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New Articles and Columns – LLRX February 2025 Issue

  • Climate and DEI Deleted From Government Websites, Federal Workers Fired, Colleges Erase Programs and Research – “Colleges have been a conservative target for years. Under President Trump, it’s total warfare on all aspects of higher education — from student life to hiring to athletics.” This March 2, 2025 update by Sabrina I. Pacifici chronicles Trump’s escalating actions to eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout institutions of higher learning. The article also highlights a DEI Legislation Tracker, which is following 49 bills in 23 states to restrict efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion and prohibiting colleges from a range of DEI initiatives.
  • AI in Finance and Banking, February 28, 2025 – Sabrina I. Pacifici – Five highlights from this post: Jobs Being Cut in Banking Industry – Bankers take note: AI could be your next coworker; Intelligent Banking: A blueprint for creating value through AI-driven transformation; AI in financial services must be prioritised; 4 ways that AI and tech are reshaping finance. Why It Matters; and Artificial intelligence and relationship lending.
  • What Is OpenAI’s Powerful New Deep Research Tool Capable Of? I Use It to Analyze the Legality of President Trump’s Pause of Federal Grants – On February 2, 2025 OpenAI released Deep Research, an AI agent capable of completing multi-step research tasks and synthesizing large amounts of online information. OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil said it can complete complex research tasks in minutes that might take a person many hours or days, according to The New York Times, adding that it should be particularly useful for people in fields such as finance, science and law. Robert Ambrogi created a comprehensive and expertly crafted series of prompts to evaluate Deep Search’s ability to research and analyze the legality of the Trump administration’s temporary pause of federal grant and financial assistance programs, and then to outline the potential legal remedies available to recipients of those grants and financial assistance.
  • A Digital Extension of Historical Bias: Arab Americans and the New Frontier of Algorithmic Discrimination – This paper by Natalie Abdou examines how AI systems deploy overlapping forms of bias through facial recognition technology, language processing, and automated screening, producing a uniquely destructive form of compound discrimination that is more pervasive and harder to challenge than traditional bias.
  • How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see – Research librarian Alejandro Paz and policy scholar Eric Nost, who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and litigation, are working to ensure that data remains available to the public.
  • Book Review: Generative AI For DummiesJerry Lawson’s opinion of the new book, Generative AI for Dummies, is that it demystifies the complex world of generative AI for audiences from all walks of life. If you’re after a fast, engaging, and practical introduction to AI—and maybe even a little chuckle or two along the way—this book delivers.
  • NOAA’s vast public weather data powers the local forecasts on your phone and TV – a private company alone couldn’t match it – Atmospheric scientists Christine Wiedinmyer and Kari Bowen, who is a former National Weather Service forecaster, explain NOAA’s central role in most U.S. weather forecasts. They underscore why the Trump/DOGE plan to eliminate these two critical agencies and replace them with one private company to provide comprehensive weather data in a reliable way that is also accessible to the entire public, is not a reasonable plan.
  • Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, 3 new columns – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness.
  • AI in Finance and Banking, February 17, 2025 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici. Four highlights from this post: AI and Women’s Employment in Europe; Digital Innovations for Increasing Financial Inclusion: CBDC, Cryptocurrency, Embedded finance, Artificial Intelligence, WaaS, Fintech, Bigtech, and DeFi; 2025 Global Outlook for Banking and Financial Markets; and AI in Finance Summit New York, April 15-16, 2025.

LLRX.com® – the free web journal on law, technology, knowledge discovery and research for Librarians, Lawyers, Researchers, Academics, and Journalists. Founded in 1996.

Global AI Regulation Tracker

techie_ray: “An interactive world map that tracks AI law, regulatory and policy developments around the world. Click on a region (or use the search bar) to view its profile. Other features are also available to support your research of AI regulation (including an AI governance library, country comparison tool, live AI newsfeed and export report… Continue Reading

Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries

Wired – no paywall: “Engineers and executives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing healthy taxpayer-funded salaries—sometimes from the very agencies they are cutting. Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned. Jeremy Lewin,… Continue Reading

DOGE eliminates critical federal employees, cancels leases on government office buildings across America

TMP Looting Watch by Josh Marshall – In case you didn’t hear the GSA today announced it’s going to sell off many if not all of the central buildings making up the headquarters of the American republic. Those buildings include FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, the buildings which are the headquarters of the DOJ, HHS,… Continue Reading

Cool Tools Omnilist

These are all the products we’ve mentioned since 2020 in Recomendo, Cool Tools, our YouTube channel, podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak. Please share suggestions, corrections, and other feedback to [email protected]. Continue Reading

CDC Staff Prohibited From Co-Authoring Papers With World Health Organization Personnel

HuffPo: “Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been prohibited from co-authoring publications with World Health Organization staff, dealing a blow to global research efforts and continuing the Trump administration’s aggressive attack on government-funded science. “CDC staff should not be co-authors on manuscripts/abstracts with WHO staff,” an interim guidance document dated Thursday… Continue Reading

Timeline: Politicization and Weaponization of Justice Department in Second Trump Administration

Just Security: “What follows is a timeline of actions that highlight the alarming level of politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice under the second Trump administration. Politicization includes the misuse of the Department’s powers for political purposes rather than the independent and impartial enforcement of the laws. Weaponization includes a deliberate and systematic… Continue Reading

A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying

EFF: “At EFF we spend a lot of time thinking about Street Level Surveillance technologies—the technologies used by police and other authorities to spy on you while you are going about your everyday life—such as automated license plate readers, facial recognition, surveillance camera networks, and cell-site simulators (CSS). Rayhunter is a new open source tool… Continue Reading

Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)

TechDirt: “While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold — a playbook we’re all too familiar with. We’ve seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and… Continue Reading

Shutting down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database appears to violate records law

CREW – “On January 24, 2025, the Trump administration decommissioned the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD) in an apparent violation of federal law. CREW sent a letter to the Department of Justice Inspector General and Acting National Archivist asking them to investigate and take corrective action. NLEAD was created in 2023 as a centralized… Continue Reading

Visualizing all books of the world in ISBN-Space

phiresky’s blog – “Libraries have been trying to collect humanity’s knowledge almost since the invention of writing. In the digital age, it might actually be possible to create a comprehensive collection of all human writing that meets certain criteria. That’s what shadow libraries do – collect and share as many books as possible. One shadow… Continue Reading

How Do America’s Largest Corporations Score on Democracy? 

The American Democracy Scorecard is a living, interactive resource that grades the country’s biggest corporations on their support for democracy. The project evaluates corporations’ statements and efforts in support of our democracy, alongside their political spending and actions around January 6th, state and federal voting legislation, election integrity, and other democracy-related issues.  The goal is… Continue Reading