Public Feedback Sought for Congress.gov

If you want current information on the federal legislation that is accurate and official, the best site to use is Congress.gov. 

Congress.gov is a collaboration among the Library of Congress, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Government Publishing Office. The site is searchable and free and provides the status, full text, and summary to each bill before Congress. It also provides direct links to the Congressional Budget Office which analyzes the cost estimates of each bill. The Congressional Record (which provides a daily transcript of speeches and actions of Congress) provides the process of the bill through Congress. The site gives access to the entire Congressional Record back to its first publication in 1873. Background information on the site are profiles of each member of Congress, legislative process videos, Committee profile pages, historic access to previous bills, and previous public forums. 

Once a year, in September, the Library of Congress conducts a public forum to educate the public and to gather feedback on the site. The next public forum has been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 18 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. 

If you would like to attend the forum virtually here is the registration link. If you are lucky enough to be in Washington and can attend in person at the beautiful Library of Congress, register here. 

The forum will present enhancements to Congress.gov based on previous user feedback. It will also show how “legislative information is gathered and made available to the public.” There will also be Q&A discussion segments where attendees can learn about the site and share ideas for future enhancements. Those who cannot attend can also submit suggestions before and after the forum at Congress.gov Public Forum Survey Form.

From the Library of Congress: The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

The Best of Both Worlds or Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The United States Postal Service is a strange hybrid. 

It was established by the First Continental Congress in 1775.  The new federal government established in 1789 established the postal service permanently as a government agency in 1792.

Therefore:

The USPS is a government agency within the Executive Branch. 

Its service standards are set in the Code of Federal Regulations, and the Postal Regulatory Commission has oversight of it.

It has a public mission, and the price of minimal service must remain affordable.

It maintains a monopoly of mailboxes and letter delivery to be able to provide service to communities that would not be financially viable for a private company.  Only the USPS can deposit items into mailboxes. 

As a government agency, the USPS is exempt from tolls, vehicle registration fees, state/local taxes, property/real estate taxes, and parking tickets for delivery vehicles.

To fund growth and improvements, the USPS is granted very low interest loans.

Postal workers are federal employees.  The USPS assumes all financial risks for workers’ compensation from its revenue.  It cannot use a private insurer.

Postal workers cannot strike.

 

However:

Since the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the USPS does not receive appropriations from Congress provided by tax revenues. Unlike most government agencies, it is almost completely financially independent. 

It is required to act like a private business and must compete for customers.

The rise in costs of providing services, especially employee retirement benefits, competition from other delivery companies, and a reduction in need for the postal service because of technological innovations for delivery of communication (email, etc.) has led to a loss of revenue for the USPS. 

Currently the cost of universal mail service is higher than the monetary value of having a monopoly.

Other handicaps:

USPS has more flexibility in purchasing than other government agencies, but purchasing is regulated by government oversight and is not as flexible as a private company would have. 

The USPS is forbidden by law from putting retirement program monies into any but the most secure investments.  Therefore, the cost of retirement benefits for postal employees is higher than the money the investments make. 

The amount the USPS can borrow for growth and improvements is capped by law, and the cap has not changed in 30 years.

Because of its hybrid nature, the USPS has some control over it’s operations and low to no control over others.  For example, USPS has no control over providing 6-day service.  It also has no control over its ability to diversify products and services.  It has high control over the prices it charges for services it competes with other companies to provide such as package delivery.

The US Postal Service component of the Office of Inspector General has studied the tension between the competing natures of the Postal Service as a privately funded entity and a government agency and in a white paper released August 2, 2024 has determined that its current structure is not sustainable and needs reform. 

 

Copyright and AI

“AI raises fundamental questions for copyright law and policy, which many see as existential. To what extent will AI-generated content replace human authorship? How does human creativity differ in nature from what AI systems can generate, now or in the future? What does this mean for the incentive-based foundation of the U.S. copyright system? In what ways can the technology serve as a valuable tool to amplify human creativity and ultimately promote science and the arts? How do we respect and reward human creators without impeding technological progress?” 

                                         Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights 

Because of the disruptive nature (i.e., an innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate) of AI generated materials, the US Copyright Office has been studying the effects of AI on the role of copyrights and devising policies and procedures for dealing with those effects. 

On March 16, 2023 the Copyright Office launched the New Artificial Intelligence Initiative to address, among other things, the copyrightability of works produced by AI and the use of copyrighted materials in creating data sets that “train” generative AI, which they define as “an application of AI used to generate outputs in the form of expressive material such as text, images, audio, or video. Generative AI systems may take commands or instructions from a human user, which are sometimes called ‘prompts.’” 

In August of 2023, the Copyright Office published in The Federal Register a Notice of Inquiry requesting comments and information from the public addressing these issues. Comments were accepted through December 6, 2023. 

From their study, which will incorporate these public comments and information, the Copyright Office intends to publish their report Copyright and Artificial Intelligence which will make recommendations for policies within the Copyright Office and to Congress for establishing copyright laws. 

On July 31, 2024, the Copyright Office published the first part of the report, Part 1: Digital Replicas. This first part of the report deals with the proliferation of videos, images, and audio recordings that “digitally created or digitally manipulated to realistically but falsely depict an individual.” The report concluded that these unauthorized replicas threaten the entertainment industry, the political arena, and private individuals. It recommends Congress pass laws for protection from these replicas and defines the scope these laws should take in reference to “what kinds of replicas it should cover, whom it should protect, the term of protection, liability, licensing and assignment, First Amendment concerns, potential remedies, and the statute’s relationship to state law.” The recommendations do not include protections for an artist’s “style.” 

No dates have been announced yet for the forthcoming parts of the Report. One can follow the progress of the study and the reports on the Copyright Office AI webpage.