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Category Archives: Censorship

For April Ryan, Clashes With WH Bring a New Kind of Prominence

The New York Times – “…One of the few black journalists in the White House press corps, Ms. Ryan has covered presidents and clashed with press secretaries for 20 years. But her encounters with the Trump administration are propelling the 49-year-old, Baltimore-bred journalist to a new level of prominence — and into a contentious debate… Continue Reading

Energy Department climate office bans use of phrase ‘climate change’

Politico, Eric Wolff – “The Office of International Climate and Clean Energy is the only office at DOE with the words ‘climate’ in its name, and it may be endangered as Trump looks to reorganize government agencies. A supervisor at the Energy Department’s international climate office told staff this week not to use the phrases “climate… Continue Reading

Chaffetz, Cummings Urge Compliance with Federal Recordkeeping Laws

Letter to White House and agencies requests information on procedures for proper preservation – “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to the White House and 55 federal agencies requesting information on how each entity is complying with the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and… Continue Reading

The Other Animal-Welfare Documents APHIS Deleted

Follow up to previous postings, Animal welfare information wiped from USDA website and Some animal welfare data removed from USDA site is restored – via AltGov2 (kudos and thanks to Russ Kick and note that AltGov 2 is another new website project by Russ) “They did it again. At the beginning of February, the USDA’s… Continue Reading

Large Majorities See Checks and Balances, Right to Protest as Essential for Democracy

77% say it would be ‘too risky’ to give presidents more power – “Large majorities of the public, Republicans and Democrats alike, say open and fair elections and a system of governmental checks and balances are essential to maintaining a strong democracy in the United States. However, there is less consensus about the importance of… Continue Reading

CRS – The Law and Leaks to the Press

CRS Reports & Analysis Legal Sidebar – The Law and Leaks to the Press, 02/22/2017: “President Trump has expressed concern over leaks to the press from within the Executive Branch. Earlier administrations, particularly the Obama Administration, acted upon similar concerns to prosecute officials, employees, and contractors who leaked classified information or certain military information to… Continue Reading

Botnet attack analysis of Deflect protected website blacklivesmatter.com

Deflect Labs report #3. Seamus Tuohy and eQualit.ie View the report with 3D rendering (5mb) “This report covers attacks between April 29th and October 15th, 2016. Over this seven-month period, we recorded more than a hundred separate denial-of-service incidents against the official Black Lives Matter website. Our analysis shows a variety of technical methods used… Continue Reading

How reporters around the world risk their lives for the truth

Via GOOD – “Last May, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss a problem tragically common in the 21st century: dead journalists. In the new millennium, 876 journalists have been killed—with almost 40 percent of those deaths occurring in the last five years. Meanwhile, global press freedom is at its lowest point since 2003,… Continue Reading

Some animal welfare data removed from USDA site is restored

Follow up to previous postings – Animal welfare information wiped from USDA website – today via The Hill – USDA reposts some animal welfare records after outcry: “The Department of Agriculture on Friday  February 17, 2017] reposted some of the animal welfare records it had removed from its website, after outcry from animal rights groups… Continue Reading

Please support DataRescue and other open access archive efforts

“DataRescue events create trustworthy copies of federal climate and environmental data, while the Internet Archive, datarefuge.org, and a consortium of major research libraries holds these copies. See our sister project at www.librariesnetwork.org. See also: “Orientation to DataLumos – ICPSR’s archive to preserve valuable government data. Join us for a webinar on Feb 17, 2017 at 12:00… Continue Reading

Animal welfare data deleted by government restored to public by Russ Kick

Follow up to previous posting – Animal welfare information wiped from USDA website – news via TIME on the freedom of information evangelist Russ Kick – “An Arizona man who has published thousands of animal welfare documents on his website since the government purged the once-public information is pledging to keep digging up data until… Continue Reading