Lawfare: “On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States. After taking the oath of office, President Trump began signing executive orders pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, implementing Schedule F to reclassify civil servants as political appointees, declaring a national emergency at the border, and more. Executive actions related to national… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Elon Musk’s AI Fueled War on Human Agency
The New Yorker [unpaywalled]: “…To run his agency [DOGE], Musk brought on a group of tech-company managers and inexperienced twentysomethings whose credentials included internships at SpaceX. We watched as this crew began interrogating federal employees about their jobs, interfering with the system that controls payments at the Treasury Department, and trawling government budgets while Musk… Continue Reading
GovWayback
“GovWayback is a simple tool to quickly access archived versions of government websites from before January 20, 2025 – just add “wayback.com” after “.gov” in any government URL. GovWayback automatically redirects you to that page’s archived version from the Internet Archive. Why January 20, 2025? January 20th is Inauguration Day for the U.S. presidential term.… Continue Reading
Musk associates access confidential info about X’s competitors via CFPB takeover
Musk Watch and Bloomberg – “Just nine days before his DOGE team visited CFPB, Musk’s X — the former Twitter — announced that it had struck a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments. Musk has publicly mused about expanding into payment-services since he first took control of X in 2022. Entering that business could… Continue Reading
Recent CRS and GAO Reports Highlight Key Issues of Trump Administration
2/3 – USAID Under the Trump Administration (CRS) 2/3 – No More Deference: Sixth Circuit Relies on Loper Bright to Strike Down Net Neutrality Rules (CRS) 2/3 – Food Safety: Status of Foodborne Illness in the U.S. (GAO) 2/4 – Recent White House Actions on Immigration (CRS) 2/6 – Federal Workforce Downsizing: Voluntary and Involuntary… Continue Reading
The Fragile States Index
“The Fragile States Index is based on a conflict assessment framework – known as “CAST” – that was developed by FFP nearly a quarter-century ago for assessing the vulnerability of states to collapse. The CAST framework was originally designed to measure this vulnerability and assess how it might affect projects in the field, and continues… Continue Reading
NSA can track powered-down phones: how to actually protect your privacy
BoingBoing – Ellsworth Toohey: “Yesterday I wrote about Privacy Guide’s mobile phone privacy and security guide for protesters. Today, Randy Zar, CEO of Faraday pouch manufacturer SLNT wrote: “Just want to let you know your cell phone is tracking you regardless if you have it in airplane mode or not. It even ping’s when it’s… Continue Reading
State Chief Data Officer (CDO) Tracker
“The State Chief Data Officer Tracker, created by the Beeck Center’s Digital Service Network and Data Labs teams, is a first-of-its-kind resource that tracks the evolving role of CDOs in state governments and their efforts to advance data-informed decision-making and collaboration across agencies. Data is a powerful tool for improving government transparency, accountability, and service… Continue Reading
The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking
“A new paper The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration… Continue Reading
Anatomy of an AI Coup
Tech Policy News: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology for manufacturing excuses. While lacking clear definitions or tools for assessment, AI has nonetheless seized the imagination of politicians and managers across government, academia, and industry. But what AI is best at producing is justifications. If you want a labor force, a regulatory bureaucracy, or accountability… Continue Reading
Searchable Full Project 2025 Text: Mandate for Leadership
“Project 2025 – the extreme political right’s plans to dismantle the U.S. federal government and put all power in the hands of the Executive.” One of the primary authors is Russell Vought who was confirmed as the head of OMB and promptly named himself Acting Director of the Consumer Finance Protect Bureau (CFPB), whose work… Continue Reading
Finance, Economics & Banking (FEB-RN) Research Paper Series
SSRN – “FEB-RN research paper series promotes open access and dissemination of high-quality empirical, theoretical, and descriptive research across all the major fields of finance, economics and banking. The series will include papers from the interconnected global research community. FEB-RN advocates knowledge sharing through the extensive networks of scholars, PhD students, and practitioners. It aims… Continue Reading
