Search Results from beSpacific
Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession, by Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati, Kevin Shih: "The 17th annual executive compensation survey looks at how CEOs laid off thousands while raking in millions." "Corporate executives, in reality, are...
Sustainable Real Exchange Rates in the New EU Member States: What did the Great Recession Change? Jan Babecký, Aleš Bulíř, and Kateřina Šmídková, August 2010 "The Great Recession affected export and import patterns in our sample countries, and these changes,...
Official Google Blog: When we first introduced our real-time search features last December, we focused on bringing relevance to the freshest information on the web. Our goal was to provide real-time content from a comprehensive set of sources, integrated right...
National Income and Product Accounts; Gross Domestic Product, 2nd quarter 2010 (second estimate); Corporate Profits, 2nd quarter 2010 (preliminary estimate): "Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United...
A speech delivered by Charles Evans, President, Chicago Federal Reserve, August 24, 2010 in Indianapolis, Indiana. "...homeownership is only good for families and communities if it can be sustained. Home purchases that are very highly leveraged or unaffordable subject the...
Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output From April 2010 Through June 2010 - August 2010 "When ARRA was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee...
Inside the secret world of Trader Joe's - Full Version "...Trader Joe's is one of the hottest retailers in the U.S. It now boasts 344 stores in 25 states and Washington, D.C., and strip-mall operators and consumers alike aggressively lobby...
The Cost of Short Sales, CoreLogic Research Study - An Analysis of 2010 Short Sale Trends, Risks, and Opportunities Study, August 2010 "The objective of this study is to understand the actual costs of residential mortgage short sales (or short...
Follow up to postings on the Gulf Coast oil spill, news that "scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the...
Hunting For A Job? Try the Internet: Barbara Fullerton is our guide to effectively engaging in an activity which has assumed increased importance in the face of the grim economy - searching for positions with a specific company, business or...
Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2010, Preliminary: "Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased at a 0.9 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, with output and hours rising 2.6 percent...
Employee Benefit Research Institute - What Do We Really Know About Consumer-Driven Health Plans? August 2010, EBRI Issue Brief #345 ABOUT CDHPs: Employers began offering consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) in 2001 when a handful started offering health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs)....
"Zillow recently released its second quarter Real Estate Market Reports for the nation and 144 metropolitan areas. The reports show that home values continued to decline nationwide in the second quarter, but stabilization in some areas led to an overall...
National Foundation for Credit Counseling: "Recent legislation passed by Congress has changed how financial institutions will authorize and pay overdrafts associated with checking accounts. Although most overdrafts from paper checks and automatic payments will continue to be covered (for a...
Street Slide: Browsing Street Level Imagery - Johannes Kopf, Billy Chen, Richard Szeliski, Michael Cohen [Microsoft Research]. Please see the accompanying video here. "Systems such as Google Street View and Bing Maps Streetside enable users to virtually visit cities by...
Follow up to previous postings on climate change, this EPA news release "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today denied 10 petitions challenging its 2009 determination that climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from...
The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets - A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series, by Julia Angwin: "The Journal conducted a comprehensive...
News release: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency marked the beginning of Cataract Awareness Month by announcing a new peer-reviewed report predicting that more than 22 million additional cataract cases will be avoided for Americans born between 1985 and 2100 due...
Exclusive - Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring, By Noah Shachtman, July 28, 2010: "The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it...
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., July 21, 2010 Chairman Dodd, Senator Shelby, and members of the Committee, I am pleased to...
News release: "Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, held a hearing on continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs), which provide separate housing for seniors who are able to live independently, who require help in an assisted living...
Drug Control: DOD Needs to Improve Its Performance Measurement System to Better Manage and Oversee Its Counternarcotics Activities, GAO-10-835, July 21, 2010 Drug Control: International Programs Face Significant Challenges Reducing the Supply of Illegal Drugs but Support Broad U.S. Foreign...
Your Cheat Sheet for Local Rule Motion Practice Part Two: Central District of California, by Wendy Schneider" You know the Federal Rules backwards and forwards, but its compliance with the local rules that really makes a civil litigator look like...
Official Google Blog: "Over time we’ve improved search by deepening our understanding of queries and web pages. The web isn’t merely words—it’s information about things in the real world, and understanding the relationships between real-world entities can help us deliver...
2009 Annual Report - Southeast Banking in the Financial Crisis, July 8, 2010 "The Atlanta Fed's 2009 Annual Report provides perspective on a challenging year in banking in the Southeast, as the industry sought stability and stronger risk management even...
On Demand Government: Deploying Flexibilities to Ensure Service Continuity, 07/01/2010 "Workplace flexibilities lead to economic efficiencies, including cost savings on real estate, infrastructure and energy usage, and improve how agencies deliver citizen services. Teleworking and other flexibilities also can help...
News release: "The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) increased again in June for the eleventh consecutive month. The index now stands at 96.7, up from May’s revised figure of 96.1. The index is up 9.8 percent from a year...
Washington Post: "After showing signs of a fledgling recovery from the worst downturn in decades, the U.S. housing market appears to be heading back toward the doldrums, as the expiration of a lucrative tax credit for buyers and increased uncertainty...
Follow up to postings on the Gulf Coast oil spill via NOAA: "The dynamic nature of the BP oil spill has been a challenge for a range of communities – from hotel operators to fishermen to local community leaders. We...
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 - This webpage links to facts sheets, summaries, comparisons and other relevant documents on this controversial legislation. Myth v. Reality The Facts About S. 3480, “Protecting Cyberspace as a National...
China and the United States — A Comparison of Green Energy Programs and Policies, Richard J. Campbell, Specialist in Energy Policy, June 14, 2010 "China is the world’s most populous country with over 1.3 billion people. It has experienced tremendous...
News release: "The economy is on a moderate but solid recovery path and sustainable private sector job growth has returned this year, according to [a concensus] the Economic Advisory Committee of the American Bankers Association...The committee unanimously noted that a...
"The Design for America contest led to the most compelling, interesting visualizations of any of our contests. With about 72 entries, the design community stepped up and showed amazing ways for us to view government and imagine new ways for...
Rand - Security at what cost? Quantifying trade-offs across liberty, privacy and security, by Neil Robinson, Dimitris Potoglou, Chong Woo Kim, Peter Burge, Richard Warnes "The balance between liberty, privacy and security is often polarised around concerns for civil liberties...
Orientation in technological space by Albert Borgmann: "Like addiction, cyber disorientation is the restless pursuit of the unobtainable. The Internet inflames and disappoints the desire for news in an endless cycle of ever more diverse and seductive news. Disorienting addiction...
Official Google Blog: "...we're announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's...
Testimony by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke - Economic and financial conditions and the federal budget, before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., June 9, 2010 "The recovery in economic activity that began in the second...
Full Report - Beige Book, June 9, 2010 - Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District, and link to reports by Districts: "Economic activity continued to improve since the last report across all twelve Federal Reserve...
TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery - "In collaboration with the Financial Times (FT), Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda of Brookings have developed a set of composite indexes which track the global economic recovery. The Financial Times has...
2009 Decline Widespread Across Industries: "Advance GDP by Industry Statistics for 2009 and Revised Statistics for 1998-2008 - Downturns in durable-goods manufacturing and finance and insurance and a continued contraction in construction were the leading contributors to the downturn in...
The Effects of Automatic Stabilizers on the Federal Budget, May 2010 "Fluctuations in the budget deficit are influenced by legislation that governs taxation and spending and by the automatic responses of revenues and outlays to developments in the economy and...
The Foreclosure Crisis: Did Wall Street Practice Predatory Lending or Did Households Overreach?, April 2010. "A new study by researchers in the Department of Finance at the University of Arkansas finds that household overreaching drove the foreclosure crisis. The authors...
Follow up to postings on the Gulf Coast oil spill, this news release: "Following a demand from Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) for a live feed of the BP oil spill to be made publicly available on the web, BP...
Follow up to previous postings on Bisphenol A , this News release: "Senator Dianne Feinstein stood with environmental health advocates today on Capitol Hill to release a new report that demonstrates alarming levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in common canned...
Your Cheat Sheet for Local Rule Motion Practice - Part One: Southern District of New York - You know the Federal Rules backwards and forwards, but its compliance with the local rules that really makes a civil litigator look like...
News release: [May 11, 2010] the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) launched an initiative on “bill shock” – the experience of getting an unexpectedly high wireless phone bill. The Bureau is seeking input on ways to alert consumers...
News release: "To come up with the next iPad, Amazon or Facebook, the last thing potential innovators need is a group brainstorm session. What the pacesetters of the future really require, according to new Wharton research, is some time alone....
President Obama: "I am pleased to transmit the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy, a blueprint for reducing illicit drug use and its harmful consequences in America. I am committed to restoring balance in our efforts to combat the drug problems...
The Fate of the Semantic Web, by Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, May 4, 2010 "Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has worked along with many others in the internet community for more than a decade to...
Financial Statistics for the United States and the Crisis: What Did They Get Right, What Did They Miss, and How Should They Change?, Matthew J. Eichner, Donald L. Kohn, and Michael G. Palumbo, 2010-20. Federal Reserve Board, April 19, 2010....
"24 Hours: Unplugged - What is is like to go without media? What if you had to give up your cell phone, iPod, television, car radio, magazines, newspapers and computer (i.e. no texting, no Facebook or IM-ing)? Could you do...
Addressing Foreclosed and Abandoned Properties, by Roxann Pais and Robert V. Wolf "This Bureau of Justice Assistance sponsored fact sheet offers an array of ideas to address vacant and abandoned properties. The strategies in this guide--which have been culled from...
News release: "The Federal Trade Commission has submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on how alternative sources of energy – such as wind farms, solar cells, and solar thermal installations – can best be integrated into the nation’s...
Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, King, Jennifer, Li, Su and Turow, Joseph, How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies? (April 14, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1589864 "Media reports teem with stories of...
News release/includes data charts: "RealtyTrac®, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for Q1 2010, which shows that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 932,234...
News release: "RealtyTrac®, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for Q1 2010, which shows that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 932,234 properties in...
News release: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced, in accordance with longstanding U.S. obligations under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, seven metered-dose inhalers (MDI) used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease...
Official Google Blog: "Since we first introduced real-time search last December, we’ve added content from MySpace, Facebook and Buzz, expanded to 40 languages and added a top links feature to help you find the most relevant content shared on updates...
News release: "New OECD figures show continuing growth in development aid in 2009, despite the financial crisis. Total net official development assistance (ODA) from the donors in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) rose 0.7% in real terms, but the...
News release: "Three consumer protection organizations on Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), demanding the commission investigate growing privacy threats in the “Wild West” online. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Digital Democracy...
The Nuclear Vault: Resources from the National Security Archive's Nuclear Weapons Documentation Project How Much is Enough? Part II "Prague Treaty Cuts Are Modest, Real" Old Cold War Proposals Went Even Lower, Thomas Blanton and William Burr, editors, April 8,...
OIG-10-68 - TSA's Preparedness for Mass Transit and Passenger Rail Emergencies (PDF, 30 pages) "The Transportation Security Administration can better support passenger rail agencies by improving its assessments of emergency preparedness and response capabilities. The agency can also improve its...
News release: "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday witnessed one of the world's worst environmental disasters as he flew over the shrinking Aral Sea – a sight which he said underscores the need for collective action to save the planet's resources....
Deforestation and Climate Change, Ross W. Gorte, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy, Pervaze A. Sheikh, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy - March 24, 2010 "Efforts to mitigate climate change have focused on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere....
Follow up to postings on security issues and erasing hard drive, from Gizmodoa detailed article with accompanying screen shots and product references: "With stories abounding of identity theft aided by information lifted from discarded storage devices, you want devices you...
START/Nuclear Reductions Briefing Book, December 2009, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation The landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) provided a legally binding basis for substantial, verified reductions in the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. START codified the...
A transcript of a speech given by the Prime Minister on Building Britain’s Digital Future in London on 22 March 2010. "I want Britain to be the world leader in the digital economy which will create over a quarter of...
News release: "Social Sentry provides corporations the ability to monitor the social networking communications of their employees. Delivered as an easy to deploy SaaS offering, Social Sentry enables businesses to monitor employee activity on all major social networks such as...
EPIC: "Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham have proposed a new national identity card. The Senators would require that "all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs" obtain a "high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card" with a unique biometric identifier....
News release: "Parents of young boys may want to encourage moderation when it comes to their kids' video game habits. According to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, owning a video-game system may...
Factsheet on European Court of Human Rights and Gender Equality "Over the years, the Council of Europe's activities to promote the cause of women have taken a number of forms, such as legal measures, mobilising public opinion and training and...
BBC: "Deaf people are lobbying politicians in the UK for greater access to technology that helps them use the phone. SignVideo's Tish Kerfoot has real-time phone calls with fully-hearing people via the video interpretation service."...
News release: "Wall Street bonuses paid to New York City securities industry employees rose by 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009, according to an estimate released today by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Total compensation at the largest securities...
Science NOW - The Mathematics of Clumpy Crime: "Even in a sprawling city like Los Angeles, crime still clumps together. Mathematical models of burglars presented...at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW)...
News release: "NetWitness, the world leader in advanced persistent threat detection and real-time network forensics, announced today that its analysts have discovered a dangerous new ZeuS botnet affecting 75,000 systems in 2,500 organizations around the world. The newly-discovered infestation, dubbed...
Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) released the study Recalibrating the System: Toward Efficient and Effective Resourcing of National Preparedness, December 2009 "In the U.S. three levels of government share sovereignty over common territory. This fundamental reality requires substantive improvement...
Investigative Resources, Due-Diligence Tips and Useful War Stories For Doing Business in a Complex World - Eight Lessons from Recent Due-Diligence Background-Checking Gone Wrong. James Mintz Group, Global Fact Finding, Issue Five, February 2010 "The unmasking of Bernard Madoff has...
U.S. Metro Economies Pace of Economic Recovery: GMP and Jobs - The United States Conference of Mayors and The Council for the New American City "The U.S. unemployment rate will peak in the first quarter of 2010, averaging 10.2% between...
News release: "The Congressional Oversight Panel's February oversight report, "Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability", expresses concern that a wave of commercial real estate loan losses over the next four years could jeopardize the stability of...
Economic Report of the President 2010: "Contains current/foreseeable trends and annual numerical goals concerning topics such as employment, production, real income, and Federal budget outlays." A Look Inside the Economic Report of the President Related postings on financial system...
Official Google Blog: "Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it...
News release: "Corrupt foreign officials and their relatives have used gaps in U.S. law and the assistance of U.S. professionals to funnel millions of dollars in illicit money into the United States, an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on...
"Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the...
The Financial Crisis: Reform and Exit Strategies: "The financial crisis left major banks crippled by toxic assets and short of capital, while lenders became less willing to finance business and private projects. The immediate and potential impacts on the banking...
Christian Science Monitor: "At least three US oil companies were the target of a series of previously undisclosed cyberattacks that may have originated in China and that experts say highlight a new level of sophistication in the growing global war...
Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan January 2010. "The Afghan government is under assault from the Taliban and struggling to provide security, jobs, and basic justice to a society devastated by...
Report of the Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States on the 2009 Economic Report of the President Together With Minority Views, January 11, 2010. "The Obama administration and Congress headed into 2009 with an economy teetering on the...
A Year After Obama’s Election Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects, January 12, 2010 "Despite the bad economy, blacks’ assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any...
European Economy Sustainability report 2009 "The European economy is showing signs of entering a phase of recovery after a deep crisis. Thanks to effective and substantive policy action since autumn 2008, coordinated in the context of the European Economic Recovery...
Annual Report PandaLabs 2009 "The last 12 months really have marked a turning point in the history of IT security. This has been for several reasons, yet without doubt the main one has been the way in which criminal organizations...
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Report on the Situation of Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan - IV Qaws 1388 (November/December 2009) "This report aims to assess the status of economic and social rights in Afghanistan in the year 1387...
Center for Responsive Politics - Personal Finances Disclosures: "In some ways, lawmakers' finances look a lot like those of many Americans. They include diverse portfolios of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and real estate. They have bank accounts, credit cards and...
Security in the Ether - Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it. By David Talbot, Technology Review, January/February 2010 [Dan Mitchel] "In 2006, when Amazon introduced the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2),...
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, Real Time Underlying Inflation Gauges for Monetary Policymakers, Marlene Amstad, Simon Potter, Staff Report no. 420, December 2009 "Central banks analyze a wide range of data to obtain better measures of underlying...
Wired Science: "When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meets in 2014, tipping points — or tipping elements, in academic vernacular — will get much more attention. Scientists still disagree about which planetary systems are extra-sensitive to climate shifts, but...
The Macroeconomic Impacts of the 9/11 Attack: Evidence from Real-Time Forecasting, Bryan W. Roberts, PhD: "Estimates of the consequences of human-made and natural disasters are crucial for informing decision making by both public and private actors. The 9/11 attack stands...
National Alliance for Caregiving in Collaboration with AARP: "Caregiving is still mostly a woman's job and many women are putting their career and financial futures on hold as they juggle part-time caregiving and full-time job requirements. This is the reality...
Investing for Success Examining a Federal Capital Budget and a National Infrastructure Bank, Emilia Istrate and Robert Puentes, Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings "Today’s fiscally constrained environment demands a new approach to infrastructure policy, allowing us to upgrade our existing...
News release: "As part of a commitment to increase transparency in government and maintain accountability of taxpayer dollars, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced an open government effort that will increase public access to data and information. Under...
Official Google Blog: "Our real-time search enables you to discover breaking news the moment it's happening, even if it's not the popular news of the day, and even if you didn't know about it beforehand...Click on "Latest results" or select...
Brenner, Robert. (2009). What is Good for Goldman Sachs is Good for America The Origins of the Present Crisis. UC Los Angeles: Center for Social Theory and Comparative History. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sg0782h "Robert Brenner outlines the long-term causes of the...
Full Report - Beige Book, December 2, 2009 - Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District, and link to reports by Districts. "Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that economic conditions have generally improved...
"The Purpose of U.S.DebtClock.org is to inform the public of the financial condition of the United States of America. The numbers are laid out so as to give a complete real-time snap-shot of the country's balance sheet...All the debt clocks...
"This e-learning site focuses on a critical, but often neglected skill for business, communication, and engineering students, namely visual literacy, or the ability to evaluate, apply, or create conceptual visual representations. After this tutorial, students should be able to evaluate...
Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity - Christopher T. Cross, Taniesha A. Woods, and Heidi Schweingruber, Editors; Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics; National Research Council "Early childhood mathematics is vitally important for young children's present and...
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke At the Economic Club of New York, New York, New York - November 16, 2009 - On the Outlook for the Economy and Policy "Today, financial conditions are considerably better than they were [one year ago],...
"This year, it's especially important to have clear information on what you can do to prepare for the flu season. With this in mind, we are happy to share a new feature for the U.S. which allows you to more...
News release: "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in coordination with the other member Agencies of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), adopted a policy statement today supporting prudent commercial real estate (CRE) loan workouts. This policy statement stresses...
Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District, October 21, 2009 - Full Report and Districts "Reports from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts indicated either stabilization or modest improvements in many sectors since the last report, albeit often from depressed levels....
Electric Power Monthly (10/15/2009): "Net generation in the United States dropped by 7.6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009. This was the 12th consecutive month that net generation was down compared to the same calendar month in the prior...
Search User Interfaces by Marti A. Hearst [the author, with permission of Cambridge University Press, has placed the full text online free of charge. See the terms of service]: "This book focuses on the human users of search engines and...
The Clean Water Act after 37 Years: Recommitting to the Protection of the Nation’s Waters - Statement of Wade T. Najjum Assistant Inspector General for Program Evaluation Before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. House of Representatives, October 15,...
Cyberdeterrence and cyberwar, by Martin C. Libicki: "This monograph presents the results of a fiscal year 2008 study, “Defining and Implementing Cyber Command and Cyber Warfare.” It discusses the use and limits of power in cyberspace, which has been likened...
Sunlight Foundation: "One year after the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression, Congress is still debating new financial regulations to protect consumers and prevent risk-taking in the financial sector. The House Committee on Financial Services is currently undertaking the...
New York Times: "In what has become a ritual, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has swooped down on a handful of troubled lenders almost every Friday, seizing 98 since January alone and putting their assets into the hands of another...
New Yorker (no fee): Rational Irrationality - The real reason that capitalism is so crash-prone. by John Cassidy "Most of the time, financial markets are pretty calm, trading is orderly, and participants can buy and sell in large quantities. Whenever...
Deloitte: Cloud computing - A collection of working papers, released September 17, 2009 and published on July 31, 2009. "Cloud Computing frequently is taken to be a term that simply renames common technologies and techniques that we have come to...
News release: "The U.S. Census Bureau today released the latest American Community Survey (ACS) data, providing a statistical portrait of the characteristics of the nation’s population in 2008. / Detailed tables / ACS Media Toolkit / 2008 ACS Questionnaire. According...
Global Trade Alert (GTA) independent monitoring of policies that affect world trade - "provides real-time information on state measures taken during the current global downturn that are likely to affect foreign commerce. It goes beyond other monitoring initiatives by identifying...
"The Global Public Debt Clock was developed using data and forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit database. It is, of course, inspired by the National Debt Clock, a rolling measure of the US public debt that physically resides in midtown...
Remarks by the President on Financial Rescue and Reform, Federal Hall New York, New York - September 14, 2009: "Eight months later, the work of recovery continues. And though I will never be satisfied while people are out of work...
Are Law Firms Ready for Transparency? Attorney and KM expert V. Mary Abraham provides details on how one law firm has found a way to create real transparency in its dealings with clients via an extranet, and whether this process...
New York Times: Wall Street’s Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables: "But the real failure, according to finance experts and economists, was in the quants’ mathematical models of risk that suggested the arcane stuff was safe. The risk models proved...
News release: "The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that real median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008, from $52,163 to $50,303. This breaks a string of three years of annual income increases and...
Afghanistan and Pakistan: Oversight of U.S. Interagency Efforts, GAO-09-1015T, September 09, 2009 Aviation Weather: FAA and the National Weather Service Are Considering Plans to Consolidate Weather Service Offices, but Face Significant Challenges, GAO-09-761, September 09, 2009 Homeland Defense: U.S. Northern...
"A summary of the report from the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee was provided to the Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and NASA Administrator on Tuesday, September 8. The summary's text is...
Newsweek: Who’s Winning the Twitter Wars? How Democratic and Republican politicians use the popular microblogging service. "For the foreseeable future, Republicans will continue to broadcast their message widely,while the left-most wing of the Democratic Party mounts a quiet, steady defense....
5 Online tools for following US government officials: "The 2008 U.S. election season may be over, but the real work has only just begun. The following tools are tracking the every move of President Barack Obama and Congress in easy...
Remarks by the Vice President on the 200 Days of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: "First, we had to stabilize the financial system. We took the unpopular but necessary step of rescuing the banks. And now, although there's a...
News release: "Scientists led by a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will warn today that the UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to...
News release: "In an effort to obtain data for its next mobile wireless competition report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [August 27, 2009] announced a Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) that seeks to enhance its analysis of competitive conditions in the...
Mid-Session Review Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010. Office of Management and Budget: "When the President took office, the Nation was experiencing the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. This decline was not simply the...
American Medical News staff. Posted Aug. 17, 2009: "The latest health plan ratings by Consumer Reports shows PPO members less satisfied than those who belong to HMOs, primarily because of poor scores for PPOs' customer service and billing practices. Overall,...
Rebuilding America - A National Policy Framework for Investment in Energy Efficiency Retrofits - Bracken Hendricks and Benjamin Goldstein, Center for American Progress - Reid Detchon and Kurt Shickman, Energy Future Coalition, August 2009. "This report is a detailed examination...
"TransUnion.com released today the results of its analysis of trends in the mortgage industry for the second quarter of 2009 and the associated impact on the U.S. consumer. The report is part of an ongoing series of quarterly consumer lending...
Congressional Oversight Panel, August 11, 2009 - Submitted under Section 125(b)(1) of Title 1 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-343. August Oversight Report - The Continued Rise of Troubled Assets. "Given the ongoing uncertainty,...
News release: "Filling a major gap in the availability of residential property data, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the Wisconsin School of Business announced a new online database detailing land and...
News release: "The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council members recognize that entities servicing first and subordinate liens on the same residential real estate property may be faced with potential conflicts of interest when making loan modification decisions. A servicer’s decision...
Remarks by Secretary Napolitano at the Global Cyber Security Conference, August 4, 2009: "We have to look at the landscape now; but, more important, we have to—I think—acknowledge amongst ourselves that in terms of cybersecurity we've been living in a...
News release: "A report released today by the International Association of Chief of Police (IACP) finds that in the years since the September 11, 2001, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies have made great strides in their ability to...
News release: "Several large-scale, naturalistic driving studies (using sophisticated cameras and instrumentation in participants’ personal vehicles) conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), provide a clear picture of driver distraction and cell phone use under real‐world driving conditions. Combined,...
American City Business Journal: "Delinquencies on commercial mortgage backed securities soared $10 billion in June, hitting a 12-month high of almost $29 billion, according to Realpoint Research. California led the nation with the highest amount of delinquent loans, closely followed...
"In times of economic crisis, governments face pressure to adopt measures which may restrict trade and there are real dangers that such pressures, if not addressed adequately, can lead to a dangerous escalation. Contingency measures can act as a safety...
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which President Obama ....announce[d] that the US will sign, will be the first international human rights treaty signed by the United States in nearly a decade, Human Rights Watch said......
PASS ID Act Addresses Major Privacy Concerns in REAL ID: "CDT testified [July 15, 2009] before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on reevaluating the REAL ID Act. CDT testified in support of the PASS ID...
News release: "The National Transportation Safety Board issued an urgent safety recommendation to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) calling for enhanced safety redundancy of its train control system. A recent accident on the Metrorail's Red Line between the...
News release: "The Federal Trade Commission testified before the U.S. Senate today on the agency’s campaign to crack down on scammers who are trying to take advantage of the economic downturn to push a variety of scams, such as phony...
PBS.org FRONTLINE - Ghana, Digital Dumping Ground: "When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to...
Optimizing Web Traffic via the Media Scheduling Problem. Lars Backstrom, Jon Kleinbergy, Ravi Kumar, 15th ACM SIGKDD Intl. Conf. on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2009: "Website traffic varies through time in consistent and predictable ways, with highest traffic in...
Working Paper - Structural Inflation Models with Real Wage Rigidities: The Case of Canada, Jean-Marie Dufour, Lynda Khalaf, and Maral Kichian, July 2009 "Real wage rigidities have recently been proposed as a way of building intrinsic persistence in inflation within...
Clean Air Act: Preliminary Observations on the Effectiveness and Costs of Mercury Control Technologies at Coal-Fired Power Plants, GAO-09-860T, July 09, 2009 Energy and Water: Preliminary Observations on the Links between Water and Biofuels and Electricity Production, GAO-09-862T, July 09,...
Google LatLong Blog: "The web is becoming increasingly indispensable to people looking for a new home to buy...from today, if you enter a query like homes for sale in san francisco>> on Google Maps, you'll see that we make it...
USAspending.gov: Where Americans Can See Where Their Money Goes - Have you ever wanted to find more information on government spending? Have you ever wondered where Federal contracting dollars and grant awards go? Or perhaps you would just like to...
New York Times: "Google handles roughly two-thirds of all Internet searches. It owns the largest online video site, YouTube, which is more than 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. And last year, Google sold nearly $22 billion in...
"Who Runs Gov offers a unique look at the world of Washington through its key players and personalities. Our site will feature profiles of a select group of government officials, including members of the new presidential administration, legislators, senior Congressional...
Joshua Gomez, Travis Pinnick, and Ashkan Soltani, UC Berkeley, School of Information - KnowPrivacy - June 1, 2009 "Online privacy and behavioral profiling are of growing concern among both consumers and government officials. In this report, we examine both the...
Official Google Blog: "...Citizentube, a special YouTube blog devoted to chronicling the way that people are using video to change the world. If you've followed news and politics on YouTube, you might have noticed that we started Citizentube as a...
Army Working Capital Fund: Actions Needed to Improve Budgeting for Carryover at Army Ordnance, GAO-09-415, June 10, 2009 Environmental Contamination: Lessons Learned from the Cleanup of Formerly Used Defense and Military Munitions Sites, GAO-09-779T, June 10, 2009 VA Real Property:...
News release: "Terms of Service" policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information. But most web users don't read these policies -- or understand that the terms are constantly changing. To track these...
"New statistics released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that economic growth slowed in most states and regions of the U.S. in 2008 as economic growth overall slowed. Real GDP growth slowed in 38 states, with downturns in...
Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB), Toward A 21st Century Framework for Federal Government Privacy Policy, May 2009 "[this]...report analyzes issues and makes recommendations around updating privacy law and policy in light of technological change. The Privacy Act of...
News release: "Deaths of children aged under five years have dropped by 27% globally since 1990, according to the latest WHO estimates. But in WHO’s first progress report on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) released today in the World...
News release: "Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro outlined a series of measures the agency is taking to strengthen its internal compliance program to guard against inappropriate employee securities trading....The measures the agency is taking include: First, the staff...
Harvard Business School Working Paper: An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System, May 4, 2009 "The magnitude of the current financial crisis reflects the failure of an economic and regulatory philosophy that...
"Scoopler is a real-time search engine. We aggregate and organize content being shared on the internet as it happens, like eye-witness reports of breaking news, photos and videos from big events, and links to the hottest memes of the day....
News release: "U.S. home values continued to slide for the ninth consecutive quarter, declining 14.2 percent from a year ago, and falling 21.8 percent since the market peak in 2006. Additionally, one-fifth (21.9%) of all homeowners in the United States...
Time: "At the new President's urging and by his example, the entire Federal Government [well, not really] has bounded into the world of social-networking. Twenty-five agencies now have YouTube channels. The Library of Congress has begun posting thousands of free...
The G20 Meetings: No Common Framework, No Consensus, Michael Pettis, Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie China Program, Policy Brief No. 79, May 2009 "Participants in the recently completed G20 meeting in London agreed on a number of measures, some substantial and...
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, The economic outlook - Before the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., May 5, 2009 "The U.S. economy has contracted sharply since last autumn, with real gross domestic product (GDP) having dropped at an annual...
A Framework for Assessing the Systemic Risk of Major Financial Institutions, by Xin Huang, Hao Zhou and Haibin Zhu, Working Papers No 281, April 2009. Bank for International Settlements. "In this paper we propose a framework for measuring and stress...
News release: "Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, (that is,...
DOJ Office of Information Policy FOIA Post - Creating a New Era of Open Government: "On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the...
Staff Report - Financing the Dream: Securing College Affordability for the Middle Class "A central goal of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class is to ensure that public policy is helping middle-class families to realize their aspirations....
April 15, 2009 - Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District Reports from the Federal Reserve Banks indicate that overall economic activity contracted further or remained weak. However, five of the twelve Districts noted a moderation...
White House Fact Sheet - Reaching Out to the Cuban People: "Today, the Obama administration announced a series of changes in U.S. policy to reach out to the Cuban people in support of their desire to freely determine their country’s...
Metro Potential in ARRA: An Early Assessment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, The Brookings Institution, March 30, 2009 "America’s national economic crisis is also a metropolitan crisis, because metropolitan areas are the true engines of the national economy....
Via EPIC: "A new study by leading scholars from the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands and Italy has revealed that laws are reinforcing technology's ability to undermine the anonymity of citizens. The law reveals a preference for legislation requiring people to...
CDT: "A cybersecurity bill introduced April 01, 2009 in the Senate would give the federal government extraordinary power over private sector Internet services, applications and software. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would, for example, give the President unfettered power to...
Contingency Contracting: DOD, State, and USAID Are Taking Actions to Track Contracts and Contractor Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, GAO-09-538T, April 01, 2009 Defense Acquisitions: Measuring the Value of DOD's Weapon Programs Requires Starting with Realistic Baselines, GAO-09-543T, April 01,...
News release: "Our system is wrapped today in extraordinary complexity, but beneath all that, financial systems serve an essential and basic function. Financial institutions and markets transform the earnings and savings of American workers into the loans that finance a...
EPA Needs to Improve Its Efforts to Reduce Air Emissions at U.S. Ports, [Report PDF - 86pp] [At a Glance PDF] "While EPA has issued air emissions regulations for most port sources, EPA’s actions to address air emissions from large...
Through the Labyrinth: Real Answers on How Women Become Leaders - With considerable detail and insight, Diana Philip reviews a recent book that explores whether the concept of whether the “glass ceiling” still accurately describes the challenges women face to...
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: GAO's Role in Helping to Ensure Accountability and Transparency for Science Funding, GAO-09-515T, March 19, 2009 Department of Veterans Affairs Contracting with Veteran Owned-Small Businesses, GAO-09-391R, March 19, 2009 Federal Real Property: Authorities and Actions...
News release - New Jersey Files Suit Against Executives and Directors of Lehman Brothers. Eight-count complaint charges company misrepresentations led to state losing millions on stock investments in 2008. "With this suit we intend to hold Lehman executives and directors...
MARI®Mortgage Asset Research Institute Eleventh Periodic Mortgage Fraud Case Report To: Mortgage Bankers Association, by Denise James, Jennifer Butts Michelle Donahue, March 2009 "The year proved to be a swift introduction to how the industry must and will soon change...
"The unprecedented bet that many banks made on mortgages, real estate development and other real estate related lending during the middle part of this decade has produced a payoff no one imagined just a few years ago -- a huge...
WSJ: "The government's coordinator for cybersecurity programs has quit, criticizing what he described as the National Security Agency's grip on cybersecurity. Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, said in his resignation letter that the NSA's central role in cybersecurity...
"March 6, 2009, the Congressional Oversight Panel released its March Oversight Report, The Foreclosure Crisis: Working Toward a Solution. "Like the crisis in the banking system, the foreclosure problem has grown so large that it threatens the entire economy. Foreclosures...
News release: "TransUnion.com released today the results of its analysis of trends in the mortgage industry for the fourth quarter of 2008 and the associated impact on the U.S. consumer. The report is part of an ongoing series of quarterly...
Treasury OIG-09-033, Safety and Soundness: Material Loss Review of First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank, National Association, February 27, 2009 "The primary cause of the failure of FNB Nevada was the significant losses within its commercial real...
News release: "Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today...
“How Much Will This Program Really Cost?” GAO Issues First-of-Its-Kind Cost Estimating Guide to Answer Such Questions, March 2, 2009 "Developed with input from industry experts as well as federal officials, the 436-page Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide lays out...
Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address Saturday, February 28, 2009 Washington, DC: "In the Weekly Address this morning, President Obama explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate. On fiscal...
Hard Times for Horses: "According to Dr. Tom Lenz, a veterinarian who is the chairman of the Unwanted Horse Coalition, although the elimination of domestic slaughterhouses has reduced the total number of horses killed, 100,000 to 150,000 are still exported...
Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2004 to 2007: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances, Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, Traci L. Mach, and Kevin B. Moore, February 12, 2009 "The Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances...
8th European Regional Meeting - Facts on new wage challenges: trends and policy issues: "Wages have been one of the most widely discussed issues throughout the region in recent years and will undoubtedly continue to be so in the context...
The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody's Economy.com, January 21, 2009. "The global financial system has effectively collapsed, undermining investor, household and business confidence, and pushing the economy into a lengthy and...
EEOC: "On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (“Act”), which supersedes the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., 550 U.S. 618 (2007). Ledbetter had required a...
Center for American Progress. Rescuing the American Economy - A Guide to How the Stimulus Works, by Michael Ettlinger | February 5, 2009. "The economy was already performing badly by many measures before the recession started in December 2007, but...
Bank Direct Magazine: "There is not much flash and glitz among this year’s crop of top-performing U.S. banks and thrifts. But given all that’s occurred in the last six months, maybe slow and steady really is the name of the...
Official Google Blog: "Google Earth... starting today we have a much more detailed bathymetric map (the ocean floor), so you can actually drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the seafloor in 3D. While you're there...
High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-09-271, January 22, 2009: "In 1990, GAO began a program to report on government operations that it identified as “high risk.” Since then, generally coinciding with the start of each new Congress, GAO has periodically reported...
News release: "The U.S. government entered into an agreement today with Bank of America to provide a package of guarantees, liquidity access and capital as part of its commitment to support financial market stability. Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance...
Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District, January 14, 2009: "Overall economic activity continued to weaken across almost all of the Federal Reserve Districts since the previous reporting period. Most Districts noted reduced or low activity...
Squeezed! Caught between Unemployment Benefts And Health Care Costs, January 2009, by Families USA Foundation. "This report shows that, to maintain their employer-based health coverage under COBRA [Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986], most unemployed people would have to...
News release: "Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), incoming Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced three significant changes to further increase transparency and reduce funding levels for earmarks, building...
"The new U.S. Capitol Visitor Center welcomed its first public guests last month. This 580,000-square-foot facility offers new amenities and services as visitors learn about America’s legislative process and about the art and architecture of the U.S. Capitol Building. In...
News release: "Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2008, (that is,...
News release: "The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has unanimously approved measures that will shine more light than ever before on the municipal securities market by tapping the power of the Internet. For the first time, investors...
"Using a unique combination of new computer vision and fast computation methods, VideoSurf has taught computers to “see” inside videos to find content in a fast, efficient, and scalable way. Basing its search on visual identification, rather than text only,...
News release: "For years, the prevailing attitude of Americans toward our federal government has been best reflected by the famous line from President Reagan’s first inaugural address, “…Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem” –...
Determination of the December 2007 Peak in Economic Activity: "The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met by conference call on Friday, November 28. The committee maintains a chronology of the beginning and ending dates...
OIG-09-013 SAFETY AND SOUNDNESS: Material Loss Review of ANB Financial, National Association November 25, 2008, Office of Inspector General, Department of the Treasury "The primary causes of ANB’s failure were the bank’s strategy of aggressive growth without adequate controls; heavy...
News release: "The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has just adopted the organisation’s budgets for the year 2009. The ordinary budget amounts to € 205 million, based on a zero real growth of member States’ contributions. As the Council...
Improving Government Interoperability: A capability framework for government managers, Theresa A. Pardo, G. Brian Burke, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY. October 2008. "This paper is presented as a guide for government managers as they begin to...
Government Worth Having: A briefing on interoperability for government leaders, Theresa A. Pardo, G. Brian Burke. Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY. October 2008. "Interoperability: an important issue for government leaders Interoperability is a key enabler of...
Joint Statement by Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the FDIC on Citigroup, November 23, 2008: "The U.S. government is committed to supporting financial market stability, which is a prerequisite to restoring vigorous economic growth. In support of this commitment, the U.S....
Toolkit for Foundations and Individual Investors: Harnessing Your Investments to Help Solve the Climate Crisis, November 2008 "Climate change presents enormous risks and opportunities for investors. Climate risk is now embedded in all investment portfolios as companies worldwide face far-reaching...
Interim Assistant Secretary Neel Kashkari, November 19, 2008: "...The EESA is not an economic stimulus plan, nor is it an economic growth plan. It was designed to stabilize the financial system. Today, the LIBOR-OIS spread has fallen 238 basis points...
The Future of Privacy Forum Agenda for Consumers and Businesses [See also: About the Forum] "FPF will seek to bring transparency to online data practices. Our plan is to document practices, produce multi-media educational materials, and commission reports and studies...
"Senator Charles E. Schumer, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, JEC Vice Chair, released a new JEC report entitled Stemming the Current Economic Downturn Will Require More Stimulus. The current economic downturn follows the...
National Association for Business Economics Industry Survey: A Significant Downshift - October 2008 - Summary "Demand for goods and services increased at 30% of respondents’ firms and fell at 35%, the first time since 2001 that more respondents reported declines...
News release: "Over 14,000 plaintiff winners received monetary damages in civil trials nationwide in 2005, with less than 5 percent receiving damages exceeding $1 million, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The BJS study is the...
Search by State or County for Real-Time Voter Reports on Election Day - Reporters, bloggers, and voters across the country can monitor problems at the polls on Election Day on OurVoteLive.org, a project built and hosted by the Electronic Frontier...
News release: The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Network launched today a new edition of its Europe@Risk - A Global Risk Network Briefing, which is published ahead of the World Economic Forum on Europe and Central Asia (Istanbul, Turkey, 30...
Popular Mechanics: "This Friday, Internet voting will become a reality. Between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, an estimated 600 to 700 United States citizens will use hardened laptops—PCs with no hard drive, and various other components either turned off or...
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Monthly Oil Market Report, October 2008: "The Monthly Oil Market Report contains a wealth of information, including developments in the world economy, data on oil prices, supply and demand, crude and product...
News release: "To help consumers make well-informed choices when purchasing new vehicles, EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) have unveiled the 2009 Fuel Economy Guide ...Each vehicle listing in the Fuel Economy Guide provides an estimated annual fuel cost....
October 15, 2008 Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District: "Reports indicated that economic activity weakened in September across all twelve Federal Reserve Districts. Several Districts also noted that their contacts had become more pessimistic about...
Financial support to the banking industry: "After consultation with the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, the Government announces that it is bringing forward specific and comprehensive measures to ensure the stability of the financial system and to...
News release: "With financial markets worldwide facing growing turmoil, internationally coherent and decisive policy measures are required to restore confidence in the global financial system, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in a new report. "Failure to do so could...
From Chairman Waxman's Opening Statement: "Today we are holding our second day of hearings on the financial crisis on Wall Street. Yesterday, we examined the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Our focus today is AIG. There are obvious differences between Lehman...
Nuclear Waste: Action Needed to Improve Accountability and Management of DOE's Major Cleanup Projects, GAO-08-1081, September 26, 2008 USAID Acquisition and Assistance: Actions Needed to Develop and Implement a Strategic Workforce Plan, GAO-08-1059, September 26, 2008 Tax Gap: Actions That...
CNNMoney.com: "The federal government would provide as much as $700 billion in a far-reaching plan to rescue the nation's troubled financial system, according to a draft of the proposed bill obtained by CNN. The legislation is still being negotiated and...
LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age - Heather A. Phillips highlights attorney John Gant's contention that one's title, income, and...
W. David Stephenson - Automated Data Feeds Make Smart Regulation Possible Now: "The District of Columbia, long plagued by corruption, began a transparency initiative under former Mayor Anthony Williams. It shifted into high gear under Mayor Adrian Fenty, and CTO...
Visa Waiver Program: Actions Are Needed to Improve Management of the Expansion Process, and to Assess and Mitigate Program Risks, GAO-08-1142T, September 24, 2008 Missile Defense: Actions Needed to Improve Planning and Cost Estimates for Long-Term Support of Ballistic Missile...
An Economic Model to Estimate the Profits Resulting from the Employment of Illegal Aliens [and Decision-Support Tool - Java 1.5 or later required], by Claude Berrebi, Stephen J. Carroll, Jeffrey Sullivan "The employment of illegal aliens is a crime in...
Via Government Executive: "... summary of where each [candidate] stands on issues of importance to government workers..." [thanks TM] See also: "this side-by-side comparison of the candidates' positions on health care was prepared by the Kaiser Family Foundation with the...
Assessment of the Explanation That Immigration and Customs Enforcement Provided for Its Subsequent Transfer from the Spectrum Relocation Fund, GAO-08-846R, September 9, 2008 Aviation Security: TSA Is Enhancing Its Oversight of Air Carrier Efforts to Identify Passengers on the No...
AP: "The historic takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could come as soon as Sunday, moved to the forefront of the presidential campaign Saturday as candidates and congressional leaders seized on the enormous implications for taxpayers and the...
Summary: "Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that the pace of economic activity has been slow in most Districts. Many described business conditions as "weak," "soft," or "subdued." Cleveland and St. Louis reported some weakening since their last...
Great .gov Web sites, by Joab Jackson: "These 10 sites show agencies putting the power of the Web to work. Government agencies are finally catching on to the World Wide Web. Ten years ago, most government executives saw the Web...
Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances: Evidence from the 2001 and 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances "The Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances for 2004 provides insights into changes in family income and net worth since the 2001 survey....
Follow up to August 27, 2008 posting on new Census Bureau and income data, and New York has the highest poverty rate of all northern states, from Brookings, Poverty and Income in 2007: A Look at the New Census Data...
Transmittal Letter: "The insider threat to critical infrastructures constitutes a real and significant threat because of the potential a trusted insider has to inflict serious damage, including cascading and cross-sector effects and economic interruptions from critical infrastructure service losses. While...
OCED Economic Survey of Norway 2008 - Executive Summary: "The Norwegian economy has been flourishing of late, enjoying substantial real income growth with low inflation and very low unemployment. Benefiting from rising world energy prices and favourable supply shocks in...
"The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released for public review and comment a major revision to its security certification and accreditation (C&A) guidelines for federal information systems. A substantial rewrite of the original document, the new Guide...
Trade Policy Review Body - Trade Policy Review - Report by the Secretariat - China - Revision, 12/08/2008: "Continued trade liberalization has remained an integral part of the China's long-standing structural reform strategy, which is aimed at establishing an outward-oriented...
News release: "RealtyTrac®, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its July 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 272,171 U.S. properties during...
U.S. Sentencing Commission Preliminary Crack Cocaine Retroactivity Data Report, August 2008 Data As part of its ongoing mission, the United States Sentencing Commission provides Congress, the judiciary, the executive branch, and the general public with data extracted and analyzed from...
"Fannie Mae reported a wider-than-expected second-quarter loss of $2.3 billion and said it expects more heavy losses from the surge in home-mortgage defaults. Mounting losses at both Fannie and Freddie Mac, the two main providers of money for home mortgages,...
Planetary-Scale Views on a Large Instant-Messaging Network, Jure Leskovec and Eric Horvitz Abstract: "We present a study of anonymized data capturing a month of high-level communication activities within the whole of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging system. We examine characteristics and...
Blume, John H., Johnson, Sheri Lynn and Sundby, Scott E.,Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity of Knowing and Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation. Hofstra Law Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2008 "This article appears in the Hofstra Law Review...
News release: "A year after the subprime market crisis erupted in the United States, triggering financial market turmoil around the world, global financial markets continue to be fragile and systemic risks remain elevated, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in...
New York Times: Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?: "Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a...
"HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability,...
LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy and The Star Chamber: How Celebrities Go Free and their Lawyers Become Famous Heather A. Phillips reviews a new book whose main...
The Assets Agenda Policy Options To Promote Savings And Asset Ownership By Low- And Moderate-Income Americans, By Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini, Reid Cramer, Rourke O'Brien, New America Foundation June 30, 2008. "The agenda we present here includes calls for new structures and...
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - 2008 World Drug Report (310 pages, PDF): "This Report provides evidence of a surge in the supply of illicit drugs in 2007. Afghanistan had a record opium harvest, and world opium production...
News release, June 26, 2008: "The Board of ICANN today approved recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet's addressing system. "The Board today accepted a recommendation from its global stakeholders that it is...
Border Security: Summary of Covert Tests and Security Assessments for the Senate Committee on Finance, 2003-2007, GAO-08-757, May 16, 2008 Federal Real Property: Property Conveyances between the District of Columbia and the Federal Government Await Completion, and Development Will Take...
The Beige Book, June 11, 2008: "Reports from the Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity remained generally weak in late April and May. Three Districts described economic activity as softer, weaker, or lower, with an additional four Districts reporting...
White House, June 10, 2008: Review of progress under the framework for advancing transatlantic economic integration between the European Union and the United States of America. "Believing that transatlantic economic integration will maximize economic benefits for their citizens through competition...
Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, Zeller, William P and Felten, Edward W, Government Data and the Invisible Hand (2008). Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 11, 2008 - draft version, via SSRN. Abstract: "If the next Presidential administration really wants...
Proofpoint’s Outbound Email and Data Loss Prevention in Today’s Enterprise, 2008 report - ["the survey was fielded in the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia to explore global concerns.] "Email remains the most important medium for communications both inside and...
Official Google Blog: "We're very excited to tell you that real-time quotes on NASDAQ securities are now available on Google Finance. This is an important (and way overdue) development for everyone who consumes financial information. Historically, real-time stock data was...
Cancer Scientists Lament Funding, by Marilyn Chase: "Leading U.S. cancer scientists say that five years of flat federal funding of cancer research is threatening to undo major strides made against the disease. Nancy Davidson, president of the American Society of...
Accounting for Sources of Projected Growth in Federal Spending on Medicare and Medicaid, May 29, 2008. "Economic and Budget Issue Brief: "According to projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid will grow from 4...
"As oil prices reached a new all-time high today of $130 a barrel for light sweet crude, and executives from the top 5 oil companies come to Congress for a second time this year, a new report details decisions by...
"The Chesapeake Project began as a two-year (2007-2008) pilot digital preservation program established to preserve and ensure permanent access to vital legal information currently available in digital formats on the World Wide Web. The purpose of The Chesapeake Project is...
News release: "The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics will host a conference on May 29 to highlight and assess the role of consumer information in the current mortgage crisis from an economic perspective. Experts on real estate economics, information...
"OMB released the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) Scorecard for the second quarter of FY 2008, showing a continued trend for improved agency performance government-wide. The full scorecard is available here. This quarter, nearly 50 percent of agency “status” scores were...
"At a REAL ID Workshop at the Berkman Center, EPIC today released a new report on the Department of Homeland Security’s national identification proposal, the REAL ID system. "May 11, 2008 is the statutory deadline for implementation of the REAL...
New York Times: "No industrialized economy is as reliant on oil, or as obsessed with gasoline prices, as the United States, the world’s biggest consumer of oil. But the oil market is largely immune to Washington’s machinations, and prices have...
IEEE Spectrum Q&A With IARPA Director Lisa Porter: "We've divided the agency into three offices, and those really explain how we parse the problems intelligence research is focused on: Smart Collection, Incisive Analysis, and Safe and Secure Operations. Those three...
ASCAP news release: "The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York today made public a decision in the proceeding to determine reasonable license fees to be paid to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers...
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT): "The long-range or "vicinity" Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology chosen by the Departments of Homeland Security and State for government-issued ID documents poses serious risks to personal privacy and security, CDT testified today before...
News release: "Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to...
Treasury today released the fourth in a series of papers on Social Security. Issue Brief No. 4 is entitled Social Security Reform: Mechanisms for Achieving True Pre-Funding. "As was discussed in the second brief, there is nothing currently in place...
The Evolution of U.S. Turkish Relations in a Transatlantic Context, April 2008. Edited by Dr. Frances G. Burwell, Strategic Studies Institute. "The relationship between Turkey and the United States is complicated because of differing core purposes and somewhat differing memberships,...
Avatars, Virtual Reality Technology, and the U.S. Military: Emerging Policy Issues, April 9, 2008: "This report describes virtual reality technology, which uses three-dimensional user-generated content, and its use by the U.S. military and intelligence community for training and other purposes....
"Total Federal energy-specific subsidies and support to all forms of energy are estimated to have reached $16.6 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2007, according to Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007, released April 9, 2008 by the...
DoD Office of the Deputy Inspector General for Auditing - Training Requirements for U.S. Ground Forces Deploying in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, April 9, 2008. "CENTCOM requires that all personnel deploying in support of OIF be trained in 14...
April 02, 2008 - Taiwan's 2008 Presidential Election April 01, 2008 - Medicaid and Outpatient Hospital Services April 01, 2008 - The REAL ID Act of 2005: Legal, Regulatory, and Implementation Issues March 31, 2008 - Understanding Stagflation and the...
Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Tuesday, April 1, 2008. Witness List & Prepared Testimony. News release: "Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and...
Averting Financial Crisis, Updated March 21, 2008, Mark Jickling, Specialist in Financial Economics, Government and Finance Division. "There is no precise definition of “financial crisis,” but a common view is that disruptions in financial markets rise to the level of...
WSJ - Sweeping Changes in Paulson Plan: "U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson plans Monday to call for sweeping structural changes in the way the government monitors financial markets, capping a broad review aimed at revamping a system of regulatory oversight...
NIJ Journal Issue No. 259, March 2008: The 'CSI Effect': Does It Really Exist? "Many attorneys, judges, and journalists have claimed that watching television programs like CSI has caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence has...
Iran, Terrorism, Transnational Security Threats, Nuclear Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, March 2008. Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. "Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has been...
The Nation's Long-Term Fiscal Outlook: January 2008 Update, GAO-08-591R, March 21, 2008: "Our updated simulations continue to illustrate that the long-term fiscal outlook is unsustainable. Despite a 3-year decline in the unified budget deficit, the federal government still faces large...
In Series of Videos, Supreme Court Justices Make Their Case - Justices' candid observations and pet peeves spill forth in legal writing guru Bryan Garner's video interviews. Legal Times, Tony Mauro March 11, 2008. "...the collection of videos on LawProse.org...
"The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at 98.46 dollars a barrel on Thursday, compared with $95.95 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations...The new OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following:...
Securing America's Passenger-Rail Systems, by Jeremy M. Wilson, Brian A. Jackson, Mel Eisman, Paul Steinberg, K. Jack Riley. "U.S. communities depend on reliable, safe, and secure rail systems. Each weekday, more than 12 million passengers take to U.S. railways. Recent...
Global Insight: "The existing median home price data, released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for the fourth quarter of 2007, show that all but 11 of the 145 metro areas covered by NAR saw quarter-to-quarter declines from the...
News release: "What is needed is a new national security strategy and a renewed commitment to homeland security, one that builds capabilities from the ground up rather than imposing unfunded mandates from the top down. Adequate resources must be committed...
February 2008 Report No. AUD-08-005, FDIC’s Consideration of Commercial Real Estate Concentration Risk in FDIC-Supervised Institutions, Audit Report. "This report presents the results of our audit of the FDIC’s consideration of commercial real estate (CRE) concentration risk in FDIC-supervised institutions....
Tracking Housing Prices - Why the Numbers Conflict, By David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal Online. "Predicting how much worse the U.S. housing market will get is tough. The future is never certain. But when it comes to home prices,...
Press release: The number of acute coronary events such as heart attack in adults dropped significantly after a smoking ban in public places in Italy, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers in Rome compared acute...
Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy: "The U.S. economy was weaker in the fourth quarter of 2007, with real GDP ending the year at a 0.6 percent annualized growth rate. The weaker dollar helped boost real exports, which increased at...
News.com: "Real ID's scope is surprisingly broad. Jurors could potentially be denied entrance to federal courthouses. So could prospective students visiting the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis or the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Tours of federal buildings such...
What are Human Rights? Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order, By Mathias Risse, Working Paper Number: RWP08-006. Submitted: 02/01/2008. Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. "Why do we have human rights? What ought to be...
REAL ID: What Should Congress Do Now? - CDT Analysis of the REAL ID Act and the Department of Homeland Security’s Final Regulations, February 1, 2008. Related postings on REAL ID Act CNN: "The FBI is gearing up to create...
Press release, December 10, 2007 - "The way communicators dispense information is out of sync with the way consumers use media, according to Media, Myths & Realities, a comprehensive survey of media usage among consumers and communications professionals conducted by...
"A new Institute of Medicine report, Knowing What Works in Health Care: A Roadmap for the Nation, provides a blueprint for a national program to assess the effectiveness of clinical services and to provide credible, unbiased information about what really...
"The Conference Board announced [January 18, 2008] that the U.S. leading index decreased 0.2 percent, the coincident index increased 0.1 percent and the lagging index increased 0.4 percent in December. The leading index decreased again in December, the third consecutive...
Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, January 9, 2008. "The future of bibliographic control will be collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based. Its realization will occur in cooperation with the private...
Defense Infrastructure: Realignment of Air Force Special Operations Command Units to Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, GAO-08-244R, January 18, 2008 Energy Markets: Increasing Globalization of Petroleum Products Markets, Tightening Refining Demand and Supply Balance, and Other Trends Have Implications...
"Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity increased modestly during the survey period of mid-November through December, but at a slower pace compared with the previous survey period. Among Districts, seven reported a slight increase in...
Press release, January 11, 2009: "One of the biggest concerns we’ve had for the last several years, one we continue to have at the Department of Homeland Security, is how do we promote a secure form of identification across America?...
Press release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today a final rule establishing minimum security standards for state-issued drivers’ licenses and identification cards. The rule sets uniform standards that enhance the integrity and reliability of drivers’ licenses and...
Press release: "In its 18th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “subprime” as the word of the year. Subprime is an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment....
Press release: "Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this...
"...the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) provides that United States citizens and nonimmigrant aliens may enter the United States only with passports or such alternative documents as the Secretary of Homeland Security may designate as satisfactorily...
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: "The State of Food and Agriculture 2007 explores the potential for agriculture to provide enhanced levels of environmental services alongside the production of food and fi bre. The report concludes that demand...
Thomas R. Bruce - Director, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, writing on Technoids: "First and newest: vastly improved views of US Code updates at all levels. Clicking the "updates" link at the right at any level of the Code...
Press release, December 20, 2007: "Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez today welcomed the final report of the Deemed Export Advisory Committee, a distinguished group of Americans commissioned by the Secretary in September 2006 to examine the complex issue of...
"The International Macroeconomic Data Set provides data from 1969 through 2017 for real (adjusted for inflation) gross domestic product (GDP), population, real exchange rates, and other variables for the 190 countries and 34 regions that are most important for U.S....
Reducing the Global Nuclear Danger: International Cooperation – the Indispensable Security Imperative, by Charles B. Curtis, President, Nuclear Threat Initiative, November 2007. The greatest security threat today – not just for the United States, or for the West, but for...
"The Department of Homeland Security released grant guidance and application kits for two grant programs totaling more than $35 million to help states prepare to implement REAL ID provisions that require a standard format for state-issued driver's licenses. The REAL...
Project for Excellence in Journalism: "Through the first 10 months of the year, the portrait of Iraq that Americans have received from the news media has in considerable measure been a grim one. Roughly half of the reporting has consisted...
US Courts: "Filing a bankruptcy case pro se—without the assistance of an attorney—is not for the faint of heart. “Before the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), a pro se debtor could successfully navigate filing a...
"Have you ever wanted to find more information on government spending? Have you ever wondered where federal contracting dollars and grant awards go? Or perhaps you would just like to know, as a citizen, what the government is really doing...
Bankruptcy: Implementation of Reform Act's Debt Reaffirmation Agreement Provisions, GAO-08-94, December 7, 2007 Improper Payments: Weaknesses in USAID's and NASA's Implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act and Recovery Auditing, GAO-08-77, November 9, 2007 Military Base Realignments and Closures: Impact...
Press release: "Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) Tuesday introduced bipartisan, revised legislation to increase government transparency and provide the first major reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in more than a decade. The Senate passed...
McAfee Virtual Criminology Report - Cybercrime: The Next Wave - The annual McAfee global cyber trends study into organized crime and the Internet in collaboration with leading international security experts, November 2007. "For this report we consulted with more than...
The Future of Reading, by Steven Levy, Newsweek, November 17, 2007: "...the Kindle...has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book's binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a...
Press release: "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing [Protecting the Employment Rights of Those Who Protect the United States, November 8, 2007] to address employment challenges that...
Energy Employees Compensation: Actions to Promote Contract Oversight, Transparency of Labor's Involvement, and Independence of Advisory Board Could Strengthen Program, GAO-08-4, October 26, 2007 Federal Electricity Subsidies: Information on Research Funding, Tax Expenditures, and Other Activities That Support Electricity Production,...
"The latest World Development Report calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries and warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015...
Ceres: "Global warming and the growing incidence of extreme weather events pose an enormous challenge to the insurance industry. This summer's devastating floods in Europe and wildfires in the West are only the latest reminder of why investors and consumers...
Letter from Scott H. Amey, Project On Government Oversight General Counsel to Mary Peters, Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation, October 15, 2007: "Competition in contracting is essential to getting fair and reasonable costs and prices for goods and services. The...
"DogsInDanger.com is a nonprofit national shelter outreach program at the forefront of a grassroots movement trying to help shelters save the lives of millions of innocent dogs...Shelters are the last line for millions of innocent dogs. The public has no...
Press release: "The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice launched a new Web site today to educate consumers and policymakers about the potential benefits that competition can bring to consumers of real estate brokerage services and the barriers that...
Press release: "Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the...
Fact Sheet: National Strategy for Homeland Security - A Comprehensive Guide For Securing the Homeland: "Today, the President issued an updated National Strategy for Homeland Security, which will serve to guide, organize, and unify our Nation's homeland security efforts. This...
Few Economists Predicted True Cost of Iraq War, by Marilyn Geewax, Cox News Service, Sunday, October 07, 2007 "Five years ago this month, a Yale economist said something few in Washington wanted to hear: an Iraq war could cost nearly...
Criminal Justice Resources: Sex Offender Laws, by Ken Strutin The Veil Doctrine in Company Law, by Amin George Forji Congressional Budget Office Launches Topical Health Website, by George Butterfield Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide - Updated and Revised,...
EPA press release: "Estimating the carbon footprint of commercial buildings has just become easier. Portfolio Manager, EPA's on-line energy rating system for commercial buildings, now includes greenhouse gas emission factors. The updated ratings show that Energy Star buildings, which use...
Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel-Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2007: "This report, published in September 2007, provides data on the fuel economy and technology characteristics of new light-duty vehicles (cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks) for model years 1975...
Tax Compliance: Inflation Has Significantly Decreased the Real Value of Some Penalties, GAO-07-1062, August 23, 2007 (PDF, 14 pages) Defense Acquisitions: Navy Faces Challenges Constructing the Aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford within Budget, GAO-07-866, August 23, 2007 (PDF, 52 pages)...
Follow up to September 18, 2007 posting, 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report, see this National Science Foundation press release, Powerful Tool Crunches Commutes: "Tied to a statistical database that tracks how traffic conditions develop--over the course of a "rush hour,"...
The FBI Strategic Plan, 2004-2009 (132 pages, PDF): "The FBI Strategic Plan 2004-2009 serves as a high-level road map for the next five years, with strategic goals and objectives that address the mission of the FBI and fulfill the imperatives...
The Internet Tax Freedom Act and the "Digital Divide" by Michael Mazerov, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "Proponents of the "Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act" argue that banning state and local taxes on Internet access is key to encouraging...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the following reports, correspondence and testimony: Reports Department of Homeland Security: Progress Report on Implementation of Mission and Management Functions. GAO-07-454, August 17, 2007 Employer-Sponsored Benefits: Many Factors Affect the Treatment of Pension...
August 29, 2007: "NIST announces the publication of Special Publication (SP) 800-95, Guide to Secure Web Services (128 pages, PDF). SP 800-95 seeks to assist organizations in understanding the challenges in integrating information security practices into Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)...
"Metavid, hosted by The University of California at Santa Cruz, is a project which seeks to capture, stream, archive and facilitate real-time collective [re]mediation of legislative proceedings. Metavid makes use of entirely free and open source software and video codecs...
Press release: "The rich really are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, a new University of Michigan study shows. The study—the most recent available analysis of long-term wealth trends among U.S. households is based on data from the...
2007-36 (August) Why Do Firms Offer Risky Defined Benefit Pension Plans? David A. Love, Paul A. Smith, and David Wilcox Abstract | Full paper (PDF) 2007-35 (August) Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936-2005, Carola Frydman and...
Understanding Privacy -- and the Real Threats to It, August 4, 2007 (20 pages, PDF), by Jim Harper, the editor of Privacilla.org and director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. Executive Summary: "Properly defined, privacy is the subjective...
UK House of Lords, Science and Technology Committee, 5th Report of Session 2006-2007: Personal Internet Security, August 10, 2007 (121 pages, PDF) "e-crime and the internet - Lords Science and Technology Committee calls for incentives, regulation and investment to tackle...
Press release, Sen. Patrick Leahy: "...As the first major reform to FOIA in more than a decade, the OPEN Government Act would help to reverse these troubling trends and help to begin to restore the public’s trust in their government....
Press release: "NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said the agency is moving forward to implement many of the recommendations contained in two studies released Friday about astronaut health and behavioral assessments. The two reviews were made public prior to a...
Compact of Free Association: Implementation Activities Have Progressed, but the Marshall Islands Faces Challenges to Achieving Long-Term Compact Goals, GAO-07-1115T, July 24, 2007 Defense Acquisitions: Realistic Business Cases Needed to Execute Navy Shipbuilding Programs, GAO-07-943T, July 24, 2007 Federal Farm...
Cybercrime: Public and Private Entities Face Challenges in Addressing Cyber Threats, GAO-07-705, June 22, 2007: "Cybercrime has significant economic impacts and threatens U.S. national security interests. Various studies and experts estimate the direct economic impact from cybercrime to be in...
Press release: "The International Compact with Iraq (ICI) is an initiative of the Government of Iraq, in partnership with the United Nations, and supported by the World Bank. This initiative seeks a new partnership with the International Community. It establishes...
Press release: "The New York Civil Liberties Union today called on the City of New York to ensure that any new surveillance plan for New York City is subject to public input and external oversight mechanisms and includes significant privacy...
'Free' Credit Report Sites: Worth the Real Costs? Review of 24 Sites Shows Potential for Consumer Confusion, Unnecessary Services (35 pages, PDF): "This report examines Web sites that offer consumers paid access to their credit reports in combination with credit...
Follow up to March 22, 2007 posting, Sale of American Lawyer Media Considered by Owner Wasserstein, from a press release today: "Incisive Media will acquire ALM from U.S. Equity Partners, L.P. for a total value of approximately $630 million (approximately...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the following reports and testimonies: Energy Efficiency: Important Challenges Must Be Overcome to Realize Significant Opportunities for Energy Efficiency Improvements in Gulf Coast Reconstruction. GAO-07-654, June 26, 2007 Wildland Fire Management: Lack of...
First-Ever State-By-State Report on Internet Connection Speed Shows U.S. Far Behind Other Industrialized Nations: "Results released today of the first-ever state-by-state report on Internet connection speed reveal that the United States is falling far behind other industrialized nations. The report,...
DNI McConnell's Foreign Affairs Article, "Overhauling Intelligence" (10 pages, PDF): "Before World War II, the United States' defense, intelligence, and foreign policy apparatus were fragmented, as befitted a country with a limited role on the world state. With U.S. entry...
ABA press release: "Domestic violence remains a stark and brutal reality: one in four women in the U.S. will be a victim in her lifetime and studies indicate that as many as 10 million children witness domestic violence in their...
The Nation's Long-Term Fiscal Outlook April 2007 Update: The Bottom Line: Federal Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable GAO-07-983R, June 4, 2007 "As in previous updates, GAO's current long-term simulations show ever-larger deficits resulting in a federal debt burden that ultimately spirals...
New Estimates of the Future Path of 401(k) Assets, James Poterba, Steven Venti, David A. Wise, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper No. 13083, May 2007. "Over the past two and a half decades there has been a...
The Successful Use of Information from the Private Financial Sector - Salvador Hernandez, Deputy Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division, FBI, Before the House Committee on Financial Services, May 10, 2007: "The analysis of financial records generated by the private financial...
Governors and State Legislators Submit Comments on the Draft Regulations to Implement the Real ID Act, May 8, 2007 DHS's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee Comment on the Real ID, May 7, 2007 FCW.com reports that the DHS Data...
"The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today issued a joint report, "Competition in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry." The purpose of the report is to inform consumers and others involved in the industry about important competition...
Inmate Search - "The Department of Corrections website is a service that is maintained by the Department of Corrections (“DOC”) to provide certain inmate information to the public. The information on this service is provided as a voluntary service to...
Special Report - CEO Compensation: "The chief executives of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective 38% pay raise last year, to $7.5 billion. That's an average $15.2 million apiece. Exercised stock options again account for the main component of...
Gross Domestic Product by Industry, 2006 (advance): "Newly available data on the industry distribution of real GDP growth show that the private services-producing sector accelerated to 4.1 percent in 2006, up from 3.7 percent in 2005, and that the private...
"The Senate Judiciary Committee April 19 held a hearing concerning oversight of the Department of Justice. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified at the hearing about the abrupt dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys." Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales...
Official Google Blog: "Searching on Google for Seattle real estate or homes for sale in San Diego prompts you to enter a location and choose whether you want to buy or rent.* After clicking "Go," you can see the individual...
Annual Energy Outlook Retrospective Review: Evaluation of Projections in Past Editions (03/31/2007): "This paper produces a comparison between realized energy outcomes and the projections included in previous editions of the AEO. Each year, the comparison adds the projections from the...
New Skills, New Learning: Legal Education and the Promise of New Technology, by Gene Koo, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, March 26, 2007. "A large majority of lawyers perceive critical gaps between what they are...
Press release: "Former 9/11 Commission counsel Janice Kephart announces the launch of an online Identity Document Security Library, consisting of legal, technical and policy pieces regarding identity document security. Kephart, a nationally recognized border security expert, created the library to...
A Legal Analysis of the Impacts of Administrative Court Decisions on the Validity of Private Law Contracts In Turkish Law, by Assoc. Prof. Vedat Buz and Cagdas Evrim Ergün Criminal Justice Resources: Criminal Justice Library Internships, by Ken Strutin CongressLine...
FindLaw: Viacom Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against YouTube and Google Over Unauthorized Use Of The Company's Shows: Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., YouTube, LLC, and Google, Inc., March 13, 2007. Viacom statement: Suit Seeks Court Ruling To Require YouTube...
Follow up to recent postings on postings on Walter Reed Conditions and America's returning wounded, see the following Press release: "On 12 March, The U.S. Army Inspector General provided House and Senate Congressional committees a completed inspection report on the...
Who's a Journalist These Days? "Journalists with the "Big Ego disease" often point at bloggers and other people without press passes and accuse them of not being "real journalists." But bloggers who provide analysis about newsworthy events are journalists." By...
Press release: "Providing Federal Trade Commission testimony today before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition, and Business and Consumer Rights, Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said that to accomplish its competition mission, the agency has focused its enforcement...
E-Commerce Times: Developing Best Practices to Combat ID Theft, Part 1 Developing Best Practices to Combat ID Theft, Part 2 Securing Your Online ID: Beyond Username and Password Is That Really You? ID Theft and Authentication, Part 1 New Layers...
Press release: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced draft regulations in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to establish minimum standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards in accordance with the REAL ID Act of...
"OpenCongress brings together official government information with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress. Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists know what's really going on in Congress. Now, everyone can be...
The National Conference of State Legislatures posted a Countdown to REAL ID (May 11, 2008) guide that includes links to documents arranged by Federal Issues (including text and history of the Act), State Issues (including a REAL ID State Legislation...
Knowledge Discovery Resources 2007 - An Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation, by Marcus P. Zillman LLRX.com Guide to State and Federal Legislative Research, by Sabrina I. Pacifici LawPro Links - An A to Z Directory of Web Resources, by Sabrina...
FAA's FY 2008 Budget Request: Key Issues Facing the Agency --February 14, 2007, Testimony by the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Subcommittee on Aviation, Project ID: CC-2007-019. "FAA is requesting $14.1 billion...
Economic Report of the President - February 12, 2007: "Contains current/foreseeable trends and annual numerical goals concerning topics such as employment, production, real income, and Federal budget outlays." Fact Sheet: The Economic Report of the President, February 12, 2007...
"The Indiana Department of Corrections has started implementation of the new Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAVIN) network, the result of legislation approved unanimously in 2005. The automated network will allow Indiana residents to receive real-time information about the...
Press release: "Today, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, delivered a roll out address at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. The address, entitled "The Real Deal for Homeland Security”, laid out...
Department of Defense Inspector General's Report No. D-2007-051 on the "2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission's Report Recommendation #193 Regarding Cecil Field, Florida", released January 25, 2007....
Official Google Blog announced: "... the NYSE has moved the issue a great step forward with a proposal to the SEC which if approved, would allow you to see real-time, last-sale prices across all Google properties including Google Finance, Personalized...
Press release, January 4, 2007: "Cisco today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately held company, IronPort Systems, Inc. of San Bruno, Calif. IronPort is a leading provider of messaging security appliances, focusing on enterprise spam and spyware protection."...
Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Key Issues for Congressional Oversight, GAO-07-308SP, January 9, 2007. "Iraq has had three successful elections, adopted a constitution, and installed its first elected government. At the same time, since the initial ground offensive ended in...
From a press release by Sen. Harry Reid, January 4, 2007: "...In the first 10 bills we will introduce this afternoon—and in our on-going oversight of the war in Iraq—we intend to address three priorities of the nation: one, providing...
Follow up to my December 11, 2006 posting, EPA Responds to Protests Over Library Closures, see today's ALA Press release: "American Library Association (ALA) President Leslie Burger responded to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) update Monday on the status of...
Press release: "Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) and Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH) introduced legislation [on December 8, 2006] to repeal Title II of the REAL ID Act of 2005, which they believe places an unrealistic and unfunded burden on...
New York Times Op-Ed, The Election Is in the Mail, by Ruth Goldway, a commissioner on the Postal Rate Commission. "Vote by Mail could offer real advantages if it were adopted nationwide. Voters would not need to take time off...
"In an effort to reach predetermined goals of enabling police and fire departments in multiple jurisdictions to communicate in real-time during a major incident, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that 46 U.S. cities are planned...
"This is the homepage for Congresspedia's election night coverage. Click on the maps or links...to access the results of the general elections and profiles on the incumbents and challengers." WSJ free feature - Midterm Elections Offer Rookie Anchors New Battleground:...
October 26, 2006 press release: - "Today, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) filed a consumer protection complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging Internet financial services and real estate provider Zillow.com is misleading consumers, real estate professionals and...
Announcement: "The Citizendium, a "citizens' compendium of everything," will be an experimental new wiki project that combines public participation with gentle expert guidance. It will begin life as a "progressive fork" of Wikipedia. But we expect it to take on...
Department of Justice Fact Sheet: Structure of the National Security Division Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales at the Swearing-In Ceremony for Kenneth Wainstein and the Launch of the Department of Justice National Security Division: "Establishment of the...
Pew Research Center: "Among the 77% of the currently employed (and not retired) public who say they expect to do some kind of work for pay after they retire, there are no significant differences by age, income, gender, race, ethnicity,...
Press release: "A new report prepared for Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Henry A. Waxman finds that working families have seen their real income drop by almost $1,300 since 2000, while the costs of health insurance, gasoline and home...
Doublespeak and the War on Terrorism (September 2006), by Timothy Lynch: "The purpose of this paper is not to criticize any particular policy initiative. Reasonable people can honestly disagree about what needs to be done to combat the terrorists who...
Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine by Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten Abstract - "This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software....
September 5, 2006 Fact Sheet: The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, September 2006 (29 pages, PDF) Contents: Overview of America's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism Today's Realities in the War on Terror Today's Terrorist...
Press release: Income Stable, Poverty Rate Increases, Percentage of Americans Without Health Insurance Unchanged: "Real median household income remained unchanged between 2003 and 2004 at $44,389, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the nation's...
Can Our Culture Be Saved? The Future of Digital Archiving, by Diane Leeheer Zimmerman, New York University - School of Law, July 25, 2006 "This article steps behind the Google Library controversy to examine in depth what the enormous public...
"Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to lead a consortium researching advanced information analysis and computational technologies to protect the nation. The university's Center for...
From FAS: "The Department of Homeland Security released its citizen preparedness website, Ready.gov, in February 2003 and completed a large-scale update in July 2006. The Federation of American Scientists compared the new site to an archive of the previous version...
Matwyshyn, Andrea M., "Technoconsen(t)sus" (May 2006). Posted July 19, 2006 [Link to download] "Law is contributing to an information security paradox. Consumers are regularly “consenting” to the installation of computer code that makes them more vulnerable to harms such as...
House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Democratic Staff report, To Secure America: The 9/11 Commission's Homeland Security Recommendations (33 pages, PDF), "provides a side-by-side comparison of 9/11 Commission recommendations, notable action taken to realize these recommendations, and critical efforts...
House Intelligence to Hold Open Hearing on Modernizing FISA, July 19, 2006. Statement of Jim Dempsey, Policy Director, Center for Democracy and Technology, July 19, 2006 (13 pages, PDF) ABA President's Testimony to House Intelligence Committee Hearing on Domestic Surveillance,...
Homeland Security: Guidance and Standards Are Needed for Measuring the Effectiveness of Agencies' Facility Protection Efforts, Full-text GAO-06-612, and Highlights, May 31, 2006 (released Junly 7, 2006). "The need to better protect federal facilities, coupled with federal budget constraints and...
FDIC press release, July 6, 2006: "Job market conditions remained generally positive in most of the U.S. through the first quarter of 2006, with some pockets of weakness along the Louisiana Gulf Coast and the auto-dependent upper Midwest. FDIC-insured institutions...
DOJ press release, July 3, 2006: "All 50 states are now participating in the National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) Web site, the Justice Department announced today. South Dakota and Oregon have now been added to the Web site, which...
Public Defense Systems, by Ken Strutin Pathfinder on the Generic Pharmaceutical Industry, by Sarah Spear The Government Domain: Google's New U.S. Government Search, by Peggy Garvin Faulkner's Practical Web Strategies for Attorneys: How to Select a Website Designer, by Frederick...
Democratic Policy Committee Report, June 12, 2006: "Summary, S. 2766, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, would authorize $467.7 billion in budget authority for defense programs in Fiscal Year 2007, an increase of $26.2 billion, or 4.1...
Press release: "The public may now listen to arguments held before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals without having to attend in person, thanks to new technology instated June 7 that provides real-time audio coverage via web streaming. Similar...
Press release: "A new cyber security study released today highlights the difference between perception and reality of consumers' awareness of online scams and their actual online behavior. While 87 percent of consumers polled said they were confident they could recognize...
World Bank: State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2006: "In the past year the carbon market has grown faster and broader than nearly any other emerging market,” said Andrew Ertel, President of Evolution Markets LLC. “The increase in volume...
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Factors for Future Success and Issues to Consider for Organizational Placement, by William O. Jenkins, Jr., director, homeland security and justice, before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Full Report GAO-06-746T, and Highlights, May 9, 2006....
Press release: "The nation's governors teamed with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) to bring state concerns about REAL ID to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)....
From Microsoft Research, Photo2Search: Explore the Real World via Camera Phone "Seeking information about something seen, a user takes a photo of the object and sends the photo, via e-mail or Multimedia Messaging Service, to a Web-based server, which searches...
Press release: "The highest responsibility of government is to protect the security of every American,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "After five years of Republican incompetence, Americans have had enough. They expect and demand policies that are tough and...
Op-Ed in Roll Call by CDT Officials Supports Protecting Bloggers without Opening Soft Money Loopholes in the Campaign Finance Laws: "H.R. 4900 protects bloggers and small speakers far better than does H.R 1606, and by design, it does not create...
Project for Excellence in Journalism: "The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism. Our goal is to put in one place...
The Implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Audit Report 06-13, [Redacted] March 2006 (PDF) Executive Summary: "Criminal organizations and individuals frequently use the telecommunications systems of the United States to further serious violent crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping,...
Following up on recent postings: Yahoo Issues Statement on Chinese Net Censorship, Net Censorship Abroad - Free Speech Colides With E-commerce? and Hearing Focuses on Internet Censorship in China, related news today via this State Dept. press release - statement...
Press release: "Republican Senators John Sununu (R-NH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) (on 2/9) announced they have reached agreement with the White House regarding the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. The package includes modifications...
From Time.com, Photo Essay - Martin Luther King, In His Own words. Martin Luther King, Jr. - "I Have a Dream" - link includes access to his speech in text format, PDF, Real Video Long Excerpt of Address, Audio mp3...
Press release, January 11, 2006: "U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, MI-08, today announced his principles for restoring accountability and trust in government, the cornerstone of his lobbying reform legislation which will be introduced when Congress reconvenes at the end of this...
Malware - Future Trends, by Dancho Danchev,10/01/06 (26 pages, PDF). "Malware has truly evolved during the last couple of years. Its potential for financial and network based abuse was quickly realized, and thus, tactics changed, consolidation between different parties occurred,...
Government officials throughout the country are evaluating the risks and benefits of posting personal data about citizens and public official on e-gov sites, such as is increasingly the case with real estate records and court related documents. This Government Technology...
In 2005, there was alot written about RSS, from the standpoint of marketing, enterprise-wide communications, current awareness monitoring, and as an app that perhaps could significantly diminish the use of email. Interesting, therefore, to note this article, It's time to...
Several new articles worth highlighting in reference to the domestic surveillance program that has raised vociferous responses from the President, members of Congress, the polls, bloggers, and a range of other sources. Time Magazine, Bush Says, Bring It On; the...
Following up on previous postings about phishing, the New York Times yesterday published an article, Gone Spear-Phishin' detailing the extent, impact and intent of cybercriminals who launch Trojans to steal the data of individuals and corporations, for both profit and...
From the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research, The Economic Report of the President, 1960-1980 archives, now available in PDF. "The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic...
Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide, by Donna Cavallini and Sabrina I. Pacifici Best Legal Practices for Open Source Software: Ten Tips For Managing Legal Risks for Businesses Using Open Source Software, by Dennis Kennedy ERPs or Data Warehouses...
PC World: Microsoft Makes RSS a Two-Way Street - Proposed 'extensions' to specification allow multidirectional synchronization. Microsoft: Frequently Asked Questions for Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) Ray Ozzie's Weblog: Really Simple Sharing...
Library of Congress press release: "Google Is First Private-Sector Partner with Funding of $3 Million. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin announced today that Google is the first private-sector company to contribute to the Library's...
From the Democratic Policy Committee: Bush Administration's Iraq Claims at Odds with Pre-War Intelligence, Post-War Evidence, November 18, 2005 (13 pages, PDF) - "This document compares each of the Bush Administration's major claims to both the intelligence available before the...
Press release: Science.gov 3.0 Launched - "...introduces 'MetaRank' which uses a sophisticated method for ranking science queries by searching 'metadata,' or bibliographic information such as title, author, date, abstract or other keyword identifiers...Science.gov 3.0 also offers enhanced Boolean search capability,...
From the UK Chief Information Officer Council: "The Government has published Transformational Government - Enabled by Technology, a strategy for transforming public services using technology. The strategy sets out how effective use of technology designed around citizens' and businesses' needs...
Andrus, D. Calvin, The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community. Studies in Intelligence, September 2005. "US policy-makers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time worldwide decision and implementation environment. The rapidly changing circumstances in which...
Cmte. on Government Reform Minority Office: "Rep. Waxman led twelve members of Congress today in releasing a new GAO report that found security and reliablity flaws in the electronic voting process. In a joint press release, Rep. Waxman said, "The...
FTC press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Trade, Tourism, and Economic Development that spyware and other "malware" that is downloaded to consumers' computers without their consent can cause...
MIT Online Forum: The Real ID Act of 2005: "This is a facilitated discussion of the problems and prospects related to the Real ID Act of 2005, enacted by Congress and signed by the President. For purposes of this online...
From Reporters Without Borders, a new resource: Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents (46 pages, PDF): "Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the...
As a follow-up to my September 2005 posting, Disaster Planning Documents Benchmark Government Expectations and Warn of Outcomes, see this Knight Ridder article, Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows. The article indicates that according to the Dept. of Homeland Security...
Why the "Real ID" Act, Which Requires National Identity Cards, is a Real Mess Related links: Ramifications of Real ID Act on DMV Agencies Across the Country Begins to Resonate Commentary on Ramifications of REAL ID Act...
From the Hill.com: "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday announced that they are setting up a bipartisan, bicameral committee to review the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, despite the strong reservations or outright...
Press release September 3, Senator Mary Landrieu: Landrieu Implores President to "Relieve Unmitigated Suffering;" End FEMA's "Abject Failures" ""But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw...
From Scientific American, Drowning New Orleans - "A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana...
"Gartner...released its 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, assessing the maturity, impact and adoption speed of 44 technologies and trends over the coming decade." [press release] Key collaboration technologies in the "hype cycle" include: Podcasting, Peer to Peer (P2P) voice...
FTC press release: "Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technology offers significant benefits but also poses risks to consumers who use it, according to a Federal Trade Commission staff report issued today. The staff report, Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues...
David Pogue provides details on how a pricey, private and very fast WiFi access option is now available to business travelers who need to work wherever they may be...on the road, or at the beach, or in the airport....
Social Security Opened Its Files for 9/11 Inquiry: "The Social Security Administration has relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands of its files at the request of the F.B.I. as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,...
The WSJ free content today includes this article, How Much Is It Really Costing To Comply With Sarbanes-Oxley?, that cites a range of reports, surveys and statistics offering contradictory estimates on actual corporate compliance costs. Related reference, from AEI-Brookings Joint...
Recent suggested reading on enterprise blogs, and corporate blogs for public consumption: Establishing a Weblog On Your Organization's Intranet (PDF): Sabrina I. Pacifici and Dennis Hamilton's presentation from the SLA Annual Conference in Toronto is a ying and yang study...
From today's LA Times (reg. req'd), Federal ID Act May Be Flawed - The new law could actually increase the risk of a person's identity being stolen, critics say. Commentary on Ramifications of REAL ID Act From the National Conference...
Another follow-up, this time to my March 1, 2005 posting, California Bill to Prohibit State Issued IDs With RFID Tags. The aforementioned bill was approved by the California Senate on May 16. For details, see this EFF press release, Bill...
'Real ID' Faces Reality: "The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates it could cost states as much as $750 million to implement measures required by the act, including some $80 million to create links among state databases." From the Washington...
REAL ID: "The United States is getting a national ID card. The REAL ID Act (text of the bill and the Congressional Research Services analysis of the bill) establishes uniform standards for state driver's licenses, effectively creating a national ID...
Press release, April 12: Recent Examples of Egregious Loopholes That Are Compromising Personal Information Need Immediate and Thorough Action by Congress - Schumer-Nelson Bill Would Empower FTC, Inform Consumer to Prevent ID Theft in Future, Not Just Punish Wrongdoers after...
The Promise of Internet Intermediary Liability, by Ronald J. Mann and Seth R. Belzley, William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 47, October 2005. "This Essay starts from the realist assumption that government regulation of the internet is inevitable. Thus, instead...
Press release: "A newly published white paper on blogs from Edelman, the world's largest independent public relations firm, and Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm and provider of one of the Internet's leading blog portals, explores the importance of the blogging...
"With Google Ride Finder, you can tell us where you want to find a ride and we'll show you the actual positions of participating vehicles in that area, along with a phone number you can use to contact the fleet...
Summary: H.R. 418 would authorize the appropriation of such sums as necessary for fiscal years 2005 through 2009 for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make grants to states to cover the costs of improving the security of driver's...
The new AP and Freedom of Information website includes links to FOI news stories from AP, an interactive guide to filing FOI requests, a list of links to FOI resources, and a Q&A with AP's CEO, Tom Curley, who states:...
White House Defends Video News Releases Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News Related reference: GAO Report: Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)--Video News Release, B-303495, January 4, 2005: "By its own records, ONDCP's prepackaged news stories...
The Project for Excellence in Journalism has published the State of the News Media 2005 report (navigate the contents of the 500 plus pages via this link) which reviews two distinct categories of media: the first is identified as text-based...
"Here at the Microsoft Security Response Center, we investigate thousands of security reports every year. In some cases, we find that a report describes a bona fide security vulnerability resulting from a flaw in one of our products; when this...
Press release, February 16, 2005: "Secretary of State Matt Brown today unveiled a groundbreaking web data-sharing initiative, which will give citizens and Rhode Island government agencies real-time, ongoing access to the databases maintained by his office. RSSonate...was developed to provide...
Killing Phish. See also the continually updated reports on phishing and pharming available from The Anti-Phishing Working Group and the definitions from their site as follows: "Phishing attacks use 'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites designed to fool recipients into divulging...
From Gartner, Proposed Real ID Act Fails to Include Data Protection Related reference: Real ID Act Passes House By Wide Margin...
As a follow-up to my February 9 posting, Controversy Surrounds Real ID Act, yesterday evening the House passed the bill (96% of Republicans supporting, 78% of Democrats opposing), which "Prohibits Federal agencies from accepting State issued driver's licenses or identification...
Press release: Sensenbrenner Introduces Terrorist Travel Legislation - Real ID Act Includes Provisions Dropped from 9/11 Legislation PFAW Opposes REAL ID Act H.R. 418: To establish and rapidly implement regulations for State driver's license and identification. To establish and rapidly...
Always Fresh: Fast Content For Library Web Site with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) [Slides PDF], by Darlene Fichter: "Keeping a library web site up to date with fresh content is a challenge for any webmaster. Learn how to publish, merge...
"Rand McNally Traffic helps you avoid the delays with real-time traffic information, speed maps, and data on your phone...Access unlimited real-time information (compiled from multiple sources) in 94 metro areas." [Link]...
Microsoft is done beta testing MSN search, and it is now "offically" live. Related news about MSN - Really Simple Syndication: Getting Started, is a useful guide to implementing news feeds on the My MSN service. See also MSN Removes...
New Scientist provides a roster of RSS feeds (in a choice of Atom, RSS, XML and RDF), on breaking news, topical areas including Info-Tech, Health, and Being Human, as well as a range of special reports such as Motoring Technology...
The New York Times reports on examples of how blogs are providing readers around with world with real time updates, photos and first person accounts of the earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the resulting tsumanis. Additional sources that are...
A thoughtful and provocative commentary on all the hype surrounding Google's announcement this week, by Michael Gorman, dean of Library Services, California State University, Fresno, and president-elect of the American Library Association, in today's Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd). See...
Yahoo Local Maps is now providing real-time local traffic updates, noting incidents (minor, moderate and severe), road work (along with estimated duration), as well as speed of traffic (0, 35, 55+) for major cities as well as for selected locations,...
Net Snippets is offering a free version of their "post-search" tool that facilitates the organization, annotation, and sharing of online research results, executed on free or fee-based sites and services. See this review for more background. From the press release:...
David Pogue of the New York Times reviews (reg. req'd) the recently introduced, free Google Desktop Search. The author provides a witty, concise, informative narrative (he also contrasts this app with rival offerings), and if you have Real Player, you...
More Is Not Necessarily Better "Few people realize that 95 percent of all Web searches in the United States are handled by two companies, Google and Yahoo, either directly or through other sites that use their technology...The influence of search...
Amazon Prods Reviewers To Stop Hiding Behind Fake Names (WSJ, $$): "Amazon changed its rules to end anonymous customer critiques in a bid to bring greater integrity to its rating system." From Amazon: Frequently Asked Questions about Real Names...
From the press release today: "State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced the settlement of a lawsuit against email marketer Scott Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com, LLC. The suit alleged that unsolicited emails, or spam, sent on defendants' behalf contained...
Via TalkLeft, Forget privacy if cell-phone directory becomes a reality: For reference, see AB 1733 - "This bill would prohibit a provider of mobile telephony services, as defined, selling or licensing lists of subscribers or otherwise providing the name and...
From today's WSJ (subscription req'd), Study Questions Whether Google Really Is Better - "A new survey suggests that Google's search engine doesn't necessarily provide significantly better, or more useful, search results than do rivals...Yahoo Inc., Ask Jeeves Inc.'s Ask.com site,...
The BBC reports that the results of recent surveys of London commuters, requesting their PC login passwords in exchange for chocolate, were that a majority of respondents provided them without hesitation. Must be really good chocolate! In addition, the survey...
From the New England School of Law, a website that law librarians will really appreciate, as it provides an option to access the library's online searchable catalog via a list of 15 color choices that identify the binding of books...
According to Reuters, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice continues to refuse to testify in public before the 9/11 Commission despite repeated requests by the panel for such testimony, which she has already provided in private. Rice Rejects Calls for...
Looking for more campaign facts, stats and talk? Try RealClearPolitics, a site that each day filters and links to selected political opinion columns (including the WSJ, Washington Times, New York Times and Boston Globe), editorials, candidate specific news articles, state...
The Maryland Department of Legislative Services hired RABA Technologies to run their recently purchased Diebold touch screen e-voting system through an extensive testing program designed to simulate a range of possible attacks by hackers. The result is a 25 page...
A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE), January 20, 2004: "This report is a review and critique of computer and communication security issues in the SERVE voting system (Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment), an...
By way of another update to my recent postings on outsourcing, the following information was shared today on the Law-Lib listserv: The New Wave of Outsourcing by Ashok Deo Bardhan and Cynthia A. Kroll, Fisher Center for Real Estate and...
From Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's press release of January 12 on upcoming legislation to implement technology solutions to address the efficient delivery of health care, the proposal includes five major goals: Increasing research on quality of care; providing the public...
Traffic flow in the greater DC, Virginia and Maryland metro areas are now covered by almost 300 closed circuit video cameras whose live feeds can be viewed on the Internet via TrafficLand.com. Users simply chose specific areas by clicking on...
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by Senate), (H.R. 2417). Senate agreed to conference report by voice vote, November 21. The conference report, H. Rept. 108-381, was approved by the House, by a vote...
Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library's Services, by Darlene Fichter: "Librarians have had to learn how to do a lot with just a little in order to promote awareness of their programs and services. They have...
"So-called phisher e-mails, which look like authentic notes from real companies like eBay, Citibank or America Online, are a growing problem for Internet users, who continue to fall for the dupe and give away credit card numbers, Social Security numbers,...
Today the New York Times reports on two students MIT students who, with the backing of their university, have devised a music sharing system called the Libraries Access to Music Project (LAMP), which they contend will eliminate the contentious copyright...
The Supreme Court Forecasting Project, from Washington University in St. Louis, consists of a computer model that was used to predict the votes of the judges for each pending case of the 2001-2002 term. These forecasts were juxtaposed with those...
The Virginia Pilot (Hampton Roads, Virginia) has a blogger (Kerry W. Sipe, News Online Coordinator) providing real-time updates on the trial of John A. Muhammad, one of the two alleged Beltway snipers. TV coverage of the trail has been banned....
I don't really know how to classify this story, but it just had to be shared: From nbc4.com: An elderly passenger was stopped at Reagan Washington National Airport Tuesday after security screeners found a sword hidden in his cane. The...
On the NBC Today show this morning, former Attorney General Edwin Meese apparently made the following statement in reference to the Patriot Act: "librarians are more interested in pushing p****graphy than fighting terrorism." The American Library Association (ALA) President Carla...
According to Admiral James M. Loy, Administrator, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), commenting on CAPPS II at briefing in Washington, D.C. on September 26, "We do need to get on with real testing of real data..." From dc.internet.com, further information on...
From the press release on a new report to be issued September 25 by ID Analytics, titled National Report on Identity Fraud. "The year-long research project leading up to this report analyzed more than 200 million records, including valid and...
Via the EFF, as provided by Ira P. Rothken: "A lawsuit was filed today on behalf of the general public of the State of California against the RIAA for unfair, deceptive, and unlawful business practices regarding its "Clean Slate" program....
Vanishing from the Net a difficult task: Phone numbers, addresses and directions to homes and offices, county real estate tax information, and lots more personal data, all available using search engines as well as free and fee-based public records sites....
Newspapers Want to Charge for Content, but Will Readers Pay? Peter Krasilovsky, Senior Partner, Borrell Associates, a media consulting firm, speaking at a recent workshop on journalism, stated that "Paid content is a great way to make more money, but...
The Department of Justice is hosting what can only be described as a PR website, Preserving Life & Liberty, that promotes the USA PATRIOT Act. The site links to documents that include: major speeches by Attorney General Ashcroft, a list...
From Library Journal (reg. req'd): Fair Use Under Fire - ALA's copyright expert gives her take on the challenges digital rights management presents for end users - and librarians: "In the digital realm, DRM technologies are changing the ways in...
Robin Good's Mini Guide: Become a News G-d: How to be the first one to know everything about anything - Intelligent Information Agents Come of Age. This 102 page guide, in pdf, is available for purchase via Robin Good's Sharewood...
Rep. Mary Bono introduced H.R. 2929, the Safeguard Against Privacy Invasions Act (SPI), to protect users of the Internet from unknowing transmission of their personally identifiable information through spyware programs. Rep. Bono's press release. "The bill grants the Federal Trade...
From today's Boston Globe editorial, which refers to yesterday's debacle on the DARPA FutureMap Program : "The Defense Department should sever its ties with Poindexter (TIA Director John Poindexter) before he can humiliate Americans again. Indeed, President Bush should have...
From SearchDay: "Yahoo News is now incorporating more than 3,500 sources from Moreover's public metabase of near real-time news content. This is in addition to the full-text coverage provided by dozens of providers, and a wide range of editorially selected...
News.com reports that the "Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is the new keeper of the specification for a popular Web log tool. The Berkman Center took over ownership of the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.0...
From InfoWorld, a review of an open source anti-spam application that may be useful to a wide user community. "SpamBayes knows spam - Outlook add-in really works to block spam, and it's free." For more information, see the SpamBayes website,...
Andrew Adkins, director of the Legal Technology Institute at the University of Florida, is the author of Knowledge Management: Simple Concept, Difficult Reality (reg req'd). He describes what he terms the "big six" pieces of KM software as well as...
See Burn a Country's Past and You Torch Its Future: "Do libraries really matter for a nation's sense of its self? Evidently Iraqis felt the destruction of their national library, archives and museum in the past week as a loss...
The Wall Street Journal reports on how American troops in the Gulf are using e-mail, personal web sites and blogs, such as LT SMASH, to communicate directly with family, friends and others. Although there are over 500 reporters in the...
This Boston Globe Magazine article focuses on the ability of Google's search technology to link researchers to extensive personal data on individuals who have no reasonable expectation of such data remaining private. Googling someone has become routine for many searchers,...
Privacy has been a hot button issue since 9/11, but now it would appear that government surveillance is being joined by another twist on snooping: parents aggressively monitoring their kids' activities on the Web. This article in today's WSJ details...
Is it really the 20th anniversary of the "birth" of the World Wide Web? For background, see this CNN article, this PCWorld article, and LivingInternet.com for facts and commentary about the net's history....
A new Gartner study indicates that corporate knowledge documents are overwhelmingly stored on employee hard drives, not shared via an enterprise-wide KM system. As a result, significant loss can result when employees leave and take their data with them....
E-government initiatives that serve citizens and businesses alike are gaining in popularity as localities realize more efficiency and cost savings via online solutions. BusinessWeek described a number of such efforts in this article. There is also mention of BusinessLaw.gov, an...
GPS technology in cell phones from a growing number of providers facilitate the real-time tracking of individuals, be it for emergency situations, or simply to play "big brother." See this Mercury News article for more information....
Professor Jonathan Zittrain and law student/Technology Analyst Ben Edelman are conducting research on Internet filtering in countries worldwide. July 15 marked the release of the first study in the series, reporting some 2,000+ web pages blocked in Saudi Arabia. Zittrain...
NeuStar.com, manager of the ".kids.us" domain, has another government contract that highlights its competitive edge in the realm of data collection, according to a July 8, 2002 article in Forbes. The company owns a database of 160 million telephone numbers...