Day archives: June 30th, 2026

Trump Wants YOUR Medical Data for His Drug War

Zeteo: “The Trump administration’s new drug strategy does more than escalate the war on fentanyl. It sketches the architecture for a national surveillance system built from some of Americans’ most personal data: prescriptions, toxicology results, wastewater, electronic health records, license plate scans, and law enforcement intelligence. The plans are laid out in the 2026 National …

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

Reckoning with the Political Economy of AI: Avoiding Decoys in Pursuit of Accountability

Reckoning with the Political Economy of AI: Avoiding Decoys in Pursuit of Accountability. Authors: Janet Vertesi, danah boyd, Alex S Taylor, Benjamin ShestakofskyAuthors Info & Claims. FAccT ’26: The 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Pages 2186 – 2205. https://doi.org/10.1145/3805689.3806739. Published: 25 June 2026 “The Project of AI is a world-building endeavor, wherein …

Subjects: AI, Congress, Data Governance, Legal Research, Legislation

Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2026 report

Eurekalert: “AI and digitization transform fight against global extinction, landmark report reveals. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2026 report reveals the true scale of the biodiversity crisis has not yet been fully understood, but rapid data and technology advances offer hope. In a seismic shift since Kew’s inaugural State …

Subjects: AI, Climate Change, Environmental Law, Internet, Knowledge Management, Search Engines

Faith, Freedom, Family, Place – An Ethnographic Study of Conservative Americans’ Relationships to Democracy

The SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University & ReD Associates: “This report is for practitioners, funders, researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders who are interested in rebuilding the fabric of American public and political life. Specifically, we aim to explore how conservative Americans relate to democracy in the present moment, and understand why some have …

Subjects: Legal Research

Trump is using $500M no-bid contract to build his White House ballroom

Washington Post no paywall: “The White House routed a $500 million no-bid contract through a White House office that typically handles repairs and furnishings and is exempt from competitive bidding requirements. White House officials last year secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for the construction of the East Wing ballroom in …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

How Trump has prospered during his presidency

Washington Post no paywall: “Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure [link added by beSpacific – not included in the article] shows he earned at least $1.2 billion in 2025 from cryptocurrency and memecoin ventures. The filing reports more than $588 million in income from World Liberty Financial, the crypto company co-founded by Trump, his sons, and …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Cryptocurrency, Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research