House Legislation on free WAIS server, Rep. Zimmer Press Release

[Michael Ward <mike@essential.org>]

Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List
(subscription requests to listproc@essential.org) 

TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - LEGIS
July 30, 1994

As indicated earlier, the House of Representatives House Information 
Services (HIS) has placed the full text of all house bills on a WAIS 
server, which is available at no charge.  The original annoucement of the 
service was made by Terry Nugent (using the email address of 
HIS@HR.HOUSE.GOV).  Representative Charlie Rose (D-NC, crose@hr.house.gov)
was responsible for the decision.  According to Representative Rose's 
staff, he has received hundreds of email messages asking for access to 
legislative information and in support of the "free after six" proposal 
for the GPO Access program.

A number of other persons played important roles, including Representative 
Dick Zimmer (R-NJ, dzimmer@hr.house.gov), who has been increasingly 
active on public access issues.  

We have been able to access the bills through gopher servers at idi.net 
and bell.com.  We are informed that the House of Representatives gopher, 
gopher.house.gov, the Library of Congress gopher (loc.marvel.gov) and 
APSA gopher (apsa.trenton.edu) can access the bills through the WAIS 
server, and I'm sure that the data is now available from other sites
as well.

On July 30, 1994, the Electronic Public Information Newsletter (EPIN) 
said it was publishing a story that quotes sources from the House 
Information Service as saying that they wanted to include on the free 
WAIS service the full text of Senate Bills and the Congressional Record, 
both of which are now available to members of congress through the house 
LEGIS service, but that they were prevented from doing so at this time by 
the Joint Committee on Printing, which oversees the GPO Access program.  
We have no independent confirmation of this report, which if true, is 
distrubing.  (EPIN is an independent newsletter that covers public 
access issues from a data user and library point of view.  Libraries who 
want to support this independent investigative publication should 
purchase subscriptions.  EPIN can be contacted at 301/365-3621 or 
epin@access.digex.com).  On a somewhat related front, Senator Wendell 
Ford, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing, has reportedly
written GPO to indicate that he has no objection to the "free after 
six" program, and Senator Ford also asked GPO for information requested 
by TAP on GPO Access subscription information, which Senator Ford 
indicated would be used in oversight of GPO.

The following is a press release sent to tap-info from Representative 
Dick Zimmer's office.  Representative Zimmer has sponsored a resolution 
that would put a much wider array of legislative information products on 
the Internet for free, and he is actively working on this and other 
public access measures.

   james love (jamie@tap.org)

The Zimmer press release follows:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 25 Jul 1994 18:24:18 EST
From: T.MITCHELL <TMITCHEL@HR.HOUSE.GOV>

AT ZIMMER'S PRODDING, HOUSE PUTS PENDING LEGISLATION ON THE INFORMATION
SUPERHIGHWAY.  (JULY 25, 1994----FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The House of Representatives will make legislation
accessible to constituents over the Internet, a month after U.S. Rep. Dick
Zimmer introduced legislation calling on House leaders to make the service
available to the public.

The congressional "Text of Legislation service" is now available on-line
free of charge, according to House Information Systems, which runs the
service.

On June 23, Zimmer introduced a resolution to require the House
Administration Committee to make all information contained in the
congressional Text of Legislation and Legislative Information and Status
(LEGIS) services available on the Internet.  The Text of Legislation
service contains the full text of all bills and resolutions introduced in
Congress.  LEGIS contains a summary and status of all bills and
resolutions introduced in the House and the Senate for the current
Congress.

"This is a giant step forward in congressional accountability," Zimmer
said.  "Until now, people who wanted to read a pending bill had to contact
their member of Congress or the Government Printing Office, or pay top
dollar to a commercial information service.  Now anyone with a computer
and a modem can log into the Internet and get that information instantly
free of charge."

In April, Zimmer wrote a letter to Rep. Charlie Rose, chairman of the
House Administration Committee, urging that all proposed legislation be
placed on the Internet.  Rose told Zimmer the committee was studying the
issue.  Zimmer said today he will ask Rose again to put LEGIS information
on the Internet as well.

The Internet links computers all over the world, supporting the exchange
of information over high-speed data lines.  Currently the Internet has
more than 8,000 networks which more than one million persons use each day
to send and receive electronic mail.

In May, Zimmer linked his Washington, D.C. office to the Internet.  His
e-mail address for constituents is dzimmer@hr.house.gov.

from more information, contact Todd Mitchel from Representative 
Zimmer's office, at  tmitchel@hr.house.gov
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