Category «Government Documents»

Supreme Court Trust, Job Approval at Historical Lows

Gallup: “Forty-seven percent of U.S. adults say they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the judicial branch of the federal government that is headed by the Supreme Court. This represents a 20-percentage-point drop from two years ago, including seven points since last year, and is now the lowest in Gallup’s …

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

Climate Change: Enhancing Federal Resilience

GAO – Climate Change: Enhancing Federal Resilience GAO-22-106061 Published: Sep 19, 2022. Publicly Released: Sep 19, 2022. “Between fiscal years 2015 and 2021, selected appropriations for disaster assistance totaled $315 billion. Disaster costs are projected to increase as certain extreme weather events like drought or extreme rainfall become more frequent and intense because of climate …

Subjects: Climate Change, Congress, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Transportation

FCC Targeting and Eliminating Unlawful Text Messages

“The Federal Communications Commission today proposed new rules to fight back against malicious robotext campaigns. The agency will take public comment on ideas to apply caller ID authentication standards to text messaging and require providers to find and actively block illegal texts before they get to consumers…The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released today proposes and …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Records, Government Documents, Privacy

GAO – Federal Agencies Lack Senior Leadership to Effectively Implement Privacy Programs

EPIC: “A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, prepared in consultation with privacy experts including EPIC Senior Counsel John Davisson, canvassed 24 federal government agencies and found that most have failed to fully implement statutory privacy requirements. The GAO found that despite the massive amount of personally identifiable information (PII) collected by these agencies and the …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

All 50 states get green light to build EV charging stations covering 75,000 miles of highways

National Alternative Fuels Corridors: “The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) designates a national network of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) charging and hydrogen, propane, and natural gas fueling infrastructure along national highway system corridors. To designate these Alternative Fuel Corridors (AFC), FHWA solicits nominations from state and local officials and works with other …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legislation

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation: CRS Products

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation: CRS Products, September 20, 2022: “…CRS selected its products below by searching CRS.gov using the terms climate and greenhouse gas and through discussion with CRS subject matter experts. Products were selected from the search results and included here if they met the search criteria, contained substantial discussion of GHG mitigation, and have …

Subjects: Climate Change, Congress, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

US politicians tweet far more misinformation than those in the UK and Germany

The Conversation: “Politicians from mainstream parties in the UK and Germany post far fewer links to untrustworthy websites on Twitter and this has remained constant since 2016, according to our new research. By contrast, US politicians posted a much higher percentage of untrustworthy content in their tweets, and that share has been increasing steeply since …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

CREW urges Judicial Conference to implement judicial ethics rules

CREW: “The Judicial Conference—a national policymaking body for the federal courts…should implement a comprehensive prohibition on all federal judges and Supreme Court Justices owning or trading individual securities and develop a strong code of conduct for the Supreme Court. In a letter sent [September 20, 2022], CREW urges the Judicial Conference to act swiftly to …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

The Data Liberation Project

Jeremy Singer-Vine: ” The Data Liberation Project is a new initiative I’m launching today to identify, obtain, reformat, clean, document, publish, and disseminate government datasets of public interest. Vast troves of government data are inaccessible to the people and communities who need them most. These datasets are inaccessible. The Process: Identify: Through its own research, …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Census.gov Design Refresh

“As part of our mission to serve as the nation’s leading provider of quality data about its people, places and economy, the U.S. Census Bureau announced the launch of the refreshed census.gov website that is designed to present data in an even more user-friendly way. The Census Bureau conducted extensive customer research and usability testing to identify …

Subjects: E-Government, Education, Government Documents, Legal Research

Book bans are spiking in the US

Quartz – Here are the most targeted titles: “This week, ALA is holding its annual Banned Books Week, from September 18-24, to advocate for open access to information. While in the past bans usually targeted one book at a time, advocacy groups are now going after multiple titles at once, according to the association. So far …

Subjects: Censorship, Education, Free Speech, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation, Libraries

The Supreme Court’s new term could be even more consequential than its last one

Vox – The Republican justices who overruled Roe v. Wade are only getting started. “The headline of this piece is likely to turn a few heads. The Supreme Court’s last term, after all, was an orgy of conservative excess unlike any since the Court’s Great Depression-era attacks on the New Deal. And it culminated in …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Courts, Free Speech, Government Documents, Health Care, Legislation