Records/Archives in the News r980915b
There are seven stories in this posting

Sacramento Business Journal 9/14/98
Consumers, small firms must be Y2K-ready

The Age (Australia) 9/16/98
CIA funded covert Tibetan exile campaign

BBC Online 9/14/98
The hero with no one to mourn him

San Francisco Chronicle 9/11/98
Court allows ballots to remain secret

Ebusiness 9/9/98
Links to the Past

AP 9/15/98
Back-up Starr documents stored in secure House building

Reuters 9/15/98
Civil War Soldier gets book deal

_________________________________________________________________
Sacramento Business Journal 9/14/98
Consumers, small firms must be Y2K-ready

Kathleen Burke
<snip>
Already there's a "conventional wisdom" about what consumers should do to
prepare for the millennium. You may not want to be in an airplane, people say,
or in the hospital at the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, 2000, and you'll want to
be sure you'll have plenty of cash.

Doomsday theorists say it'll be worse, and a Y2K disaster movie is being
prepared for release next summer. The New York Post has already published a
lengthy doomsday scenario, and some national journalists have even suggested
that consumers would do well to avoid small banks at the century's turn.

Banks can't do much about air traffic control or hospitals -- though we'll get
to that in a moment -- but most banks, small and large, have built into their
planning for the Year 2000 the fact that consumers will be fearful of
institutional computer failures everywhere. It's being anticipated and
accommodated. The huge task of reprogramming banking systems, rewriting
hundreds of millions of lines of code to recognize 2000 as distinct from 1900,
is proceeding apace, on schedule.

That's just one of the facts noted in a recent study by PaineWebber analysts
that assesses the progress toward Y2K readiness of 30 large banks in the
United States. The study notes that in general the banks are on track toward
compliance. After assessing the banks on the basis of progress toward
completion, project start dates, loan portfolio risk, testing methods and
degree of software vendor dependence, the study concludes that earnings and
market value won't be affected by Y2K problems. That doesn't mean that all
banks will perform flawlessly, but it's a vote of confidence.

In another such assessment, The Gartner Group, a Connecticut consulting firm,
ranked the financial services industry No. 1 in Y2K preparedness. This report
is reassuring, but is just one of many facts the banking industry must convey
to consumers and businesses.

Consumers will be concerned about whether or not ATMs will work on Jan. 1,
2000, about whether their checks and other payments will clear, and about
whether bank computers will accurately remember who they are, what they owe
and when, and what's in their accounts.

A recent study by the Information Technology Association of America shows
nearly 25 percent of Americans now think their daily lives will be disrupted
by the millennium bug. Of those, 80 percent worry their financial records will
be distorted. Now is the time to prevent that quarter of the population from
swelling to half. Despite the fact that accounts are FDIC-insured, panic-
driven runs on banks would fulfill the worst predictions of massive bank
failures.

But as Franklin Roosevelt once put it (also with reference to banks) "the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself." Bankers want you to have the facts.

Nearly 60 percent of the banks responding to a recent California Bankers
Association survey said that more than 75 percent of their "mission critical"
systems are provided by outside vendors -- companies that specialize in
complex data bases and software to process transactions, and have a huge stake
in correcting computer-code problems. Most other California banks also rely
heavily on systems provided by vendors. Federal regulators and banks are
requiring extensive testing to ensure that these systems are ready, so that
smaller institutions will be just as well prepared as banks with greater
resources.

Banks have put a great deal of time, effort and resources into dealing with
this problem. Some started major in-house projects several years ago. Large
and small banks, as well as software vendors, are being aggressively examined
by regulatory agencies that have made Y2K their top priority. In no other
industry is such thorough attention being given to Y2K's being required. Banks
are expected to spend upward of $4 billion rewriting code and testing systems.

The first round of confidential regulatory exams by the FDIC of Federal
Reserve nonmember state banks, for example, found that 88 percent of these
generally smaller banks are taking the appropriate measures to be ready for
the big deadline. Only 43 of 6,034 U.S. banks were found to be
"unsatisfactory," though nearly 700 banks nationwide must pick up their pace
or correct minor deficiencies. Regulators will continue to actively monitor
slower banks.

Small businesses must be made aware that theirs, too, is a serious,
multidimensional problem that needs to be carefully addressed. A study
conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business and sponsored by
Wells Fargo Bank shows only 6 percent of small-business owners are seriously
concerned about the issue, although 78 percent of those businesses have
computers that might be at risk. Half said they have no intention of doing
anything about it.

As part of our own planning, bankers will be educating and verifying the
preparedness of our small-business customers and consumers. The FDIC has
prepared a good Year 2000 brochure for customers, as have many banks. Banks
are offering seminars and video presentations for their business customers.
Loan officers are being trained in Y2K issues, and loan documents often have
covenants to ensure Y2K readiness.

Any business institution that depends on computer systems -- or systems with
imbedded chips -- and continues to ignore the Y2K is living on borrowed time.
The challenge banks now face is to make sure our business customers are aware
of the need to prepare, and to help drive their preparations, just as federal
regulators are monitoring the banks and software providers. The U.S. Small
Business Administration has a Y2K awareness campaign in place, but the Wells
Fargo-NFIB survey indicates that most small businesses are not yet seriously
confronting the issues they face.

This education process will continue to be a massive effort, because
ultimately the health of the banks and the economy depend on the continuing
creditworthiness of bank customers.

The ATMs may well be ready to go, but if data transmission lines or
electricity are nonfunctional, cash will still be a problem. If you were
depending on getting your new drivers license to open an account or cash a
check, you may still be out of luck. And if you're writing a check or using a
card on the Internet to charge plane tickets to fly to Europe, where Y2K still
ranks low on priority lists, it may not matter that our payment system works
just fine.

This is not about finger-pointing. It's about financial, business and
governmental institutions ensuring that the array of multidependent computer
systems cross the Jan. 1, 2000 finish line with a minimum of disruption.
Bankers will be a real force pushing the process forward.

Kathleen Burke, vice chairman for corporate human resources for Bank of
America, is president of the California Bankers Association, which represents
more than 300 banks.
<snip>

_____________________________________________________________
The Age (Australia) 9/16/98
CIA funded covert Tibet exile campaign in 1960s

By JIM MANN
<snip>
For much of the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with
$1.7million a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy
of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama, according to newly released US intelligence
documents.

The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA's worldwide
effort during the early years of the Cold War to undermine communist
governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China. The government
committee that approved the Tibetan operations also authorised the disastrous
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

The documents, published last month by the State Department, illustrate the
historical background of the situation in Tibet today, in which China
continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of being an agent of foreign forces seeking
to separate Tibet from China.
<snip>
<snip>
The declassified historical documents provide the first inside details of the
CIA's decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement.
At the time of the intelligence operation, the CIA was seeking to weaken Mao
Zedong's hold over China. And the Tibetan exiles were looking for help to keep
their movement alive after the Dalai Lama and his supporters fled Tibet after
an unsuccessful 1959 revolt against Chinese rule.
<snip>
<snip>
The newly published files show that the collaboration between US intelligence
and the Tibetans was less than ideal. ``The Tibetans by nature did not appear
to be congenitally inclined towards conspiratorial proficiency,'' a top CIA
official says ruefully in one memo.

One document indicates that annual Tibet expenses totalling $1,735,000
continued for four years, until 1968. At that point, the CIA cut the budget to
just below $1.2million a year.
<snip>
<snip>
The US Government still provides some financial support for Tibetans, but
openly and through other channels. In recent years, Congress has approved
about $2 million annually in funding for Tibetan exiles in India.
<snip>

_______________________________________________________________
BBC Online 9/14/98
The hero with no one to mourn him
<snip>
A man who died for his country over 50 years ago will be buried with full
military honours on Friday - but none of his relations will be there to mourn
him.

The remains of British Corporal George Froud, who was killed during the Battle
of Arnhem in 1944, were discovered last year.

The Ministry of Defence has tried in vain to track down any of Cpl Froud's
remaining relatives so they can attend the memorial ceremony in Holland.
Mandy Marks at the MoD has been searching for Cpl Froud's relatives for the
past nine months.


"The main problem is that we know he had a son, but he was adopted at a young
age and those records are confidential. We don't even know if his son knows
who his father was," she said.

Using old regiment records Ms Marks did manage to locate Douglas Payne who was
best man at Cpl Froud's wedding and was godfather to his son. But Mr Payne is
too ill to travel to Holland to attend his friend's funeral.

Dog tags

Peter Francis at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said he could be
identified because his army 'dog tags' were found with the body.

"Finding remains in this way happens fairly regularly in France and Holland,"
he said.

"We get called in to help identify them. There are a great deal of unknowns,
particularly from World War I, because they have already spent 80 years in the
ground - but this time we got lucky," he said.
<snip>

________________________________________________________________
San Francisco Chronicle 9/11/98
Court Allows Ballots To Remain Secret In Brentwood Case
Ruling on park maintenance tax vote
Christopher Heredia
<snip>
Brentwood prevailed in court yesterday in its fight to shield ballot records
from scrutiny by opponents of the city's controversial park maintenance tax,
which property owners approved in April.

Contra Costa Superior Court Referee Judith Sanders ruled that the right to
``voter secrecy'' in the mail-in election outweighed the opponents' interest
in inspecting the records.

Sanders wrote that case law makes clear the ``fundamental democratic
principles protected by secrecy in voting.''

Resident Joe Grcar and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association sued for access
to the records, claiming that developers and other large property owners
tipped the scales in favor of a special assessment of an annual $79 tax for
park maintenance. Assessment district votes are weighted by how much land each
property owner has.

City officials and residents who supported the tax in April said Brentwood
needs more money for parks. Opponents said the revenue would not be
distributed evenly throughout the city, citing a plan for more parks in south
Brentwood than in northern neighborhoods. Mayor John Morrill, who voted to
keep the ballots private in a city council decision last month, applauded
Sanders' ruling.

``We made the commitment to the public, under state law, that we would protect
their right to privacy; no matter how the election was handled, we told them
their votes would remain confidential,'' Morrill said.

Timothy Bittle, deputy counsel for the taxpayers association, said the group
will appeal the decision.

Bittle maintained that the documents are public records and residents should
be able to inspect them to verify the outcome of the vote.

``I don't think the minimal discomfort that some hypersensitive people will
have . . . is as important to our American form of government as the
protection against fraud or the potential of fraud in balloting,'' Bittle
said. Grcar and other opponents of the tax also raised the specter of ballot
tampering, given the controversial nature of the vote and the fact that the
city and opponents have placed dueling measures on the tax on the November 3
ballot.

The election was required under Proposition 218, which calls for property
owners to approve special tax assessments for services such as public
landscaping and park maintenance.
<snip>


________________________________________________________________
Ebusiness 9/9/98
Links to the Past

by Kazz Regelman
<snip>
Questions as old as Adam and Eve, as old as blood: who am I? Where did I come
from? Answers as new, and possibly as close, as the keyboard at your
fingertips: the Internet has become a major tool for genealogical research,
helping find links -- hyperlinks, you might say -- to the past.

Money Does Grow on Trees
Sites devoted to genealogical information range from small home pages to the
big business of familytreemaker.com owned by Broderbund, currently negotiating
to merge with The Learning Company. It is the most profitable as well as the
only commercial site in the top ten nominations for genealogy sites by the on-
line "Family Chronicle."
<snip>
<snip>
familytreemaker.com, and other sites like ancestry.com and lineages.com,
rightly point out that their sites can save money and time for avid hobbyists
who might spend thousands of dollars on everything from postage to airplane
tickets and hotels doing genealogical research the traditional way.

While software and sites do not completely eliminate the need for those
expenditures, they do allow a large portion of research to be done for next-
to-nothing. Plus, researchers can search for information around the world
without leaving their desks.

In tracking by PC Metrics, familytreemaker.com regularly rates in the top four
for non-pornographic sites in terms of length of visits, with over half a
million hits and approximately 50,000 unique visitors daily. Many are drawn by
a wealth of free information, including the Internet Family Finder which scans
all genealogical sites for individual names, an "agent" service that e-mails
you when any site on the Web containing the name you are searching for
subsequently appears, and the Genealogy Site Finder with indexed links.
<snip>
<snip>
The experts warn of traps, however, and one of the biggest is to rely solely
on the Internet. What is most useful about the Web is its efficiency. Howell
notes that "it's easy and saves expenses on postage, photocopying, long-
distance phone bills. It saves the time, too, that it used to take to mail
something off and wait for a response."

Scott Barker, of lineages.com says that "the Web has brought a much wider
group of people together to share information. Before the Web, your only
options were either local or national societies which would meet monthly at
most. Now you can go online at your whim and leave messages or schedule chats.
Also the wealth of free information in the form of articles, how-to's, and
actual data is incredible. That said, nothing currently replaces the need to
visit a record repository.

If you are actually going to do genealogical research, you must learn how to
find and understand old documents. Too many people currently think they can go
online and just download their entire family history."

The Internet is useful primarily as a link to potential family members, other
researchers, and caretakers for more traditional resources which, until all
the information is scanned and entered online, provide irreplaceable
information.

Of these, the Family History Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, is perhaps the
single best one-stop source for most Americans. Nevertheless, not everything
exists in one electronic archive. Don't overlook the value of family bibles,
old-country or home-town churches and synagogues, marriage and birth records,
cemeteries, and local history sections in town libraries.

I even found new cousins simply by noticing and contacting another user with
the same unusual surname registered on bigfoot.com. But most of all, don't
forget the easiest and single most helpful source of family history around --
your family. Ask older relatives for given names, maiden names of aunts,
uncles, grandparents in the old country, village names, church names, street
addresses, anything they can remember that might help track down relatives and
documentation.

Look for primary source information online if possible (check the special link
on Cyndi's List or the new genealogylibrary.com). But once you've tracked down
what seems to be a good lead, you'll need to look at the documents the old
fashioned way -- with an original or photocopy in your hands.

The Seeds of Future Sites
Barker predicts that "genealogy sites will continue to expand and become more
commercial as many have realized that it costs substantial amounts of money to
supply this information online. I think you will see more and more Member Only
sites in the future as well."

Howell adds that "90% of what's out there is put online by hobbyists. And
because genealogists are passionate about their hobby, it will just keep
growing as people transcribe records -- bibles, wills, birth and death records
-- and share information."
<snip>

_________________________________________________________________

AP 9/15/98
Back-Up Starr Documents Stored in Secure House Building
<snip>
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nobody comes in, nobody goes out -- except members of the
House Judiciary Committee and a few aides trying to decide whether President
Clinton's conduct warrants a full-blown impeachment inquiry.

Secrecy is the rule for those allowed inside H2-186, the Ford House Office
Building room where some 2,000 pages of supporting material for Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr's report is stored.

David Schippers and Abbe Lowell, the committee's senior Republican and
Democratic investigators, were first in the room on Friday to begin sifting
through the tapes and transcripts stored there.
<snip>
<snip>
If Schippers and his team of investigators from Chicago thought Chairman Henry
Hyde had set aside glamorous digs for their tenure here, they must have been
sorely disappointed.

Their offices -- and the secure room -- reside in one of Congress' most remote
and least striking buildings within a complex better known for majestic white
marble and sweeping vistas.

Overlooking a freeway tunnel five blocks from the Capitol, the rectangular,
six-story structure formerly belonged to the FBI and now houses committee and
subcommittee aides. Those who have worked inside say it lacks the bustle and
formal atmosphere of office buildings that house the lawmakers. The advantage
is more peace and quiet in which to work.

Those cleared to enter the room must sign in and sign out with a U.S. Capitol
Police officer stationed in the first-floor hallway 24 hours a day.

No one may bring anything into the room, take notes while there or carry
anything from the room, according to sources close to the committee. House
rules prohibit those who enter from discussing the material they review there.

Inside, the room is split into four sub-chambers, according to those who have
been inside the suite. One room stores the 17 boxes of appendices and tapes
submitted by Starr. Republicans and Democrats get one private office each to
review the material. One main room, accessible to all, has a long conference
table.
<snip>

______________________________________________________________
Reuters 9/15/98
Civil War Soldier Gets Book Deal
<snip>
NEW YORK (Variety)- A Civil War soldier has just won a book deal--
posthumously, of course.

With a $355,000 bid, Simon & Schuster's Free Press division beat 13 rivals to
win world rights to the diaries and detailed map and battle depiction drawings
of Robert Knox Sneden, who served as a topographical officer with the 40th
Battalion in New York and spent time in the dreaded Andersonville prison.

The Virginia Historical Society, which acquired the materials from dealers as
well as an anonymous Sneden family member, now owns the documents and thus
benefits from the deal.

Free Press senior editor Peter Nichols plans to publish the book, tentatively
titled "Eye of the Storm," in fall 2000 and hopes for a documentary or other
dramatic tie-in for the book.
<snip>
(Personal Note: I have seen a small exhibit of this material at the VHS. It is
fantastic. My first thought when viewing it was I hope that they are thinking
of publishing it. Guess I was on track with the Society)
<snip>





Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
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