Category «Legal Research»

DOGE Just Took Over National Parks

Wes Siler’s Newsletter: “Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands,” says Jennifer Rokala, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum just issued an order ceding oversight of the Department of the Interior to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which is not a government …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Legal Research

Trump Takes Aim at Democrats’ Online Fundraising Platforms

Gizmodo: “President Trump has decided to target the online fundraising websites that power a majority of Democrats’ political campaigns. In an executive order on Thursday, the Trump administration initiated a plan to investigate ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s primary grassroots fundraising tool.The executive order, which was published on the White House website on Thursday, claims that …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

AI secretly helped write California bar exam, sparking uproar

Ars Technica – A contractor used AI to create 23 out of the 171 scored multiple-choice questions: “On Monday, the State Bar of California revealed that it used AI to develop a portion of multiple-choice questions on its February 2025 bar exam, causing outrage among law school faculty and test takers. The admission comes after …

Subjects: AI, Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The Dispatch Buys SCOTUSblog, a Supreme Court Mainstay

The New York Times [no paywall]: “…The site is being acquired by The Dispatch, a right-of-center political news and commentary start-up founded by the conservative journalists Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes. The deal is part of a strategy to “double down on rigorous reporting and analysis in topic areas where we already have meaningful advantages,” …

Subjects: Courts, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

DOGE Worker’s Code Supports NLRB Whistleblower

Krebs on Security: “A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleged last week that denizens of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) siphoned gigabytes of data from the agency’s sensitive case files in early March. The whistleblower said accounts created for DOGE at the NLRB downloaded three code repositories from GitHub. Further …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research

Law Students Signing Pledge To Refuse Offers From Collaborating Biglaw Firms

Follow up to Big Law Preys On Itself – Above the Law: “As more Biglaw firms sell out their integrity in exchange for relief from illegal retaliation from the Trump administration, lawyers and clients are distancing themselves from the settling firms. Some law students have already walked away from recruiting efforts by these firms. A …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Education, Legal Research

State of the Air 2025

“The “State of the Air” 2025 report finds that even after decades of successful efforts to reduce sources of air pollution, 46% of Americans—156.1 million people—are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. This is nearly 25 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Health Care, Legal Research, Medicine

Preprint alternative to ERIC

Via Ben Amata: “A colleague offered this non-government source as an alternative. EdArXiv: a preprint server for the education research community. Education researchers now have their own community developed preprint service! EdArXiv (Education Archive) is a free, open source, non-profit service that allows researchers to post and search working papers, unpublished work, conference materials, and …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism

NPR: “A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism. In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Legal Research

More than a third of world’s top law firms exacerbating climate crisis

Global Legal Post: “More than a third of top law firms are exacerbating the climate crisis by supporting some of the world’s biggest polluters through their advisory work, according to the latest Law Students for Climate Accountability report. The sixth annual climate scorecard found that while the number of firms receiving a top A grade …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Financial System, Legal Research

National Criminal Justice Reference Service Virtual Library is no more

Via Vicki Tate, Senior Librarian, University of South Alabama: “The NCJRS National Criminal Justice Reference Service Virtual Library is no more. The easy access to publications to NCJRS no longer exists. The only thing available, that I could find, is two screens of 38 random documents from NIJ” Formerly the Virtual Library housed over 235,000 …

Subjects: Censorship, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

New Evidence That AI Can Scheme and Deceive

Skeptic: “The recent announcement of the Stargate Project, a $500 billion initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and MGX, underscores the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and capabilities. While such developments hold immense potential, they also introduce critical security challenges, particularly concerning the potential for AI systems to deceive users. As AI becomes …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research