Emails Reveal Top IRS Lawyer Warned Trump Firings Were a “Fraud” on the Courts

ProPublica: “On Feb. 20, nearly 7,000 probationary employees at the Internal Revenue Service began receiving an unsigned letter telling them that they had been fired for poor performance. Trump administration lawyers insist that the IRS and other federal agencies have acted within their authority when they ordered waves of mass terminations since Trump took office. …

Subjects: Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

Adapted Semantic Search

“At Free Law Project, we believe in transparency and sharing our innovations. Today we’re excited to announce our latest development in semantic search: our embedding generation tool and the underlying machine learning model that we will be using in our new semantic search engine. While semantic search might sound complex, we’ve focused on making it …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

History Professor Answers Dictator Questions

Via Wired YouTube Channel: “Professor and authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about dictators and fascism. Why do people support dictators? How do dictators come to power? What’s the difference between a dictatorship, an autocracy, and authoritarianism? What are the most common personality traits found in tyrants and dictators? …

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

Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump’s Anti-Trans Order

404 Media – Using the Freedom of Information Act, 404 Media has obtained several memos that government agencies were required to create by President Trump in order to comply with his “Defending Women” executive order. The memos explain exactly how different agencies are seeking to purge the notion that trans people exist. Many of the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Mail, Freedom of Information, Government Documents

Trump Administration Aims to Eliminate EPA Scientific Research Arm

The New York Times unlocked: “The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The strategy is part of large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” …

Subjects: Censorship, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

50 Free Datasets in 50 Minutes

50 Free Datasets in 50 Minutes. National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 6, 2025: “Below are federal government datasets with individual-level structured data that can be downloaded for free as Excel or CSV files and localized to any city, county or state in the United States. Unless noted, all the data is updated …

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

New Open-Source Alternative to Google Docs and Notion Backed by France, Germany

How to Geek: “Docs is a new open-source collaborative text editor, intended as an alternative to Notion, Google Docs, Outline, and other similar web-based services. Interestingly, the project is being led by the governments of France and Germany. Docs is a web-based collaborative writing tool, with the ability for multiple people to view and edit …

Subjects: E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management

CISA Probationary Reinstatements Process Is a Farce

From the homepage of CISA: The Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order in Maryland, et al v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, et al, No. 25-cv-00748, Docket No. 43 (D. Md.) (March 13, 2025). CISA is making every effort to individually contact all impacted individuals. However, to the extent that you have been terminated by CISA …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Government, Legal Research

Punishing AI doesn’t stop it from lying and cheating it just makes it hide better, study shows

Live Science: “Punishing artificial intelligence for deceptive or harmful actions doesn’t stop it from misbehaving; it just makes it hide its deviousness, a new study by ChatGPT creator OpenAI has revealed. Since arriving in public in late 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs) have repeatedly revealed their deceptive and outright sinister capabilities. These …

Subjects: AI, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting

Freedom of the Press Foundation: “The news business isn’t just any business — it serves a vital role in our democracy, recognized by the First Amendment. But media outlets can’t serve that role if they’re bankrupt. And as a result, news readers often find themselves blocked by paywalls from reading important stories about government business. …

Subjects: E-Records, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Legal Research