Report of the United States of America Submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights In Conjunction with the Universal Periodic Review [includes link to country profiles database – See also the PDF version of the report. I. Introduction II. Methodology and Consultation Process III. Progress and Challenges A. Domestic Mechanisms for Human Rights… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: March 2015
Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress
Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress, Ronald O’Rourke, Coordinator Specialist in Naval Affairs, March 17, 2015. “The diminishment of Arctic sea ice has led to increased human activities in the Arctic, and has heightened interest in, and concerns about, the region’s future. The United States, by virtue of Alaska, is an Arctic… Continue Reading
Interior Dept Releases Final Rule to Support Safe, Responsible Hydraulic Fracturing Activities on Public and Tribal Lands
News release: “Following a robust and transparent public process that included more than 1.5 million public comments, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today released final standards [view the final rule, click here] that will support safe and responsible hydraulic fracturing on public and American Indian lands. The commonsense standards will improve safety and help… Continue Reading
Analytics.usa.gov
“This data provides a window into how people are interacting with the government online. The data comes from a unified Google Analytics account for U.S. federal government agencies known as the Digital Analytics Program. This program helps government agencies understand how people find, access, and use government services online. The program does not track individuals,… Continue Reading
The first fine-scale genetic map of the British Isles
Wellcome Trust news release – “Many people in the UK feel a strong sense of regional identity, and it now appears that there may be a scientific basis to this feeling, according to a landmark new study into the genetic makeup of the British Isles. An international team, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, UCL (University… Continue Reading
BIS Quarterly Review, March 2015
BIS Quarterly Review March 2015 International banking and financial market developments [268 pages, PDF] – Table of Contents follows: A wave of further easing – Largely unexpected, a wave of monetary policy easing over the past few months has taken centre stage in global financial markets. Amid plunging oil prices and rising foreign exchange tensions,… Continue Reading
EPIC Files Comments with FTC on Merger Review and Consumer Privacy
“EPIC, along with 26 technical experts and legal scholars, has submitted extensive comments for the FTC’s review of the merger remedy process. EPIC urged the Commission to consider the privacy risks to consumers that result from the merger of big data firms. The comments detailed EPIC’s efforts, over 15 years, to warn the FTC about… Continue Reading
Consumer Watchdog Cites Shortcomings In Driverless Car Technology
“Consumer Watchdog today warned the California Department of Motor Vehicles that it must not allow Google and others with a vested interest in developing driverless vehicles to push the DMV into issuing rules regulating the public use of robot cars on highways that are inadequate to protect public safety. “Most importantly, a driverless vehicle must… Continue Reading
Google researchers – FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clustering
Florian Schroff, Google Inc.; Dmitry Kalenichenko, Google Inc.; James Philbin, Google Inc. FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clustering. “Despite significant recent advances in the field of face recognition implementing face verification and recognition efficiently at scale presents serious challenges to current approaches. In this paper we present a system, called FaceNet, that… Continue Reading
Commentary and document release – CIA declassifies document used to support Iraq invasion
Article by Jason Leopold – March 19, 2015: “Thirteen years ago, the intelligence community concluded in a 93-page classified document used to justify the invasion of Iraq that it lacked “specific information” on “many key aspects” of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. But that’s not what top Bush administration officials said during their campaign to… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – DOE Facilities, Financial Company Bankruptcies, Geospatial Data, IRS Info Security, Military Personnel
DOE Facilities: Better Prioritization and Life Cycle Cost Analysis Would Improve Disposition Planning, GAO-15-272: Published: Mar 19, 2015. Publicly Released: Mar 19, 2015. Financial Company Bankruptcies: Information on Legislative Proposals and International Coordination, GAO-15-299: Published: Mar 19, 2015. Publicly Released: Mar 19, 2015. Geospatial Data: Progress Needed on Identifying Expenditures, Building and Utilizing a Data… Continue Reading
NOAA Global Climate Data – February 2015
“February 2015 second warmest February on record; December–February warmest on record February Arctic sea ice extent third smallest on record. The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for February 2015 was the second highest since record keeping began in 1880. Both the year-to-date (January–February) and seasonal (December–February) globally averaged temperatures were record high.”… Continue Reading
