The majority of voters did not vote for Donald Trump for president; the majority of voters did not vote for Republican candidates for the Senate; and fewer than 51% of voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The Republican Party now controls the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, no matter how that came to be. I believe it is worth bearing in mind that a majority of U.S. citizens did not support the Republican winners.   read more

The U.S. Senate is considering a change to the Free Flow of Information Act (FFIA), which protects journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources. Under the proposed amendment (pdf), a “journalist” would be more narrowly defined, and it would exclude many independent reporters and bloggers from avoiding court subpoenas.   read more

47% of all U.S. employees are in professions that are vulnerable to being taken over by robots or computers as high-tech advances continue. After examining more than 700 job listings, Frey and Osborne concluded that computers today could replace many people working in transportation, administrative support and other jobs. Given current technology, the jobs that are most vulnerable to computer takeover are ones that pay the least.   read more

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) received a $22,230 trip to Ireland, compliments of the Franklin Center for Global Policy Exchange and the Ripon Society, who sponsored a conference on TransAtlantic Capital to Capital Exchange. The congressman was accompanied by his wife, as well as ten other House members and their spouses. Sixty-three others traveled to Israel for an education seminar, which was paid for by the American-Israel Foundation.   read more

Akbar, a legal fellow with the British human rights group Reprieve and the director of the Pakistan-based Foundation for Fundamental Rights, represents more than 150 survivors of drone attacks and their family members in a lawsuit filed against Central Intelligence Agency and government officials in Pakistan. Akbar told The Guardian, “Before I started drone investigations I never had an issue with US visa. In fact, I had a US diplomatic visa for two years.”   read more

The researchers speculate that the unknown trader may have tried to alter the perception of how well Romney was doing. After examining market bets placed during the end of the campaign, Sethi and Rothschild say the trader accounted for about 30% of all the money wagered on Romney in the last two weeks before Election Day. “This was someone who was extremely sophisticated,” Sethi told The Wall Street Journal. “It was not someone who was dumb or stupid.”   read more

USIS wa spun off from OPM in July 1996, during the Bill Clinton administration. Essentially, OPM’s security and investigations unit was privatized as USIS, which retained those OPM employees as part of the company. When the private firm was launched, the government awarded it a three-year non-competitive contract. With 100 active federal contracts under its belt, USIS stands as the government’s largest private contractor handling background checks.   read more

The panel assembled to determine if the NSA has violated Americans’ civil liberties consists of five members—four of whom have previously worked for Democratic administrations. Nowhere in the White House memo is the panel instructed to investigate surveillance abuses. The panel’s report is due by December 15. On that date it is not to be made public, nor is it to be delivered to the press. Rather, it will be submitted to the White House for review.   read more

Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News said the ruling represented “a rare judicial setback for the CIA, and a reversal of the more familiar expansion of national security secrecy authority.” Harry Hammitt of Access Reports, which monitors FOIA policy, told Aftergood that the ruling “really is something pretty remarkable,” because “Judge Howell has narrowed the interpretation of the statute dramatically.”   read more

Gallup says 60% of people in the United States now believe Washington has too much power, according to a survey taken September 5-8. This total is one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. When Gallup first asked the question in September 2002, only 39% of respondents thought the federal government had too much power. At least half of the U.S. population has said the government is too powerful for eight years in a row, going back to 2005.   read more

A new study conducted by Professor Jonathan Zittrain and law student Kendra Albert—both of Harvard—says nearly half of the hyperlinks in Supreme Court decisions (49%) no longer work. What this means is that footnotes and citations become lost, making them unavailable to legal professionals. Since 1996, there have been 555 instances in which the Supreme Court justices cited materials only found on the Internet.   read more

Ten members of Congress who have benefited from government-funded farm subsidies voted last week to reduce funding for food stamps that help poor people eat. Rice farmer Doug LaMalfa led the pack. He and his wife, Jill, own one–third of DSL Lamalfa Family Partnership, which received $188,570 in direct payments in 2012 and $5,132,156 total since 1995.   read more

Article 32 hearings are used to determine if there is sufficient evidence to to initiate a court-martial. Over the course of four days, the defense attorneys asked the woman whether she wore a bra, how wide she opened her mouth during oral sex, and whether she had apologized to another midshipman with whom she had intercourse “for being a ho.”   read more

In a previous lawsuit brought by the town of Roxana against Shell, the refinery was said to have allowed 18 spills over a 25-year period. The new civil case claims more than 200,000 pounds of pure benzene have been released from Wood River since Shell owned the refinery. The company also stands accused of polluting the area around Roxana with other chemicals, including ethylbenzene, toluene and n-hexane.   read more

The investigation revealed that fake reviews were often written in other countries, including Bangladesh and the Philippines, where individuals sold them for as little as one dollar each. Businesses are often tempted to purchase fraudulent feedback for their websites because higher rankings can often mean more customers. For instance, a bump in just one star on Yelp can result in a 5%-9% increase in revenues, according to a 2011 Harvard Business School study.   read more

A big problem with the system is a lack of required federal standards, which has resulted in states and local governments using different rules for food dating. This has caused consumers to lack confidence in the information they’re given. And when consumers are in doubt, they’re likely to throw out food, including items that are still edible.   read more

Several states are paying private prison companies for housing prisoners who don’t exist, according to a new report from the advocacy group In the Public Interest. And there’s not much they can do, because of “occupancy clauses” in many private prison contracts that guarantee revenue even when prison populations decline. The report found quotas for prisoners ranging from 70% to 100% in nearly two-thirds of them. Most of the contracts mandated that at least 90% of prison beds be filled.   read more