From daemon Mon Jun 12 10:15 EDT 1995 Received: from access1.digex.net (qltVijVudNC5A@access1.digex.net [205.197.245.192]) by town.hall.org (8.6.12/941123.08ccg) with ESMTP id KAA00937 for ; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:14:17 -0400 Received: (from samarlaw@localhost) by access1.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA10105 ; for ; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:16:31 -0400 Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:16:30 -0400 (EDT) From: "SAMARAWEERA Law Offices, Wash., D.C." To: Senator Connie Mack Subject: Goverment Reports on Internet by E-Mail Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2428 Status: RO You opened the hearing by asking for questions and comments, etc. via e-mail. First, congratulations on this first effort on this type of interactive hearing. My comment is directed to the manner in which a variety of federal governmental entities make information available. Even though there is a federal statute instructing agencies to also make their information reports, including regulations, press releases, etc., available via electronic means, the pace at which this is being accomplished by the various agencies is very uneven. I am most familiar with the various banking agencies. The FDIC and the Fed both have internet addresses, but they could be encouraged to post more full text information there. The OCC has chosen the interactive fax response approach. The NCUA has a dial in BBS which has their regulations, press releases, various reports, and legal opinions, etc. It is quite comprehensive. The OTS, on the other hand, has none of those. One still has to make an appointment and be escorted to the OTS reading room. As a member of the Banking Committee, you could do something to prod these and the other agencies of the federal government to make information, including the full text of the Federal Register, available on the internet for downloading. Regarding the Congress, and the Senate in particular, you all are also way behind in making information available on the net. The House is somewhat better than the Senate, but neither of the two chambers is regularly posting the Committee and Conference Reports, Hearings Reports, etc. on the net. The bills and acts of the 103rd and now the 104th Congress are making their way onto the gopher, but it would take very little additional effort to post Committee and Conference Reports from current and previous bills and legislation because they had to be put into electronic form, e.g. word processing disks, for the printed reports to be produced. Thank you for considering these suggestions. Please let me know if I may answer any questions that the suggestions generate. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Rohan J. Samaraweera \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ SAMARAWEERA Law Offices Suite 900, 1150 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 Voice Telephone: (202) 785-1985 Facsimile: (202) 785-1912 \\\\\\\\\\\ E-Mail and Internet Address: samarlaw@access.digex.net \\\\\\\\\\