odds ’n’ ends
WASHINGTON:
The Internet Archive, which keeps historical records of Web pages, is creating a new backup center in Canada, citing concerns about surveillance following the US presidential election of Donald Trump.
“On Nov 9 in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long term, need to design for change,” said a blog post from Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian at the organization.
“For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions.”
Kahle said the center would begin raising funds to establish a copy of the archive in Canada, citing the principle that “lots of copies keep stuff safe.”
The goal will be to operate “in a world in which government surveillance is not going away; indeed it looks like it will increase,” he said.
While Trump has announced no new digital policies, his campaign comments have raised concerns his administration would be more active on government surveillance and less sensitive to civil liberties.
“Throughout history, libraries have fought against terrible violations of privacy — where people have been rounded up simply for what they read,” Kahle wrote. (AFP)
MINEOLA, NY:
More than 500 people were so moved by news accounts of a tiny baby being left at a firehouse on Thanksgiving Day that they called a local social service agency and offered to care for the newborn girl.
The child, who weighed 4 pounds, 2 ounces, was nicknamed Baby Girl Hope after she was taken by a woman to a firehouse in Wantagh, on Long Island.
Timothy Jaccard, the founder and president of the AMT Children of Hope Foundation, which provides safe havens for abandoned infants, said the woman, believed to be the child’s mother, called him and made arrangements to surrender the child.
Calls from people offering to either adopt or temporarily care for the baby started coming into the foundation shortly after the story of the baby’s abandonment appeared in New York newspapers and television stations.
New York law allows a parent to anonymously bring an infant to a safe haven, including a firehouse or police station. Jaccard said the baby is the 15th infant to be surrendered this year in the New York area, which is about average for the organization annually.
Jaccard, who also is CEO of the Washington, DC-based National Safe Haven Alliance, said 3,299 babies have been turned over safely to authorities nationally since 2000. (AP)