According to today's Salt Lake Tribune, the US Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the constitutionality of states' sex offender registries (Utah's is listed incorrectly on this site.) The challenge is based on two claims: 1) some states include people in the registry that were convicted before the registry was created, and 2) the registrants are denied due process because they do not have a process to show that they pose no threat.

11:18:26 AM

While an increasing amount of government information available online is a good thing, the steep downside is the lack of a coherent policy across government levels of preserving that information. Stuff is taken off websites unannounced, and enters a post-internet black hole. In the area of defunct government agencies, the Cyber Cemetary  from the University of North Texas stands alone.  Here is a repository for dead websites (and other online information) that chronicled the activities of Federal agencies which no longer exist. That government agencies actually cease to exist seems to violate several higher laws of Bureaucratic Survival, but there you are.  Here are the websites of the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, the Office of Consumer Affairs, and many others, arranged alphabetically and by category.

9:33:08 AM