Preparing for Agroterror: How is the Texas Animal Health Commission Implementing Federal Food Security Regulations?

Author(s):  
Jordan Hunter

AbstractAgroterrorism is a subform of bioterrorism with the potential to have a crippling impact on both the agricultural industry and the food supply of a nation. A calculated attack using a miniscule amount of pathogenic or disease causing substances on the livestock or crops in one rural community can spread to animals and metropolitan regions much farther away long before any response from state or federal veterinary or agricultural organizations. Although there have been no large-scale agroterrorism attacks in the United States, there have been historical precedents for agricultural biological warfare and recent examples of unintentional or accidental spread of pathogens in the food supply that have threatened the health and safety of the public. Along with an ongoing push for preparedness to prevent a biological attack on the U.S. agricultural industry, there is a great deal of uncertainty and conflict among landowners, farmers, analysts, and politicians about what methods should be implemented to safeguard the public. In response to this possible threat, the United States government has implemented legislation that it considers preemptive in its ability to safeguard the food supply and manage the public health and/or biological crime response in a widespread agroterrorist attack scenario. However, this requires cooperation on both the state and federal levels, and of several agencies including the department of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Health and Human Services. This paper examines the steps being taken by the USDA in fulfilling the orders of the federal government in response to the looming threat of agroterrorism and how the TAHC works cooperatively with federal agencies and the private agricultural industry to carry out these regulations.

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (52) ◽  
pp. e2110347118
Author(s):  
Ray Block ◽  
Charles Crabtree ◽  
John B. Holbein ◽  
J. Quin Monson

In this article, we present the results from a large-scale field experiment designed to measure racial discrimination among the American public. We conducted an audit study on the general public—sending correspondence to 250,000 citizens randomly drawn from public voter registration lists. Our within-subjects experimental design tested the public’s responsiveness to electronically delivered requests to volunteer their time to help with completing a simple task—taking a survey. We randomized whether the request came from either an ostensibly Black or an ostensibly White sender. We provide evidence that in electronic interactions, on average, the public is less likely to respond to emails from people they believe to be Black (rather than White). Our results give us a snapshot of a subtle form of racial bias that is systemic in the United States. What we term everyday or “paper cut” discrimination is exhibited by all racial/ethnic subgroups—outside of Black people themselves—and is present in all geographic regions in the United States. We benchmark paper cut discrimination among the public to estimates of discrimination among various groups of social elites. We show that discrimination among the public occurs more frequently than discrimination observed among elected officials and discrimination in higher education and the medical sector but simultaneously, less frequently than discrimination in housing and employment contexts. Our results provide a window into the discrimination that Black people in the United States face in day-to-day interactions with their fellow citizens.


Author(s):  
Guoyan Wang ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Lingfei Wang ◽  
Zhi Xu

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in radical changes in many aspects of life. To deal with this, each country has implemented continuous health measures from the beginning of the outbreak. Discovering how governmental actions impacted public behaviour during the outbreak stage is the purpose of this study. Methods: This study uses a hybrid large-scale data visualisation method to analyse public behaviour (epidemic concerns, self-protection, and mobility trends), using the data provided by multiple authorities. Meanwhile, a content analysis method is used to qualitatively code the health measures of three countries with severe early epidemic outbreaks from different continents, namely China, Italy, and the United States. Eight dimensions are coded to rate the mobility restrictions implemented in the above countries. Results: (1) Governmental measures did not immediately persuade the public to change their behaviours during the COVID-19 epidemic. Instead, the public behaviour proceeded in a three-phase rule, which is typically witnessed in an epidemic outbreak, namely the wait-and-see phase, the surge phase and the slow-release phase. (2) The strictness of the mobility restrictions of the three countries can be ranked as follows: Hubei Province in China (with an average score of 8.5 out of 10), Lombardy in Italy (7.125), and New York State in the United States (5.375). Strict mobility restrictions are more likely to cause a surge of population outflow from the epidemic area in the short term, whereas the effect of mobility restrictions is positively related to the stringency of policies in the long term. Conclusion: The public showed generally lawful behaviour during regional epidemic outbreaks and blockades. Meanwhile public behaviour was deeply affected by the actions of local governments, rather than the global pandemic situation. The contextual differences between the various countries are important factors that influence the effects of the different governments’ health measures.


2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Tolley ◽  
Nancy Beadie

The presence of academies in the United States spans roughly three centuries. Originating in the colonial era, academies spread across the country by mid-nineteenth century. Such institutions generally served students between the ages of eight and twenty-five, providing a relatively advanced form of schooling that was legally incorporated to ensure financial support beyond that available through tuition alone. According to one contemporary source, by 1850 more than 6,100 incorporated academies existed in the United States, with enrollments nine times greater than those of the nation's colleges. Nineteenth-century supporters portrayed academies as exemplars of the nation's commitment to enlightenment and learning; opponents argued that they were harmful to the public interest. Those in favor of a large-scale system of public high schools dismissed academies as irrelevant and outmoded institutions. The culmination of this controversy is well known, because it is reiterated in every secondary text on the history of American education. As a widespread system of public higher schooling supplanted the academies in the twentieth century, private and independent schools dropped out of the mainstream of American educational discourse. The following essays seek to recover something of the long history of academies in the United States and to reconsider the historical significance of these institutions in society.


1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-54
Author(s):  
William Jansen

For readers who may not be familiar with the Agency for International Development, allow me to provide some background information. AID administers most of the foreign economic assistance programs of the United States government and is concerned primarily with direct, or "bilateral," assistance to other countries. Large scale United States assistance efforts began in, 1947 with the European Recovery Program (later known as the Marshall Plan) and were supplemented by the Point IV program in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The 1954 Food for Peace Act provided food commodities to feed people in need overseas and, in the latter 1950's the Development Loan Program was begun so the United States could provide financial assistance to developing countries. Then, in 1961, most United States foreign assistance was consolidated in the newly established Agency for International Development.


1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Pierce

If, for the moment, we can conceive of Uncle Sam as being Andrew Carnegie, of Carnegie's millions as unimproved real estate, and of Carnegie's intention to die poor, as Uncle Sam's liberal land policy, we can perhaps best picture to ourselves the public land administration in the United States in a nutshell. The government, like Carnegie, is unloading its vast wealth in a manner calculated to do the most good, and it is guarding itself continuously, although often futilely, from being imposed upon and cheated. The ownership of the public domain by the United States is of the highest possible title. There is no one to dispute the government's absolute ownership of it. There are no taxes to pay. The government is subject to no obligation to dispose of its land. It can keep or dispose of the land as it chooses.In 1789 the United States government started as owner of practically all of the Northwest Territory. Later it acquired, what some geographers call the Southwest Territory, by further cession from the States. By purchase, discovery, annexation and conquest the United States acquired further holdings, so that with the exception of Texas and private holdings the government's fee simple title in the public domain extended from the thirteen colonies to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of Florida to the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans.


2017 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Wilkin

The 1961 Copyright Office study on renewals, authored by Barbara Ringer, has cast an outsized influence on discussions of the U.S. 1923–1963 public domain. As more concrete data emerge from initiatives such as the large-scale determination process in the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) project, questions are raised about the reliability or meaning of the Ringer data. A closer examination of both the Ringer study and CRMS data demonstrates fundamental misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the Ringer data, as well as possible methodological issues. Estimates of the size of the corpus of public domain books published in the United States from 1923 through 1963 have been inflated by problematic assumptions, and we should be able to correct mistaken conclusions with reasonable effort.


2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (10) ◽  
pp. 571
Author(s):  
Kyle K. Courtney

U.S. copyright law has a unique place in the world regarding federal works and copyright. Federal copyright law states that “Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government.”1 This is a broad and clear statement that works of the federal government are in the public domain and are free for use by all.


Author(s):  
David LaFreniere

Abstract An analysis of the United States’ government ability to conduct experiments on the general public, with a Specific emphasis on the Common Rule.


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