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Vox: “That agency, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, investigates accidents and makes recommendations — but it doesn’t regulate the industry. Since 1998, it has looked into some of the nation’s biggest industrial disasters, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout, which killed 11 workers and dumped an estimated 4 million barrels of oil into …
“In an unusual development, the White House directed EPIC this week to delete a set of records that EPIC recently obtained from the Office of Science & Technology Policy—a request which EPIC declined. On Tuesday, EPIC published hundreds of records about the White House’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and proposals to use location data …
Brookings – The following is the preamble to “Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting,” a report from the Working Group on Universal Voting convened by The Brookings Institution and The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School. Download the full PDF report here. “Imagine an American democracy …
“We just published a searchable database of thousands of civilian complaints against New York City police officers, WITH their names….by Derek Willis, Eric Umansky and Moiz Syed, July 26, 2020. After New York state repealed a law that kept police disciplinary records secret, ProPublica sought records from the civilian board that investigates complaints by the …
“EPIC has obtained hundreds of pages of records (1, 2, 3, 4) from the Office of Science and Technology Policy about the White House’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and proposals to use location data for public health surveillance. The documents were produced in response to an EPIC Freedom of Information Act request. The records …
Prevent Epidemics – From Information Catastrophe to Empowered Communities: “The use of accurate, real-time data to inform decision-making is essential for infectious disease control. Unlike many other countries, the United States does not have standard, national data on COVID-19. The US also lacks standards for state-, county- and city- level public reporting of this life-and-death …
Nature – “Funding agencies behind the radical open-access (OA) initiative Plan S have announced a policy that could make it possible for researchers to bypass journals’ restrictions on open publishing. The change could allow scientists affected by Plan S to publish in any journal they want — even in subscription titles, such as Science, that …
This article about the coronavirus red zone was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom based in Washington, D.C. “A document prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force but not publicized suggests more than a dozen states should revert to more stringent protective measures, limiting social gatherings to 10 people or fewer, closing bars …
The Atlantic – COVID-19 has steamrolled the country. What happens if another pandemic starts before this one is over? – Ed Yong – “…Certain traits increase a pathogen’s pandemic potential. Those that spread via bodily fluids (Ebola), contaminated food and water (norovirus), or insect bites (Zika) are slower to spread around the world. By contrast, …
“Documenting COVID-19 is a repository of searchable documents related to the COVID-19 pandemic obtained through state open-records laws and the Freedom of Information Act. Click on a state for details about the 54 document sets available as of July 13, 2020, and news coverage that have used those materials. Do you need help with COVID-19 …
“Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) released a transcript of the Committee’s July 9th interview with Geoffrey Berman, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). Chairman Nadler issued the following statement on the release of the transcript: “While Mr. Berman was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New …
Dear Readers, Colleagues and Friends: I have not reached out for quite some time, so no time like the present. I created BeSpacific in 2002, and have continued to provide daily research to readers, with no pay wall, for 22 years. I am passionate about law and technology and the myriad ways that knowledge created …
