1.
Copyright law of the United States
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The Copyright Law of the United States tries to encourage the creation of art and culture by rewarding authors and artists with a set of exclusive rights. Copyright law grants authors and artists the right to make and sell copies of their works, the right to create derivative works. These exclusive rights are subject to a limit, and generally expire 70 years after the authors death. In the United States, any music composed before January 1,1923, is considered public domain. United States copyright law is governed by the Copyright Act of 1976, the United States Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to create copyright law under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, known as the Copyright Clause. The United States Copyright Office handles copyright registration, recording of copyright transfers, US copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statute of Anne, which influenced the first US federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790. The Copyright Act has been updated several times, including, notably, the Copyright Act of 1976 and this includes incentivizing the creation of art, literature, architecture, music, and other works of authorship. As with many legal doctrines, the effectiveness of law in achieving its stated purpose is a matter of debate. The United States copyright law protects original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and this protection is available to both published and unpublished works. This distinction is called the idea–expression dichotomy, the distinction between idea and expression is fundamental to copyright law. For example, a paper describing a theory is copyrightable. The paper is the expression of the ideas about the political theory. But the theory itself is just an idea, and is not copyrightable, another author is free to describe the same theory in their own words without infringing on the original authors copyright. Although fundamental, the dichotomy is often difficult to put into practice. Reasonable people can disagree about where the unprotectable idea ends and the expression begins. Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp.274 F. 2d 487, however, compilations of facts are treated differently, and may be copyrightable material. Copyright protection in compilations is limited to the selection and arrangement of facts, the Supreme Court decision in Feist v. Rural clarified the requirements for copyright in compilations. The Feist case denied copyright protection to a white pages phone book, in making this ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the sweat of the brow doctrine
2.
Federal government of the United States
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The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D. C. and several territories. The federal government is composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U. S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the courts, including the Supreme Court. The powers and duties of these branches are defined by acts of Congress. The full name of the republic is United States of America, no other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party. The terms Government of the United States of America or United States Government are often used in documents to represent the federal government as distinct from the states collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term Federal Government is often used, the terms Federal and National in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the federal government. Because the seat of government is in Washington, D. C, Washington is commonly used as a metonym for the federal government. The outline of the government of the United States is laid out in the Constitution, the government was formed in 1789, making the United States one of the worlds first, if not the first, modern national constitutional republics. The United States government is based on the principles of federalism and republicanism, some make the case for expansive federal powers while others argue for a more limited role for the central government in relation to individuals, the states or other recognized entities. For example, while the legislative has the power to create law, the President nominates judges to the nations highest judiciary authority, but those nominees must be approved by Congress. The Supreme Court, in its turn, has the power to invalidate as unconstitutional any law passed by the Congress and these and other examples are examined in more detail in the text below. The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate, the House currently consists of 435 voting members, each of whom represents a congressional district. The number of each state has in the House is based on each states population as determined in the most recent United States Census. All 435 representatives serve a two-year term, each state receives a minimum of one representative in the House. There is no limit on the number of terms a representative may serve, in addition to the 435 voting members, there are six non-voting members, consisting of five delegates and one resident commissioner. In contrast, the Senate is made up of two senators from each state, regardless of population, there are currently 100 senators, who each serve six-year terms
3.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
4.
Register of Copyrights
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The Register of Copyrights is the director of the United States Copyright Office within the Library of Congress, as provided by 17 U. S. C. The Office has been headed by a Register since 1897, the Register is appointed by, and responsible to, the Librarian of Congress. They have increasingly been responsible for setting or influencing United States copyright policy, the Register also routinely testifies before Congress on copyright policy matters. Maria A. Pallante was the twelfth appointed register and the person to serve in the position. She initially took the position in an acting capacity following the December 31,2010 retirement of the previous Register, on June 1,2011, Pallante was permanently appointed to the position. On October 21,2016, Pallante was appointed advisor for digital strategy. Rather than accept the position, Pallante submitted her resignation on October 24,2016, karyn Temple Claggett became acting register of copyrights during the search for a new permanent office holder. Goldman,1973 George D. Cary, 1971—1973 Abraham L. United States Copyright Office
5.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
6.
James Madison Memorial Building
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The James Madison Memorial Building is one of three buildings that make up the Library of Congress and is part of the United States Capitol Complex. The building was constructed from 1971 to 1976, and serves as the memorial to President James Madison. It is located between First and Second Streets SE on Independence Avenue, in Washington, DC, with the help of former Librarian of Congress Lawrence Quincy Mumford, plans for a third Library of Congress building were started in 1957. Congress appropriated planning funds for the structure in 1960, and construction was approved by an act of Congress on October 19,1965 that authorized an appropriation of $75 million, the architect was John George Stewart (1890-1970, Architect of the Capitol. Excavation and foundation began in June 1971, and work on the superstructure was completed in 1976. The cornerstone, inscribed with the date 1974, was laid on March 8,1974, dedication ceremonies were held on April 24,1980, and the building actually opened on May 28,1980. These bodies also consulted with an appointed by the American Institute of Architects. The total authorization for construction eventually was increased to $130,675,000, designed by the firm of DeWitt, Poor, and Shelton Associated Architects, the James Madison Memorial Building is one of the three largest public buildings in the Washington D. C. metropolitan area. The building contains 2,100,000 square feet with 1,500,000 feet of assignable space
7.
Copyright registration
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Before 1978, in the United States, federal copyright was generally secured by the act of publication with notice of copyright or by registration of an unpublished work. However, the U. S. still provides legal advantages for registering works of U. S. origin and it is a common misconception to confuse copyright registration with the granting of copyright. Copyright in most countries today is automatic on fixation – it applies as soon as the work is fixed in some tangible medium and this standard is established internationally by the Berne Convention, which most countries have signed onto since. Registration may be required by countries before joining Berne, the observation that registration is not required in the United States, however, has been described as misleading. At least one commentator has questioned whether the conditioning of legal recourse on registration is inconsistent with the United States obligations under the Berne Convention regarding formalities, some scholars and policy advocates have called for returning to a system of registration requirements and possibly other formalities such as copyright notice. The system of automatic copyright on fixation has been cited as one of the factors behind the growth of so-called orphan works in, for instance, Copyright Offices 2006 report on orphan works. UC Berkeleys Law School held a conference in 2013 on the question of Reforming Copyright for the Internet Age, noting that Formalities, which in the past three decades have largely disappeared from American copyright law, may be about to stage a comeback. In Canada, copyrighted works can be registered at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for a fee, in Kenya, copyrighted works can be registered at the Kenya Copyrights Board for a small fee. In the United Kingdom, commercial services provide a facility where copies of work can be lodged to establish legal evidence of a copyright claim. There are also requirements to file certain published works with the British Library and, on request, in the United States, the United States Copyright Office accepts registrations. For works created in the US by US citizens, a registration is required before an infringement suit may be filed in a US court. Furthermore, copyright holders cannot claim statutory damages or attorneys fees unless the work was registered prior to infringement, all United States copyright registrations and renewals registered since 1978 have been published online at the Copyright Office website. Registrations and renewals prior to 1978 were published in semi-annual softcover Copyright Catalogs, for films from 1894 to 1969, inclusive, Library of Congress published hardcover Cumulative Copyright Catalogs, each covering ten or more years. Please see the Copyright Catalog article for links to digital copies of these pre-1978 US catalogs. Copyright formalities Public domain Copyright renewal Copyright Basics, world Intellectual Property Organization - Directory of Intellectual Property Offices Copyfight - Next generation copyright protection for webpages at source code level
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
Maria Pallante
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Maria A. Pallante is the president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers, a publishing industry trade association. Pallante is an American attorney who served as the 12th United States Register of Copyrights. She was appointed Acting Register effective January 1,2011, succeeding Marybeth Peters, on June 1,2011, she was appointed to the position which was intended to be permanent. Prior to her appointment, Pallante had served in the Copyright Office as Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs, Deputy General Counsel, Pallante had been a resident of Westville, New Jersey. Shortly after becoming the Register of Copyrights, Pallante proposed a plan to reinvent and update copyright law. In her paper, titled The Next Great Copyright Act she states in part it is difficult to see how a twenty-first century copyright law could function well without a twenty-first century agency”. In a letter to congressman John Conyers Jr. she said that the office should no longer be part of the library. On October 21,2016, Pallante was abruptly removed from her position, librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said she had been appointed senior advisor for digital strategy, an appointment made without Pallantes prior knowledge. Rather than accept the position, Pallante submitted her resignation on October 24,2016, karyn Temple Claggett became acting register of copyrights. Pallante had been described as being fair to both content creators and technology companies, the content creators wished to preserve artists rights while the technology companies wished to profit from looser copyright policies, to provide content more freely online. Pallantes removal as register was seen as a loss by those who advocate for artist rights, Copyright Societys Eleventh Christopher A. Meyer Memorial Lecture, Guest Speaker Maria Pallante
10.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states
11.
Copyright Act of 1790
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The 1710 British Statute of Anne did not apply to the American colonies. The colonies economy was agrarian, hence copyright law was not a priority. Two of the acts were limited to seven years, the other was limited to a term of five years. The copy right of such books for a time not less than fourteen years from the first publication. The copy right of such books for another term of no less than fourteen years. Seven of the States followed the Statute of Anne and the Continental Congress resolution by providing two fourteen-year terms, the five remaining States granted copyright for single terms of fourteen, twenty and twenty-one years, with no right of renewal. At the Constitutional Convention 1787 both James Madison of Virginia and Charles C, pinckney of South Carolina submitted proposals that would allow Congress the power to grant copyright for a limited time. The act covered not only books, but also maps and charts, with exception of the provision on maps and charts the Copyright Act of 1790 is copied almost verbatim from the Statute of Anne. The Copyright Act of 1790 was deliberated on and passed by the 2nd United States Congress, the bill was signed into law on May 31,1790 by George Washington, and published in its entirety throughout the country shortly after. At only half a page in the Columbian Centinel, a Boston newspaper of the day, the law was considerably shorter than later statutes, the text of the law covered only books, maps, and charts. The Act also did not mention paintings, drawings, which were not covered until the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1870, much of the Act was borrowed from the 1709 British Statute of Anne. The first sentences of the two laws are almost identical, the Statute of Anne and the Copyright Act of 1790 both provided for an initial term of 14 years, renewable once by living authors for an additional 14 years, for works not yet published. The Statute of Anne differed from the 1790 Act, however, in providing a 21-year term of protection, with no option for renewal, the Copyright Act of 1790 applied exclusively to citizens of the United States. Non-citizens and material printed outside the United States could not be granted any copyright protection until the International Copyright Act of 1891, consequently, Charles Dickens sometimes complained about cheap American knockoffs of his work for which he received no royalty. At the time, works only received protection under federal statutory copyright if the statutory formalities, if this was not the case the work immediately entered into the public domain
12.
United States district court
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The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the court, which is a court of law, equity. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States district court, each federal judicial district has at least one courthouse, and many districts have more than one. The formal name of a court is the United States District Court for the name of the district—for example. In contrast to the Supreme Court, which was established by Article III of the Constitution, there is no constitutional requirement that district courts exist at all. This view did not prevail, however, and the first Congress created the court system that is still in place today. There is at least one district for each state, the District of Columbia. District courts in three insular areas—the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands—exercise the same jurisdiction as Article III U. S. district courts, despite their name, these courts are technically not District Courts of the United States. Judges on these Article IV territorial courts do not enjoy the protections of Article Three of the Constitution, there are 89 districts in the 50 states, with a total of 94 districts including territories. The United States Court of International Trade addresses cases involving international trade, the United States Tax Court has jurisdiction over contested pre-assessment determinations of taxes. A judge of a United States district court is titled a United States District Judge. The number of judges in district court is set by Congress in the United States Code. The President appoints the judges for terms of good behavior. With the exception of the courts, federal district judges are Article III judges appointed for life. Otherwise, a judge, even if convicted of a criminal offense by a jury, is entitled to hold office until retirement or death. In the history of the United States, only twelve judges have been impeached by the House, a judge who has reached the age of 65 may retire or elect to go on senior status and keep working. A federal judge is addressed in writing as The Honorable John/Jane Doe or Hon. John/Jane Doe and in speech as Judge or Judge Doe or, when presiding in court, Your Honor. District judges usually concentrate on managing their courts overall caseload, supervising trials, since the 1960s, routine tasks like resolving discovery disputes can, in the district judges discretion, be referred to magistrate judges
13.
Librarian of Congress
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The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. The Librarian of Congress appoints the U. S, poet Laureate and awards the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The Librarian of Congress has broad responsibilities around copyright, extending to electronic resources, the Librarian determines whether particular works are subject to DMCA prohibitions regarding technological access protection. On July 13,2016, the US Senate confirmed Carla Hayden as the librarian by a vote of 74-18, on April 24,1800, the 6th United States Congress passed an appropriations bill signed by President John Adams which created the Library of Congress. This law was to serve a further provision for the removal, the fifth section of the act specifically created the Library of Congress and designated some of its early capabilities. Shortly thereafter, Jefferson appointed his campaign manager John J. Beckley to serve as the first Librarian of Congress. It was not until 1897 that Congress was given the power to confirm the President’s nominee and this same law gave the Librarian the sole power for making the institution’s rules and appointing the Library’s staff. For the majority of its history, the position was not subject to term limits, most Librarians of Congress have served until death or retirement. As a result, from 1802 to 2015, the United States only had 13 appointed Librarians, there are no laws or regulations delineating qualifications for the office holder. The position of Librarian of Congress has been held by candidates of different backgrounds, interests, politicians, businessmen, authors, poets, lawyers, and one professional librarian have served as the Librarian of Congress. However, at times there have been proposals for requirements for the position. Vitz felt it necessary to recommend potential librarians, in 1989, Congressman Major R. Owens introduced a bill to set stricter requirements for who may be appointed. He argued appointed Librarians need to have specialized training, the bill did not become law, james H. Billington David S. Mao, Acting 14. Inouye, Who Should Be the Next Librarian of Congress, roll Call Jessamyn West, The Next Librarian of Congress, The Message – via Medium Andrew Albanese, Could the Nomination of the Next Librarian of Congress Spark a Political Battle. Publishers Weekly Jessamyn West, ed. Librarian of Progress
14.
Ainsworth Rand Spofford
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Ainsworth Rand Spofford was an American journalist and publisher. He was the sixth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1864 to 1897, Spofford was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Ill health prevented him from attending Amherst College and he instead, at age 19, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a bookseller, publisher, and newspaper man. In 1849 Spofford founded the Literary Club of Cincinnati, which still exists, readers included Ralph Waldo Emerson, who shared Spoffords antislavery principles. In 1859 Spofford became associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial and he was also active in Republican party politics and was a delegate to the nominating convention of John Charles Frémont in 1856. While in Washington D. C. in 1861, shortly after reporting on the First Battle of Bull Run for The Cincinnati Commercial, the Library of Congress began as a comprehensive collection under the donation of Thomas Jefferson in 1814. However, the Library of Congress shifted to a domestic collection management program until the end of the Civil War. Spofford adhered to the Jeffersonian belief that a form of government depended on a comprehensive base of knowledge and information. ”That has been the legacy of Spofford. Spofford is generally credited with overseeing the expansion of the Library from a Congressional resource into a national institution, during Spoffords tenure, the Library expanded from over 60,000 items to more than one million. His hopes were to follow the great models of Europe. A model in which the library would be a collection of the literature of the nation. Beginning in the 1830s, the Library of Congress began to receive foreign governmental documents, during the late 1860s, Spofford convinced Congress to allow the Library of Congress to become the repository for international documents. Furthermore, the Smithsonian Library transferred their entire collection to the Library of Congress, Spoffords vision was to turn the Library of Congress into an American national library. He felt that Americans deserved a national collection because America was a Republic, one of Spoffords greatest feats was the copyright law of 1870. It further centralized the collection of the Library of Congress, Spofford knew that this massive influx of materials would also force Congress to appropriate funds for a new building, which they finally agreed to in 1886. This building became a national monument immediately, and is now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. In 1897, Spofford stepped aside in favor of an administrator, John Russell Young, and returned to his old post of Chief Assistant Librarian. Spofford was also not listed in the cemeterys handout that noted the people buried there
15.
Freedom of Information Act (United States)
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The Freedom of Information Act,5 U. S. C. §552, is a freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures and this amendment was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his misgivings, on July 4,1966, as indicated by its long title, FOIA was actually extracted from its original home in Section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act. Section 3 of the APA, as enacted in 1946, gave agencies broad discretion concerning the publication of governmental records, the amendment required agencies to publish their rules of procedure in the Federal Register,5 U. S. C. In addition, §522 requires every agency, upon any request for records which, reasonably describes such records to make such records promptly available to any person. If an agency improperly withholds any documents, the court has jurisdiction to order their production. The Federal Governments Freedom of Information Act should not be confused with the different, many of those state acts may be similar but not identical to the federal act. This push built on existing principles and protocols of government administration already in place, others, though—most notably President Lyndon B. Johnson—believed that certain types of unclassified government information should remain secret. The Privacy Act of 1974 was passed as a measure to ensure the security of government documents increasingly kept on private citizens. The act explicitly applies only to executive branch government agencies and these agencies are under several mandates to comply with public solicitation of information. In this way, there is recourse for one seeking information to go to a court if suspicion of illegal tampering or delayed sending of records exists. The nine current exemptions to the FOIA address issues of sensitivity, the law came about because of the determination of Congressman John E. Moss of California. Moss was the chairman of the Government Information Subcommittee and it took Moss 12 years to get the Freedom of Information Act through Congress successfully. Much of the desire for government transparency stemmed from the Department of Defense and they determined that the misuse of government classification of documents was causing insiders to leak documents that were marked confidential. The committee also determined that the lowest rung of the confidentiality ladder confidential should be removed and they deemed that secret and top secret covered National security adequately. The Moss Committee took it upon itself to reform confidentiality policy and implement punishments for the overuse of classification by officials, the FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches
16.
Newly industrialized country
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The category of newly industrialized country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists. NICs are countries whose economies have not yet reached a developed countrys status but have, in a macroeconomic sense, another characterization of NICs is that of countries undergoing rapid economic growth. Incipient or ongoing industrialization is an important indicator of an NIC, NICs usually share some other common features, including, Strong political leaders. A switch from agricultural to industrial economies, especially in the manufacturing sector, an increasingly open-market economy of developed nations, allowing free trade with other countries in the world. Large national corporations operating in several continents, Strong capital investment from foreign countries. Political leadership in their area of influence, rapid growth of urban centers and population. There is a distinction between these countries and the countries now considered NICs. All four economies are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and Advanced economies by the International Monetary Fund, all of them, like Western European countries, have a Human Development Index considered very high by the UN. The table below presents the list of countries consistently considered NICs by different authors, turkey and South Africa are classified as developed countries by the CIA. Turkey was a member of the OECD in 1961 and Mexico joined in 1994. The G8+5 group is composed of the original G8 members in addition to China, India, Mexico, South Africa, note, Green-colored cells indicate higher value or best performance in index, while yellow-colored cells indicate the opposite. For China and India, the population of these two countries means that per capita income will remain low even if either economy surpasses that of the United States in overall GDP. When GDP per capita is calculated according to purchasing power parity, GDP per capita typically is an indicator for living standards in a given country as well. This group is expected to expand to G14 by adding Egypt alongside the five forementioned countries, authors set lists of countries accordingly to different methods of economic analysis. Sometimes a work ascribes NIC status to a country that other authors dont consider NIC and this is the case of countries such as Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Russia. NICs usually benefit from low wage costs, which translates into lower input prices for suppliers. This comparative advantage is often criticized by advocates of the trade movement. Critics of NICs argue economic freedom is not always associated with freedom in countries such as China, pointing out that Internet censorship
17.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization. It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for infringement on the Internet. The DMCAs principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of Internet service providers and this exemption was adopted by the European Union in the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000. The Copyright Directive 2001 implemented the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty in the EU, the treaties have two major portions. One portion includes works covered by treaties in U. S. copy prevention laws. For further analysis of this portion of the Act and of cases under it, see WIPO Copyright and Performances, the second portion is often known as the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. The section contains a number of limitations and exemptions, for such things as government research. The section does not include a fair use exemption from criminality nor a scienter requirement, OCILLA also includes a counternotification provision that offers OSPs a safe harbor from liability to their users when users claim that the material in question is not, in fact, infringing. OCILLA also facilitates issuing of subpoenas against OSPs to provide their users identity, DMCA Title III modified section 117 of the copyright title so that those repairing computers could make certain temporary, limited copies while working on a computer. It reversed the precedent set in MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, DMCA Title IV contains an assortment of provisions, Clarified and added to the duties of the Copyright Office. Added ephemeral copy for broadcasters provisions, including certain statutory licenses, added provisions to facilitate distance education. Added provisions to assist libraries with keeping phonorecords of sound recordings, added provisions relating to collective bargaining and the transfer of movie rights. DMCA Title V added sections 1301 through 1332 to add a sui generis protection for boat hull designs, boat hull designs were not considered covered under copyright law because boats are useful articles whose form cannot be cleanly separated from their function. Exemptions are granted when it is shown that access-control technology has had an adverse effect on the ability of people to make non-infringing uses of copyrighted works. The exemption rules are revised every three years, Exemptions expire after three years and must be resubmitted for the next rulemaking cycle. Consequently, the issued in the prior rulemakings in 2000,2003,2006,2010 and 2013 are no longer valid. After much criticism, on December 29,2015, the Copyright Office initiated a study to assess the operation of section 1201 and this is different from usual public comments on exemption proposals
18.
Federal Register
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The Federal Register, abbreviated FR or sometimes Fed. Reg. is the journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules. It is published daily, except on federal holidays, the Federal Register is compiled by the Office of the Federal Register and is printed by the Government Publishing Office. There are no restrictions on the Federal Register, as a work of the U. S. government. In essence, the Federal Register is a way for the government to announce changes to government requirements, policies, the notice and comment process, as outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act, gives the people a chance to participate in agency rulemaking. Publication of documents in the Federal Register also constitutes constructive notice, the Federal Register is the main source for the U. S. Both proposed and final rules are published in the Federal Register, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking typically requests public comment on a proposed rule, and provides notice of any public meetings where a proposed rule will be discussed. The public comments are considered by the government agency. The United States Government Manual is published as an edition of the Federal Register. Its focus is on programs and activities, to purchase current or back print copies of the Federal Register, one may contact the U. S. Government Publishing Office. In each issue of the Federal Register, there is a subscription page, currently, a years subscription rate within the U. S. is US$929. Each individual issue may be priced from $11 to $33 depending on its pages, virtually every law library associated with an American Bar Association–accredited law school will also have a set, as will federal depository libraries. The Federal Register has been online since 1994. Federal depository libraries within the U. S. also receive copies of the text, outside the U. S. some major libraries may also carry the Federal Register. To help federal agencies manage their dockets, the Federal Docket Management System was launched in 2005 and is the side of regulations. gov. In April 2009, Citation Technologies created a free, searchable website for Federal Register articles dating from 1996 to the present. GovPulse. us, a finalist in the Sunlight Foundations Apps for America 2, provides a web 2.0 interface to the Federal Register, including sparklines of agency activity, on July 25,2010, the Federal Register 2.0 website went live. The new website is a collaboration between the developers who created GovPulse. us, the Government Publishing Office and the National Archives, on August 1,2011, the Federal Register announced a new application programming interface to facilitate programmatic access to the Federal Register content
19.
Project Gutenberg
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Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library, most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, as of 3 October 2015, Project Gutenberg reached 50,000 items in its collection. The releases are available in plain text but, wherever possible, other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional, Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts. Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence, Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the universitys Materials Research Lab. Through friendly operators, he received an account with an unlimited amount of computer time. Hart has said he wanted to back this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge and this particular computer was one of the 15 nodes on ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet. Hart believed that computers would one day be accessible to the general public and he used a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence in his backpack, and this became the first Project Gutenberg e-text. He named the project after Johannes Gutenberg, the fifteenth century German printer who propelled the movable type printing press revolution, by the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from Illinois Benedictine College. More volunteers had joined the effort, all of the text was entered manually until 1989 when image scanners and optical character recognition software improved and became more widely available, which made book scanning more feasible. Hart later came to an arrangement with Carnegie Mellon University, which agreed to administer Project Gutenbergs finances, as the volume of e-texts increased, volunteers began to take over the projects day-to-day operations that Hart had run. Starting in 2004, an online catalog made Project Gutenberg content easier to browse, access. Project Gutenberg is now hosted by ibiblio at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Italian volunteer Pietro Di Miceli developed and administered the first Project Gutenberg website and started the development of the Project online Catalog. In his ten years in this role, the Project web pages won a number of awards, often being featured in best of the Web listings, Hart died on 6 September 2011 at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. In 2000, a corporation, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Long-time Project Gutenberg volunteer Gregory Newby became the foundations first CEO, also in 2000, Charles Franks founded Distributed Proofreaders, which allowed the proofreading of scanned texts to be distributed among many volunteers over the Internet
20.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
21.
LibriVox
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On 6 August 2016, the project completed project number 10,000. Most releases are in the English language, but many works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, LibriVox is closely affiliated with Project Gutenberg from where the project gets some of its texts, and the Internet Archive that hosts their offerings. LibriVox was started in August 2005 by Montreal-based writer Hugh McGuire, who set up a blog, the first recorded book was The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. LibriVox is an invented word inspired by Latin words liber in its genitive form libri and vox, the word was also coined because of other connotations as liber also means child and free, independent, unrestricted. As the LibriVox forum says it, We like to think LibriVox might be interpreted as child of the voice, finally, the other link we like is library so you could imagine it to mean Library of Voice. There has been no decision or consensus by LibriVox founders or the community of volunteers for a single pronunciation of LibriVox and it is accepted that any audible pronunciation is accurate. LibriVox is a volunteer-run, free content, Public Domain project and it has no budget or legal personality. The development of projects is managed through an Internet forum, supported by an admin team, in early 2010, LibriVox ran a fundraising drive to raise $20,000 to cover hosting costs for the website of about $5, 000/year and improve front- and backend usability. Volunteers can choose new projects to start, either recording on their own or inviting others to join them, once a volunteer has recorded his or her contribution, it is uploaded to the site, and proof-listened by members of the LibriVox community. Finished audiobooks are available from the LibriVox website, and MP3, recordings are also available through other means, such as iTunes, and, being free of copyright, they are frequently distributed independently of LibriVox on the Internet and otherwise. LibriVox only records material that is in the domain in the United States. Because of copyright restrictions, LibriVox produces recordings of only a number of contemporary books. These have included, for example, the 9/11 Commission Report and it contains much popular classic fiction, but also includes less predictable texts, such as Immanuel Kants Critique of Pure Reason and a recording of the first 500 digits of pi. The collection also features poetry, plays, religious texts and non-fiction of various kinds, in January 2009, the catalogue contained approximately 55 percent fiction and drama,25 percent non-fiction and 20 percent poetry. By the end of 2016, the most viewed item was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a 2006 solo recording by John Greenman, around 90 percent of the catalogue is recorded in English, but recordings exist in 31 languages altogether. Chinese, French and German are the most popular languages other than English amongst volunteers, LibriVox has garnered significant interest, in particular from those interested in the promotion of volunteer-led content and alternative approaches to copyright ownership on the Internet. It has received support from the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, intellectual freedom and commons proponent Mike Linksvayer described it in 2008 as perhaps the most interesting collaborative culture project this side of Wikipedia
22.
United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
23.
United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
24.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
25.
114th United States Congress
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It met in Washington, D. C. from January 3,2015, to January 3,2017, during the final two full years of Barack Obamas presidency. The 2014 elections gave the Republicans control of the Senate for the first time since the 109th Congress, with 247 seats in the House of Representatives and 54 seats in the Senate, this Congress began with the largest Republican majority since the 71st Congress of 1929–1931. January 6,2015, Incumbent Speaker of the House John Boehner was re-elected despite the defections of 25 members from his own Republican caucus, twice the number from the previous Congress. January 20,2015,2015 State of the Union Address March 3,2015, Netanyahu was invited by Speaker John Boehner without consulting President Obama. March 9,2015, U. S. March 25,2015, April 29,2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe addressed a joint session of Congress, becoming the first Japanese leader to do so. September 24,2015, Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress, September 25,2015, House Speaker John Boehner announced that he would resign as Speaker and from the House at the end of October 2015. Subsequently, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the favorite to succeed John Boehner. October 29,2015, Paul Ryan was elected to succeed John Boehner as Speaker of the House with 236 votes of the House in favor and he is the youngest Speaker since James G. Blaine in 1875. January 12,2016,2016 State of the Union Address June 8,2016, June 22–23,2016, In the wake of the 2016 Orlando attacks, Congress debated gun control reform. The U. S. House recessed for the July 4 holiday during a sit-in protest held by Democrats that halted business in the chamber for more than 24 hours. November 8,2016, Donald Trump and Mike Pence elected as president and vice-president in presidential elections, January 12,2015, Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114–1 April 16,2015, Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, 114–10 May 22,2015, Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114–17 June 2,2015, USA FREEDOM Act, Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015, 114–23 June 29,2015, Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114–27 July 6,2015, Department of Homeland Security Interoperable Communications Act, 114–29 November 5,2015, Librarian of Congress Succession Modernization Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114–86 November 25,2015, SPACE Act of 2015, Pub. L, 114–90 December 4,2015, Fixing Americas Surface Transportation Act, Pub. L. 114–94 December 10,2015, Every Student Succeeds Act, Pub. L, 114–95 December 18,2015, Consolidated Appropriations Act,2016, Pub. L. 114–113 February 8,2016, Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2015, 114–120 February 24,2016, Internet Tax Freedom Act contained in Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114–125 July 20,2016, Global Food Security Act of 2016, 114–195 September 28,2016, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, Pub. L
26.
115th United States Congress
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It is scheduled to meet in Washington, D. C. from January 3,2017, to January 3,2019, during the final weeks of the Obama presidency and the first two years of the Trump presidency. The elections of November 2016 maintained Republican control of both the House and Senate, January 5,2017, House of Representatives condemned United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. The final vote was 51 to 48 to approve a resolution to allow broad swaths of the Affordable Care Act to be repealed through a process known as budget reconciliation. January 20,2017, Inauguration of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, february 7,2017, The Vice President cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. This was the first time in United States history that a cabinet confirmation was tied in the Senate, february 28,2017, Presidents speech to a Joint Session Resignations and new members are discussed in the Changes in membership section, below. All 435 seats were filled by election on November 8,2016, listed alphabetically by chamber, including Chairman and Ranking Member
27.
Classes of United States Senators
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The three classes of United States Senators are made up of 33 or 34 Senate seats each. The purpose of the classes is to determine which Senate seats will be up for election in a given year, the three groups are staggered so that one of them is up for election every two years, rather than having all 100 seats up for election at once. For example, the 33 Senate seats of Class 1 were elected in 2012, the 33 seats of Class 2 were up for election in 2014, the three classes were established by Article I, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U. S. Constitution. The actual division was performed by the Senate in May 1789 by lot. A senators description as junior or senior senator is not related to his or her class, rather, a states senior senator is the one with the greater seniority in the Senate. This is mostly based on length of service, when the Founding Fathers agreed to give six-year terms to Senators, they also decided to stagger the elections, so that a third of the Senate was up for election every two years. At the same time, they wanted more frequent elections, as opposed to waiting every six years and this was achieved in May 1789, several weeks after the first Senate assembled. To decide on how to implement this, on May 11 the Senate appointed a committee consisting of Senators Ellsworth, Carroll, in accordance with their recommendation, on May 14 the Senate divided the members into three classes, Thursday, May 14,1789. That three papers of a size, numbered 1,2, and 3, be, by the Secretary, rolled up and put into a box, and drawn by Mr. Langdon, Mr. Wingate. On the following day, May 15, the expiration of each class was determined by drawing lots. Upon the expiration of a term of any length, someone starts a new six-year term as senator. Because each state is represented by two Senators, regardless of population, each Senate class collectively represents a different number of people than each other Senate class. When a new state is admitted to the Union, its two senators have terms that correspond to those of two different classes, among the three classes defined below, a coin toss determines which new senator enters which of the classes selected to be expanded. This means at least one of any new states first pair of senators has a term of less than six years, when the last state, Hawaii, was admitted in 1959, candidates for the Senate ran either for seat A or seat B. The new Senators, in a process managed by the Secretary of the Senate, should a 51st state be admitted, it would receive senators in Classes 1 and 2, at which point all three Classes would have 34 senators. US Senate class page Current Class 1, Current Class 2, Current Class 3, A2013 analysis of the partisan leanings of each class
28.
Dean of the United States House of Representatives
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The Dean of the United States House of Representatives is the longest continuously serving member of the House. The current Dean is John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan who has served in the House since January 3,1965, the Dean is a symbolic post whose only customary duty is to swear in a Speaker of the House when he or she is elected. The Dean comes forward on the House Floor to administer the oath to the Speaker-elect before the new Speaker then administers the oath to the other members. The Dean does not preside over the election of the Speaker, unlike the Father of the House in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and the Dean of the Canadian House of Commons. It is unclear when the position first achieved concrete recognition, though the seniority system, as late as 1924, Frederick H. Gillett was Dean, and also Speaker, before becoming a Senator. Modern Deans move into their positions so late in their careers that a move to the Senate is highly unlikely, when Ed Markey broke Gilletts record for time in the House before moving to the Senate in 2013 he was still decades junior to the sitting Dean. The Deanship can change hands unexpectedly, claude Pepper, who died early in his final term in 1989, held the record for oldest winner of a House election until Hall broke it in 2012. However, Sabath died before the new term began and Doughton was Dean for the old terms final months before Speaker Sam Rayburn became Dean in the new Congress. In 1994, Texas Democrat Jack Brooks was defeated by Steve Stockman in the year he was expected to succeed Jamie L. Whitten as Dean, years as Dean are followed by name, party, state, and start of service in Congress. All the members of the First Congress had equal seniority, Muhlenberg, Hartley and Thatcher were among the 13 members who attended the initial meeting of the House on March 4,1789. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some state delegations to the House were often not elected until after the term had begun, to avoid confusion, this fact is ignored in the list below
29.
Vice President of the United States
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The executive power of both the vice president and the president is granted under Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. The vice president is elected, together with the president. The Office of the Vice President of the United States assists, as the president of the United States Senate, the vice president votes only when it is necessary to break a tie. Additionally, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the president presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College. Currently, the president is usually seen as an integral part of a presidents administration. The Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress. Mike Pence of Indiana is the 48th and current vice president and he assumed office on January 20,2017. The formation of the office of vice president resulted directly from the compromise reached at the Philadelphia Convention which created the Electoral College, the delegates at Philadelphia agreed that each state would receive a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that states allocation of Representatives and Senators. The delegates assumed that electors would typically choose to favor any candidate from their state over candidates from other states, under a plurality election process, this would tend to result in electing candidates solely from the largest states. Consequently, the delegates agreed that presidents must be elected by a majority of the number of electors. To guard against such stratagems, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the first runner-up presidential candidate would become vice president, the process for selecting the vice president was later modified in the Twelfth Amendment. Each elector still receives two votes, but now one of those votes is for president, while the other is for vice president. The requirement that one of those votes be cast for a candidate not from the electors own state remains in effect. S, other statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. As President of the Senate, the president has two primary duties, to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheneys tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority, as President of the Senate, the vice president oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes that was surpassed by John C. Calhoun with 31. Adamss votes protected the presidents sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, on at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters
30.
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
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The president pro tempore of the United States Senate, also president pro tem, is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate. Unlike the vice president, the president pro tempore is a member of the Senate. Selected by the Senate at large, the president pro tempore has enjoyed many privileges, during the vice presidents absence, the president pro tempore is empowered to preside over Senate sessions. Since 1890, the most senior senator in the majority party has generally chosen to be president pro tempore. This tradition has been observed without interruption since 1949, the current President pro tempore of the Senate is Utah Republican Orrin Hatch. Elected on January 6,2015, he is the 90th person to serve in this office, although the position is in some ways analogous to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the powers of the president pro tempore are far more limited. The president pro tempore is third in the line of succession, following the vice president. Additional duties include appointment of various officers, certain commissions, advisory boards. The officeholder is an ex member of various boards and commissions. With the secretary and sergeant at arms, the president pro tempore maintains order in Senate portions of the Capitol, the office of president pro tempore was established by the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The first president pro tempore, John Langdon, was elected on April 6 the same year, originally, the president pro tempore was appointed on an intermittent basis when the vice president was not present to preside over the Senate. Until the 1960s, it was practice for the vice president to preside over daily Senate sessions. Until 1891, the president pro tempore only served until the return of the president to the chair or the adjournment of a session of Congress. Between 1792 and 1886, the president pro tempore was second in the line of succession following the vice president. When President Andrew Johnson, who had no president, was impeached and tried in 1868. Wades radicalism is thought by historians to be a major reason why the Senate. The President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House were removed from the line of succession in 1886. Both were restored to it in 1947, though this time with the president pro tempore following the speaker, William P. Frye served as President pro tempore from 1896 to 1911 (54th–62nd Congress, a tenure longer than anyone else
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