Author archives

Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda

The New York Times [no paywall]: “The Trump administration’s sweeping policy changes have been resisted with a wave of lawsuits. Hundreds have been filed by state attorneys and media organizations, physicians and nonprofits, migrants, international students, law firms and unions. Jump to a section – The dozens of lawsuits fall into these categories. Birthright citizenship …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

Protecting the Virtual You: Safeguarding Americans’ Online Data

Statement of Alan Butler, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Hearing on “Protecting the Virtual You: Safeguarding Americans’ Online Data Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, July 30, 2025. “Chair Blackburn, Ranking Member Klobuchar, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade website no-crawl directives

Cloudflare: “We are observing stealth crawling behavior from Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine. Although Perplexity initially crawls from their declared user agent, when they are presented with a network block, they appear to obscure their crawling identity in an attempt to circumvent the website’s preferences. We see continued evidence that Perplexity is repeatedly modifying their …

Subjects: AI, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Search Engines

Biglaw AI Apocalypse Brews As One Fake Case Turns Into Litany Of False Cites

Above The Law: “After confessing the firm submitted a post-trial motion citing a non-existent case helpfully supplied by ChatGPT (Opens in a new window), Goldberg Segalla cut ties with partner Danielle Malaty. Presumably, the firm hoped that would be the end of it. But it seems that filing was just the amuse-bouche! Upon realizing that …

Subjects: AI, Courts, Legal Research

When does the One Big Beautiful Bill take effect?

USAFacts: “The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law on July 4, is set to introduce a host of changes to everything from tax reform to government assistance programs to immigration and border policy. It introduces some brand-new policies and expands, restricts, or ends others. A number of these changes took effect the moment President …

Subjects: Climate Change, Congress, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Library of Congress Unveils Major Upgrades to Chronicling America Website

“The Library of Congress has launched a significant upgrade to its Chronicling America website, the nation’s leading free resource for historical U.S. newspapers. The updated platform now integrates fully with the Library’s broader loc.gov digital collections, offering enhanced accessibility, modern design and powerful research tools across all devices. The redesigned interface introduces numerous user-focused improvements, …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health

Via LLRX – The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health – Sabrina I. Pacifici’s overview of selected articles highlights the devastating impact of the Trump administration’s dismantling of agencies across the federal government, with a focus on cancelling critical scientific and health related research grants, as reported in July, 2025. The total …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Economy, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Health Care, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine

At least 13.5% of biomedical science papers’ abstracts last year were likely crafted using artificial intelligence chatbots

Science Advances: “Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can generate and revise text with human-level performance. These models come with clear limitations, can produce inaccurate information, and reinforce existing biases. Yet, many scientists use them for their scholarly writing. But how widespread is such LLM usage in the academic literature? To answer this question for …

Subjects: AI, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Medicine

How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable

Reuters: “Dozens of major law firms, wary of political retaliation, have scaled back pro bono work, diversity initiatives and litigation that could place them in conflict with the Trump administration, a Reuters investigation found. Many firms are making a strategic calculation: withdraw from pro bono work frowned on by Trump, or risk becoming the next …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Legal Research

Presidential libraries preserve the records and burnish the legacies of America’s heads of state

The New Yorker – no paywall – “…”The threat that Trump poses to the maintenance of an accurate historical record should be obvious by now. During his first term, he was accused of shredding documents and flushing them down the toilet; after leaving office, he was criminally indicted for hoarding official files, some of them …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Education, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

States Have More Data About You Than the Feds Do. Trump Wants to See It.

The New York Times – no paywall – “Critics fear that personal data might be used to monitor immigrants and political foes, and to spread false tales of fraud. As the Trump administration has sought to amass personally sensitive data on millions of individuals in America, it has run into one roadblock. The states, and …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Food and Nutrition, Government Documents, Health Care, Internet, Legal Research, Medicine, Poverty, Privacy