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Daily Archives: July 29, 2019

FTC Announces New Public Web Page with Interactive Do Not Call and Robocall Data

“As part of its continued efforts to help make the Do Not Call (DNC) data it collects more transparent and easier for consumers to use, the Federal Trade Commission today announced the debut of a new interactive public web page containing a wealth of information about the National DNC Registry and unwanted telemarketing robocalls. The page allows consumers to search the data interactively, for example, by clicking on a specific state or county. The information will be updated quarterly. In the past, similar DNC and robocall complaint data was only available to the public annually in the FTC’s Do Not Call Data Book. Using a Tableau Public interface, consumers can now access reports about the number of DNC and robocall complaints filed from their state, and see how that information compares with complaints filed by consumers in other states or nationally. Users also can do specific searches to determine what types of telemarketing calls consumers are reporting, such as live calls versus robocalls. In addition, because consumers often specify the type of telemarketing call they are reporting, users can explore the database by topic. Finally, the new page will let users search for the types of calls that are currently prompting the most complaints to the Commission, and track the complaints over time to look for trends in the data. The page also contains the more basic DNC and robocall statistics the FTC collects, including the number of consumers with numbers on the Registry, the number and types of entities that are accessing the Registry to scrub their call lists, and the number of robocall complaints by month.

  • Explore the FTC’s Do Not Call data, fraud data, and identity theft data by visiting ftc.gov/exploredata.”

The Mueller Report’s Fundamental Dodge

The National Review: It misinterprets the rule against indicting a sitting president. “Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony was such a bumbling fiasco that it was easy for a viewer to be confused — and stay that way — about the main bone of Democratic contention regarding his report: the “OLC guidance” that prevents the Justice Department… Continue Reading

Visualizing Political Polarization in U.S. Cities

Center for Data Innovation: “FiveThirtyEight has created data visualizations illustrating where Democrats and Republicans live in the 153 largest metro areas in the United States, highlighting distinct political polarization based on geography in many cities. The visualizations combines data about each voting precinct’s two-party margin in the 2016 presidential election with mapping data from OpenStreetMap.… Continue Reading

The FOIA Charade: A Brief Case Study

Kelley Green Law Blog , Joseph Green, July 20, 2019: “With the release last month of proposed new EPA regulations on how the agency intends to handle responses to requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), critics have raised concerns about provisions that would give authority to senior management officials (i.e., political appointees) to… Continue Reading

LC Report – Initiatives to Counter Fake News

“This report examines the legal approaches of 15 countries, representing all regions of the world, to the emerging problem of manipulation with “fake news” using mass and social media, especially the impact of fake news on ongoing political processes and elections, and the legislative measures undertaken to counteract the dissemination of false information. With the… Continue Reading

New York Review of Books – Real Americans

Joseph O’Neil – August 15, 2019 Issue – Reviewing: This America: The Case for the Nation by Jill Lepore Liveright, 150 pp., and This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto by Suketu Mehta Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 306 pp. “A poignant quality of anachronism threatens these exigent, idealistic books by the writer-professors Jill Lepore… Continue Reading

LC Report – Limits on Freedom of Expression

“This report examines the scope of protection extended to freedom of speech in 13 selected countries. In particular, the report focuses on the limits of protection that may apply to the right to interrupt or affect in any other way public speech. The report also addresses the availability of mechanisms to control foreign broadcasters working… Continue Reading