Year archives: 2023

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 25, 2023

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 the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Secretive White House Surveillance Program Gives Cops Access to Trillions of US Phone Records; Commercial Flights Are Experiencing ‘Unthinkable’ GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do; ChatGPT Has Been Turned Into A Social Media Surveillance Assistant; and Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new Outlook.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Email Security, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Travel

Using FOIA Libraries to Your Advantage

This presentation by Lisa DeLuca, Assistant Dean/Associate Professor Seton Hall University Libraries, South Orange, NJ is an actionable resource for training colleagues and other professionals on how to locate FOIA documents as well as to navigate and effectively execute Freedom of Information Act requests.

Subjects: Archives, Education, FOIA Facts, Government Resources, KM, Legal Research

Hamas isn’t the first military group to hide behind civilians as a way to wage war

Benjamin Jensen, a war strategy expert from American University School of International Service who served 20 years in the military explained that civilians often become pawns in war when one side does not have a military advantage against a stronger adversary – and looks for other ways to weaken their opponent.

Subjects: Comparative/Foreign Law, Healthcare, Human Rights, Legal Research, Refugees, Terrorism

‘Unmasking AI’ and the Fight for Algorithmic Justice

Nabiha Syed is the chief executive officer of The Markup. She interviews Dr. Joy Buolamwini who has been thinking about collective harm and AI for years, especially when it comes to algorithmic accountability and justice. Her new book, “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines,” is a must-read exploration of how broad swaths of humanity are vulnerable in a world that is rapidly adopting AI tools. We, like Buolamwini, are optimists: We can demand a better path than the one we’re on, but that requires us thinking collectively, participating, and innovating in a different way than we have in the past.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Labor Law, Legal Research, Privacy

Research Guide: Law of International Armed Conflict

High emotions generated by the Israel-Hamas conflict make this a time of wild claims and counterclaims. Few subjects are timelier and more critical than the Law of Armed Conflict, (LOAC), frequently referred to as the Law of War, (LOW). The concept is sometimes referred to by a better name, International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Researching LOAC/LOW/IHL can challenge U.S. researchers and lawyers. There are no codified statutes or well-organized case law of the types familiar to most U.S. researchers. This guide to the ongoing war, by Jerry Lason and Sabrina I. Pacifici, identifies significant applicable documents and relevant resources and will be updated moving forward.

Subjects: Legal Research

AI in Banking and Finance, November 16, 2023

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government reports, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Each entry includes the publication name, date published, article title and abstract. Four highlights from this post: AI Guide for Government, A Living and Evolving Guide to the Application of Artificial Intelligence for the U.S. Federal Government; The A.I. Dilemma: Growth versus Existential Risk; The world is locked in a race, and competition, over dominance in AI; and Nontraditional Data, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing in Macroeconomics.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance

Israel-Hamas War Project

With our new Israel-Hamas War Project – read the first article here – we are doing what we can to help Truth catch up with Falsehood. Our goal is to document accurate, timely and actionable resources for researchers. We hope that providing this guide will assist policymakers, diplomats, analysts, journalists, scholars, and the public. Improved understanding of the law of war should raise the level of public discussion and facilitate better decision-making at this critical time.

Subjects: Criminal Law, Government Resources, International Legal Research, KM, Legal Research, Military, Refugees, Terrorism

The Tech at ‘Cop Con’: Cigarette Carton Trackers, VR for School Shootings, and ‘Peacekeeper Batons’

Ese Olumhense a reporter at The Markup gives us an overview of how the International Association of Chiefs of Police brings police leadership and tech vendors together at its annual conference, where clear trends about the future of law enforcement emerged.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Data Mining, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy