FCC to propose new video archive in national broadband plan

A proposal in the draft of the government's imminent broadband plan would create a YouTube-like online archive called Video.gov to preserve agencies' Web content and possibly information provided by the media, an official with the Federal Communications Commission said on Monday.

The planned national digital archives for the 21st century would expand upon the government's Data.gov Web site, a warehouse of downloadable federal statistics, and be maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress and other agencies, said Eugene Huang, FCC's director of government performance and civic engagement for the national broadband plan. The plan's other proposals include establishing a secure Defense Department system that military members overseas could use to vote online and making legal documents available on the Web for free. Currently, the Web site for retrieving federal court records, Public Access to Court Electronic Records, charges users a fee for searching and viewing documents. "Although Data.gov applies to the executive branch, we believe that similar [initiatives] should apply to the legislative and judiciary," Huang said.