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Category Archives: Legislation

California just replaced cash bail with algorithms

Quartz: “Instead of leaving cash as collateral for freedom before a trial in court, those accused of crimes in California will be graded by an algorithm, starting in October 2019. A county official will then take that grade and use it to recommend whether the accused should be released or remain in jail. California governor… Continue Reading

Thousands of Historical California Legislative Publications Digitized and Openly Available Online

HathiTrust Blog: “HathiTrust now includes 4,000 California Assembly and Senate publications in its digital repository, available as a featured collection available for reading access worldwide. The result of a collaboration between the California Office of Legislative Counsel and librarians at the University of California, Stanford University, and the California State Library, the project was initiated… Continue Reading

After Equifax’s mega-breach, nothing changed

Axios:  The Equifax data breach was supposed to change everything about cybersecurity regulation on Capitol Hill. One year later, it’s not clear it changed much of anything. “Why it matters: A year ago Friday, Equifax — one of the major credit reporting agencies — announced that 145.5 million U.S. adults had their social security numbers… Continue Reading

GPO grapples with ‘Keeping America Informed’ in the digital information age

fedscoop: “The Government Publishing Office (GPO) is tasked with “Keeping America Informed,” which practically means that the agency, through various channels, provides free public access to all the official publications of the federal government. In the days before the internet, this mandate was a lot easier to keep track of. In a recently released report, the… Continue Reading

Mapping Pre-existing Conditions across the U.S.

Kaiser Family Foundation : Mapping Pre-existing Conditions across the U.S. – Rachel Fehr, Anthony Damico, Larry Levitt Follow @larry_levitt on Twitter , Gary Claxton, Cynthia Cox Follow @cynthiaccox on Twitter , and Karen Pollitz – Published: Aug 28, 2018: “The future of protections for people with pre-existing conditions has once again become a focus of… Continue Reading

DOJ Warns It Might Not Be Able to Prosecute Voting Machine Hackers

Motherboard: “…After more than a decade of headlines about the vulnerability of US voting machines to hacking, it turns out the federal government says it may not be able to prosecute election hacking under the federal law that currently governs computer intrusions. Per a Justice Department report issued in July from the Attorney General’s Cyber… Continue Reading

CRS – Gun Control: 3D-Printed AR-15 Lower Receivers

Gun Control: 3D-Printed AR-15 Lower Receivers August 22, 2018. IN10957 “The possibility that criminals could use three dimensional-printing (3D-printing) technology to produce “untraceable” firearms, including AR-15s, is an issue of growing concern for some lawmakers. It overlaps in part with the issue of 3D-printed “undetectable” firearms discussed in a previous Insight (CRS Insight IN10953, Gun… Continue Reading

Do People Look at Legislation on Their Phones? Yes, They Do!

In Custodia Legis: The following is a guest post by Leah K. Ibraheem, the web metrics analyst in the Office of the Chief Information Officer of the Library of Congress. “Natalie shared the news when we hit a big metrics milestone last year of more than a million page views and visits in a single day.  I track metrics… Continue Reading

LC – A Library for You – Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

Library of Congress Blog: “A quiet place for study and reflection” is one answer that might spring to mind. If you take advantage of story times and author talks, you might say, “A social place for programs and gatherings.” Our view here at the Library of Congress is the image of a treasure chest, filled… Continue Reading

Those Partisan Agencies Spent the Most on Google Ads

Statista: “In an effort to increase transparency, Google disclosed American political groups’ expenses in advertising on its platform in the current election cycle. As our chart shows, organizations affiliated with both parties spend huge amounts of money to advertise their policies. Within the top 10 one can find six organizations with a direct link or… Continue Reading

HUD File Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

“WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today a formal complaint against Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act by allowing landlords and home sellers to use its advertising platform to engage in housing discrimination. HUD claims Facebook enables advertisers to control which users receive housing-related ads based upon the… Continue Reading