Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Daily Archives: July 28, 2013

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

CRS – The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). James K. Jackson, Specialist in International Trade and Finance-June 12, 2013.

“The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is comprised of nine members, two ex officio members, and other members as appointed by the President representing major departments and agencies within the federal executive branch. While the group generally has operated in relative obscurity, the proposed acquisition of commercial operations at six U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World in 2006 placed the group’s operations under intense scrutiny by Members of Congress and the public. Prompted by this case, some Members of the 109th and 110th Congresses questioned the ability of Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities given the general view that CFIUS’s operations lack transparency. Other Members revisited concerns about the linkage between national security and the role of foreign investment in the U.S. economy. Some Members of Congress and others argued that the nation’s security and economic concerns have changed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that these concerns were not being reflected sufficiently in the Committee’s deliberations. In addition, anecdotal evidence seemed to indicate that the CFIUS process was not market neutral. Instead, a CFIUS investigation of an investment transaction may have been perceived by some firms and by some in the financial markets as a negative factor that added to uncertainty and may have spurred firms to engage in behavior that may not have been optimal for the economy as a whole. In the 112th Congress, some Members expressed their concerns to the Obama Administration over the national security implications of a proposed acquisition of a U.S. technology company by the Chinese-owned Huawei Technologies.”

How to Send a Good FOIA Request to the Department of State

Laura S. Kauer, National Security Archive: “The Department of State’s launch of its new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) online request platform and terrific, comprehensive, 80,000-document online FOIA reading room, makes it a fitting time to review how to craft a good FOIA request to the Department of State (or any agency, actually). Frequent filers… Continue Reading

The Role of Professors in Improving Financial Literacy

Eades, Kenneth M., Fox, Jonathan, Keown, Arthur J. and Staten, Michael, The Role of Professors in Improving Financial Literacy: Roundtable Session Highlights from the 2012 FMA Annual Meeting (July 26, 2013). “This roundtable session was organized to answer the question:“What can I do as a finance professor to increase the personal financial capability of my… Continue Reading

Within-country archetypes: best chance for climate change mitigation

Within-country archetypes: best chance for climate change mitigation – Brian I. Baker For at least two decades now, the world’s nations have collectively labored to deal with the predicament of climate change. Though not entirely fruitless, their joint efforts have culminated largely in treaties that failed to produce many tangible results and that lack the… Continue Reading

Few See Adequate Limits on NSA Surveillance Program

Pew Survey -“A majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts. An even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism. And despite the… Continue Reading

Transparency of Proprietary Schools’ Financial Statement Data for Federal Student Aid Programmatic Decisionmaking

“This final audit report, Transparency of Proprietary Schools’ Financial Statement Data for Federal Student Aid Programmatic Decisionmaking, presents the results of our audit. The purpose of the audit was to determine whether the audited financial statements submitted by proprietary schools under Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 668.23 (34 C.F.R. § 668.23)… Continue Reading

Google Image Search Improvements

Google Research Blog: [In May 2013] at Google I/O, we showed a major upgrade to the photos experience: you can now easily search your own photos without having to manually label each and every one of them. This is powered by computer vision and machine learning technology, which uses the visual content of an image to generate searchable tags… Continue Reading

Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals

Swift, S. A., D. Moore, Z. Sharek, and F. Gino. Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals. PLoS ONE (forthcoming). “When explaining others’ behaviors, achievements, and failures, it is common for people to attribute too much influence to disposition and too little influence to structural and situational factors. We examine whether this tendency leads even… Continue Reading

Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies

Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies. Francis X. McCarthy -Analyst in Emergency Management Policy; Jared T. Brown – Analyst in Emergency Management and Homeland Security Policy. May 24, 2013 “Before and after a disaster strikes, it may be helpful to understand the broad outlines of the national emergency management structure and where authority rests at… Continue Reading