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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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