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

Daily Archives: June 26, 2018

Torn Apart – visualize the geography of Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2018

Digital Humanities Now – Torn Apart / Separados by Manan Ahmed, Alex Gil, Moacir P. de Sá Pereira, Roopika Risam, Maira E. Álvarez, Sylvia A. Fernández, Linda Rodriguez, and Merisa Martinez – June 26, 2018

“Torn Apart aggregates and cross-references publicly available data to visualize the geography of Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2018 and immigration incarceration in the USA in general. We also draw attention to the landscapes, families, and communities riven by the massive web of immigrant detention in the United States. Working nimbly and remotely from four sites in the United States over a six-day period, our small team of researchers set about identifying sources of data on immigrant detention, from ports of entry run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, to shelters subcontracted by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to care for children in their custody, to the financial trails left by a network of public, private, and non-profit organizations complicit with the complex infrastructure of immigrant detention in the United States. Our sources for obtaining the data were varied. Those we worked from included a FOIA-ed list of ICE facilities, publicly available lists of CBP sites, data sets of ICE detainee hearings, state childcare licensing databases, government grant awards lists, and USASpending.gov. We cross-checked our data through non-governmental sources as well: news reports about immigrant detention, business databases, tax documents for non-profit organizations, job advertisements, Google Maps entries, Facebook Places, and more. All of our data has been verified through a minimum of two sources, at least one directly from the government. What our data reveals is a shadowy network of government facilities, subcontractors from the prison-industrial complex, “non-profit” administrators paid over half a million dollars a year, and religious organizations across the country that, together, prop up the immigrant detention machine. Immigrant detention is a multi-billion dollar business and it’s happening in our own backyards. The crisis for immigrants in the United States is not only happening at the Mexico-United States border or other ports of entry. Rather, the border is everywhere. This is not to say that Torn Apart, now in alpha release, paints a complete picture of immigrant detention. Like all maps, ours is a representation of data, reflecting choices we made while designing visualizations. For example, a simple decision to place data points in the foreground rather than in the background offers a very different reading of the locations of ICE detention centers, as the map below demonstrates…”

New Book Chapter by Dempsey, Malpas Considers the Future of the Academic Library 26 June 2018

OCLC: “Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President of the Membership and Research Division and Chief Strategist, and Constance Malpas, Strategic Intelligence Manager and Research Scientist, have authored a chapter in the book Higher Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution just released by Springer, and available for open access download. In the chapter “Academic Library… Continue Reading

The Biggest Digital Heist in History Isn’t Over Yet

Bloomberg: Carbanak’s suspected ringleader is under arrest, but $1.2 billion remains missing, and his malware attacks live on. “Since late 2013, this band of cybercriminals has penetrated the digital inner sanctums of more than 100 banks in 40 nations, including Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., and stolen about $1.2 billion, according to Europol, the… Continue Reading

Supreme Court in 5-4 ruling backs Trumps travel ban

AP: “A sharply divided Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries. The majority opinion rejected the notion that the ban discriminates against Muslims or exceeds presidential authority. In writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “We express no view on the soundness of the… Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence: Emerging Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Policy and Research

Artificial Intelligence: Emerging Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Policy and Research; GAO-18-644T: Published: Jun 26, 2018. Publicly Released: Jun 26, 2018. “Artificial intelligence (AI) could improve human life and economic competitiveness—but it also poses new risks. The Comptroller General convened a Forum on AI to consider the policy and research implications of AI’s use in… Continue Reading

Freedom of Information Act: Agencies Are Implementing Requirements but Additional Actions Are Needed

Freedom of Information Act: Agencies Are Implementing Requirements but Additional Actions Are Needed, GAO-18-365: Published: Jun 25, 2018. Publicly Released: Jun 25, 2018. “All 18 selected agencies had implemented three of six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements reviewed. Specifically, all agencies had updated response letters to inform requesters of the right to seek assistance… Continue Reading

Digital Searches, the Fourth Amendment, and the Magistrates’ Revolt

Berman, Emily, Digital Searches, the Fourth Amendment, and the Magistrates’ Revolt (May 30, 2018). Emory Law Journal, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3187612 “Searches of electronically stored information present a Fourth Amendment challenge. It is often impossible for investigators to identify and collect, at the time a warrant is executed, only the specific data whose seizure… Continue Reading