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Records/Archives in the News Part 06 01/23/00
Records/Archives in the News r000116a
There are 4 stories in this posting.
BBC Online 1/14/00
Fire destroys Bronze Age records
Atlanta Journal Constitution 1/16/00
Barnes: Records law can?t cover me
Associated Press 1/15/00
Mystery of Nixon tape may be solved
San Francisco Chronicle 1/13/00
Silk purse contains sows? ears
_______________________________________________________________
BBC Online 1/14/00
Fire destroys Bronze Age records
by John Venables
<snip>
Research documents which chronicle one of Europe?s most important Bronze Age
excavations have been destroyed by fire - in a mouse nest.
Flag Fen, near Peterborough, UK, was discovered under fenland farmland 18
years ago.
The site, which comprises a mysterious wooden platform the size of Wembley
stadium had lain undisturbed since 900 BC.
<snip>
<snip>
Almost two decades of research work into the site has been destroyed after
routine maintenance work accidentally set light to an empty mouse nest. The
resulting blaze destroyed the entire building.
Staff at the Flag Fen research centre are still too shocked to be able to
evaluate the damage, but they say very little can be recovered.
?The problem is that while some records have survived they?re badly singed
around the edges, and that?s where the identifying marks and numbers were. So
although some documents have survived the fire, most of them are now
scientifically useless,? said Toby Fox, Flag Fen?s general manager.
The records were contained in fireproof cabinets, but the heat was so intense
the cabinets burst open.
Ironically all the records had been copied and the duplicates were kept in
another building, but because of damp they had been temporarily moved back.
As a result the only copies that remain are in published work by the centre?s
founder Dr Francis Pryor.
Photographs too were destroyed and the centre has issued an appeal for anyone
who has copies of either written work or photographs to get in touch.
Flag Fen is also the home of the so-called Seahenge timber circle, recently
recovered from a Norfolk beach, despite bitter opposition from some local
people and druids. Fortunately the Seahenge remains were kept in water tanks
in another building some distance away and were not harmed.
<snip>
<snip>
Flag Fen lies between two Bronze Age settlements. Despite almost 20 years of
work archaeologists still have little idea what the enormous timber raft
could have been. Tree ring dating suggests it was occupied between 1350 and
900 BC. One theory is that it could have been a religious site.
<snip>
_________________________________________________________________
Atlanta Journal Constitution 1/16/00
Barnes: Records law can?t cover me
by Alan Judd
<snip>
As a lawyer, he fought to pry loose government documents for a client, the
Marietta Daily Journal.
As governor, he pushed the General Assembly to impose criminal penalties on
public officials who violate the Open Records Act.
But that law, Barnes now contends, does not apply to him. And, to his
chagrin, he says he can do nothing about it, despite his reputation as a
champion of open government.
Barnes? office maintains the governor is exempt from the open records law
because the state constitution divides power among the executive, legislative
and judicial branches. The General Assembly, Barnes? lawyers say, cannot
adopt legislation requiring the governor to release any records he wants to
withhold. It would make no difference, the lawyers say, if the governor asked
legislators to pass such a law, as he once planned to do.
The fact that Barnes cannot get the records law to apply to his office
demonstrates that even a governor often accused by political opponents of
grabbing unprecedented power does, in fact, have limits to his authority.
<snip>
<snip>
In an interview, Barnes said he runs the governor?s office ?as if it is
subject to the Open Records Act.? The only documents the office withholds,
Barnes said, are those exempted by law from public access. Examples include
law enforcement reports and personnel records.
?What we do,? he said, ?is apply (the exemptions) as if we?re subject to open
records.?
His office, however, recently cited the separation of powers in denying a
request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to review memos between Barnes
and his aides.
?Communications between the staff of the office of the governor and the
governor are not within the (scope) of the Open Records Act,? wrote
Christopher Carpenter, a lawyer in the governor?s office. The newspaper had
sought access to memos describing plans for the governor?s state budget
proposal.
Barnes has agreed to release copies of computer messages he sends and
receives. Using his Toshiba laptop, Barnes routinely communicates with aides,
agency heads and ordinary citizens by e-mail. His voluminous e-mail?often a
substitute for more time-consuming telephone calls?offers insight into the
hands-on approach Barnes takes in running state government.
<snip>
<snip>
No court has ever ruled on Barnes? interpretation of the law, First Amendment
lawyers said. Although the Georgia Supreme Court has said the law does not
apply to the General Assembly or the court system, it has not considered
whether the governor?s office qualifies as a state ?agency? that would have
to comply.
<snip>
<snip>
Last spring, at a meeting in Atlanta of the National Freedom of Information
Coalition, Barnes said he would waive his exemption to the Open Records Act.
After the governor?s speech, his chief of staff, Bobby Kahn, said Barnes
would ask lawmakers in 2000 to apply the law to the governor, according to
the organization?s newsletter.
But the governor?s lawyers have since concluded that the constitution?s
separation of powers provision would prevent the General Assembly from taking
such an action. It wouldn?t matter, they said, if it came at the governor?s
request.
Instead, the lawyers said, it would take a constitutional amendment to
achieve his goal.
Such a move would ?extend a policy, which is good in some respects, too far,?
one of the lawyers, Joe Young, said. ?Every policy has its limits.?
Barnes will follow the lawyers? advice.
?I?m not quite ready to abrogate the separation of powers,? he said.
Young said it is up to the governor?s office to decide which documents to
open and which to close. Citizens, he said, would have no legal avenue to
challenge such a decision to withhold records.
But Barnes pledged to maintain a policy of openness.
?The governor?s office, as long as I?m governor, is going to be operated as
if the Open Records Act applied to it,? he said. ?I can?t tell you what
another governor after me would do. I know of no way short of amending the
constitution that you could legally do more than we have done.?
<snip>
________________________________________________________________
Associated Press 1/15/00
Mystery of Nixon tape may be solved
by Deb Riechmann
<snip>
WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Archives is exploring whether new technology
could solve an enduring mystery of Watergate: What was said during the
infamous 18 ½-minute gap on one of President Nixon?s tapes recorded three
days after the break-in.
?We are interested in examining the possibility of retesting the 18 ½-minute
gap in the Watergate tapes to ascertain whether or not there is any
recoverable conversation,? an internal archives memo obtained by The
Associated Press said. ?All of us believe it is doubtful there is anything
recoverable, but the last testing of the `gap? occurred in the late ?70s.?
The memo was written Jan. 7 to schedule a meeting to review the idea and
report back to John Carlin, archivist of the United States, on ?whether or
not it would be feasible and prudent to test again, and if so, how we should
proceed.?
As heard on the tape, the gap is a series of clicks, hisses and buzzes. It is
part of a recording made June 20, 1972, in the old Executive Office Building
as Nixon chatted with his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman.
Public disclosure of the erasure, late the following year, eroded Nixon?s
credibility at a time when his presidency was unraveling over the June 17,
1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the
Watergate.
Nixon?s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, testified that when a phone rang, she
must have pushed the wrong button and left her foot on a pedal, accidentally
recording over part of the original conversation. A panel of experts set up
in the 1970s by federal judge John Sirica, who presided over the Watergate
criminal trials, concluded that the erasures were done in at least five - and
perhaps as many as nine - separate and contiguous segments.
The panel never figured out what was erased.
Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, said the archives
would not make a quick decision on whether retesting should be done. ?It?s
premature for the archives to be commenting on this,? she said.
Steve St.Croix, an audio expert and president of Intelligent Devices in
Baltimore, has never heard the gap. But he said technology developed in the
past three years might make it possible to recover conversation, even from
tapes repeatedly erased on older machines.
?Any tape that has ever had audio on it can never be completely free of that
audio, though sometimes only infinitesimal amounts remain,? St.Croix said.
He said that when a recording is made, magnetized particles of iron oxide -
basically, rust - that are on the tape line up in patterns to represent the
sounds being recorded. According to St.Croix, most of the particles move into
these patterns, but not all.
<snip>
<snip>
Another technique involves painting the tape with a chemical substance that
allows the patterns to be seen under a special light and then possibly
digitized into computer data and evaluated.
<snip>
<snip>
Steven Smolian, a sound restoration engineer in Frederick, Md., is not
convinced new technology would recover what was said on the tape. But he
added that government laboratories might be working privately with newer
techniques not yet commercially available.
<snip>
<snip>
Smolian listened to the gap while preparing to testify in a lawsuit about
whether the government must compensate the Nixon estate for seizing the
presidential tapes, papers and other materials.
<snip>
<snip>
Bruce Koenig, a former supervisory agent of the FBI laboratory?s audio-video
division, said work done on the tape in the 1970s convinced him that talk
cannot be recovered from the tape.
<snip>
<snip>
Among other things, the experts who examined the tape in the 1970s tried to
hear signals along the extreme outer edge of the tape where they thought the
erasure might have been incomplete.
<snip>
________________________________________________________________
San Francisco Chronicle 1/13/00
Silk purse contains sows? ears
Rugged time capsule filled with Livermore trivia
by John King
<snip>
Thank goodness the cold war is over, leaving the top minds of Livermore ripe
for an intellectual challenge. They have labored tirelessly the past few
months and now they have something to show for it.
Yes, the city that attracted statewide snickers by misplacing a time capsule
from 1969 has learned from its mistakes. At noon tomorrow at Livermore?s
Civic Center, fanfare will accompany the burial of a container so tough, the
challenge in 100 years will be to figure out how to get the darned thing
open.
On the bright side, you couldn?t lose this baby if you tried.
``We?ll have a monument above it and a plaque, as well as documention of the
precise site kept in city records,?? says Tim Sage, who heads the Time
Capsule Committee. ``We?ll also record its position on the Global Positioning
(satellite) System, and register the location and exact contents with the
International Time Capsule Society.??
Livermore officials spent three weeks last summer acting like a bunch of
hyperactive moles as they dug up every patch of green in the city searching
for the 1969 capsule. Livermore?s best and brightest let things slip the
first time?probably distracted by that pesky fuss with the Soviet Union?but
now they?ve covered their bases in a manner that brings the word ``overkill??
to mind.
Not only will the location be announced with a bronze plaque, the time
capsule itself should thwart even the most diligent earthworm. It?s a
stainless steel barrel?and then some.
``It?s a cask designed to handle dismantled Russian nuclear parts,?? says
Sage, who works at Sandia National Laboratories, where the contained was
built. ``You can imagine how robust it is.??
The cask is placed in a hazardous- materials drum, then slipped inside a
sewer pipe that will be capped with a manhole-cover-like plate of steel. The
entire thing goes into the earth and then is topped by the plaque-adorned
cement slab.
By now, you seven readers who haven?t wandered off to read Farley must be
perched on the edge of your seats. What could possibly require such fail-safe
storage, with such diligent attention to its precise whereabouts?
The answer: Pretty much what you toss into the recycling bin each week. Among
the 100 or so items:
One month of bills and grocery receipts donated by the Strube family. (No, I
don?t know who the Strubes are?or if they can write this off on their taxes.)
Twenty-two newsletters, including one from Elks Lodge 42.
The fall preview issue of TV Guide.
Brochures from Livermore Airport and a local Oldsmobile dealer.
A sparkplug from the aforementioned Oldsmobile dealer.
A lock of hair from Mayor Cathie Brown.
While the last item no doubt would fetch big bucks on eBay, some of this
other stuff is, well, stuff. And that?s the point, says Barry Schrader, who
was in charge of assembling the detritus.
``We wanted a cross-section of a typical family living in suburbia at the end
of the century,?? Schrader says. ``Stuff like this will be fascinating 100
years from now.??
<snip>
<snip>
Survivability shaped the final selection of items. Cassettes and videotapes
were rejected along with batteries and ``anything that would outgas,??
Schrader says, because that would corrode other things. Paper clips and metal
staples?verboten, they rust. All small items were sealed in Mylar, including
Her Honor?s Hair.
``An archivist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reviewed all our
procedures,?? says Schrader, who works at Sandia. ``He spent a lot of time
spraying newspaper pages with special preservatives that take the acid out of
them.??
So this is the peace dividend we heard about a decade ago: the combined
resources of Sandia and Lawrence labs focusing in on how to build a better
time capsule. Mr. and Mrs. Strube, sleep well tomorrow night. Your secrets
are safe?for the next century, anyway.
<snip>
PETER A.KURILECZ CRM, CA
PAKURILECZ@AOL.COM
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