Category «Civil Liberties»

ICE Plans Central Database of Health, Labor, Housing Agency Data to Find Targets

404 Media: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning to bring together data from a wide variety of other U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to make a centralized database to identify immigration targets, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Government Documents, Housing, Legal Research, Privacy

DOJ’s menacing letter to med journals “a chill down the spine of scientists”

BoingBoing: “The Department of Justice recently sent letters to perhaps “tens” of scientific journals, accusing them of being “partisan” and asking whether they are including “competing viewpoints.” One such letter went to the journal CHEST, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American College of Chest Physicians that specializes in research focused on chest and diseases, …

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

CPJ Safety Advisory: Traveling to the US

Committee to Protect Journalists: “A stated policy goal of the Trump administration is to significantly change U.S. travel and immigration policies. Foreign nationals whose countries do not meet U.S. vetting standards may be barred entry. Journalists will not be exempt and should anticipate potential restrictions or questioning when traveling to or from the United States. …

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

Introduction to Series: Data Preservation Under the Trump Administration

Just Security – Preserving federal data has long been essential to transparency, accountability, and evidence-based policymaking in the United States. While every administration faces its share of data management challenges, the sheer volume of lost or altered information under the Trump administration suggests these challenges have now reached an unprecedented level. In the months since …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Data Governance, E-Government, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

State Terror – A brief guide for Americans

Thinking About, Timothy Synder: “Yesterday the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man who was mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering of this innocent person, and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps.This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has …

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

This Company’s Surveillance Tech Makes Immigrants ‘Easy Pickings’ for Trump

The New York Times – [no paywall] “Geo Group, a private prison firm that makes digital tools to track immigrants, becomes one of the Trump administration’s big business winners as its tech is increasingly used in deportations…The use of Geo Group’s technology has made the company one of the Trump administration’s big business winners so …

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

EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears

“The European Commission is giving some of its US-bound staff burner phones and basic laptops to avoid cybersecurity risks, the Financial Times reported. Brussels typically reserves such measures for trips to Ukraine and China over fears of Russian or Chinese government espionage. Worries about American spying are the latest sign of worsening transatlantic ties in …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, if They Dare

Follow up to Climate and DEI Deleted From Government Websites, Federal Workers Fired, Colleges Erase Programs, Law Firms Blackballed, Holocaust Denied – The New York Times Opinion by M. Gessen [unlocked]: “Almost three months into the Trump administration’s war on universities, and a year and a half into the Republican Party’s organized campaign against the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Economy, Education, Financial System

Meta silenced a whistleblower. Now she’s talking to Congress.

Washington Post [no paywall]: “Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow executives were willing to “betray American values” to secure a foothold in China. A former global policy director at Meta told a Senate committee Wednesday that top executives at the social media giant were willing to undermine national …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Free Speech, Recommended Books, Search Engines, Social Media