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Daily Archives: May 28, 2019

MapChecking – Crowd size estimation

MapChecking – “This tool helps you estimate (and fact-check) the maximum number of people standing in a given area. Click on the map to start delimiting the area. Copy the URL to share the result.” [Note – this links to the map of Washington, DC so be sure to enter a location of your choice in the search field located in the upper left hand corner of the homepage.]

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues May 26, 2019

Via LLRX – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish… Continue Reading

Civic Pulse – a new tool for monitoring government websites

MuckRock -“Last week, we saw a lot of progress on our new tool for monitoring government agency websites. Building off data from the MuckRock API, it checks and grades agency web pages on criteria such as privacy, accessibility, and speed. For previous site improvements, check out all of MuckRock’s release notes, and if you’d like… Continue Reading

How Often Has the U.S. Supreme Court Struck Down a Federal Law? Part II

More often than you might think – Keith Whittington |The Volokh Conspiracy: “As I noted last week, there once was a robust political and scholarly debate over the answer to the question of how often the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down a provision of a federal statute. The question was thought to matter because… Continue Reading

The Indian Law That Helps Build Walls

The Supreme Court’s legal abuse of Native Americans set the stage for America’s poor treatment of many of its vulnerable populations. By Maggie Blackhawk. Ms. Blackhawk is an assistant professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. “The first two years of the Trump administration have brought us horror story after horror story about our… Continue Reading

CRS – The Federal Bureau of Investigation: Just the Facts

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: Just the Facts – May 12, 2017: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has more than 36,000 employees and describes itself as an “intelligence-driven, threat-focused national security organization.”It is a part of the Department of Justice and the Director of the FBI reports to the U.S. Attorney General and the… Continue Reading

While you’re sleeping, your iPhone stays busy snooping on you

Washington Post – Apple says, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week. “…You might assume you can count on Apple to sweat all the privacy details. After all, it touted in a recent ad, “What happens on… Continue Reading

You’re Not Alone When You’re on Google

The New York Times – We know that. But the “privacy paradox” means we still act like we are. “…To fully apprehend our vulnerabilities as digital creatures would require far too much time and energy. More than that: It would require an entirely new set of instincts, a radically different cognitive framework from the one… Continue Reading

Did Congress read the Mueller report?

Washington Post – More than a quarter of these key lawmakers won’t say. “Rep. Justin Amash broke ranks with fellow Republicans when he said special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report shows that President Trump took actions that “meet the threshold for impeachment,” arguing that the stark partisan divide over the findings was because “few… Continue Reading