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 provides for user fees no higher than the cost of information dissemination. Federal agencies are enjoined from making a profit on their information products and permitted only to recover costs. The real question is how much value agencies should add to their information strictly for the public's use. Practical considerations such as the administrative costs of fees and legal authority to receive revenues condition an agency's decision to begin user fees. Various factors such as allowable costs and differential pricing must be considered in computing users' fees. The author suggests an action strategy for agencies contemplating information user fees and concludes that coming budget cuts will lead to increased employment of user fees by Federal agencies.     

Citation Abuse and Legal Writing: A Note on the Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux,etc., 1851 and 11 Stat. 749

The Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851 was an important transaction between a number of American Indian tribes and the federal government. However, because of administrative mishandling by the latter, there has been sustained but unwarranted confusion over whether the treaty was a valid one. Uncertainty led to the use of a brief note in the Statutes at Large, at 11 Stat. 749, instead of the treaty's full text as the law of the land. The Statutes cue, however, has been misused frequently in the opinions of various jurisdictions, even to the point of deploying it to reference specific quotations from the full document—that is, to material certainly taken from an alternative source. This article investigates the most significant citation errors to 11 Stat. 749, and uses them to discuss improvements to applications of legal writing.     

REPRESENTING ‘INFORMAL EMPIRE’ IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This article proposes an approach to media imperialism from the telegraphic news agencies’ point of view. Since the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, Western imperial interests were reflected in the geographical expansion led by the first international news agencies. The War of the Pacific (1879–83) in South America provides an entry point for investigating both the notion of the British ‘informal empire’ and the role of the first telegraphic news agencies in the South American region. The history of the news agency business in the subcontinent from the 1850s onwards helps contextualize the conflict between the South American republics of Bolivia, Chile and Peru as news agencies, newspapers and other information practices of the time revealed this event in Europe and the rest of the world. By the end of the war, Reuters and Havas (the British and the French news agencies), numbered their own casualties as a consequence of their confrontation in an extra-European region.     

Patients' rights on the World Wide Web

Managed care reform, commonly referred to as "patients' rights" legislation, has become a hot topic. Many groups, including consumers, health care professionals, employers, managed care organizations, political parties, and government agencies, have strong opinions about measures that should be taken and what the outcomes of these measures might be. Those investigating this multidisciplinary topic will want to examine health care administration, ethics, health services research, and political science sources. Web resources covered in this article include: clearinghouses; government agencies; federal legislative and legal sites; and home pages of professional and trade associations, policy research institutes, and consumer advocacy organizations.     

Group Affiliations,Opinion Polarization,and Global Organizations: Views of the World Trade Organization Before and After Seattle

Group affiliation plays a key role in shaping individual opinions on public policy issues. Understanding group-related differences may be important for global organizations that depend on broad public acceptance of their policies. Research indicates that people's opinions become polarized to match perceived opinions of their group and that media reports may signal normative opinions group members should adopt. Surveys administered before and after the World Trade Organization's (WTO) 1999 meeting in Seattle indicated significant differences in opinion by group affiliation. Respondents overall held negative views of the WTO before the meeting, and more negative views after the meeting. Business and civic group members were more positive toward the WTO than were human rights and environmental and union group members, reflecting their self-interests. However, contrary to public opinion theory between-group differences in opinion in many cases became less polarized, whereas attention to media coverage served to further polarize only the opinions of union group members.     

George W. Bush,Television News,and Rationales for the Iraq War

Popular sentiment holds that President George W. Bush was able to successfully “spin” the news during the early stages of the Iraq War. Research on the president-press relationship gives some reason to believe this sentiment but leaves ample room for skepticism. This article clarifies the relationship between presidential and press rationales for the Iraq War, focusing on whether Bush's emphasis on certain rationales influenced the extent to which news media emphasized these same rationales. Using computer-assisted content analysis to analyze a year's worth of presidential communications and television news, the study provides insight into the interaction of these important discourses.     

Sheep May Safely Graze?

This paper compares annotations of case opinions, law review articles and attomey general opinions between three state annotated codes and Shepard's Statute Citations. A framework for acquisition and weeding decisions is also suggested.     

U.s. military women in world war II: The spar,wac, waves,wasp, and women marines in u.s. government publications

During World War II, the U.S. military faced a shortage of personnel that forced the services to enlist women. All branches of the armed forces eventually created women's corps, and more than 275,000 women served in these organizations. This article offers an annotated bibliography of U.S. government publications relating to these pioneering women. It serves as a documentary history of World War II's military women as well as a resource for further study. A wide range of print and electronic materials is covered, from official and commemorative histories, to primary source materials such as congressional hearings and recruiting brochures and posters.     

Towards a balanced E-Participation Index: Integrating government and society perspectives

Since 2003, the United Nations has introduced the E-Participation Index (EPI), the first index to evaluate e-participation initiatives worldwide. This index has been subject to criticism for not representing the society side of e-participation initiatives. The EPI assesses e-participation initiatives on the government side only and neglects the society side, which includes all kinds of civil e-participation initiatives. In this work, the society side is included by incrementally extending the EPI with the Human Development Index and the Democracy Index. To identify the weights of the index, the best–worst method (BWM) is used while surveying 23 experts. The results show that political rights and civil liberties are viewed as the most important criteria with which to evaluate e-participation initiatives. Using this ranking, the Balanced EPI (BEPI) is created, giving weight to both the government and society sides. The new index concerns the willingness and empowerment levels of citizens so that the public can influence policy and political decision-making. Dedicated e-participation measures should be developed in further research.     

From Surgeon General's bookshelf to National Library of Medicine: a brief history.

The National Library of Medicine originated as a few books in the office of the army''s surgeon general, Joseph Lovell, between 1818 and 1836. It became the nation''s largest medical library after the Civil War under the direction of John Shaw Billings and began publishing the Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General''s Office and preparing the Index Medicus. After Billings retired in 1895, the library marked time as army medical officers were rotated through as directors until modernization began under Harold Wellington Jones during World War II. during the directorship of Frank B. Rogers (1949-1963), who introduced MEDLARS, guided the move to a new building in Bethesda, and revitalized other operations, the institution received statutory authority as the National Library of Medicine within the Public Health Service (1956). By 1965, which was marked by the passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act, the library had again regained a position of world leadership.     

Motivations and uses: Evaluating virtual reference service from the users' perspective

The questions of whether chat reference service is beneficial enough to users to justify the costs of offering it, and how valuable it is to users in fulfilling their information needs, have been primary concerns for librarians providing the service, for library administrators managing the service, and for funding agencies paying for it. The present study combines a traditional evaluation of the user's satisfaction with the reference encounter, with details of the user's information use and the user's motivation for using the chat reference service. This evaluation study assesses the effectiveness of chat reference service in meeting users' information needs.