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“Documents Obtained by EPIC Lawsuit Show NSA’s Internet Metadata Program Was Sharply Criticized By FISA Judges While Congressional Oversight Lagged for Year: In a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice, EPIC has obtained many documents about the NSA’s Internet Metadata program. These include the Government’s original FISA application seeking authorization to collect data from millions of e-mails, as well …
Sylvain, Olivier, Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine in the Era of Total Surveillance (July 28, 2014). 49 Wake Forest Law Review 485. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2473101 “Today’s reasonable expectation test and the third-party doctrine have little to nothing to offer by way of privacy protection if users today are at least conflicted about whether …
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (2014, July 31). Political attitudes derive from body and mind: ‘Negativity bias’ explains difference between liberals and conservatives. [fulltext. PDF] “Disputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common,recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the …
“Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office …
Affordable Care Act: Accuracy of Responses to Exchange Requests for Income and Family Size Verification Information and Maximum Advance Premium Tax Credit Calculation. July 3, 2014, Reference Number: 2014-43-044. “As of March 31, 2014, the IRS received more than 27 million IFSV [Income and Family Size Verification] information requests and more than 11 million APTC requests. Our review of the …
“The House Natural Resources Committee’s Majority oversight staff released a report [July 25, 2014] entitled “A Five-Star Folly: An Investigation into the Cost Increases, Construction Delays, and Design Problems That Have Been a Disservice to the Effort to Memorialize Dwight D. Eisenhower.” The current proposal for the Memorial, created by Frank Gehry’s architecture firm, has faced …
Pseudo-Classification of Executive Branch Documents: Problems with the Transportation Security Administration’s Use of the Sensitive Security Information Designation, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. May 29, 2014. “Under the Air Transportation Security Act of 1974, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) created a category of sensitive but unclassified information, frequently referred to as “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI), and …
“A policy bubble is a policy overreaction that is reinforced by positive feedback over a relatively long period of time. Policy bubbles impose social costs without producing offsetting benefits. Moshe Maor explores this phenomenon and explains how it may mature as a result of over-optimism and overconfidence among policymakers and the general public, or as a result of human herding and emotional contagion. Policy scholars and practitioners claim that the Eurozone has been, and still …
SECURITY CLEARANCES: Tax Debts Owed by DOD Employees and Contractors, GAO-14-686R: Published: Jul 28, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 28, 2014. “In summary, GAO found that about 83,000 Department of Defense (DOD) employees and contractors who held or were determined eligible for secret, top secret, or sensitive compartmented information (SCI) clearances, or related interim clearances, had unpaid federal tax …
News release – Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller, IV, Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, August 1, 2014 “Today’s hearing is about a practice known as “cramming,” where consumers get charged on their phone bills for goods and services they never agreed to purchase. The companies that put these bogus charges on phone bills know that consumers don’t …
Feinstein Statement on CIA IG Report, Washington – Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) released the following statement: “I was briefed Tuesday by CIA Inspector General David Buckley on the results of an IG investigation [summary only available at this time]. The investigation confirmed what I said on the Senate floor in March – CIA personnel inappropriately …
CRS – Israel: Background and U.S. Relations. Jim Zanotti, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs. July 22, 2014 “Periodic violence between Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip—including the Islamist group Hamas—and Israel’s military became a larger conflict on July 6-7, 2014. Israel began a ground operation in Gaza on July 17 with the stated objective of destroying tunnels used …
