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Government Agrees to Temporarily Restrict DOGE From Treasury Records

Democracy Docket:”The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed to restrict the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to Department of the Treasury records after a coalition of federal unions and an advocacy group sued to block DOGE’s actions. According to the order — issued by a federal judge Thursday after the DOJ reached an agreement with the plaintiffs — the Treasury “will not provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” with the exception of two special Treasury employees who need access for their jobs. The order states that “access to payment records will be ‘read only,’” meaning they won’t be able to alter any records. The lawsuit was filed Monday by the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the Alliance for Retired Americans, after personnel from the Elon Musk-led DOGE requested sensitive personal and financial information of millions of people from the Treasury Department.  “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the lawsuit said. “People who must share information with the federal government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk or his ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to.”

Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive

“Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and… Continue Reading

CRS confirms the president does not have authority to abolish or move USAID

Congressional Research Service Update – USAID Under the Trump Administration: “Because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment (defined in 5 U.S.C. 104) within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to abolish it; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID. The Secretary of State established USAID as… Continue Reading

Project 2025 Executive Action Tracker

“The Center for Progressive Reform and Governing for Impact are monitoring the Trump administration’s implementation of Project 2025, tracking the authoritarian blueprint’s executive action proposals across 20 federal agencies. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is the conservative movement’s blueprint for weakening our government and building an authoritarian presidency. To monitor the Trump administration’s regulatory and… Continue Reading

Harvard Announces the Data.gov Archive

Harvard Law School Innovation Lab: “Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in… Continue Reading

Meta torrented over 81.7TB of pirated books to train AI, authors say

Ars Technica: “Newly unsealed emails allegedly provide the “most damning evidence” yet against Meta in a copyright case raised by book authors alleging that Meta illegally trained its AI models on pirated books. Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But… Continue Reading

DOGE Emails Went Out to Federal Judges by Mistake

As if we have not been in a lessons not learned class since noon on January 20, 2025 today Newsweek reported: “One of the people who received an email from allies of Elon Musk was a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at blocking these messages. “I, like probably every other judge in the country,… Continue Reading

GAO Annual Report on Nation’s Fiscal Health

“As the federal government’s publicly held debt continues to grow, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) today issued its annual report on the nation’s fiscal health. The report again warns Congress and the Administration about the federal government’s long-term fiscal path and calls for decisive action. As it has since 2017, GAO recommends a strategy… Continue Reading

Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, Updated Continuously

Via LLRX – Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, January 28, 2025 – Updated Continuously – I am adding news and government document updates to this article to keep readers abreast of the accelerating plan to force federal employees, who work at agencies throughout the government, to resign by the end of day, February 6,… Continue Reading