Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Tell the Senate Not to Put the Register of Copyrights in the Hands of the President With just a week left for this Congress, one of the weirdest bad copyright bills is back on the calendar. The “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” would make the Register of Copyrights a presidential appointee, politicizing a role that should not be made a presidential pawn. On Tuesday, December 4, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration is scheduled to vote on S. 1010, the Senate version of the “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” already passed by the House of Representatives as H.R. 1695. If it passes out of the committee, the whole Senate will be able to vote on it with only days left in the 2018 session. Currently, the Register of Copyrights is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, as the Copyright Office is part of the Library. This bill would take the appointment out of the hands of the Librarian and put it in the hands of the President....

Sacramento County Welfare Division Terminates Automated License Plate Reader Program The Sacramento County’s Department of Human Assistance (DHA) is terminating its invasive automated license plate reader ( ALPR ) program, following an EFF investigation that found the agency was accessing driver data to investigate welfare recipients without enacting the basic civil liberties safeguards required by California law.  Over the last two years, DHA spent $10,000 to access a massive database of information about people’s driving patterns. Vigilant Solution’s LEARN system includes billions of license plate scans, with time stamps and geolocation, collected by law enforcement agencies and private contractors using high-speed ALPR cameras. In addition to serving as a cloud storage service, LEARN also functions as an analytical tool that can be used to track vehicle owners in near real-time, reveal their travel history (such as where they park their cars), and identify cars ...

Why do  microgrids  become a hot topic when talking about natural disasters’ impacts and possible solutions? In an increasingly connected society, the economic impact of extreme weather and associated power outages has escalated rapidly. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 2017 was the costliest year on record, with 16 different disasters collectively costing the United States  more than $300 billion . As government officials and policy stakeholders grapple with how to respond to this unprecedented economic and environmental impact, voices have emerged in support of a strategy that emphasizes proactive investments in resilience over reactionary response. In fact, the director of government affairs at the World Resources Institute, Christina DeConcini, recently told the  New York Times  that the federal government is not adapting to the risks posed by climate change; spending too many resources on rebuilding in regions affected by ...