Day archives: December 21st, 2020

IMF – Your Credit Score Should Be Based on Your Web History

Gizmodo: “With more services than ever collecting your data, it’s easy to start asking why anyone should care about most of it. This is why. Because people start having ideas like this. In a new blog post for the International Monetary Fund, four researchers presented their findings from a working paper that examines the current …

Subjects: E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

GPO To Close Brick and Mortar Bookstore in Washington DC

“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) will permanently close its brick-and-mortar bookstore at 710 North Capitol Street NW in Washington, DC on January 4, 2021. After lengthy consideration, GPO, in consultation with the Joint Committee on Printing and its congressional oversight committees, determined that the bookstore is no longer financially viable due to changes in …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation, Libraries

What Restaurants and Maps Can Tell us About Billions of Dollars of Covid-19 Relief Funds

bellingcat: “In the wake of the first wave of coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns in early 2020, governments around the world scrambled funds to support furloughed workers and keep businesses afloat. These programs distributed a huge amount of money and succeeded in many of their goals. Not only that, they did so in rapid time. However, …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Knowledge Management, Legislation

How U.S. agencies’ trust in untested software opened the door to hackers

Politico – The government doesn’t do much to verify the security of software from private contractors. And that’s how suspected Russian hackers got in: “The massive monthslong hack of agencies across the U.S. government succeeded, in part, because no one was looking in the right place. The federal government conducts only cursory security inspections of …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Microsoft, Privacy

Civil rights groups move to block expansion of facial recognition in airports

The Verge: “A coalition of civil rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union have filed an objection to the proposed expansion of Customs and Border Protections facial recognition at land and sea ports. The National Immigration Law Center, Fight for the Future, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are also participating in the motion, …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Legal Research, Privacy

House watchdog details extensive meddling with CDC Covid-19 reports

New documents show political appointees sought to influence at least 13 reports as they ignored warnings from career officials: “The House panel probing the Trump administration’s coronavirus response released new documents detailing political appointees’ extensive efforts to modify or scuttle scientific Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, as it also ordered top Trump health …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, Free Speech, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research