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Monthly Archives: April 2022

New options for removing your personally-identifiable information from Search

Google Blog: “Privacy and online safety go hand in hand. And when you’re using the internet, it’s important to have control over how your sensitive, personally identifiable information can be found. On Google Search, we already have a set of policies that allow people to request the removal of certain content from Search, with a… Continue Reading

Massive wildfires helped fuel global forest losses in 2021

Forest Loss Remained Stubbornly High in 2021 – “The tropics lost 11.1 million hectares of tree cover in 2021, according to new data from the University of Maryland and available on Global Forest Watch. Of particular concern are the 3.75 million hectares of loss that occurred within tropical primary rainforests — areas of critical importance… Continue Reading

Tracking Federal Awards: USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources

CRS Report – Tracking Federal Awards: USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources, Updated April 26, 2022: “USAspending.gov, available at http://www.USAspending.gov, is a government source for data on federal awards by state, congressional district (CD), county, city, and zip code. The awards data in USAspending.gov are provided by federal agencies and represent contracts, grants, loans, and other… Continue Reading

The Library of Congress owns 15 million photos. 400 are on view now.

Washington Post: “There are more than 15 million photographic images in the Library of Congress’s holdings, so the chance of encountering anything familiar in an exhibition of a mere 400 of them is statistically slight. But “Not an Ostrich: And Other Images from America’s Library” begins with the reassuringly familiar.The first section, titled “Icons,” displays… Continue Reading

In the dark – Censored Planet

Seven years, 60 countries, 935 internet shutdowns: How authoritarian regimes found an off switch for dissent: “…Russia is a pioneer in the use of these tools but not an outlier. The technologies it uses are proliferating, creeping into internet infrastructure all over the world, helped by multinational companies that have turned censorship into an off-the-shelf… Continue Reading

The Dignitary Confrontation Clause

The Dignitary Confrontation Clause, March 01, 2022 | 97 Wash. L. Rev. 207. Erin Sheley Abstract: For seventeen years, the Supreme Court’s Confrontation Clause jurisprudence has been confused and confusing. In Crawford v. Washington (2004), the Court overruled prior precedent and held that “testimonial” out-of-court statements could not be admitted at trial unless the defendant had… Continue Reading

A shelter in Ukraine saved hundreds of cats and dogs — and a lion

Washington Post: “As Russian tanks neared Kyiv earlier this year, the capital’s suburbs were emptying fast. Terrified residents poured out; roads were gridlocked. Asya Serpinska walked the other way. The 77-year-old had spent two decades keeping her animal shelter going in Hostomel, a town northwest of Kyiv. With the threat of Russian occupation now looming,… Continue Reading

Disability as Metaphor in American Law

Dorfman, Doron, Disability as Metaphor in American Law (April 26, 2022). University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN “In recent decades, the term disability has become associated with a legally protected minority group of people living with impairments and the social oppression that stems from them. Yet in the legal realm the term… Continue Reading

A Whirlwind Architectural Tour of the New York Public Library–“Hidden Details” and All

Open Culture: “The New York Public Library opened in 1911, an age of magnificence in American city-building. Eighteen years before that, writes architect-historian Witold Rybczynski, “Chicago’s Columbian Exposition provided a real and well-publicized demonstration of how the unruly American downtown could be tamed though a partnership of classical architecture, urban landscaping, and heroic public art.”… Continue Reading

Privacy Law Fundamentals Sixth Edition, 2022

Solove, Daniel J. and Schwartz, Paul M., An Overview of Privacy Law in 2022 (April 1, 2022). Chapter 1 of Privacy Law Fundamentals (6th Edition, IAPP 2022), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4072205 “Chapter 1 of Privacy Law Fundamentals(6th edition, IAPP 2022) provides an overview of information privacy law circa 2022. The chapter summarizes the common themes… Continue Reading

The Limitations of Privacy Rights

Solove, Daniel J., The Limitations of Privacy Rights (February 1, 2022 / 50 pages). 98 Notre Dame Law Review — (Forthcoming 2023), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4024790 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4024790 “Individual privacy rights are often at the heart of information privacy and data protection laws. The most comprehensive set of rights, from the European Union’s General Data… Continue Reading