Category «Civil Liberties»

Trump Fires FBI Director Comey after Congressional testimony on election investigations – with updates

Follow up to previous postings included in Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim – tonight via CNN – Trump’s letter firing FBI Director James Comey – (Comey was appointed for a 10 year term.) Update – Politico – The Problems With the FBI’s Email Investigation Went Well Beyond Comey – “…the FBI …

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

FOIA Backlog Skyrockets at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) – “The backlog of unprocessed FOIA requests to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues to climb. In just a two-year period, the backlog of unanswered FOIA requests has tripled, climbing from 17,998 at the end of December 2014 to 46,550 at the end of December 2016. This means …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Amnesty International – How private are your favourite messaging apps?

“We’ve ranked 11 companies that run the world’s most popular messaging apps – including Skype, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger – on how well they’re using encryption to protect your online privacy. In particular, we’ve looked at whether they apply end-to-end encryption – a way of making your photos, videos and chats unintelligible to anyone but …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Fed Chair Yellen on women and workplace equal opportunity past and present

So We All Can Succeed: 125 Years of Women’s Participation in the Economy – Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. Yellen At “125 Years of Women at Brown Conference,” sponsored by Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “…The gap in earnings between women and men, although smaller than it was years ago, is still significant; women …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Education, Government Documents, Legal Research

European map of Implicit Racial Bias

figshare – “This map shows how easily White Europeans in Europe associate black faces with negative ideas. Each country’s colour reflects the average Implicit Association Test (IAT) score for that country using data from Harvard’s Project Implicit. Overall we have scores for 288,076 White Europeans, collected between 2002 and 2015, with sample sizes for each …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Public Trust in Government Remains Near Historic Lows as Partisan Attitudes Shift

Pew – May 3, 2017: Democrats’ confidence in country’s future declines sharply – “The 2016 election ushered in a new era in Washington defined by unified Republican control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The changes in the dynamics of power in Washington have registered with members of both political parties. Somewhat …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

Massive UAlbany death penalty archive goes digital

Daily Gazette: “During his life, M. Watt Espy searched libraries and courthouses across the country gradually building what is widely considered the most comprehensive record of executions in the country. For decades the archive sat in stacks of boxes in his Alabama home. Next year the archive, which is now housed on the far shelves …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Animation Maps Two Centuries of US Immigration

“Metrocosm is [a]collection of maps and other data visualization projects — trying to make sense of the world through numbers created by Max Galka, a guy who is fascinated by data. [His] latest project Blueshift is a tool for designing dynamic maps, like some of the ones I post here. My other current project, FOIA Mapper, aims to …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The State of Black America Report

“The State of Black America®, the National Urban League’s seminal annual publication, now in its 41st edition, has become one of the most highly-anticipated benchmarks and sources for thought leadership around racial equality in America across economics, employment, education, health, housing, criminal justice and civic participation. Each edition of the State of Black America® contains …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals 2017

World Bank – “The Atlas is built around World Development Indicators 2017 – the World Bank’s compilation of statistics from over 200 economies about global development and the quality of people’s lives. For each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, selected indicators have been identified and visualized to analyze trends and challenges, and to stimulate …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Economy, Food and Nutrition, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Health Care

Report – Insurgency, Terrorism and Organised Crime in a Warming Climate

Nett, Katharina and Lukas Rüttinger 2016: Insurgency, Terrorism and Organised Crime in a Warming Climate. Analysing the Links Between Climate Change and Non-State Armed Groups. Berlin: adelphi. “Over the past ten years, both our understanding and awareness of the links between climate change and security have increased tremendously. Today the UN, the EU, the G7 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Food and Nutrition

Index on Censorship

“This non-exhaustive study of threats to media freedom in the United States researched over 150 publicly reported incidents involving journalists. It uses the criteria developed for and employed by Mapping Media Freedom, Index on Censorship’s project launched in May 2014 that monitors the media landscape in 42 European and neighboring countries. This survey reviewed media …

Subjects: Blogs, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Social Media