The House Appropriations Committee has sent a letter the to Smithsonian asking about the Smithsonian/Showtime secret deal I wrote about recently. Glad to see at least some questions are being asked and that the letter is bipartizan. I wrote to both my Senators and my Representative but have heard nothing back from any of them yet. I am still amazed this story has such a low profile but the Washington Post did cover this letter yesterday.

In his response to the documentary directors Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small said

“The joint venture,” he said, “will provide millions of dollars of incremental income to the very community you fear will be discouraged from creating projects.”

Yet I find it hard to believe that Showtime, with its huge bank of corporate entertainment lawyers wrote a deal that is going to allow anyone but themselves to make real money out of this venture. We will never know, because we are the public who fund the Smithsonian as well as donate most of the items that make up its collections and the deal is secret from us.

Found out about the letter via Boing Boing

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 30th, 2006 at 5:41 am and is filed under History, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.