Day archives: February 19th, 2025

Site tracks how much of Project 2025 has been implemented

Project 2025 Tracker – The site tracks overall progress now at 34% as well as well as detailed objectives specific to each government agency. This is a significant and very disconcerting tool. Thanks go out to the folks at the free project you can support via Patreon. See also Searchable Full Project 2025 Text: Mandate …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Courts, E-Government, E-Records, Environmental Law, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

Via LLRX – How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see – Research librarian Alejandro Paz and policy scholar Eric Nost, who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and …

Subjects: Censorship, Climate Change, Economy, Education, Environmental Law, Internet, Knowledge Management

Trump Cancels The SEC’s Westlaw Subscription

Above the Law: “The new administration has made it clear that they don’t have much interest in enforcing the nation’s securities laws. Except maybe as an avenue to accuse companies of dishonoring shareholders by promoting ESG initiatives. The point is, Trump has a meme coin to sell and a media company stock to fluff so …

Subjects: Censorship, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Securities Law

DOGE Has ‘God Mode’ Access to Government Data

The Atlantic [unpaywalled]: “The president’s special commission now has an unprecedented ability to view and manipulate information at many federal agencies. The employee’s account, along with the accounts of several others across federal agencies, offers the clearest portrait yet of just how deep DOGE has burrowed into the systems of the federal government—and the sensitive …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Governance, E-Government, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.

The New York Times: “The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error. The Department of Government Efficiency, the federal cost-cutting initiative championed by Elon Musk, published on Monday a list of government contracts it has canceled, together amounting to about $16 billion in savings itemized …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Memory-Holing January 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?

ProPublica: “On Jan. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 123-page report on the 1921 racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which claimed several hundred lives and left the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in smoldering ruins. The department’s investigation determined that the attack was “so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence.” …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection

Quanta Magazine: “The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. Computer scientists often deal with abstract problems that are hard to comprehend, but an exciting new algorithm matters to anyone who owns books and …

Subjects: Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Will DOGE Soon Take Over the Federal Procurement Data System?

I am going to deduce, based on many ongoing purging and illegal take over of federal government finance related databases (among a vast array of other subject matter) that this announcement is cover for DOGE to take control of this critical e-government federal government contract system: NOTICE: FPDS Downtime Notification The FPDS production application (https://www.fpds.gov) …

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

Trumpworld’s War on Words

Vanity Fair [unpaywalled] – “The administration’s attack on the AP, along with efforts to rewrite history and reframe reality, only reaffirms the maxim that language is power. The right-wing war on all things “woke” has relied on a critical weapon: language. Trumpworld’s culture-war arsenal may contain many things—a flurry of social media posts and videos, …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine

DOGE’s Millions: As Musk and Trump Gut Government, Their Ax-Cutting Agency Gets Cash Infusion

ProPublica – “The Department of Government Efficiency is funded and acts like a federal agency. But the White House has shielded DOGE from the rules that govern such agencies, ProPublica found as it examines the group and expands a list of DOGE workers. While Elon Musk and his underlings demand budget cuts and layoffs across …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation