Category «Civil Liberties»

Anatomy of an AI Coup

Tech Policy News: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology for manufacturing excuses. While lacking clear definitions or tools for assessment, AI has nonetheless seized the imagination of politicians and managers across government, academia, and industry. But what AI is best at producing is justifications. If you want a labor force, a regulatory bureaucracy, or accountability …

Subjects: AI, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Policy Map – Where to Find Trump’s Disappeared Data

“The administration removed hundreds of federal web pages containing critical information about Americans. Fortunately, it still lives at Philly-based PolicyMap, whose director walks us through what just happened — and why it’s too soon to Last week, President Donald Trump came for our data. Executive orders to eliminate any DEI and climate change-related language from …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Records, Economy, Education, Energy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive

“Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, E-Government, E-Records, Education, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research, Libraries, Social Media

DOGE Emails Went Out to Federal Judges by Mistake

As if we have not been in a lessons not learned class since noon on January 20, 2025 today Newsweek reported: “One of the people who received an email from allies of Elon Musk was a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at blocking these messages. “I, like probably every other judge in the country, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Mail, Government Documents, Legal Research

Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, Updated Continuously

Via LLRX – Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, January 28, 2025 – Updated Continuously – I am adding news and government document updates to this article to keep readers abreast of the accelerating plan to force federal employees, who work at agencies throughout the government, to resign by the end of day, February 6, …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

Trump’s first 100 days: all the news affecting the tech industry

The Verge: “President Donald Trump kicked off the first day of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive actions, including halting enforcement of the TikTok ban and rolling back the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence order. Having already run the country once before, Trump entered the presidency with the goal of hitting the ground running, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, E-Records, Economy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

‘Things Are Going to Get Intense:’ How a Musk Ally Plans to Push AI on the Government

404 Media: Thomas Shedd, a Musk-associate and now head of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), told government tech workers in a meeting this week that the administration plans to widely deploy AI throughout the government. Shedd also said the administration would need help altering login.gov, a government login system, to further integrate …

Subjects: AI, Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Economy, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management

Federal workers: Here’s how to lock down your communications

Washington Post unlocked: “Tips and apps that can help everyone talk about sensitive topics safely.  Chances are, until now, most people haven’t worried much about their private group chats or jokey social media posts being used against them. But under the Trump administration, privacy experts say there’s a new urgency to making sure people understand …

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

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders

Ars Technica: “Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase “enshittification” to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse. “It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Commerce, E-Records, Economy, Internet, Privacy

Workers at NASA Told to ‘Drop Everything’ to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites

404 Media: “NASA personnel were told to “drop everything” to scrub public sites of mentions of DEI, indigenous people, environmental justice, and women in leadership, according to a directive obtained by 404 Media. The directive, sent on January 22 and obtained by 404 Media, states:“Per NASA HQ direction, we are required to scrub mentions of …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, E-Government, E-Records, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Heads Up for Government Employees – How Elon Musk Says He Catches Leakers at His Companies

This Intercept article is from December 2022 but has all the hallmarks of what Musk and DOGE are now perpetrating within our federal government agencies, using OPM, GSA and Treasury’s massive databases of fiscal,  financial data and PII, on all Americans. …To begin with, a wide array of document watermarking measures can identify the source …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Mail, E-Records, Privacy

Using Tails When Your World Doesn’t Feel Safe Anymore

Privacy Guides: “There is a growing number of people who no longer feel safe in their own home or country. Whatever the reason, many people might not feel safe to browse certain topics online. With all the information getting collected for each internet search, it is difficult to access sometime vital information without leaving a …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Mail, Health Care, Internet, Legal Research