Category «Defense»

Tracking the Ukraine war through graphs

War Wrapper: “Below are a series of charts showing how the control of territory has developed throughout the war, from the rapid advances by the Russian forces in the early days of the conflict to the counter-offensive operations by Ukraine to regain control of the lost territory. If you follow the war in Ukraine closely …

Subjects: Defense, Legal Research

DOGE Is the Deep State

Wired: “A shadowy group of unelected figures reshaping the federal government to their own benefit from the inside? Sounds familiar! The “deep state” is a top-tier conservative bogeyman, right up there with DEI and George Soros. But it seems fair to ask: If a bunch of shadowy, unelected figures, many with shared business interests and …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Defense, E-Records, Government Documents, Privacy

USAspending Data Sources and SAM.gov

“USAspending.gov links data from many government systems, including agency financial systems and governmentwide award systems. Scroll below to learn more about these systems, as well as the context for this historic initiative to provide federal spending transparency.” Try searching for contracts by vendor name such as AWS, Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Tesla Laboratories, Inc. …

Subjects: Defense, E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

How Trump Could Remake the Supreme Court for a Generation

The Nation: Donald Trump is poised to become the first president since FDR to have appointed the majority of high-court justices. His potential picks are terrifying.This article appears in the March 2025 issue, with the headline “The Supreme Trump Court.” Donald Trump’s first term as president gave the republicans control over the most dangerous body …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Courts, Defense, Economy, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Health Care, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Trump Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: February

FDD: “Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Trump Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. As readers of our Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker will know, this is a monthly publication in which FDD’s experts and scholars assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas …

Subjects: Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

The Fragile States Index

“The Fragile States Index is based on a conflict assessment framework – known as “CAST” – that was developed by FFP nearly a quarter-century ago for assessing the vulnerability of states to collapse. The CAST framework was originally designed to measure this vulnerability and assess how it might affect projects in the field, and continues …

Subjects: Defense, Economy, Financial System

Project 2025 Executive Action Tracker

“The Center for Progressive Reform and Governing for Impact are monitoring the Trump administration’s implementation of Project 2025, tracking the authoritarian blueprint’s executive action proposals across 20 federal agencies. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is the conservative movement’s blueprint for weakening our government and building an authoritarian presidency. To monitor the Trump administration’s regulatory and …

Subjects: Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Federal Court Rules Backdoor Searches of 702 Data Unconstitutional

EFF: “Better late than never: last night a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the …

Subjects: Courts, Defense, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation, Privacy

NSA Warns iPhone And Android Users – Disable Location Tracking

Forbes: “…NSA warns that “mobile devices store and share device geolocation data by design…Location data can be extremely valuable and must be protected. It can reveal details about the number of users in a location, user and supply movements, daily routines (user and organizational), and can expose otherwise unknown associations between users and locations.” EFF: …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Defense, E-Records, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Search the BIRLS Database

“Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA). It provides an index to basic biographical information on more than 18 million deceased American veterans who received some sort of veterans benefits in their lifetime, including health care, disability or life insurance policies, educational benefits (the GI Bill), mortgage assistance (VA loans), and more. The BIRLS database includes …

Subjects: Defense, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Search Engines

Study Finds TikTok Is Likely Vehicle for Chinese Propaganda

Network Contagion Research Institute & Rutger – Information Manipulation on TikTok and Beliefs About China, December 2024. “Three studies explored how TikTok, a China-owned social media platform, may be manipulated to conceal content critical of China while amplifying narratives that align with Chinese Communist Party objectives. Study I employed a user journey methodology, wherein newly …

Subjects: Courts, Defense, Education, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media