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Records/Archives in the News Part 04 01/20/00
Records/Archives in the News r991226a
There are 5 stories in this posting.
Houston Chronicle 12/26/99
Battle brewing over records of life before Texas won independence
Savannah Morning News 12/26/99
Point, click and sue
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 12/25/99
Spokane judge allows chatroom records as evidence
Deseret News 12/24/99
SLOC opens a small reading room -- to let public in on all the details
Toledo Blade 12/25/99
Public criticism of police records department mounts
________________________________________________________________
Houston Chronicle 12/26/99
Battle brewing over records of life before Texas won independence
Associated Press
<SNIP>
AUSTIN (AP) -- It?s not exactly the Alamo, but a fight is brewing over old
Spanish and Mexican records of life in Texas leading up to the state?s battle
for independence.
Bexar County Clerk Gerry Rickhoff wants the University of Texas to return a
collection of as many as 300,000 pages of documents dating from 1717 to 1836
-- the year Texas lost the mission fort but won independence. Some of the
records mention Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett.
The Mexican government left the documents, written by Spanish-speaking
priests, diplomats, military officers and others, in Bexar County when they
withdrew in 1836.
In 1899, the documents were sent to UT, which has been steadily organizing
and translating the documents, said Don Carleton, director of the Center for
American History.
Rickhoff, however, said the university is taking too long to translate the
works. About 14 percent of the documents have been translated and it could
take up to 200 years to finish them, he said.
?Those records don?t have a voice,? Rickhoff told the Austin
American-Statesman. ?I am the voice of these records. ... I want them back
and I?ll go to whatever measures it takes.?
Patricia Ohlendorf, counsel for the university, said the documents are
staying put.
?These are documents that are critical to the state of Texas, and we feel
that what?s best for the state of Texas is that they remain here,? Ohlendorf
said.
<SNIP>
________________________________________________________________
Savannah Morning News 12/26/99
Point, click and sue
by Leonora LaPeter
<SNIP>
Lawyers might have fewer reasons to hang around the courthouse come 2000 once
Chatham County?s State Court becomes the first in Georgia to adopt complete
electronic document filing.
For a fee, lawyers will be able to submit lawsuits and other filings on
behalf of clients in both criminal and civil cases over the Internet,
supplementing the traditional method of filing and serving documents. The
system is also available to people representing themselves in court.
State Court Clerk Carlton Blair has been working feverishly to get the system
ready in time for the New Year.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Chatham County is working with a California company, Image-X, to provide the
electronic filing system. The company operates a site, E-filing.com, that
lawyers can use to file lawsuits at a number of courts across the country,
from New Jersey to Minnesota.
As Blair says, filing a lawsuit will be as easy as ?point, click and sue.?
The system costs the county nothing because it already has the computers
needed to implement it, and Image-X will get paid by those filing the cases.
Fees to use the service will range from $7-$20 for each document filed. For
example, a lawyer filing a civil lawsuit would pay the regular $74 filing
fee, plus $5 to the court and $15 to e-filing for the electronic filing. Fees
to serve the lawsuit on the other party would also be paid at that time.
Other legal documents, such as an answer, a motion or an entry of appearance
in a criminal case, would cost an additional $5 to the court and $2 to
e-filing.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Chatham County?s State Court is the first to provide full electronic filing,
but it is not the first to try it out. Fulton County State Court began
testing an electronic filing system earlier this year in an asbestos case
that had multiple defendants and plaintiffs. It hopes to have a more complete
system up and running sometime in the future, said Don Forbes, executive
director of the Georgia Courts Automation Commission.
Forbes said courts in Gwinnett, Henry and Floyd counties are all beginning
efforts to get electronic filing in place but none has reached Chatham
County?s stage. He said it?s a slow process but it will probably catch on
because of the efficiency it brings.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Blair said electronic filing will also cut down on all the paper that the
county must manage and find space for.
?We have a records storage crisis in Chatham County,? he said. ?We don?t have
room to house all the records that need to be housed.?
Blair said Chatham County is seeking a request for proposals to provide a
document imaging system in the State Court that would allow the public to
view whole files over the Internet. This would cost $300,000 and provide the
basis for other county departments to scan documents into the computer once
they get the equipment.
But just because State Court is going electronic doesn?t mean the public will
no longer have access to paper documents at State Court.
?We will always have both there for people who are not going to fool with the
computer and for people who are not capable of using the computer and for
people who are too poor,? Blair said. ?We?ve got to provide for all those
people.?
<SNIP>
________________________________________________________________
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 12/25/99
Spokane judge allows chatroom records as evidence
Associated Press
<SNIP>
SPOKANE?Online computer chatrooms do not have the same privacy protections as
private telephone calls, a judge has ruled.
In what is believed to be the first decision of its kind in Washington,
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O?Connor ruled that police don?t
need court permission to record online chats.
Last week?s decision allows prosecutors to pursue charges of second-degree
attempted rape against Donald T. Townsend. Prosecutors allege Townsend, 26,
made contact over the Internet with a Spokane police detective posing in a
chatroom as a 13-year-old girl.
Washington?s Privacy Act requires consent of both parties before
conversations made over ?any electronic device? can be recorded. Police
frequently seek court orders to wiretap a person?s phone line.
But O?Connor said in her nine-page opinion that police are not required to
notify the other party while recording or transcribing remarks sent between
computer users.
?The defendant?s choice to communicate via chat was with the knowledge that
the computer itself is a transmission and recording device,? O?Connor wrote.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Patti Walker called O?Connor?s ruling an
important one.
?If the judge had not ruled in our favor, it would have changed how everybody
does business in this state using e-mail or chat,? Walker said.
<SNIP>
________________________________________________________________
Deseret News 12/24/99
SLOC opens a small reading room -- to let public in on all the details
by Lisa Riley Roche
<SNIP>
There?s not much to read in the Salt Lake Organizing Committee?s reading room.
Still, Olympic officials hope the handful of books, videos, magazines and
documents available in a small conference room just off the organizing
committee office?s main reception area are enough to answer the public?s
questions about the 2002 Winter Games.
?It may be symbolic,? said Nolan Karras, who represents Gov. Mike Leavitt on
the SLOC Management Committee. Karras led a committee that came up with the
idea for a mini-library of SLOC documents, such as a summary of the $1.34
billion budget and the lengthy contract with the International Olympic
Committee.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
?Sometimes when an organization is under fire, as this one has been, people
think they are being kept in the dark,? Karras said. Even if they never make
the trip to SLOC?s downtown headquarters, just knowing information about the
Games is available gives people a comfort level, he said. ?It won?t trouble
me if people don?t access it.?
SLOC spokeswoman Caroline Shaw said there?s no count of how many people have
visited the reading room, which has been open since July. But Shaw said she
believed the number would be relatively small ? and that?s adding in the
local media, who also use the room.
Those who do come will find a quiet, wood-paneled room with a few books,
videos and magazines scattered across the shelves. There are copies of the
final reports written by organizers of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta and
the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, as well as the bid books put together
for Salt Lake City.
Most of the documents about the 2002 Winter Games are under lock and key in
an adjacent storeroom and must be retrieved by a receptionist. The list of
documents available runs some 16 pages. Besides the budget, it includes
salary information for top SLOC officials, tax returns, contracts valued at
more than $500,000 and minutes of SLOC board meetings.
There?s even a collection of more than 30 videos, including copies of the
tapes shown during Salt Lake City?s unsuccessful presentation for the 1998
Winter Games, made to the IOC eight years ago in Birmingham, England, and the
winning pitch for 2002 made to the IOC in 1995 in Budapest, Hungary.
Visitors are welcome to read or view the information in the room and can
obtain up to 10 pages of copies for free. After that, a 10-cents-per-page
charge applies. SLOC is also willing to research information that?s not on
the reading room list, but there is a $25-per-hour fee.
The room is open during SLOC?s regular business hours, 8 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Monday through Friday, and is located on the sixth floor of the office
building at 257 E. 200 South. A driver?s license or other photo
identification is required for entry under a new SLOC security policy put in
place last December.
<SNIP>
________________________________________________________________
Toledo Blade 12/25/99
Public criticism of police records department mounts
by Robin Erb
<SNIP>
For Kelly Williams, it was a week of phone calls to get a simple traffic
accident report for her insurance company.
For Shannon Kimble, it was the hour-long wait in line this week to file a
police report when he wanted to be Christmas shopping instead.
?We?re citizens,? Mr. Kimble fumed as he left the Safety Building Thursday.
?We deserve better than this.?
Both are examples of taxpayers who have been frustrated recently by the
Toledo police records office, which supposedly serves the public but is
becoming increasingly more inaccessible.
On Jan. 3, it?ll get worse.
The operation - once serving the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year -
repeatedly has clipped back its hours over the last several years. Beginning
Jan. 3, the office will be limited to so-called ?bankers? hours? : nonholiday
weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
?They?re there to provide a public service. It?s not happening,? said traffic
Lt. Louis Borucki, who said he gets frequent calls from angry citizens who
say they can?t obtain traffic reports for their insurance claims.
The problem, say those who head the records office, is a dwindling number of
staff forced by a hiring freeze that has affected several city departments.
The around-the-clock shifts that five years ago were shared by about five
dozen clerks and officers were shared yesterday by 27 clerks and seven
officers.
While the office is open for limited hours to the public, clerks have to
staff the office 24 hours a day to run reports, check licenses and suspect
information, and file papers for Toledo police officers, records Lt. Cynthia
Bobash said.
?Right now, we?re to the point where we?re having to force people on
overtime,? Lieutenant Bobash said. ?We don?t like [the shortened hours]
either, but what can we do??
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
For example, the records office officially was closed Thursday and yesterday
for the Christmas holiday for city workers. But with the Thursday morning
snow, the city?s police officers quickly had too many traffic accidents to
handle. The city?s 911 dispatchers began advising callers to file their own
police report on noninjury accidents because no officers would be available
for several hours.
The records section staff opened for part of the day so citizens could file
the traffic reports immediately instead of waiting until after the Christmas
holiday, Lieutenant Bobash said.
Chief Mike Navarre pointed out that citizens can file reports with police
officers at any of the department?s district or sub-stations, and they can
fax or mail in requests to the downtown records section for existing reports.
?In many ways, we?ve made it a lot more convenient,? the chief said.
Jeff and Kelly Williams don?t think so.
Mrs. Williams?s van was struck by a 16-year-old driver on Dec. 13. Mr.
Williams went to the Safety Building the next day to get a copy of the
traffic report for the couple?s insurance company, and was surprised when he
was handed a piece of paper instead and told he?d have to mail in his
request.
Mr. Kelly said he returned home, filled out the form, and dropped it in the
mail the next day
As of yesterday, the report still hadn?t arrived, he said. In the meantime,
Mr. William made several calls and finally reached a traffic sergeant who was
able to get a copy of the report for him.
<SNIP>
PETER A. KURILECZ CRM, CA
PAKURILECZ@AOL.COM
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