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Category Archives: Legal Research

State Chief Data Officer (CDO) Tracker

“The State Chief Data Officer Tracker, created by the Beeck Center’s Digital Service Network and Data Labs teams, is a first-of-its-kind resource that tracks the evolving role of CDOs in state governments and their efforts to advance data-informed decision-making and collaboration across agencies. Data is a powerful tool for improving government transparency, accountability, and service… Continue Reading

Anatomy of an AI Coup

Tech Policy News: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology for manufacturing excuses. While lacking clear definitions or tools for assessment, AI has nonetheless seized the imagination of politicians and managers across government, academia, and industry. But what AI is best at producing is justifications. If you want a labor force, a regulatory bureaucracy, or accountability… Continue Reading

Searchable Full Project 2025 Text: Mandate for Leadership

“Project 2025 – the extreme political right’s plans to dismantle the U.S. federal government and put all power in the hands of the Executive.” One of the primary authors is Russell Vought who was confirmed as the head of OMB and promptly named himself Acting Director of the Consumer Finance Protect Bureau (CFPB), whose work… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 8, 2025

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 8, 2025 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading

Policy Map – Where to Find Trump’s Disappeared Data

“The administration removed hundreds of federal web pages containing critical information about Americans. Fortunately, it still lives at Philly-based PolicyMap, whose director walks us through what just happened — and why it’s too soon to Last week, President Donald Trump came for our data. Executive orders to eliminate any DEI and climate change-related language from… Continue Reading

The Government’s Computing Experts Say They Are Terrified

“Charlie Warzel and Ian Bogost from The Atlantic talked to four experienced federal-government IT professionals who have all “built, modified, or maintained the kind of technological infrastructure” that Elon Musk’s team of young hackers are attacking. They are beyond concerned about the potential consequences. Based on what has been reported, DOGE representatives have obtained or… Continue Reading

The Open Energy Data Initiative

As energy, climate and weather datasets and resources  are removed from government websites, there are open source initiatives that remain available and to which organizations may submit data. “The Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI). Enabling research, collaboration, and transparency by providing open access to energy data and information. Provides free access to data generated from… Continue Reading

Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data

“Managed by the Geospatial Management Office, HIFLD curates and provides access to geospatial data on U.S. critical infrastructure. Users can view data and download CSV, KML, and Shapefiles for visualization and application development.” HIFLD houses 400+ data layers. Many have robust summaries and metadata that document the source, update cadence, most recent update, and field… Continue Reading

Environmental & Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School

The Environmental & Energy Law Program (EELP) provides innovative, rigorous legal analysis to: Administrative Law Clean Air Clean Cars Clean Water Corporate Climate Risk Environmental Justice Methane Emissions Power Sector Trackers – Regulatory Tracker – Tracking the regulatory steps to advance clean energy deployment and environmental protection, and provides an up-to-date and concise summary of… Continue Reading

Announcing the Data.gov Archive

Harvard Law School Library: “Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in our… Continue Reading

Government Agrees to Temporarily Restrict DOGE From Treasury Records

Democracy Docket:”The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed to restrict the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to Department of the Treasury records after a coalition of federal unions and an advocacy group sued to block DOGE’s actions. According to the order — issued by a federal judge Thursday after the DOJ reached an agreement… Continue Reading

Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive

“Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and… Continue Reading