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Category Archives: Legal Research

FOIA Fellows as Freedom Fighters

Jack Wroldsen, FOIA Fellows as Freedom Fighters: An Independent and Privately Funded FOIA Commission of Rotating Professionals (Oct. 31, 2024). 108 Marquette L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5043146 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5043146. “The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a hallmark of U.S. democracy, designed as an outsider element that foists transparency on a government… Continue Reading

The Depths of Wikipedians

Asterisk Interview with Annie Rauwerda – The Depths of Wikipedians – Asterisk: You’re famous for the Depths of Wikipedia account, where you share factoids from some of the most arcane, interesting, and surprising pages on Wikipedia. But you’re also now a part of the broader Wikipedia community. How did you first get interested in the… Continue Reading

LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135 Billion – 10,000+ buildings destroyed

Semafor – “JPMorgan said this morning, more than double an earlier estimate. That comes as those companies are still rebuilding their reserves from the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons, which included the deadly Camp Fire in California. Insurers have been fleeing California in recent years as weather-related catastrophes become more common, pushing more homeowners to… Continue Reading

Here is a list of every app on your phone selling your location data

Via Austin Corbett‬ ‪@austincorbett.bsky.social– Here is a list of every app on your phone selling your location data to advertisers, interested unknown 3rd parties, and the US government. Thanks to 404 Media and @josephcox.bsky.social There are 12, 373 apps on this Google doc as of today – the apps are used by children and adults… Continue Reading

What the data says about federal workers

Pew Research Center – “President-elect Donald Trump has focused much attention on shrinking the size and scope of the federal government for his second administration. Most notably, Trump has appointed tech mogul Elon Musk and GOP-primary-rival-turned-ally Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an advisory task force dubbed the “Department of Government Efficiency.” Musk and Ramaswamy have said… Continue Reading

Power of Community Posts: Conversation is the New Influencer

Research by Reddit, about Reddit – At CES 2025, Reddit released research outlining how conversation is becoming an influencer throughout the purchase journey.  “In the last year, our research has shown that 47% of social media users say “irrelevant search terms” are the most frustrating aspects of their product research). That is in part why… Continue Reading

Announcing the Public Domain Image Archive

“After the hundreds (thousands?) of hours trawling through online image collections since the PDR’s inception, we’ve decided it was time to create one of our own! We are really excited to share with you the launch of our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical… Continue Reading

Territorial Courts, Constitutions, and Organic Acts, Explained

State Court Report – “Over 3.5 million people reside in the five inhabited U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each territory has its own court system and constitution or similar governing document. This explainer provides a brief overview of territorial courts and constitutions, including… Continue Reading

Experian Conducted ‘Sham Investigations’ Into Errors in Its Credit Reports

Gizmodo: “Experian has routinely provided inaccurate information in credit reports that help determine whether consumers are approved for loans, jobs, or housing and failed to properly investigate or correct errors when consumers disputed the mistakes, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB data shows that last year the agency… Continue Reading

Opioid settlement spending

Data is Plural: “KFF Health News, working with researchers at Johns Hopkins and Shatterproof, has published “a first-of-its kind database” tracking how states and local governments are using the billions of dollars received via opioid settlements in recent years. The database, drawing from “dozens of interviews, thousands of pages of documents, an array of public… Continue Reading

On The Fragility of Our Knowledge Base

JSTOR Daily: “Historian Glenn D. Tieffert shows how state interests in the People’s Republic of China can be protected by editing online databases and collections. Digital databases are vulnerable to authoritarian regimes. In fact, argues historian Glenn D. Tiffert, “no corner of the knowledge economy lies beyond their reach.” “Digital platforms offer [censors] dynamic, fine-grained… Continue Reading