Monthly archives: February, 2019

Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law Updated

Via FAS – Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law Updated, February 11, 2019. “The mail and wire fraud statutes are exceptionally broad. Their scope has occasionally given the courts pause. Nevertheless, prosecutions in their name have brought to an end schemes that have bilked victims out of millions, and sometimes …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

CRS – U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress

Via FAS – U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress, Updated February 14, 2019. – “…The overall issue for Congress is how to respond to recent developments regarding the U.S. role in the world. Potential key issues for Congress include but are not necessarily limited to the following: Is the U.S. role changing, …

Subjects: Congress, Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research

CRS Social Security Primer

Via FAS – Social Security Primer Updated, February 7, 2019 “Social Security provides monthly cash benefits to retired or disabled workers and their family members, and to the family members of deceased workers. Among the beneficiary population, almost 83% are retired or disabled workers; family members of retired, disabled, or deceased workers make up the …

Subjects: Economy, Government Documents

How important is your privacy?

Axios: “…A full 81% of consumers say that in the past year they’ve become more concerned with how companies are using their data, and 87% say they’ve come to believe companies that manage personal data should be more regulated, according to a survey out Monday by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Yes, but: They aren’t …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Privacy, Social Media

Researchers break digital signatures for most desktop PDF viewers

ZDNet: “A team of academics from the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany say they’ve managed to break the digital signing system and create fake signatures on 21 of 22 desktop PDF viewer apps and five out of seven online PDF digital signing services. This includes apps such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, and LibreOffice, and …

Subjects: Courts, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

Spurring AI Development With a High-Quality Face Dataset

Center for Data Innovation: “NVIDIA has released Flickr-Faces-HQ (FFHQ), a dataset of 70,000 high-resolution images of human faces. The dataset includes faces representing a wide range of ages and ethnicities, and the images also include humans wearing accessories such as eyeglasses, sunglasses, and hats. Researchers can use this dataset for multiple purposes, including training and …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Knowledge Management, Privacy

AAAS: Machine learning ‘causing science crisis’

BBC: “Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong. Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the increased use of such systems was contributing to a “crisis in science”. She warned scientists that if they didn’t improve their techniques they …

Subjects: AI, Knowledge Management

Paper – The access-to-justice crisis is bigger than law and lawyers

Access to What? Rebecca L. Sandefur. © 2019 by Rebecca L. Sandefur doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00534 Rebecca l. Sandefur is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where she founded and leads the Foundation’s Access to Justice re search initiative. …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research

FBI’s War Crimes Unit on the Chopping Block

Just Security: “A special unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that handles war crimes may be shut down imminently, according to officials familiar with the administration’s decision-making process. The FBI’s International Human Rights Unit takes the lead on investigating individuals within the United States who have been accused of committing international crimes, including war …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Defense, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research