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AALL Action Alert: AALL Amendment to H.R.
1858
For Immediate Release
August 3, 1999
CONTACT:
Mary Alice Baish
Associate Washington Affairs Representative
E.B. Williams Law Library
Georgetown University Law Center
111 G Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001-1417
Voice: 202.662.9200
Fax: 202.662.9202
E-mail: baish@law.georgetown.edu
Internet: www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash
Dear AALL Members,
There are currently two database protection bills before the 106th Congress, both in the
House. AALL supports the approach taken in H.R. 1858, the Consumer and
Investor Access to Information Act of 1999 that is the Commerce Committee's bill. We
strongly oppose H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act of 1999, that has
been reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee.
On Thursday, July 29th, the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications,
Trade and Consumer Protection chaired by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-3rd-LA) agreed to the
Manager's Amendment to H.R. 1858. We were very pleased that Rep. Tauzin included as
part of the Manager's Amendment an exclusion for primary legal materials drafted by the
Washington Affairs Office:
Protection under this chapter shall not extend to primary legal materials, including court
opinions, statutes, codes, regulations, or administrative agency decisions, from any
Federal, state, or local jurisdiction, unless such materials were permanently available on
an interactive computer network, without restriction, in an official, no-fee, publicly
accessible electronic form at the time that the extraction occurred.
The full Committee mark-up will likely be this Thursday, August 5th. It is
critically important that members of AALL contact their Representatives by fax as soon as
possible and urge their support for the language in our amendment.
Sample letters are included in the Action Alert. Please fax, along with your letter,
a copy of the AALL Issue Brief mentioned below.
AALL Action Alert is at: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash/aa080299.html
AALL Issue Brief on Equal and Equitable Public Access to the Rule of Law is
at: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash/ib069901.html
July 27, 1999 Letter to Rep. Tauzin and his Subcommittee:
http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash/lt072799.html
This is an extremely urgent and important issue, and we need your support.
Letters from our Chapters would also be very much appreciated. Thank you
very much, Mary Alice
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