Author archives

Federal Data Is Disappearing

Notus: The Trump administration has disrupted data collection on everything from homeland security, maternal mortality, hunger, drug use, education, disaster preparation and the economy. Joy Binion worked for the federal government collecting data on emerging substance abuse trends in emergency rooms across the country. Her work was part of the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Records, Education, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Dial-A-Poem is back

BoingBoing: “If you ever find yourself in need of a poem, I’ve got great news for you: Dial-A-Poem is back! These days, the arts of all kinds, including protest music, are providing much-appreciated balms for our collective wounds and voices for our collective outrage, so Dial-A-Poem’s return couldn’t have been better timed. SPIN Magazine explains that Dial-A-Poem was …

Subjects: Free Speech, Internet

All 23 industrial warehouses ICE wants to turn into detention ‘death camps’

MAP: All 23 industrial warehouses ICE wants to turn into detention ‘death camps’ – “Plans are underway to double the detention capacity of the Trump administration’s federal police force by converting massive, industrial warehouses unsuitable for people to live in into detention centers. COURIER has independently verified the location of 23 mass detention campsites that …

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

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs since Trump took office

A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies – “Some 10,109 doctoral-trained experts in science and related fields left their jobs last year as President Donald Trump dramatically shrank the overall federal workforce. That exodus was only 3% of the 335,192 federal workers who exited last year but represents …

Subjects: Education, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

Text is king read on, queen

Experimental History – “The hot new theory online is that reading is kaput, and therefore civilization is too. The rise of hyper-addictive digital technologies has shattered our attention spans and extinguished our taste for text. Books are disappearing from our culture, and so are our capacities for complex and rational thought. We are careening toward …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management

YouTube’s new strategy will help it get closer to its goal of replacing all TV

MakeUseOf: “For a while now, we’ve known that streaming was becoming the dominant way people watch TV; in 2025, streaming accounted for almost 45% of streaming, more than broadcast and cable viewership combined, according to Nielsen. And among streaming platforms, the most popular isn’t Netflix or HBO Max: it’s YouTube, the everything-streaming platform that’s been …

Subjects: Internet

A community organizer’s guide to Signal group chats

The Verge – Key privacy settings and best practices. “With ICE and CBP roaming the streets, united community action is more important than ever right now — from local mutual aid groups to school safety patrols. Known for its privacy features and end-to-end encryption, the Signal messaging app has become a popular platform for organizing …

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

Nearly Half of Americans in 2025 Believed False Claims Across Seven Months of Surveys

NewsGuard: “Belief in False Claims Averaged 46 Percent in 2025. Over the first seven months of Reality Gap Index reports — from June to December 2025 — NewsGuard found that an average of nearly half of Americans believed at least one false claim about major claims spreading in the news. For the first six months …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines, Social Media

Accountability for ICE and CBP

Follow up to CBP Murdered Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis MN on January 24, 2026 [Note – Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting. The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo …

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

How Data Brokers Can Fuel Violence Against Public Servants

Wired [no paywall]: “A new report from the Public Service Alliance finds state privacy laws offer public servants few ways to protect their private data, even as threats against them are on the rise…A new report published Tuesday finds that while violent threats to public servants across the US have been increasing, “comprehensive” state-level consumer …

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

How “95%” escaped into the world and why so many believed it

Exponential View: “One number still keeps turning up in speeches, board meetings, my conversations and inbox: “95 percent.” Do I need to say more than that? OK, here’s another clue: this number traveled on borrowed authority in 2025, rarely with a footnote and it started to shape decisions. The claim is this: “95 percent” of …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research