U.S. Agencies Are Buying Access to Bulk Internet Records

Gizmodo – “Sen. Ron Wyden urged inspectors general at three departments to investigate the military’s purchases of large swaths of data: “Multiple military intelligence offices have paid a data broker for access to internet traffic logs, which could reveal the online browsing histories of U.S. citizens, Sen. Ron Wyden said in a letter Wednesday, citing …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Defense, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

Mozilla urges action to unpick platform browser lock-ins

Tech Crunch: “As antitrust regulators around the world dial up scrutiny of platform power, Mozilla has published a piece of research digging into the at times subtle yet always insidious ways operating systems exert influence to keep consumers locked to using their own-brand browsers rather than seeking out and switching to independent options — while …

Subjects: Internet, Legal Research, Microsoft

USGS Water Blog

“Welcome to the U.S. Geological Survey Water Mission Area’s Water Data Blog. Water information is fundamental to national and local economic well-being, protection of life and property, and effective management of the Nation’s water resources. The USGS works with partners to monitor, assess, conduct targeted research, and deliver information on a wide range of water …

Subjects: Blogs, Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Health Care

Daily ‘breath training’ can work as well as medicine to reduce high blood pressure

NPR: “It’s well known that weightlifting can strengthen our biceps and quads. Now, there’s accumulating evidence that strengthening the muscles we use to breathe is beneficial too. New research shows that a daily dose of muscle training for the diaphragm and other breathing muscles helps promote heart health and reduces high blood pressure. “The muscles …

Subjects: Health Care

NY AG James Sues Donald Trump for Years of Financial Fraud

“New York Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, senior management, and involved entities for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits. The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

New US company owner database ‘taking way too long’ to implement, experts warn

ICIJ – “After ICIJ’s FinCEN Files investigation, transparency advocates cheered a new law mandating a beneficial ownership register in the U.S. Two years later, experts are expressing serious concerns. A key U.S. reform designed to halt anonymous companies hiding illicit activities and funds remains stalled in the U.S. Treasury Department two years after the FinCEN …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive – How will they interpret the past?

The Atlantic: “In 2010, cursive was omitted from the new national Common Core standards for K–12 education. The students in my class, and their peers, were then somewhere in elementary school. Handwriting instruction had already been declining as laptops and tablets and lessons in “keyboarding” assumed an ever more prominent place in the classroom. Most …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management

News Platform and Social Media and News Fact Sheet

Pew Research Center: “The transition of the news industry away from print, television and radio into digital spaces has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially the print news industry. It is also reflected in the ways individual Americans say they are getting their news. Today, an overwhelming majority of Americans get news …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Social Media

Tracked: How colleges use AI to monitor student protests

The Dallas Morning News, Arijit (Ari) D. Sen [subscription or online database access. Note – they are also making public nearly 3,000 documents, covering more than 56,000 pages from these schools]: “The pitch was attractive and simple. For a few thousand dollars a year, Social Sentinel offered schools across the country sophisticated technology to scan …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, E-Mail, E-Records, Education, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Voter Registration: Recent Developments and Issues for Congress

CRS Report – Voter Registration: Recent Developments and Issues for Congress, September 19, 2022: “Voter registration policies are typically determined by state and local governments, subject to certain federal requirements. Historically, much of thefederalpolicy discussion surrounding voter registration has focused on providing access to registration opportunities. Some federal statutes that primarily address preserving voting access …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Does this button work? Investigating YouTube’s ineffective user controls

Mozilla: “Powered by 22,722 volunteers, Mozilla scrutinized YouTube to determine how much control people actually have over the platform’s recommendation algorithm. This is what we learned….Our work is the largest experimental audit of YouTube by independent researchers, powered by Mozilla’s RegretsReporter. Using RegretsReporter, an open source tool Mozilla built to study YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, we …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Search Engines, Social Media