WHITE HOUSE ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS AND PUBLIC ACCESS EMAIL
		       FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

			Updated January 29, 1994

			   Table Of Contents


I.   Searching and Retrieving White House documents.
	-  Publications@WhiteHouse.GOV
	-  WAIS
	-  GOPHER
	-  FedWorld BBS

II.  Signing up for Daily Electronic Publications.
	A.  Widely Available Sources.
	B.  Notes on Widely Available Sources.
	C.  Direct Email Distribution.
	D.  Email Summary Service.

III. Sending Email to the White House.
	-  Internet Direct

IV.  Sending Email to Congress
	-  Internet Direct

V.   Submitting Updates to the FAQs.


I.  HOW DO I SEARCH AND RETRIEVE WHITE HOUSE ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS?

The White House is pleased to announce the establishment of an Internet
address for retrieving White House publications.  We have set up an
Almanac server to process requests by email.  To receive instructions on
using this server, send a message to:

	Publications@WhiteHouse.GOV

In the body of the message, type:

	send info


Various additional sites are archiving the press releases as distributed. 
What follows is an incomplete list of some of the sites containing the
documents that have been released to date.  This FAQ will be updated to
reflect new sites as they become known.

	 SITE                 	DIRECTORY

1. SUNSITE.UNC.EDU	pub/academic/political-science/whitehouse-papers
2. FTP.CCO.CALTECH.EDU	      /PUB/BJMCCALL
3. FTP MARISTB.MARIST.EDU
4. CPSR.ORG		      /CPSR/CLINTON
5. FedWorld Online System     703-321-8020  8-N-1  or:
			      Telnet fedworld.doc.gov
6. GOPHER.TAMU.EDU            1/.dir/president.dir


Notes:  The following are notes on how to log in and get
	information from the above sites.

1.      Office for Information Technology at the University of
	North Carolina maintains the full collection of White
	House electronic releases available for search with WAIS and
	also accessible via Gopher and FTP.
1.a	WAIS
	(:source
	:version 3
	:database-name "/home3/wais/White-House-Papers" :ip-
		address "152.2.22.81"
	:ip-name "sunsite.unc.edu"
	:tcp-port 210
	:cost 0.00
	:cost-unit :free
	:maintainer "pjones@sunsite.unc.edu"

	:description "Server created with WAIS release 8 b5 on  
	Feb 27 15:16:16 1993 by pjones@sunsite.unc.edu These are the
	White House Press Briefings and other postings dealing with
	William Jefferson Clinton and Albert Gore as well as members
	of the President's Cabinet and the first lady Hillary Rodham
	Clinton, Chelsea, Socks and others in Washington DC. Dee Dee
	Meyers and George Stephanopoulos.  Other good words:
	United States of America, Bill Al Tipper Democrats USA 
	US These files are also available via anonymous ftp 
	from sunsite.unc.edu The files of type filename used in 
	the index were: 
	/home3/ftp/pub/academic/political-science/whitehouse-
	 papers/1993 ")

	Folks without WAIS clients or gophers that act as WAIS
	clients may telnet to sunsite.unc.edu and login as swais 
	to access this information via WAIS.

1.b	GOPHER is a distributed menu system for information access on the
	Internet developed at the University of Minnesota. gophers are
	client-server implementations and various gopher clients are
	available for nearly any computing platform.  You may now use
	gopher clients to access the White House Papers and other
	political information on SunSITE.unc.edu's new gopher server.
	You may also add links from your local gopher server to
	SunSITE for access to the White House Papers.

	For gopher server keepers and adventurous clients to access
	SunSITE you need only know that we use the standard gopher
	port 70 and that our internet address is SunSITE.unc.edu
	(152.2.22.81). Point there and you'll see the references to
	the Politics areas.

	For folks without gopher clients can telnet to sunsite.unc.edu
	to try out gopher access. You need to have access to internet
	telnet and:
	
			telnet sunsite.unc.edu
			login: gopher 
	The rest is very straight forward. Browsing options end with a
	directory mark (/), searching options end with an question mark 
	(?).
	There's plenty of on-line help available.

2.      No special instructions.

3.      The CLINTON@MARIST log files which contain all the official
	administration releases distributed through the MIT servers
	are available via anonymous FTP. These logs contain in
	addition to the official releases, the posts that comprise the
	ongoing discussion conducted by the list subscribers. 
	To obtain the logs:
	FTP MARISTB.MARIST.EDU - the logs are in the CLINTON directory
	and are named CLINTON LOG9208 thru CLINTON LOGyymm where yymm
	stands for the current year and month. Problems should be
	directed to my attention: URLS@MARISTC.BITNET or
	URLS@VM.MARIST.EDU. 
	Posted by Lee Sakkas - owner, CLINTON@MARIST

4.      Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is
	providing all Clinton documents on technology and privacy
	at the CPSR Internet Library, available via
	FTP/WAIS/Gopher at cpsr.org /cpsr/clinton (and in other
	folders as relevant). For email access, send a message
	with the word "help" at the 1st line of text to
	listserv@cpsr.org.

5.      The FedWorld Computer System, operated by the National Technical
	Information Service, archives White House papers in a
	traditional BBS type file library.  Connect to FedWorld by
	calling (703) 321-8020.  No parity, eight data bits and one stop
	bit (N-8-1).  FedWorld accommodates baud speeds of up to 9,600.
	It is also possible to Telnet to FedWorld at FedWorld.doc.gov.
	White House papers are located in the W-House library of files.
	To access this library from the main FedWorld menu, 
        enter .  Files are named with the first four digits
	being the release month and day (e.g. 0323XXX.txt).  Some
	standard abbreviations after the date include:
 
		rem - Remarks by the President
		pc  - Press Conference transcript
		pr  - Press Release
		AM  - AM Press Briefing
		PM  - PM Press Briefing
		sch - The President's public schedule
		spch- Text of major speeches.
 
	These files are saved in ASCII format.  Files can be viewed
	online by requesting to download a file and then selecting
	(L)ist as the download protocol.   This will display the file a
	screen at a time.  White House papers are kept in the above
	format for up to two months.  Papers more than two months old
	are compressed using Pkzip into a single file that contains all
	of the files for that month (e.g.  0193.zip contains all papers
	released during January 1993).  In addition to White Documents,
	FedWorld also provides a gateway to more than 100 government
	funded BBSs and computer systems.

6.	Texas A&M University GOPHER Server makes available White House
	press releases and other documents.  This archive includes
	information from 1992 until the present time and is updated
	as new documents are released.  Gopher users can reach the
	Texas A&M server by choosing it from their local server's list
	of other gophers, or by pointing their gopher clients to
	GOPHER.TAMU.EDU.

	After connecting to the A&M server, take the following path to
	reach the White House menus:

	"Browse Information by Subject" --> 
	"Political Science"  -->
		"Information from the White House"

	Gopher maintainers and other intrepid souls are welcome to point
	directly to the A&M White House archive.  The server is
	GOPHER.TAMU.EDU and the path is 1/.dir/president.dir.


II.  HOW DO I SIGN UP FOR ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS BY THE WHITE HOUSE?

The White House Communications office is distributing press releases
over an experimental system developed during the campaign at the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

You can obtain copies of all the press releases from a wide variety of
on-line services or discussion groups devoted to either national
politics in general or President Clinton in particular.  These are
listed in sections I and II.

Section IIc explains how you can sign up to receive press releases
directly from the experimental MIT system by using an automated email
server.  The present system was not designed to handle high levels of
message traffic. A more powerful system will become available in due
course, and in the meantime, it would be appreciated if you used this
service sparingly.  One appropriate current use is secondary
redistribution and archiving. If you use it, you will be carried forward
when the more powerful system that replaces it.


IIa. WIDELY AVAILABLE SOURCES

1.  On USENET/NETNEWS, electronic publications are found on a variety
    of groups:

	Direct Distribution

		alt.politics.clinton
		alt.politics.org.misc
		alt.politics.reform
		alt.politics.usa.misc
		alt.news-media
		alt.activism
		talk.politics.misc

	Indirect Distribution

		misc.activism.progressive
		cmu.soc.politics
		assocs.clinton-gore-92 

2.  On CompuServe: GO WHITEHOUSE

3.  On America Online: keyword WHITEHOUSE or THE WHITEHOUSE or CLINTON

4.  On The WELL: type whitehouse

5.  On MCI: type VIEW WHITE HOUSE

6.  On Fidonet: See Echomail WHITEHOUSE

7.  On Peacenet or Econet: See pol.govinfo.usa.

8.  On The Meta Network: Go Whitehouse

9.  On GEnie: Type WHITEHOUSE or WHRT,  or MOVE 1600

10. On CompuServe, see the Democratic Forum: Go Democrats


IIb. NOTES ON WIDELY AVAILABLE SOURCES

2.      CompuServe's White House Forum (GO WHITEHOUSE) is devoted to
	discussion of the Clinton administration's policies and
	activities. The forum's library consists of news releases and
	twice daily media briefings from the White House Office of Media
	Affairs. CompuServe members can exchange information and
	opinions with each other in the 17 sections in the forum's
	message area. The message board spans a broad range of topics,
	including international and United Nations activities, defense,
	health care, the economy and the deficit, housing and
        urban development, the environment, and education and national
	service.

3.	On America Online, the posts are sent to the White House Forum,
	located in the News & Finance Department of the service or
	accessible via keywords: "white house" or "clinton".  The White
	House Forum on America Online contains the press releases from
	the White House, divided into the categories "Appointments",
	"Budget", "Congress", "Education", "Economy", "Foreign Policy",
	"Health Care", "Housing", "Labor", "Law and Order", "Meetings &
	Speeches", "Proclamations", "Technology", and "Vice President".
	The area features a message board so you can discuss the
	releases with other AOL members, a searchable database for easy
	retrieval of releases that interest you, a Library for longer
	releases from the White House, and a library that members can
	upload files of interest for other members.

4.      MCI Mail users access daily information on the 	administration's     
	programs provided by the White House through MCI Mail bulletin
	boards.  The available boards are: WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC, WHITE
	HOUSE FOREIGN, WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL, WHITE HOUSE SPEECHES and
	WHITE HOUSE NEWS.  A listing of these boards can also be
	obtained by simply typing VIEW WHITE HOUSE at the COMMAND
	prompt.

5.      On The Meta Network, material is posted in the White house
	conference and is accessible via keywords (matching on document
	titles and subject categories) as well as full text search.
	Discussions on specific initiatives take place in special
	interest forums, e.g.  health, technology, and reinventing
	government.

9.  	GEnie's White House RoundTable has been established to
	distribute and discuss the official press releases and files
	relating to the White House and the Clinton Administration. The
	files library holds all of the press releases on the official
	mailing list, and the Bulletin Board has Categories set up with
	topics relating to all aspects of the Administration and
	Executive Branch of government.  Letters to the White House can
	be entered easily online with a menu option on the WHITEHOUSE
	page.

10.	CompuServe's Democratic Forum (GO DEMOCRATS) is the Democratic
	Party's online information service covering the activities of
	the Clinton administration. The sysops of the Democratic Forum
	work for the Democratic National Committee, and are directly
	involved in managing the forum and responding to online
	questions. The Democratic Forum provides access to documents
	from the White House Office of Media Affairs, with vigorous
	discussion and debate in the message sections about the impact
	of the Clinton Administration's policies and proposals. The
	Democratic Forum also holds a regular weekly online conference
	with special guests on current topics.


IIc. DIRECT EMAIL DISTRIBUTION

If you don't have access to the these accounts or if you would prefer to
receive the releases via email, then this section details how to
sign up for this service.  The server is not set up to answer email
letters, comments or requests for specific information.  To reach this
MIT server, send email:

		To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
		Subject: Help

The server works by reading the subject line of the incoming message and
taking whatever action that line calls for. If you want to sign up to
automatically receive press releases, then your subject line would begin
with the word RECEIVE.  You can then specify what kind of information
you are interested in receiving. The categories of information are:

ECONOMY
		Get releases related to the economy such as budget
		news, technology policy review, etc.


FOREIGN
		Get releases related to foreign policy such as
		statements on Bosnian airdrop, Haitian refugee status,
		etc.

HEALTH          Get releases related to health care policy, without
	        receiving any other social issues.  Use this instead
	        of social.

SOCIAL
		Get releases related to social issues like National
		Service (Student Loan) program, abortion, welfare
		reform, etc.

SPEECHES                    
		All speeches made by the President and important
		speeches made by other Administration officials.

NEWS
		Transcripts of press conferences released by the White
		House Communications office, as well as the
		President's remarks in photo ops and other Q&A
		sessions.

ALL             All of the above

So, if you wanted to sign up to get releases related to the economy
your email message would look like this:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
	Subject: RECEIVE ECONOMY

When you send a signup message to the clinton-info server, it sends you
back a status message letting you know what distribution streams you are
signed up for. If you ever want to check on what groups you are signed
up for send the following message:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
	Subject: STATUS

*****You can stop receiving email releases by sending a REMOVE message
to the clinton-info server. The word REMOVE would be followed by
whatever distribution stream you wanted to drop. If you wanted to stop
receiving message about the ECONOMY then your mail would look like this:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org 
	Subject: REMOVE ECONOMY

You could substitute SOCIAL, FOREIGN, HEALTH, SPEECHES, NEWS or ALL for
ECONOMY in the above message and you would be dropped from that
distribution list. If you send the subject line REMOVE ALL, then you
will be taken off the email distribution system all together and will
not receive further releases of any kind.

You can also ask for help from the automated server.  Send an email
query as follows:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
	Subject: HELP

The server will respond by sending you a detailed form that will guide
you through the process of signing up for the various distribution
streams.  As you will quickly discover, there is a automatic form
processing interface that parallel the quick and easy subject line
commands discussed here. More detailed help is available by sending an
email query as follows:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
	Subject: Please Help!

Finally, if you want to search and retrieve documents, but you do not
have access to the retrieval methods discussed in section II, you can do
this via email through the MIT server. You can obtain the WAIS query
form by sending an email query as follows:

	To: Clinton-Info@Campaign92.Org
	Subject: WAIS

Once you have identified the documents that you want, be careful not
to request them all at once, because you may be sent a message
containing all the documents and this message may be too big for some
mail delivery systems between the email server and you.


D. EMAIL SUMMARY SERVICE

The Extension Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides a 
daily summary of White House electronic publications.  

1. Subscriptions

To subscribe to the USDA Extension Service White House Summary service, 
send a message to: 

	almanac@ESUSDA.GOV

In the body of the message, type: 

	subscribe wh-summary

To Unsubscribe from the USDA Extension Service White House Summary
service, send a message to:

	almanac@ESUSDA.GOV

In the body of the message, type: 

	unsubscribe wh-summary

2. Document Retrieval

To request a specific document from the daily summaries, send a message
to:

	almanac@ESUSDA.GOV

In the body of the message, type: 

	send white-house #####
	(where ##### is the request number for the document)

3. Document Search

A user-friendly search facility is also available to search the
white-house documents archived at ESUSDA.GOV. To search, send a message
to:

	almanac@ESUSDA.GOV
	
In the body of the message, type: 

	search white-house keyword1 keyword2

4. Catalogue of Summaries and Documents

Back issues and the catalog of the summaries or the documents contained
at ESUSDA.GOV can also be retrieved through our almanac server. To get
the summary catalog, send a message

	To:   almanac@ESUSDA.GOV

In the body of the message, type: 

	send wh-summary catalog 

5. Further Information

If you have any questions about Almanac, please contact:

	wh-admin@ESUSDA.GOV


III.  HOW DO I SEND EMAIL TO THE WHITE HOUSE?

We are pleased to introduce this new form of communication with the
White House for the first time in history.  As we work to reinvent
government and streamline our processes, this electronic mail project
will help put us on the leading edge of progress.  Please remember,
though, this project is still very much under construction.  The Office
of Correspondence is currently working on defining what this system
will do, as well as addressing equipment and staffing needs.

When you send a message to the White House you will receive an immediate
acknowledgment that your message has been received.  This is the only
electronic response you will receive at this stage of development; if
you include your street address in your message, you may receive a
response by U.S. Mail.  Please be assured that every electronic mail
message received is read and analyzed by staff.  Your concerns, your
praise, your suggestions, and your ideas are carefully recorded and
reported to the President and Vice President weekly.

You can send email to the following addresses:

Internet Direct:	President@WhiteHouse.GOV
	                Vice.President@WhiteHouse.GOV


IV.  HOW DO I SEND EMAIL TO CONGRESS?

The House and the Senate are conducting experimental electronic
communications projects.  You may receive information regarding these
projects by sending a message to:

		Congress@HR.HOUSE.GOV

You may also contact the offices of your Representative or Senators for
information.


V.  HOW DO I SUBMIT UPDATES FOR THIS FAQ?

Please send corrections, deletion and additions to this FAQ to:

		Publications-Comments@WhiteHouse.GOV