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

Daily Archives: May 22, 2013

Congress.gov, currently in beta test, to eventually replace THOMAS

Library of Congress Magazine: “The Law Library and CRS, working with the Library’s web services experts, maintain THOMAS, the Internet-accessible database that makes legislative information-bills, resolutions, treaties and the Congressional Record-available to Congress and the public. Congress.gov, a beta website operated jointly by the Library of Congress, the House, the Senate and the other legislative branch sources, provides the same information through mobile devices and eventually will replace THOMAS. The Law Library responds to all queries related to THOMAS and the Congress.gov beta site. “Since the launch of the public legislative information system known as THOMAS in 1995, Congress has relied on the Library to make the work of Congress available to the public in a coherent, comprehensive way,” said Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) at the September 2012 launch of the Congress.gov beta site. “The Library staff has a strong working relationship with the House, Senate and the Government Printing Office, which will enable the Library to successfully develop the next generation legislative information website.”

New GAO Reports – Performance Management and Oversight, Hazardous Waste Cleanup, Spectrum Management, VA Education Benefits,

Government Efficiency and Effectiveness – Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication through Enhanced Performance Management and Oversight, GAO-13-590T, May 22, 2013 Hazardous Waste Cleanup – Observations on States’ Role, Liabilities at DOD and Hardrock Mining Sites, and Litigation Issues, GAO-13-633T, May 22, 2013 Spectrum Management – Federal Relocation Costs and Auction Revenues, GAO-13-472, May… Continue Reading

TRAC: Decisions on ICE Detainees Vary Widely by State

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “Of the 1,500 individuals taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a typical work day, the latest ICE data record that about 1,000 were eventually “removed” — deported and barred from returning to the U.S. for years. About 360 individuals were released after posting bond, on their own… Continue Reading

The 2011 FDIC assessment on banks managed liabilities: interest rate and balance-sheet responses

The 2011 FDIC assessment on banks managed liabilities: interest rate and balance-sheet responses by Lawrence L Kreicher, Robert N McCauley and Patrick McGuire, Working Papers No 413, May 2013 “The global financial crisis led to discussion of corrective bank taxes to promote financial stability. This paper interprets the widening of the FDIC assessment base from… Continue Reading

"EFF Takes FOIA Fight Over Secret Wiretaps to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"

“Today, EFF filed a motion in a secret court. This secret court isn’t in a developing nation, struggling beneath a dictatorship. It’s not in a country experimenting for the first time with a judiciary and the rule of law. And, as Wired recently noted, it’s “not in Iran or Venezuela, as one might expect.” No,… Continue Reading

TRAC: Civil Filing Information for April 2013

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “There were 27,588 new civil court suits filed in federal district courts during the month of April 2013, up 14.9 percent from March. Contributing significantly to this increase were over 1,500 filings in the Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans) under the Oil Pollution Act, 33 USC 2701, presumably related to… Continue Reading

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee Testimony by Chairman Bernanke on the economic outlook

“The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on April 30-May 1, 2013. The minutes for each regularly scheduled meeting of the Committee ordinarily are made available three weeks after the day of the policy decision and subsequently are published in the… Continue Reading

NextGov: Massive Catalog of Streaming Government Data Set to Launch

NextGov: “Government data officials have nearly completed an exhaustive list of nearly 300 application programming interfaces that will allow outsiders to stream up-to-date information from government agencies straight to their computers, websites and mobile apps. The final version of the federal API catalog will be released Thursday on the government dataset trove Data.gov to mark… Continue Reading

Kauffman: Number of U.S. Companies that Reach $100-Million in Annual Revenues Remarkably Stable Over Past 20 Years

“The pace at which the United States produces $100-million companies has been stable over the last 20 years despite changes in the economy. However, according to a new Kauffman paper released today, the locations and sectors in which those companies are created are changing. In the paper, The Constant: Companies that Matter, Kauffman Foundation Senior… Continue Reading

Scanned PDFs of about 800 historical documents related to phone phreaking are now available on the Exploding The Phone web site

“While researching the book…Exploding the Phone…Phil Lapsley amassed a bibliographic database of roughly 1,000 documents related to phone phreaking history. You can search this database by typing search terms into the box below. Many (but alas, not all) of the documents are available as scanned PDFs. For more information on what is and isn’t in… Continue Reading