“The Center for Democracy and Technology applauds the Senate’s passage of HR 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 (GINA) by unanimous consent. The House is expected to quickly pass the measure. The bill represents a significant step forward in protecting health privacy because it prohibits the use of genetic information by employers when… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: April 2008
Law Enforcement Strategy to Combat International Organized Crime
News release: “Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced a new strategy in the fight against international organized crime that will address this growing threat to U.S. security and stability. The Law Enforcement Strategy to Combat International Organized Crime (the strategy) was developed following an October 2007 International Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOC Threat Assessment) and… Continue Reading
UK Phasing In Facial Recognition System for Border Entry
UK Guardian: “Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion..From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers’ faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports. Border… Continue Reading
CBO: PBGC Investment Strategy and Cap-and-Trade Program for Carbon Dioxide Emissions
A Review of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s New Investment Strategy, April 24, 2008. Letter to the George Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Education and Labor. Implications of a Cap-and-Trade Program for Carbon Dioxide Emissions, April 24, 2008 html pdf webcast. CBO Statement of Peter R. Orszag, Director, before the Committee on Finance, United States… Continue Reading
Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the US
The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States, Majid Ezzati, Ari B. Friedman, Sandeep C. Kulkarni, Christopher J. L. Murray. Open access via Public Library of Science, PLoS Medicine, April 2008, Vol. 5, No. 4, e66 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050066. “There was a steady increase in mortality inequality across the… Continue Reading
PriceWaterHouseCoopers 2007 Securities Litigation Study Released
2007 Securities Litigation Study, April 2008 (77 pages, PDF): “By far, the most significant happening in 2007 was the unfolding of what has become known as the subprime crisis. Early in the year, amid a falling housing market, increasing interest rates, and a surge in foreclosures, subprime lenders began declaring bankruptcy, announcing significant losses, and/or… Continue Reading
EU Backs Criminalizing Posting Bomb Making Instructions on Web
European Digital Rights: “The European Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs have agreed to make publishing bomb-making instructions on the Internet a crime…Justice and interior ministers from the EU member states backed a proposal from Commissioner Frattini to harmonise the normative acts that will make the “public provocation to commit a terrorist offence, recruitment, and… Continue Reading
Science 2.0 – Commentary on Open Access Science Practices
Science 2.0 – Is Open Access Science the Future? Is posting raw results online, for all to see, a great tool or a great risk? By M. Mitchell Waldrop: “Science 2.0 generally refers to new practices of scientists who post raw experimental results, nascent theories, claims of discovery and draft papers on the Web for… Continue Reading
Environmental Working Group Safety Guide to Cosmetics and Personal Care Products
“Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group. Skin Deep pairs ingredients in more than 25,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. Why did a small nonprofit take on… Continue Reading
Orphan Works Act of 2008 Introduced in House and Senate
The Orphan Works Act of 2008 (HR 5889 and S 2913) “attempts to create a system where new creators can use old works without fear of massive lawsuits, provided that a good faith effort has been made to find out if the work in question is copyrighted.” [Link] Public Knowledge resource guide to Orphan Works… Continue Reading
BTS Releases Fourth-Quarter 2007 Air Fare Data
News release: “Average air fares in the fourth quarter of 2007 were up 4.0 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, reaching the highest fourth-quarter level since 2001 but remaining 2.7 percent below the high set in 2000 for any October-to-December period, the U.S. Department of Transportations Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported…the average domestic… Continue Reading
FAA Takes Steps to Ensure Proper Reporting of Operational Errors
News release: “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)…announced steps to strengthen the reporting system designed to classify airspace errors, in response to a report by the U.S. Department of Transportations Inspector General (IG) that revealed the intentional misclassification of operational errors at the Dallas-Fort Worth Terminal Approach Control (TRACON)…Specifically, the IG found that management at the… Continue Reading
