In Custodia Legis: “Over the past six months, the Law Library has held many webinars on topics concerning foreign, comparative, and international law, Law Library collections, as well as our recurring orientations on how to research U.S. case law, federal statutes, and federal regulations. The Law Library also presented its annual Supreme Court Fellows Lecture and Human Rights Day… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Congress
Finding Legislative Information on Topics of Interest Using the Library of Congress
Teaching with the Library of Congress: “The best place to start for insights into the workings of the U.S. Congress is Congress.gov. Congress.gov is the official source of information on Congress, and includes searchable records of legislation from 1973 to the present. For example, a quick search on “technology” for the current Congress produces a… Continue Reading
Federal Agencies’ Use of Open Source Data and Related Threat Products Prior to January 6, 2021
GAO – Capital Attack – Federal Agencies’ Use of Open Source Data and Related Threat Products Prior to January 6, 2021: “Several federal agencies used “open source” data—social media posts and other publicly available information—to obtain information about the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol prior to January 6, 2021.Agencies developed reports for situational… Continue Reading
FY2023 Budget Documents: Internet and GPO Availability
CRS Report – FY2023 Budget Documents: Internet and GPO Availability Updated May 4, 2022: “Every year the President submits a series of volumes to Congress containing the President’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. The President’s submission is required on or after the first Monday in January, but no later than the first Monday… Continue Reading
ACS Reaction to Draft SCOTUS Opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
American Constitution Society, May 3, 2022, Washington, D.C. – “Today, Roe remains the law of the land and until a final decision is handed down by the Supreme Court, those seeking abortion care should not be deterred from accessing the healthcare they need. If the draft opinion published last night by Politico is ultimately issued… Continue Reading
National Intelligence Report Shows FBI Warrantlessly Searched Americans’ Data Millions Of Times Last Year
Tech Dirt: “Eight years ago, prompted by the Snowden revelations (and Senator Ron Wyden’s persistent questions), then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper finally provided the public with some insight into the FBI’s warrantless searches of Americans’ data collected (supposedly inadvertently) by the NSA. The report delivered to Sen. Wyden was surprisingly redaction-free. But that didn’t mean… Continue Reading
Neutral bots probe political bias on social media
Chen, W., Pacheco, D., Yang, KC. et al. Neutral bots probe political bias on social media. Nat Commun 12, 5580 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25738-6 [Open Access] “Social media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them… Continue Reading
Trump’s Chief of Staff – texts track effort to overturn election 2022
“CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden’s January 20, 2021 inauguration. The vast trove of texts, which Meadows selectively provided to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, offers the most revealing… Continue Reading
Arms Control and Nonproliferation: A Catalog of Treaties and Agreements
CRS Report – Arms Control and Nonproliferation: A Catalog of Treaties and Agreements, August 25, 2022: “Arms control and nonproliferation efforts are two of the tools that the United States has occasionally used to implement its national security strategy. Although some believe these tools do little to restrain the behavior of U.S. adversaries, while doing… Continue Reading
Digital Wallets and Selected Policy Issues
CRS In Focus – Digital Wallets and Selected Policy Issues, April 18, 2022: “Digital Wallet Landscape – A digital wallet is a software application that stores payment or account details to facilitate traditional payments that use bank and credit card details and/or cryptocurrency transactions. In addition, wallets facilitate peer-to-peer transfers, which have grown rapidly in… Continue Reading
Propaganda, Mis- and Disinformation, and Censorship: The War for Hearts and Minds
how to save the world – Dave Pollard: “…But perhaps equally-important in this century are the non-military wars battling for the “hearts and minds” of citizens — fights over votes, seats, laws, ideologies and tax dollars rather than land. It is hard to deny, for example, that the US is engaged in a so-far-non-military civil… Continue Reading
Examining Nearly Two Decades of Taxpayer-Funded Border Operations
ProPublica, The Texas Tribune & The Marshall Project – “…Over the next 17 years, Perry and his successor, Gov. Greg Abbott, persuaded the Texas Legislature to spend billions of dollars on border security measures that included at least nine operations and several smaller initiatives. Each time, the governors promised that the state would do what… Continue Reading
