Military Times: “A page devoted to women’s service in the U.S. Navy was removed in February by the Navy History and Heritage Command and replaced by a “page not found” message. (Screenshot/NHHC) In an effort to align with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order that terminated diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives across the… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Social Security News
Social Security News. A service of Hall & Rouse, P.C./© Charles T. Hall. Includes primary documents from DOGE and OPM, emails and chats from/to Social Security employees, author commentary, and articles from reliable media reporting on the fast moving actions to fire, using illegal terminations, as many staff and leadership as possible, around the country.… Continue Reading
How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy
The New York Times – no paywall: “It was driven with a frenetic focus by Mr. Musk, who channeled his libertarian impulses and resentment of regulatory oversight of his vast business holdings into a singular position of influence. Without ceding control of his companies, the richest man in the world has embedded his engineers and… Continue Reading
2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive
Internet Archives Blog: “Every four years since 2004-before and after the U.S. presidential election-the Internet Archive works with libraries and research organizations to preserve U.S. government websites during administration changes. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have documented transitions and preserved the record of administrative changes over time. The ongoing 2024/2025 EOT crawl… Continue Reading
How to disable ACR on your TV (and why you shouldn’t wait to do it)
ZDNet – As TV operating systems become smarter, they present new privacy concerns. Here’s what automatic content recognition (ACR) is all about – and why you should consider turning it off. Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular… Continue Reading
A Primer on Reductions in Force
LawFare – Trump seeks to reduce the size of the federal workforce using a complicated and arcane process. “…In an executive order titled “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” Trump outlined two additional mechanisms by which he will seek to reduce federal employment. The order is sweeping, and its definition of… Continue Reading
D.C. is coming together to help its federal workers
Axios: “As Washington’s federal workforce is slashed by President Trump and DOGE, many in the DMV community are responding with another message: We stand with government employees. Why it matters: Some 373,000 federal workers live in the greater D.C. area, and many have been made to feel expendable at best (or worse, “smeared as leeches“).… Continue Reading
DOGE Was Just Rehearsing for Much-Larger-Scale Federal Layoffs
New York – The Intelligencer: “Federal employees and those who depend on the benefits and services they provide have been in shock from the moment the new Trump administration unleashed Elon Musk’s shadowy DOGE operatives to conduct guerrilla warfare on the “deep state.” Chaos and unpredictability have been the hallmarks of the DOGE reign of… Continue Reading
FCC’s Knives Are Out for First Amendment
Fairness & Accurately in Reporting (FAIR): Brendan Carr, newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is waging a war on the news media, perhaps the most dangerous front in de jure President Donald Trump and de facto President Elon Musk’s quest to destroy freedom of the press and the First Amendment. Trump’s FCC has… Continue Reading
FEMA datasets
Jeremy Herzog rebuilt FEMA’s Future Risk Index after it was taken down last week. Continue Reading
The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE
“The New York Times [no paywall] identified 45 people within the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a group formed by Elon Musk that in a short few weeks has radically upended federal agencies. Few members have formal Washington experience. Many are software engineers. All seem to have a clear mandate: Shrink and disrupt the federal… Continue Reading
Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech
Joan Westenberg – Here’s What I’m Using [this is a long comprehensive read, and very useful especially for researchers, librarians, government, academics, journalists]: “…Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and other tech companies operating on American soil can talk a big game about their sovereignty, independence, and encryption. But talk may be all it is; there can… Continue Reading
