Washington Post unlocked: “Tips and apps that can help everyone talk about sensitive topics safely. Chances are, until now, most people haven’t worried much about their private group chats or jokey social media posts being used against them. But under the Trump administration, privacy experts say there’s a new urgency to making sure people understand… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Federal Worker Union Sues to Stop Trump’s Resignation Offer
Bloomberg Law: “The nation’s largest federal employee union is suing to halt the Trump administration’s voluntary resignation offer, arguing agencies can’t promise to pay employee salaries before Congress sets aside the money. The American Federation of Government Employees is seeking to stop the Office of Personnel Management’s exit offer known as “Fork in the Road.”… Continue Reading
The DOGE Has Arrived
Gibson Dunn – Client Alert | February 4, 2025 – “Ever since President Trump announced that he would create a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), clients have raised questions regarding how it would be established, what powers it would have, and how its work could affect their operations. Gibson Dunn previously addressed some of those… Continue Reading
Personal Discretion Over the Treasury’s Payments System Means the End of Democracy
Liberal Currents – Elizabeth Popp Berman: “On Friday night [January 31, 2025], Elon Musk’s team gained access to the Department of Treasury’s payments system, which processes the federal spending that makes up more than a fifth of the U.S. economy. Social Security, Medicare, agricultural supports, the National Parks—a large majority of government spending flows through… Continue Reading
What Is OpenAI’s Powerful New Deep Research Tool Capable Of?
LawSites: I Use It to Analyze the Legality of President Trump’s Pause of Federal Grants – “Over the weekend, 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… Continue Reading
Blog on British TV Crime and Mysteries
Timothy J. Barron – “This page contains an extensive list of British crime and mystery television series and movies that I have watched or have some degree of knowledge. Though I am American, my appetite for these series and movies is insatiable and beyond an addiction level. As compared to their American counterparts, the British… Continue Reading
Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Law Libraries
Parsons, Patrick and Niedringhaus, Kristina L. and Zhang, Alex, Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Law Libraries (December 01, 2024). Georgia State University College of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5118446 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5118446 – “The Southeast Roundtable Report summarizes the discussions from a day-long conference held on March 1, 2024, at… Continue Reading
AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library
404 Media -“Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer… Continue Reading
As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders
Ars Technica: “Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase “enshittification” to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse. “It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was… Continue Reading
Bookshop.org enters the e-book arena, giving indie stores a new way to compete with Amazon
Salon: “Bookshop.org founder and CEO Andy Hunter joked that the e-books question has been the bane of his business’ social media manager’s existence for a while now. “Every day she has people ask her, ‘When are e-books coming? When are e-books coming?’” Now Bookshop has an answer. On Tuesday, it launched a new digital platform… Continue Reading
Workers at NASA Told to ‘Drop Everything’ to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites
404 Media: “NASA personnel were told to “drop everything” to scrub public sites of mentions of DEI, indigenous people, environmental justice, and women in leadership, according to a directive obtained by 404 Media. The directive, sent on January 22 and obtained by 404 Media, states:“Per NASA HQ direction, we are required to scrub mentions of… Continue Reading
New OPM Memo – Legality of Deferred Resignation Program
New OPM Memorandum – RE: Legality of Deferred Resignation Program – To Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies, FROM: Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Andrew Kloster, General Counsel, U.S. Office of Personnel Management. DATE: February 4, 2025. “On Tuesday, January 28, 2025, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”)… Continue Reading
