Monthly archives: February, 2016

Encryption and Evolving Technology: Implications for U.S. Law Enforcement Investigations

Via FAS – CRS Report – Encryption and Evolving Technology: Implications for U.S. Law Enforcement Investigations, Kristin Finklea Specialist in Domestic Security February 18, 2016. “Because modern-day criminals are constantly developing new tools and techniques to facilitate their illicit activities, law enforcement is challenged with leveraging its tools and authorities to keep pace. For instance, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Legislation, Privacy

Mutual Fund Holdings of Credit Default Swaps: Liquidity Management and Risk Taking

Zhu, Zhongyan and Jiang, Wei, Mutual Fund Holdings of Credit Default Swaps: Liquidity Management and Risk Taking. Melbourne Business School, 2016 Financial Institutions, Regulation & Corporate Governance (FIRCG) Conference. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2736633 “Using a comprehensive dataset of mutual funds’ quarterly holdings of credit default swap (CDS) contracts during 2007–2011, we analyze the …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

CBO, the Budget Process, and the Outlook

Presentation by Keith Hall, CBO Director, at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, February 23, 2016: “Since 1975, CBO has produced nonpartisan analyses of budgetary and economic issues to support the Congressional budget process. Each year, the agency’s economists and budget analysts produce dozens of reports and hundreds of cost estimates …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

Free tool to visualize Supreme Court cases

Via Robert Ambrogi, LawSites – SCOTUS Visualization Project Shows Lines of Cases — Literally “As lawyers, we’re all accustomed to talking about the lines of cases that create bodies of precedent for legal principles. A new tool launched this week lets you visualize lines of Supreme Court cases so that you can better analyze and …

Subjects: Courts, Education, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

GAO Reports – Department of Energy, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Unaccompanied Children

Department of Energy: Observations on Efforts by NNSA and the Office of Environmental Management to Manage and Oversee the Nuclear Security Enterprise, GAO-16-422T: Published: Feb 23, 2016. Publicly Released: Feb 23, 2016. Nuclear Nonproliferation: Preliminary Observations on IAEA’s Role in Verifying the Iran Agreement, GAO-16-417: Published: Feb 12, 2016. Publicly Released: Feb 23, 2016. Unaccompanied …

Subjects: Defense, Energy, Government Documents

Pew – Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies

“As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, both economically and socially, technology adoption remains one of the defining factors in human progress. To that end, there has been a noticeable rise over the past two years in the percentage of people in the emerging and developing nations surveyed by Pew Research Center who say that they …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Internet

CDC Statement regarding Formaldehyde in Laminate Flooring Report

CDC Statement, February 18, 2016: “CDC/ATSDR [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] was notified February 13 of an error in its report released February 10, 2016, about the possible health effects from exposure to formaldehyde emitted from select laminate flooring samples. Health risks of people who have the laminate …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care

Download 448 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Via OpenCulture: “You could pay $118 on Amazon for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalog The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. Or you could pay $0 to download it at MetPublications, the site offering “five decades of Met Museum publications on art history available to read, download, …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Libraries

Treasury Announces Release of 2016 U.S. Model Income Tax Treaty

[February 17, 2016] the Treasury Department issued a newly revised U.S. Model Income Tax Convention (the “2016 Model”), which is the baseline text the Treasury Department uses when it negotiates tax treaties.  The U.S. Model Income Tax Convention was last updated in 2006…Many of the 2016 Model updates reflect technical improvements developed in the context …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Fast Food Restaurants Lead Franchised Businesses in Employment

“Franchised limited-service restaurants (NAICS 722513), sometimes called fast-food restaurants, employed 2.6 million people in 2012 and had sales of $129.2 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. New car dealers (NAICS 441110), an industry solely comprised of franchises, employed 973,745 people and had sales of $672.5 billion in 2012. The 2012 Economic Census Franchise Report is …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents