The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update 2009
News release: “Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA’s “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities” by Agency Inspector General John Helgerson. Yesterday, the Obama administration released new portions of the report including considerably more information about the use of torture and other… Continue Reading
Mid-Session Review Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010. Office of Management and Budget: “When the President took office, the Nation was experiencing the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. This decline was not simply the result of a normal downturn in the business cycle; also contributing to it were irresponsible… Continue Reading
“A new publication that recommends best practices for the next generation of portable biometric acquisition devicesMobile IDhas been published by Commerces National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Devices that gather, process and transmit an individuals biometric datafingerprints, facial and iris imagesfor identification are proliferating. Previous work on standards for these biometric devices has focused… Continue Reading
News release: “The [redacted] documents [below] were released through FOIA litigation by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law seeking disclosure of information concerning disappeared detainees, including ghost and unregistered prisoners. The original FOIA requests were filed with… Continue Reading
World Bank: “Giving poor people a say in the water and sanitation services they receive, and allowing alternative documentation to prove residence are some of the simple solutions that can bring sustainable water and sanitation services to the hundreds of millions currently living without, according to a new report released by the Water and Sanitation… Continue Reading
News release: “The total number of U.S. bankruptcies filed during the first six months of 2009 increased 36 percent over the same six month period in 2008, according to data released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Total filings reached 711,550 during the first half of the calendar year of 2009 (January 1-June… Continue Reading
America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation, 2009. “Energy touches our lives in countless ways and its costs are felt when we fill up at the gas pump, pay our home heating bills, and keep businesses both large and small running. There are long-term costs as well: to the environment, as natural resources are depleted and… Continue Reading
Calculated Risk: Failed Banks and the Deposit Insurance Fund: “The FDIC is seizing about 4 to 5 banks per week recently, and with over four months to go in 2009, this suggests close to 150 bank failures this year..At the current pace there will be more failures in 2009 than in the early years of… Continue Reading
News release: “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke today approved a plan to prohibit the expansion of commercial fishing in federal Arctic waters until researchers gather sufficient information on fish and the Arctic marine environment to prevent adverse impacts of commercial harvesting activity on the ecosystem. As Arctic sea ice recedes due to climate change,… Continue Reading
Assessing Medical Preparedness to Respond to a Terrorist Nuclear Event: Workshop Report, 2009 “A nuclear attack on a large U.S. city by terrorists–even with a low-yield improvised nuclear device (IND) of 10 kilotons or less–would cause a large number of deaths and severe injuries. The large number of injured from the detonation and radioactive fallout… Continue Reading
