“EPIC and a coalition of open government advocates has urged Congress to pass FOIA reform legislation. In response to a request from the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the coalition expressed support for the FOIA Act of 2015, specifically praising a provision limiting the use of Exemption 5, which has enabled the growth of secret law. In EPIC v. DOJ, EPIC argued that agencies improperly use Exemption 5 to hide government documents from public scrutiny. EPIC also filed an amicus in NY Times v. DOJ, a successful challenge to the secrecy of the legal memos justifying the government’s “targeted killing” drone program.”
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Daily Archives: June 13, 2015
HathiTrust Research Center releases computational tool for digital humanities scholars
“The HathiTrust Research Center is pleased to announce the release of its Extracted Features Dataset, a dataset derived from 4.8 million public domain volumes, totaling over 1.8 billion pages currently available in the HathiTrust Digital Library collection. The dataset includes over 734 billion words, dozens of languages, and spans multiple centuries. The release of this… Continue Reading
FEMA Launches New Data Visualization Tool
[June 11, 2015] “the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) launched a new data visualization tool that enables users to see when and where disaster declarations have occurred across the country. As hurricane season kicks off, the tool helps provide important information about the history of hurricanes and other disasters in their communities and what residents… Continue Reading
Massive hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database
Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima: ” The Chinese breach of the Office of Personnel Management network was wider than first acknowledged, and officials said Friday that a database holding sensitive security clearance information on millions of federal employees and contractors also was compromised. In an announcement, OPM said that investigators concluded this week with “a high… Continue Reading
California Curtails Senior Water Rights
Senior Water Rights Curtailed in Delta, San Joaquin & Sacramento Water sheds – “With drought conditions continuing into the summer months, the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) announced today that there is insufficient water available for senior water right holders with a priority date of 1903 or later in the San Joaquin… Continue Reading
Research – How Twitter Users Can Generate Better Idea
New research suggests that employees with a diverse Twitter network — one that exposes them to people and ideas they don’t already know — tend to generate better ideas: “Can Twitter make employees more innovative? In particular, does having a greater diversity of virtual Twitter connections mean that good ideas are more likely to surface,… Continue Reading
