Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

“FOIA Online” Improves Requests & Responses Via Technology & Cooperation

Back in Nov. 2008 , the organization OMB Watch called for an online FOIA (Freedom of Information Act ) web site that would allow submission of requests, track  the progress of the response by agencies and be able to search a collection of stored released responses.

Traditionally, submission and responses to FOIA requests from citizens and companies, had been conducted by submitting a written request to each agency and waiting to hear back whether the request would be fulfilled. If more than one agency had to review the proposed release, it could take a long time before even that happened. Also, there was no single place to search for previously released FOIA responses.

Last month, the OMB Watch recommendation came to fruition in the form of the FOIA Online, which was originally developed  by the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA),  in partnership with the Department of Commerce and the National Archives and Records Administration, as the “FOIA Module”,  which was designed to deal with these shortcomings and provide significant new functionality for the producing agencies and the requesting end users.

Here are two slides from a Commerce Dept. Training document that concisely conveys what functions the new module provides for both :

At present FOIA Online provides processing tool for these agencies :

• Department of Commerce (except the US Patent and Trademark Office),
• Environmental Protection Agency,
• Federal Labor Relations Authority,
• Merit Systems Protection Board,
• National Archives and Records Administration - Office of General Counsel.

Users who wish to submit a request are encouraged to create an account that will allow them to :

• Track progress on all of your requests submitted through FOIAonline via a personal dashboard;
• Communicate directly with the agency at all points in the process;
• Have your contact information pre-populated in future requests;
• Receive notification when the status of your request has changed.

Hopefully, additional agencies will become participants in FOIA Online which is based on the “Shared Service” concept that helps eliminate waste and duplication and improve the effectiveness of technology solutions for government agencies and the public they are to serve.

 

The Online Password - Now Just an Illusion of Security ?

Matt Honan, a senior writer at Wired magazine, has written two recent articles, on  how several of his online accounts were hacked and taken over with the loss of much personal data . As someone who is an advance user of consumer technology and a keen observer of online developments, his insights and warnings should carry much weight for the rest of us.

He discovered how much of the hacking was carried out from actually speaking with one of the perpetrators. Apparently, the door was opened for a series of intrusions, by what is term "social engineering". Meaning that an interaction with a real person was used to deceptively acquire the needed private information.  However, the devastating extent of the hack was made possible by the his various accounts being linked. This facilitated the use of data discovered in one account, to be used with that found in another, to further compromise other linked accounts.

In the second article Mr. Honan identifies the inherent weaknesses in the widespread use of online passwords, as the central and fatal weakness in our online authentication infrastructure. He says that  passwords, even very complex ones, can no longer protect users online. 

He mentions the reoccurring losses  and theft of online user ID and password files from organizations.  Also the near universal use  of an email address as a user name, makes the fraudulent use of the password re-set procedure, another easy route to compromising a personal account.

Planting malware on our computers can also send our data to other people. As more of our applications are moved into the Cloud of the internet, many more of our important transactions like  banking, emailing, storing photos and documents, become even more vulnerable to hackers and thieves.

Mr. Honan says that what happened to him can happen to any one of us. And may become more frequent and widespread, if users and providers don't start moving away from the over-reliance on passwords and even backup questions, to provide security for our online activities.

But newer more effective  techniques may ironically require us to surrender even more personal information as we move to behavior- based identification and authentication. Which will monitor patterns for anomalies that flag potential dangers. It may mean a substantial trade off of privacy and convenience for  better security.  It seems like we don't win in this scenario but at least we may not  lose as  big,  as Mr. Honan did.

Sources :

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking

Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore

Student Lawyer Magazine to Run Series Dealing with Student Debt

The monthly magazine of the ABA Law Student Division, Student Lawyer, will be featuring a series of four monthly  articles  focusing on law school student debt and how best to deal with it. The series is authored by Heather Jarvis, an attorney providing educational resources and training for student loan borrowers and the founder of  askheatherjarvis.com

The first article in the series, "Getting a Grip on Your Student Debt" is in the November 2012 issue of the magazine.  Following articles will appear in January 2013, March 2013 and May 2013. These articles will deal with loans and taxes; making decisions regarding loans; the impact of varying employment statuses on repayment decisions.

Cover articles are usually available directly  from the Student Lawyer website. If an article is not available there and you are  a DePaul student , faculty or staff,  the full text of the articles can be accessed through the DePaul Library's online subscription to "Academic Search Complete" ( EBSCO HOST). There appears to be a one month delay in the appearance of the next monthly issue online.

Illinois Lawyer-to-Lawyer Mentoring Program Announced

At the end of October, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism announced the creation of a formally recognized mentoring program that recruits experienced attorneys to mentor newly admitted lawyers. This program comes after the experienced gained from a similar  voluntary mentoring program started in 2011 in the 17th Judicial Circuit.

Newly admitted lawyers have not generally received much practical and clinical experience while in law school. Also, the intensive preparation for taking the bar exam, consumes most of their time upon graduating. The timely guidance and instruction by an experienced attorney can significantly enhance their transition into practice. Legal, practical and ethical issues should all be addressed.

The Supreme Court has made a change in the rules( Rule 795(d)(12) ) covering Continuing Legal Education (CLE) to help motivate new and seasoned attorneys to participate in the program. Each  participant can receive up to six hours of professional responsibility credit for successful completion of the new program. There is a structured mentoring relationship established with documents and aids developed for guidance. However to provided needed flexibility, the program is administered by local organizations.

"By building relationships between new and experienced lawyers, experienced lawyers pass on fundamental skills and core values of professionalism essential to the practice of law at the highest levels of professionalism."

Lawyer-to-Lawyer Mentoring Program Guide

Lawyer-to-Lawyer Mentoring Plan   -  For Mentor and New Lawyer Pairs

Law Library Staff shares the "Spirit" of Halloween

This past Halloween, to help alleviate some of the stress of law school, several members of the law library staff wore costumes and passed out treats to students.The students were asked to write down the name of the staff member and identify his/her costume, which was entered for a prize drawing held November 1. Thanks to the generosity of the law library staff and administration, and Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis, plenty of goodies were available throughout the day. 

Donated prizes included a pair of AMC movie tickets, and gift cards to Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Potbelly Sandwich Works. There were 90 entries for the drawing. Thanks to everyone for participating. Below are the names of the student winners.

Irtaza Asif, Cate Hall, Adair MaCauley, Tahreem Kalam, Emily Welter, Samantha Odyniec, Emily Bonnema, Alexander Navarro and Jorge Echanove.