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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Financial Disclosure by Federal Officials and Publication of Disclosure Reports

CRS – Financial Disclosure by Federal Officials and Publication of Disclosure Reports, Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney. August 22, 2013 “High-level officials in all three branches of the federal government are required to publicly disclose detailed information concerning their financial holdings and transactions in income-producing property and assets, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and real… Continue Reading

DOD – Information Technology and Cyber Operations

Via Steven Aftergood, testimony of director of the National Security Agency and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command: Information Technology and Cyber Operations: Modernization and Policy Issues to Support the Future Force, hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, March 13, 2013 (published July 2013). “Potential adversaries are demonstrating… Continue Reading

New SEC Ethics Rule Expands Ban on Former Employee Contact

Bloomberg: “Hundreds of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers and examiners face new obstacles to cashing in on their agency experience under an expanded ethics rule to take effect in January. The change targets the practice of regulators moving to jobs at law firms and investment banks where they capitalize on their SEC relationships. The… Continue Reading

Der Spiegel – New leaked NSA documents outline NSA surveillance at UN

Spiegel Online International, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark: “The NSA documents seen by SPIEGEL also show that the US intelligence agency has managed to penetrate deeply into the UN. In June of last year, a report notes that the NSA had gained access to the UN’s internal teleconferencing system.” Continue Reading

Case studies and summaries from OCLC Research FAST users survey

FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) Users: Summary and Case Studies, written by Research Assistant Jeff Mixter and Consulting Project Manager Eric Childress, includes case studies of sixteen parties (nine adopters, seven non-adopters) in six countries that have expressed interest in FAST, as well as a profile of OCLC’s own use of FAST. Key highlights… Continue Reading

FDA finalized the definition of the term “gluten-free”

“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalized the definition of the term “gluten-free” on food labels, which means all manufacturers that want to use that phrase on their products must adhere to strict guidelines. As stated by the FDA, the term gluten-free now refers to foods that are either inherently gluten-free or foods that… Continue Reading

Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of PATRIOT Act

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (as required by Section 1001(3) of Public Law 107-56), August 2013. “Between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013, the period covered by this report, the OIG processed 515 new civil rights or… Continue Reading

Guardian – NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies

Ewen MacAskill in New York, The Guardian, Thursday 22 August 2013: “The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency’s activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred… Continue Reading

The Australian Public Service Big Data Strategy

The Australian Public Service Big Data Strategy – Improved understanding through enhanced data-analytics capability, August 2013. “Government policy development and service delivery will benefit from the effective and judicious use of big data analytics. Big data analytics can be used to streamline service delivery, create opportunities for innovation, and identify new service and policy approaches… Continue Reading

GDELT: Global Data on Events, Location and Tone

“GDELT: Global Data on Events, Location and Tone – GDELT is a new CAMEO-coded data set containing more than 200-million geolocated events with global coverage for 1979 to the present. The primary author is Kalev Leetaru at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The data are based on a variety of international news… Continue Reading