Bill Suggests Replacing NTIS with Google Search
The article titled There’s a ‘Let Me Google That For You’ Bill on Talking Points Memo relates the substance of a bipartisan bill (sponsored by Tom Coburn and Clair McCaskill). The bills purpose is to save the taxpayer money by resorting to Google and eliminating the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The article states,
“The bill is meant to cut down on “the collection and distribution of government information” by prioritizing using Google over spending money to obtain information from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). NTIS, run by the Department of Commerce, is a repository of 3 million scientific, technical, engineering, and business texts. The bill would abolish the NTIS and move essential functions of the agency to other agencies like the National Archives.”
If the bill’s name sounds familiar, you have probably heard of the website it is named after, in which the website redirects you to Google. The bill is put forward to prevent waste by federal agencies in obtaining government documents for money when they are available online free of charge. Sounds like a no-brainer, especially since NTIS was founded in 1950, decades before the Internet was even a possibility. You can read the full bill here.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 15, 2014
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