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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Annual FISA Report Shows Decrease in Surveillance Orders, Questions About Scope Remain

EPIC: “The Department of Justice has published the 2013 FISA Report. The brief report provides summary information about the government’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In 2012 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted 1,789 FISA orders and 212 “Section 215” orders. In 2013, there were 1,588 requests to conduct FISA surveillance, with 34 modifications.… Continue Reading

UK Gov Project – Print Still Matters

“Use this site to discover which libraries in the United Kingdom have PRINT collections of publications issued by the UK Parliament, UK Government, and the Devolved Assemblies, Parliaments, and Administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The information upon which this site is built was collected through the Print Still Matters Project in 2012/2013. This Project was initiated… Continue Reading

The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy

The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence. Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell.  Journal of Economic Literature 2014, 52(1), 1–40 “This paper undertakes an assessment of a rapidly growing body of economic research on financial literacy. We start with an overview of theoretical research, which casts financial knowledge as a form of investment in… Continue Reading

State Funding for Education Has Not Recovered Since the Recession

States Are Still Funding Higher Education Below Pre-Recession Levels. Michael Mitchell, Vincent Palacios, and Michael Leachman – May 1, 2014 “Most states have begun in the past year to restore some of the cuts they made to higher education funding after the recession hit.  Eight states, though, are still cutting, and in almost all states — including those that are… Continue Reading

Interactive visualization allows you to explore actual patterns of lawmaking in Congress

Legislative Explorer or LEG/EX © University of Washington Center for American Politics and Public Policy. A data-driven discovery tool for learning about how bills become law. “Researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for American Politics and Public Policy are applying data-driven discovery methods popular in the natural sciences to visualize and learn about lawmaking. Legislative Explorer, or LegEx,… Continue Reading

FOCUS on Top Incomes and Taxation in OECD Countries: Was the crisis a game changer?

OECD work on Income Distribution and Poverty, May 2014 “The share of the richest 1% in total pre-tax income have increased in most OECD countries in the past three decades, particularly in some English-speaking countries but also in some Nordic (from low levels) and Southern European countries. Today, they range between 7% in Denmark and… Continue Reading

EPA’s Coordinated Approach on Asthma

“EPA promotes scientific understanding of environmental asthma triggers and ways to manage asthma in community settings through research, education and outreach. With federal, state and local partners, we are building the nation’s capacity to control asthma and manage exposure to indoor and outdoor pollutants linked to asthma. Our purpose is to build knowledge and awareness… Continue Reading

Country Reports on Terrorism 2013

United States Department of State Publication, Bureau of Counterterrorism, April 2014: “Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States  Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the… Continue Reading

Understanding ICANN’s Complexity in a Growing and Changing Internet

Testart, Cecilia, Understanding ICANN’s Complexity in a Growing and Changing Internet (April 15, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2431571 “Historically, the primary governance of the Internet has been in the hands of the Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation appointed by the US government to develop policy for and manage the critical… Continue Reading

Living in Near Poverty in the United States, 1966-2012

“This report provides data on the demographic characteristics of people close to, but not below, official poverty thresholds from 1966 to 2012. The “near-poor” are people with family income between 100 and 125 percent of the poverty thresholds, allowing for a full examination of the low-income population. The statistics come from the Current Population Survey’s… Continue Reading

EPIC – White House Publishes Report on “Big Data and Future of Privacy”

“The White House has released a report on big data and the future of privacy. The report “Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values” makes several recommendations to the President: “(1) advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights; (2) pass national data breach legislation; (3) extend privacy protections to non-U.S. persons; (4) ensure data collected on students in schools is… Continue Reading