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2026-08-29 04:39:45 CEST

Buc-ee’s Decides The Right Response To Pushback On Its Trademark Bullying Is To Invoke Partisanship
We’ve been detailing the trademark bullying ways of [Buc-ee’s][1], famous gas station and convenience store chain in the American south and infamous IP bully, for over a year now. Buc-ee’s seems to think that any [semi-related business][2] that has branding that involves a [cartoon animal][3] or in any way references beavers somehow violates its trademark rights, no matter how [absurd][4] a claim of potential public confusion might be. I’ve likened them to the Monster Energy of convenience stores and it’s all gotten bad enough that John Oliver has dedicated multiple segments of his show to both [highlight][5] how shitty this company behaves and to [dare them][6] to sue him and his crew.
Now, the proper response to what is becoming a full on PR nightmare for the company would be to do some serious introspection, realize that its behavior is antagonistic and ultimately counter-productive, and then promise the public to do things better and differently in the future. Or, if you’re the Buc-ee’s brass, you instead publicly state that the only [real problem here is all them damned libs][7].
> *Gas station and travel center chain Buc-ee’s said it will seek out “conservative, business friendly” states for new locations after receiving pushback over its decision to go after small business owners with allegedly similar logos. *
>
> *“We have a lot of opportunities. We’re growing. We’re building in a lot of places, but when you find a conservative, business-friendly state with a phenomenal workforce, it makes a difference,” CEO Arch Aplin III said in a [video clip][8] posted by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R). *
>
> *“And I’m starting to realize life’s too short to try to build in places that people don’t appreciate what you’re bringing versus a place like this, where people do appreciate what you’re building,” Aplin continued.*
This response is so absurd as to be nearly a non-sequitur. Buc-ee’s has received public pushback for its trademark bullying ways in Missouri, Texas, South Carolina, and most recently Ohio. These are not bastions of left-wing government, folks. Hell, some of the most direct pushback in Ohio has come from its governor, Mike DeWine, who is a tried and true Republican.
> *Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has argued the company’s decision [to sue a local business][9] operator in Beavercreek, Ohio, for alleged trademark infringement was “ridiculous.”*
I realize that the way we’re supposed to operate in 2026 is to reduce any and all conflict and conversation into some kind of red team, blue team partisanship, but that’s stupid and I won’t participate. And neither should you, in case that weren’t obvious. The pushback Buc-ee’s has received isn’t another spoke in the fabricated culture wars some craven politicians are attempting to push on everyone. It’s a result of a big company bullying tons of local small businesses for no reason that is actually justified by trademark law.
But if Buc-ee’s wants to take it’s beaver-ball and go home, fine. Whatever limits the spread of its trademark bullying is just fine with me.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/company/buc-ees/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/16/buc-ees-gas-station-chain-is-becoming-the-monster-energy-of-gas-stations-for-trademark-bullying/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/11/beavers-are-not-moose-buc-ees-sues-competitor-over-cartoon-moose-branding/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/20/buc-ees-sues-parody-apparel-shop-for-parodying-its-brand/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/john-oliver-doubles-down-after-latest-buc-ees-trademark-bullying-lawsuit/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/30/john-oliver-dares-buc-ees-to-sue-him-over-trademark-infringement/
[7]: https://thehill.com/business/6052969-bucees-trademark-infringement-lawsuits-conservative/
[8]: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2419490991875500
[9]: https://thehill.com/homenews/6017079-buc-ees-beaver-logo-lawsuit-ohio/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/28/buc-ees-decides-the-right-response-to-pushback-on-its-trademark-bullying-is-to-invoke-partisanship/

2026-08-29 00:12:54 CEST

‘Right To Repair’ State Laws Continue To Surge, But Enforcement Remains Nonexistent
There’s still [a massive effort afoot][1] to implement statewide “right to repair” laws that try to make it cheaper, easier, and environmentally friendlier for you to repair the technology you own. [All fifty states have at least flirted with the idea][2], though only Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington have actually passed laws.
US PIRG tells the Guardian that this year alone, legislators have [introduced more than 50 bills across 22 states][3], including a Florida bill that addresses [wheelchairs][4], a motorcycle-oriented bill [in Missouri][5], and a proposal [in Ohio][6] that would apply broad new consumer repair protections across everything from digital devices to aircraft and construction equipment.
In Iowa, state lawmakers passed a first draft of right-to-repair legislation in April that focuses heavily on agricultural equipment and tractors, a subject that has driven broad, bipartisan support:
> *“Farmers have been fixing their own equipment as long as they have been farming, and it’s essential to the sustainability of our farms that we be able to have that control over the equipment,” said Aaron Lehman, who is also president of the Iowa Farmers Union.”*
And on the federal level, efforts remain slow but ongoing to pass the [Repair Act][7], which states that “a motor vehicle manufacturer may not employ any technological barrier or specified legal barrier that impairs the ability of a motor vehicle owner” to “access vehicle-generated data.”
One strange trend I keep seeing however (and this is perpetuated in the [Guardian piece][8]): despite major progress on passing new legislative proposals, **I’ve yet to see a single state enforce any aspect of a new right to repair law despite absolutely no shortage of corporate offenders**. And in several of these states these laws are approaching four or five years of age.
So while the momentum the movement has built is impressive, it’s decidedly less impressive if the new laws passed are so full of loopholes as to be pointless (as we saw when New York’s right to repair law was [watered down post-passage][9]), or enforcement doesn’t result in any actual observable reform. At some point activism has to start hammering real-world enforcement of laws already on the books.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/10/all-50-states-have-now-pushed-right-to-repair-laws-but-actual-enforcement-is-spotty-at-best/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/10/all-50-states-have-now-pushed-right-to-repair-laws-but-actual-enforcement-is-spotty-at-best/
[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/17/right-to-repair-laws
[4]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/586
[5]: https://documents.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills261/sumpdf/HB1660I.pdf
[6]: https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/sb176
[7]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1566
[8]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/17/right-to-repair-laws
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/07/nys-right-to-repair-law-was-neutered-by-lobbyists-and-governor-hochul-after-passage-now-some-lawmakers-are-trying-to-fix-it/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/28/right-to-repair-state-laws-continue-to-surge-but-enforcement-remains-nonexistent/

2026-08-28 22:18:24 CEST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Move Fast And Settle Things
**[Ctrl-Alt-Speech][1] is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and [Everything in Moderation][2]‘s Ben Whitelaw. **
**Subscribe now on [Apple Podcasts][3], [Overcast][4], [Spotify][5], [Pocket Casts][6], [YouTube][7], or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to [the RSS feed][8].** **To get extended episodes with additional coverage, [support us on Patreon][9].**
In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:
* [Meta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform][10] (Techdirt)
* [Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure His Competitors Share His Pain][11] (New York Times)
* [Meta settlement opens new front in global fight over social media harm][12] (Reuters)
And in the extended episode for [Patreon supporters][13], they cover:
* [UK expects Meta to match US child safety measures after $18bn settlement][14] (The Guardian)
* [What Meta’s US Settlement on Child Safety Means for Europe][15] (TechPolicy.Press)
* [Did Meta’s Big Settlement Actually Help It?][16] (New York Times)
Our fun links this week include a [new table format for food recipes][17] and [Rainbolt’s tear-jerking Geoguessr video][18].
If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can [get the extended episode on Patreon][19].
[1]: https://ctrlaltspeech.com/
[2]: https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/
[3]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ctrl-alt-speech/id1734530193
[4]: https://overcast.fm/itunes1734530193
[5]: https://open.spotify.com/show/1N3tvLxUTCR7oTdUgUCQvc
[6]: https://pca.st/zulnarbw
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcky6_VTbejGkZ7aHqqc3ZjufeEw2AS7Z
[8]: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2315966.rss
[9]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/
[11]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/technology/meta-settlement-mark-zuckerberg-youtube-tiktok.html
[12]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/meta-settlement-opens-new-front-global-fight-over-social-media-harm-2026-08-27/
[13]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[14]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/27/uk-meta-child-safety-measures-us-social-media-instagram
[15]: https://www.techpolicy.press/what-metas-us-settlement-on-child-safety-means-for-europe/
[16]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/business/dealbook/meta-settlement-teens.html
[17]: https://recipetables.com/
[18]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LukkI0FV724
[19]: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2176497?view=condensed
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/28/ctrl-alt-speech-move-fast-and-settle-things/

2026-08-28 20:10:58 CEST

Daily Deal: Raspberry Pi Pico With Ultimate Starter Kit
The [SunFounder Raspberry Pi Pico With the Ultimate Starter Kit][1] offers a rich IoT learning experience for beginners aged 8 and up. With over 450 components, 117 projects, and expert-led tutorials, this kit makes learning microcontroller programming and IoT engaging and accessible. It also features 27 video lessons by renowned educator Paul McWhorter, simplifying microcontroller programming and IoT concepts. Packed with diverse hardware, including sensors, actuators, LEDs, and LCDs, it enables endless experimentation and creativity. Supporting three programming languages, MicroPython, C/C++, and Piper Make, the kit caters to varying skill levels while fostering coding versatility. With dedicated technical support and a vibrant online community, this all-in-one starter kit ensures a seamless, hands-on journey into the world of IoT. It’s on sale for $65 for a limited time.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/raspberry-pi-pico-w-ultimate-starter-kit?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/28/daily-deal-raspberry-pi-pico-with-ultimate-starter-kit/

2026-08-28 14:36:20 CEST

Republicans Stumble In Bid To Flood Midterm Airwaves With Discounted Ads
Back in June, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in *[National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission][1]* that federal limits on coordinated expenditures by political parties violate the First Amendment. Which is every bit as stupid and corrupt as it sounds.
Previously, under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), political parties were subjected to strict statutory caps on how much money they could spend in direct coordination with their candidates’ campaigns. The Supreme Court’s June ruling eliminated candidate contribution caps, made it much easier for rich people to flood Joint Fundraising Committees (JFCs) with cash, and basically gave a giant green light for [more quid-pro quo corruption][2] to be exploited by dark money groups.
Given the broad disparity in how much money the two U.S. parties have ($125 million for the GOP versus [a bunch of debt for the mismanaged DNC][3]) Republicans were keen to use the Supreme Court ruling to their advantage in the coming midterms, hoping to flood the airwaves with more dark money-funded agitprop than ever before in a bid to try and offset Donald Trump’s nose-diving popularity.
Hoping to embolden their plan and provide discounts, the Brendan Carr FCC’s media bureau [quietly issued an announcement late last March][4] saying they were making some changes to the FCC’s lowest unit charge (LUC) requirements governing broadcast TV political ads. The changes expanded which political entities qualified for discounted broadcast advertising rates.
Historically, a subset of political candidates were given a discounted rate on ads starting 60 days before the midterms (generally the lowest rate any advertiser has to pay during that block of time). The Supreme Court and FCC collaborated to extend that discount to effectively all dark money political groups and JFCs, giving the GOP a massive advantage in midterm messaging and spending.
But things have since gotten slightly more complicated for Republicans.
Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic Commissioner (because Republicans refuse to fill the other empty Democrat seat), issued a [statement this week][5] belatedly blasting the Carr FCC for expediting America’s steady decline at the hand of billionaire donors and political corruption:
> *“In the final stretch of a national election, this FCC is unleashing a flood of coordinated
> campaign money into broadcast advertising, just as the Supreme Court has cleared the way
> for unlimited coordinated spending between parties and candidates. This unprecedented,
> last-minute decision gives the biggest political spenders an even bigger advantage over
> everyone else by expanding the candidate-only discount established by law to joint
> fundraising and party committees, an advantage that will make it hard for anyone else to
> catch up before Election Day.*
According to Gomez, Carr’s FCC also made the changes with all the transparency you might expect:
> *This decision was made behind closed doors by agency staff, not by the full Commission, and it contradicts what this administration itself told the Supreme Court less than a year ago about who qualifies for this discount. In direct conflict with the administration’s position, the FCC relies on alleged staff-level guidance that was never provided in writing and that nobody could find, and adopted it with no opportunity for the public to weigh in. The American people should not have sweeping election-year rule changes forced on them in the dark, on the eve of an election, without a single opportunity for public input.*
But there’s some new bad news for Brendan Carr and the Republican midterm agitprop machine: Sen. Jon Ossoff, Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet and Senate candidates Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown filed a lawsuit last June attempting to stop the FCC. And this week, The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals [sided 2-1 with the four Democrats][6], temporarily suspending the FCC effort:
> *“The [lowest unit charge] requirement and campaign finance statutes are clear that neither political parties nor joint fundraising committees with non-candidate members can be entitled to the LUC.”*
The court found that the Carr FCC also basically ignored numerous complaints by broadcasters and politicians about the unfairness of the discounted ad rate plan:
> *“Despite the time-sensitive nature of these proceedings, the Commission intentionally took no action and offered no response to the Application for more than three months. The Commission did not, for example, seek responses from impacted parties, or engage in fact finding, or secure supplemental briefing, or solicit public comment, or schedule or conduct an oral argument.”*
Funny, that.
Republicans will inevitably appeal. Though the Republican effort to get highly discounted rates for their midterm agitprop campaigns has stalled out at an inopportune time (for them). But overall, the general direction of U.S. lobbying and corruption safeguards generally has only been headed one direction, with fairly ugly and obvious results everywhere you look.
[1]: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/national-republican-senatorial-committee-v-federal-election-commission/
[2]: https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/national-republican-senatorial-committee-v-federal-election-commission/
[3]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/30/the-supreme-court-just-made-the-dncs-fundraising-woes-a-much-bigger-problem-00983172
[4]: https://www.fcc.gov/document/bureau-issues-guidance-concerning-lowest-unit-charge-requirements
[5]: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-424367A1.pdf
[6]: https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/261785.P.pdf
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/28/republicans-stumble-in-bid-to-flood-midterm-airwaves-with-discounted-ads/

2026-08-28 06:07:08 CEST

Irony: Catholic Bishops Tell FL Officials To Respect Its Religious Liberty To Not Accept Religious Exemptions For Vaccines
The country is continuing to reel from multiple infectious disease outbreaks in America, even as childhood vaccination rates [continue to fall][1]. Measles, cyclosporiasis, whooping cough: you don’t actually need me to go on. With RFK Jr. using his position as Secretary of HHS to further muddy the waters on vaccines and their safety, some states are going even further than the federal government. Even as states like South Carolina have fielded proposals to end [religious exemptions][2] for public school inoculations, states like Florida have attempted to go the opposite direction and simply end all school vaccine requirements by law. While that attempt has so far failed, there are state laws that mandate schools accept religious exemptions for vaccines.
And not just public schools. This mandate is written to affect private religious schools as well and the irony here is thick. For example, [Florida AG James Uthmeier wrote a letter][3] to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops warning them that they might qualify for state scholarships and vouchers any longer. Why? Because Florida Catholic schools *don’t accept religious exemptions* for vaccine requirements.
As you can read for yourself in Uthmeier’s post, his letter did far more than issue that warning. It also went into great detail in explaining to a group of *Catholic Bishops* why *they* don’t have any legitimate religious reason to refuse those exemptions. Uthmeier did correctly identify that there is irony in all of this, but his targeting computer is off. The actual irony is in a government official, an Attorney General no less, telling religious elders what their own religion says, all while blatantly violating the First Amendment.
Here’s the First Amendment’s opening text, in case you need it.
> *Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.*
If an AG can tell a religion what it means to express its faith, then there is no point to the opening of the First Amendment. They can’t. This is obvious.
But let it never be said that Florida Bishops aren’t a patient lot, I suppose. The FCCB [took the time to respond to Uthmeier][4] to demonstrate precisely their religious justification for refusing vaccination exemptions.
> *Florida’s Catholic schools do not accept religious exemptions for vaccines. In [a letter][5] to Attorney General James Uthmeier, made public last week, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops said Florida bishops don’t have to justify their position, but are doing so “out of respect for you and your office.”*
>
> *The letter goes on to say that the position against religious exemptions for vaccines is rooted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which [states][6] that, “Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.” *
A better justification for vaccinations in general this writer could not come up with. And the debunking of Uthmeier’s misguided attempt to tell Catholic leaders what they should believe is fairly easy, as well. The AG’s letter makes much of the idea that today’s vaccines include the cells of presumably newly aborted fetuses and, since the Catholic Church is very much anti-abortion, that means that they should I guess be anti-vaccine as well. Which, if you’re following along, isn’t an argument that Catholic schools should accept religious exemptions for students, but rather an argument that no Catholic anywhere should get vaccinated at all.
Except he’s wrong. Vaccines produced today, and even going back decades and decades, don’t contain any cells from newly aborted fetuses.
> *Vaccines do not contain fetal cells. As the [American Academy of Pediatrics explains][7], some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s: “These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.”*
>
> *The [Catholic Church says][8] it’s morally permissible to receive these vaccines and that people who choose to vaccinate their children can do so with a clear conscience because, as the Florida bishops note, “the parent is not cooperating with the original immoral act.” *
>
> *Additionally, in 2021, Pope Francis [told people][9] to get the COVID-19 vaccine, calling it an “act of love,” even though fetal cell lines were used to develop both the [Moderna and Pfizer shots][10]. *
Does AG Uthmeier *really* intend to argue with the Pope, the vicar of Christ to Catholics, about what is permissible under Catholic dogma and what is not? This from the same party that absolutely adores playing religious victim when it suits their own political desires, or when they want to encroach on American secular society.
If the Uthmeier had any shame, he’d immediately apologize for disrespecting Florida Catholics, Catholic leadership, and for wildly overreaching in his attempt to carry out his state government’s stupid attempt to make everyone sicker. But he won’t. At best he’ll slink away and say no more on the topic at all.
But if we’re really lucky, there will be a conflict that pits the Florida government against the Catholic Church with the latter crying foul over an encroachment on its own religious liberty. Were I of a praying sort, that is what I would pray for.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/19/even-as-disease-outbreaks-abound-american-vaccination-rates-in-children-fall/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/sc-state-senator-proposes-bill-to-remove-religious-exemptions-for-vaccines-in-public-school-children/
[3]: https://x.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2083195474148737133
[4]: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-vaccines/catholic-bishops-tell-florida-ag-theres-no-theological-reason-school-vaccine
[5]: https://flaccb.org/documents/2026/8/260807AGUthmeierResponseCORR.pdf
[6]: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/index.cfm?recnum=6097
[7]: https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/fact-checked/fact-checked-vaccines-do-not-contain-fetal-cells-thimerosal/?srsltid=AfmBOoqqYi8hogq5OpU7wVHAGHw8-cp4g5tqW0pje1jVc33Uc5fF6p3I
[8]: https://uscatholic.org/articles/202509/is-there-a-moral-obligation-to-vaccinate-your-children/
[9]: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-08/pope-francis-appeal-covid-19-vaccines-act-of-love.html
[10]: https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/27/irony-catholic-bishops-tell-fl-officials-to-respect-its-religious-liberty-to-not-accept-religious-exemptions-for-vaccines/

2026-08-27 21:59:59 CEST

LA Mayor Karen Bass The Latest Democrat To Wimp Out On Paramount Merger
The unpopular Paramount Warner Brothers merger should have been a perfect opportunity for Democrats to demonstrate they are finally serious about stuff like media consolidation, right wing propaganda, media reform, and antitrust after decades of policy incoherence.
Instead, numerous prominent California Democrats have been buckling to Paramount demands aimed at settling a 12-state antitrust lawsuit aimed at protecting consumers, labor, and markets from the $111 billion deal’s [obvious looming labor and competition harms][1].
That includes California Governor Gavin Newsom, who recently [quietly leaked word][2] that he’d prefer it if California AG Rob Bonta settle the lawsuit instead of taking it to court (which still has the very real potential to kill the terrible deal entirely). Same for gubernatorial [nominee Xavier Becerra][3], who recently insisted “you get way more done in the conference room than you do in the courtroom.”
Settlement also appears to be the position of Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who [seems to believe that a patchwork of conditions will somehow protect Hollywood, and the country at large, from Trump-allied billionaire Larry Ellison][4] and his plan for U.S. media domination:
> *“While there are varying perspectives on the proposed transaction, today we are united around one clear message: It is time for all parties to come to the table. The continued uncertainty is not good for workers, not good for productions and not good for the future of this industry,” Bass said during a press conference.*
>
> *She added, “Too many productions are at a standstill, which means Angelenos are out of a job and they’re not getting paid. As mayor, I cannot stand by as the job security of thousands of hardworking union members is being put at risk. That is why we are calling on Paramount, Attorney General Rob Bonta and all relevant parties to come together, engage directly and in good faith and work urgently to find common ground and keep our vital industry in Los Angeles.”*
As somebody who has covered big telecom and media mergers for the better part of an adult life, such conditions (which sound like they could include a [forced sale of some TV channels][5]) generally aren’t well crafted, routinely aren’t meaningfully enforced (especially across states), and almost always have a short shelf-life in a way that does nothing to address long-term consolidative harm.
And the Paramount deal, to be clear, is an irredeemable turd. [Data indicates][6] it’s likely to result in endless price hikes, less competition, and untold thousands of layoffs as the massive debt load is offloaded (as always) onto the backs of labor, creatives, and consumers. So understandably, labor unions like WGA West were not impressed by Bass’ push for a settlement in a statement issued to the press:
> *“We are disappointed that Mayor Bass has chosen to join Paramount’s pressure campaign on public enforcers to push through a merger that is being rightfully challenged as illegal and will lead to job losses in the entertainment industry. Her statement comes on the heels of a county report estimating thousands of jobs will be lost if the merger proceeds.”*
Beyond the labor impact, there’s the fact that [49.5% of the debt financing is coming from overseas autocrats like the Saudi government][7], raising no limit of foreign influence concerns (that Republicans like Brendan Carr, who suffered an endless embolism about TikTok’s foreign ties, [suddenly and curiously couldn’t care less about][8]).
It’s also before you get to the fact that billionaire Paramount owner Larry Ellison is an overtly anti-democratic fan of Trump authoritarianism, and very clearly has ambitions to [turn outlets like CBS and CNN into oligarch-friendly right-wing agitprop machines][9]. Or, to be clear, *even more overtly oligarch-friendly right wing agitprop machines*.
The push for meaningless conditions and approval is a characteristic disappointment for Democrats, which haven’t had a functional media reform strategy in the last decade, part of the reason they spend so much time being dog-walked by right wing propaganda seeded across a shaky press.
Outside of spotty exception they’ve also routinely failed to be consistent on antitrust, resulting in Trump authoritarians being able to [openly delude the electorate][10] that they were the party of meaningful antitrust reform [last election season][11].
Democratic incontinence has left it to actors like Mark Ruffalo to be the voice of [coherent reason and leadership on antitrust][12], culminating in Paramount [falsely claiming he was being “antisemitic”][13] for criticizing Larry Ellison, Oracle, and the entire gambit’s documented tether to Benjamin Netanyahu.
California AG Bonta so far doesn’t seem inclined to settle, [cancelling a planned meeting earlier this week][14] after he claimed Paramount both leaked — and misrepresented the focus and intent of — the meetings to the press. But it’s clear the political pressure on him is mounting.
If Bonta does settle, 50 years of U.S. history generally suggests one consistent outcome: the deal moves forward, the conditions don’t really work, the new Paramount/CBS/Warner/CNN empire fires thousands of people, jacks up prices, and releases ever-shittier product in order to cut corners. The debt of the pointless deal strangles whatever’s left of Warner Brothers, resulting in yet more shitty acquisitions by somebody else later on (Netflix, Disney, Amazon).
And, like clockwork, all of the people involved in normalizing it (including the press and a bipartisan parade of politicians and pundits) will memory their role while ignoring the longer-term impact, immediately moving on to supporting the next giant terrible merger having been completely unwilling to learn anything meaningful from experience.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/14/paramount-promises-meaningless-cnn-oversight-board-to-try-and-gain-merger-approval/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/gavin-newsom-makes-an-ass-of-himself-on-antitrust-paramount-merger/
[3]: https://deadline.com/2026/08/xavier-becerra-paramount-warner-bros-lawsuit-1237031600/?ref=karlbode.com
[4]: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/karen-bass-paramount-warner-bros-discovery-settlement-1236677994/
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/california-expected-seek-tv-channel-sales-paramount-warner-wsj-reports-2026-08-23/
[6]: https://opportunity.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Paramount_Warner_Merger_August18_2026_120-day_Motion_ReportBack_Final_KL_REVISED.pdf?ref=karlbode.com
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/04/paramount-reveals-company-will-be-49-5-owned-by-foreign-investors-if-warner-bros-merger-approved/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/04/paramount-reveals-company-will-be-49-5-owned-by-foreign-investors-if-warner-bros-merger-approved/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/21/bari-weiss-gets-to-work-fixing-cbs-bias-by-making-it-more-biased/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/18/just-a-reminder-authoritarians-dont-actually-support-antitrust-reform/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/18/just-a-reminder-authoritarians-dont-actually-support-antitrust-reform/
[12]: https://karlbode.com/the-hulk-hates-fascist-media-consolidation/
[13]: https://karlbode.com/the-hulk-hates-fascist-media-consolidation/
[14]: https://deadline.com/2026/08/bonta-cancels-paramount-settlement-meeting-1237048537/?ref=karlbode.com
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/27/la-mayor-karen-bass-the-latest-democrat-to-wimp-out-on-paramount-merger/

2026-08-27 20:04:43 CEST

Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It.
Six years ago, when Trump [first tried][1] to force ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations to his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison at Oracle, we wondered if this would finally get Oracle to [change its tune on Section 230][2]. While not as widely known outside of Silicon Valley, Oracle has been [a driving force][3] behind the scenes to get Congress to kill Section 230, appearing to do so [almost entirely out of spite][4] directed at Google.
It never made much sense. For most of that time, Oracle was busy trying to build itself into a leading cloud service provider — and cloud services rely on the exact same Section 230 protections Oracle was paying people to attack. But it’s not like Oracle is known for being particularly successful in its ability to [think things out long term][5].
While Trump’s first attempt to hand TikTok to Oracle [flopped][6], the second attempt (helped along by Democrats [succumbing to a bogus moral panic][7] about TikTok’s alleged dangers) resulted in [Oracle ending up with a 15% stake][8] in TikTok (as well as a lucrative hosting deal). In fact, Oracle’s long-term top lobbying exec, Ken Glueck (who was the architect of Oracle’s funding of a bunch of dark money groups that attacked Section 230) actually [ended up with a seat on TikTok’s board][9].
And TikTok is already suffering from the attacks on Section 230. Remember, the [wacky Anderson v. TikTok][10] ruling that bizarrely said TikTok didn’t qualify for Section 230? That kind of ruling doesn’t happen without the widespread drumbeat of “Section 230 has gone too far” that Oracle spent years helping to push. TikTok is in a way worse position legally because of Ken Glueck’s advocacy. And now he’s on their board.
Meanwhile, Oracle, while not in the top tier of cloud providers — AWS, Microsoft, and Google together account for around 63% of enterprise cloud spending — is solidly [at the top of the second tier][11]. And while there aren’t that many Section 230 cases targeting the underlying cloud hosting providers, they’re [not totally unheard of][12].
So, Section 230 protects both Oracle, and its large investment in TikTok. Yet Oracle spent years funding attacks on Section 230 (mainly just to piss off Google) and the main architect of that strategy is now on TikTok’s board.
Which puts us right back where we were six years ago, wondering if Oracle will ever change its tune. The company’s disclosures offer a partial answer. Section 230 is still under attack in DC, but the courts have been [dismantling the law][13] via judicial decisions that it’s not even clear what’s left for Congress to do. Looking at Oracle’s “Political Activity Reports” we see that while [back in 2019][14] it was funding anti-tech groups which promoted attacks on Section 230 (like the Internet Accountability Project, the Free and Fair Markets Initiative, and the Copyright Alliance), [these days][15] it only funds the Copyright Alliance whose remit is larger than just attacking tech (though it still does that too).
Indeed, the IAP and FFMI, who were these huge fake grassroots non-profits designed to hold Google and Amazon to account, barely seem to exist any more. FFMI’s website stopped updating in 2023 and IAP’s in 2024. It’s almost as if they were astroturfed operations that suddenly became unnecessary once Ellison could get what he wanted directly, [having spent $45 million to work his way deeper into Trump’s circle][16].
It looks like a large segment of the “grassroots” movement against Section 230 was conjured into existence with Oracle’s quiet backing, and seems to have evaporated once Oracle no longer needed it to exist.
Of course, there’s also the separate issue of the ongoing attempt by Ellison to also [buy up half of Hollywood][17]. Hollywood itself has probably been the [second biggest force][18], behind Oracle, in the anti-Section 230 lobbying effort over the past decade. Ellison already owns Paramount, and may still end up with Warner Bros., as well, which might pull Oracle’s efforts back towards hating the open internet rather than defending the thing its own business runs on.
The simple fact, though, is that if you want a dynamic, competitive open internet, [you need a strong Section 230][19]. Gutting it won’t hurt the internet giants. They have buildings full of lawyers and can survive the onslaught of misguided lawsuits (most of which they’ll end up winning in the end). However, it will hurt all the small sites, the forums, the upstarts, the blogs that can’t afford to find out whether a case would get dismissed after a couple years and a million dollars of discovery. Who knows… perhaps that’s Ellison’s strategy all along: make the open internet weaker, so the companies he controls have way more power.
The next time Section 230 lands on the chopping block — and it will — Oracle (and, for that matter, TikTok) will have to pick a side. The smart move would be to defend it. But, then again, the smart move all along would have been for Oracle to defend it, and it chose the opposite for many years. The real question is whether Oracle’s years-long campaign against Section 230 comes back to bite it: devaluing the TikTok stake it worked so hard to get, and eating away at the legal protections its entire cloud business sits on top of.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/09/16/tiktok-oracle-grift-insiders-admit-they-went-hunting-tech-company-president-liked/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/08/19/if-oracle-buys-tiktok-would-it-suddenly-change-tune-section-230/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/12/29/when-you-cant-innovate-you-litigate-oracle-gleefully-takes-credit-attacks-section-230-google/
[4]: https://archive.is/20200916230145/https://www.protocol.com/oracle-tiktok-section-230-reform
[5]: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/oracle-massive-ai-bet-already-101853108.html
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/09/14/oracle-doesnt-buy-tiktok-gets-lucrative-hosting-deal-trump-friends-will-pretend-this-means-something/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/20/the-tiktok-ban-continues-to-be-one-of-the-biggest-turds-in-tech-policy-history/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/19/tiktok-deal-done-and-its-somehow-the-shittiest-possible-outcome-making-everything-worse/
[9]: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/tiktok-us-spin-off-finalized-led-by-oracle-silver-lake-and-mgx/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/03/the-third-circuits-section-230-decision-in-anderson-v-tiktok-is-pure-poppycock/
[11]: https://medhacloud.com/blog/cloud-market-share
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/01/13/parlers-laughably-bad-antitrust-lawsuit-against-amazon/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/ninth-circuit-rewrites-section-230-to-remove-the-part-that-actually-mattered/
[14]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250316221758/https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/2019-political-activity.pdf
[15]: https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/2025-political-activity.pdf
[16]: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/how-a-45-million-donation-brought-larry-ellison-deeper-into-trumps-circle-b3e26c03
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/28/paramount-merger-gets-further-delayed-and-things-could-get-expensive/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2018/03/19/hollywoods-behind-the-scenes-support-sesta-is-all-about-filtering-internet/
[19]: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/02/21/why-section-230-matters-how-not-to-break-internet-doj-230-workshop-review-part-i/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/27/oracle-helped-kneecap-section-230-then-bought-15-of-a-company-that-needs-it/

2026-08-27 20:00:04 CEST

Daily Deal: The 2026 Canva Creator Mastery Bundle
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[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-2026-canva-creator-mastery-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/27/daily-deal-the-2026-canva-creator-mastery-bundle/

2026-08-27 14:33:31 CEST

Iowa AG Brenna Bird Makes Silly, Empty Legal Threats To Try And Save Larry Ellison’s Paramount Merger
As we’ve been noting, billionaire Larry Ellison’s effort to dominate what’s left of corporate media is facing some headwinds after [12 states filed an antitrust lawsuit][1] against his planned $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers. As we’ve *also *noted, this is a giant turd of a deal, the debt from which will indisputably result in mass layoffs, higher prices, and shittier overall product.
We know this *because it’s what happens every time U.S. media giants merge*; particularly when Warner Brothers is involved. It’s not something for economists or pundits to even debate. Large scale media consolidation is uniformly, indisputably bad for labor, markets, and consumers. There’s not a major U.S. industry where the impact isn’t very clearly obvious.
But the state AG lawsuit introduces all sorts of costly new delays for Ellison, which has resulted in a sort of PR desperation at the company. That has included repeatedly insisting that anybody who criticizes the merger (or Ellison) is [somehow “antisemitic”][2]. It’s also involved heavily lobbying a parade of high-profile people to try and convince the 12 state AGs to settle the case before next March’s trial.
That includes Iowa AG Brenna Bird, who wrote an editorial over at the right wing propaganda website DailyWire stating she was [planning on suing California to try and stop the merger][3]. To be clear there’s no indication she’s actually filed any legal paperwork or has any coherent standing to get legally involved, but she’s super keen to have you think she’s doing something important all the same.
The editorial is full of all sorts of silliness, including the observably false claim that more media consolidation *somehow magically improves market competition* (you can observe 50+ years of U.S. history to answer that question for yourself). She also leans heavily on this claim by Paramount that if they’re allowed to merge, they’ll create 30 big movies a year:
> *“A successful Paramount-Warner Bros. merger would change that. Netflix [dominates][4] the market for streaming. Paramount+ and HBO Max together are [smaller than Netflix, smaller than Disney, and smaller than Amazon][5]. The merger could create a company to compete: an estimated $6 billion in savings to reinvest, and a public commitment to release at least 30 movies in theaters every year. More movies mean more entertainment — and more competition means lower prices.”*
As you may have observed from any of the hundreds of major U.S. mergers anytime in the last five decades, pre-merger promises by company executives are *utterly worthless*. They’re even more worthless in an era where we’ve defanged most of our public-protection, consumer, and labor regulators under the pretense this would somehow result in *unbridled free market innovation*.
Amusingly, Bird also tries to claim that California (which she singles out but is joined by 11 other state AGs in the suit) has introduced delays that would have somehow magically have instead gone toward lowering streaming video prices:
> *“Now think about what California’s delay is doing. Beginning in October, Paramount is contractually obligated to pay Warner Bros. roughly $7 million a day for as long as this transaction sits in limbo, and the trial that 12 state attorneys general have engineered will not even start until March 2027. That money could have lowered streaming costs but instead is being burned on a lawsuit that federal antitrust enforcers and 68 regulators around the world already concluded was unnecessary.”*
It should go without saying that no, Paramount would have not just magically lowered streaming video prices if not for the AG lawsuit. That’s just… not even a coherent claim?
Most of the regulators around the world rubber stamped the deal because it has no meaningful impact on their local economies. 12 states sued to stop the deal because [literally every time Warner Brothers is involved in a merger][6], it results in untold thousands of Americans losing their jobs, prices getting higher, and the remaining company getting steadily more enshittified. Again, this is not a debate.
The idea that letting media further consolidate — at the hands of a Trump-allied anti-democratic billionaire like Larry Ellison no less — somehow results in mystical new utopias for everyday Iowans is a very curious delusion. For Bird, the fact that the Trump DOJ (long since [purged of every last person who actually believed in antitrust][7]) claimed the deal would be good for Americans was evidence enough:
> *“The Department examined this deal market by market and found a benefit in each one. In streaming, it concluded the combined firm is likely to increase competition by giving consumers “[a more robust competitive alternative][8]” to the dominant players.”*
I suppose Bird thought meaninglessly injecting herself in the debate over media consolidation would somehow move the needle for an oligarch, but it’s mostly just sad. I also think the endless PR and lobbying lengths Paramount has been willing to go to in order to sell this shitty deal to the public provides its own evidence as to why you probably don’t want to give Larry Ellison any more power.
Pressure continues to build for the state AGs to settle the lawsuit and allow the merger to proceed. When and if that happens, the high debt load of the deal will result in thousands of people losing their jobs, consumer prices will soar ever higher, conditions won’t be meaningfully enforced, and whatever’s left of Paramount/Warner Brothers under the management of [weird brunchlords like Bari Weiss][9] will produce more and more lowest-common-denominator offshored crap in the pursuit of impossible scale.
And when that happens, because it **always happens**, all the people rooting for consolidation and less regulatory scrutiny *will very suddenly and curiously be nowhere to be found*. All that will be left is a bunch of trash and some carnage, like the circus very abruptly packed up and left town.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/14/a-dozen-states-sue-to-block-paramounts-shitty-unpopular-merger/
[2]: https://karlbode.com/the-hulk-hates-fascist-media-consolidation/
[3]: https://www.dailywire.com/news/to-save-american-movies-im-taking-california-to-the-supreme-court
[4]: https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/internet/streaming-stats/
[5]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/what-a-combined-paramount-warner-would-mean-for-streaming-movies-and-news
[6]: https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/807438/warner-bros-discovery-history-of-mergers-paramount-apple-netflix-amazon
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/more-details-emerge-on-how-trump-cronyism-ruined-the-attempt-to-break-up-ticketmaster/
[8]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-department-justice-antitrust-division-closing-its-investigation-merger-paramount
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/29/cbs-ratings-continue-nosedive-under-bari-weiss/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/27/iowa-ag-brenna-bird-makes-silly-empty-legal-threats-to-try-and-save-larry-ellisons-paramount-merger/

2026-08-27 04:57:53 CEST

Two Die In Pennsylvania Of Measles Marking The First Deaths Of 2026
Last year, as decades of work by RFK Jr. to undermine vaccines with false links to deaths and autism culminated in his appointment to lead HHS, America saw the [largest][1] resurgence of [measles][2] cases in something like three decades. Three people died, including two children, all unvaccinated. Kennedy mostly [ignored][3] the outbreak from the beginning and has since only mustered the ability to say that people should get the MMR vaccine out of one side of his mouth while reminding everyone that he thinks vaccines are bad out of the other. Measles continued to [roar into 2026][4], with [Kennedy][5] and HHS officials [attempting][6] to downplay [case counts][7] and deaths the entire time. We’ve already [eclipsed][8] 2025’s record-breaking case count here in 2026 and we still have months to add to that total.
And now we have our [first two deaths from measles in 2026][9], as well. Both occurred in Pennsylvania and, while health officials aren’t releasing many details due to privacy concerns, it was noted that both of the deceased were unvaccinated for measles.
> *They are the first measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania in 35 years and the first deaths reported in the US in 2026. Last year, [the US saw three measles deaths][10]: two in [otherwise-healthy but unvaccinated school-age children in Texas][11] and one in an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico. Prior to those deaths, the US had not seen [a measles death since 2015][12], when a woman with underlying conditions became severely ill.*
>
> *Citing privacy, health officials in Pennsylvania are not providing information on the people who died beyond that they were unvaccinated and were residents of Lancaster County. Officials noted that the deaths are among 393 confirmed cases reported this year across 28 counties in the state.*
As we talked about recently, due *directly* to the decades of work Kennedy has taken to undermine vaccines, vaccination rates for school children have and are continuing [to fall][13]. These deaths, and the vast majority of the case counts, are completely needless. We have the solution to preventing them. The MMR vaccine is safe and effective for those that are not immunocompromised. There is no scientific reason to believe it causes autism. And, importantly, if 95% of us get vaccinated against measles, we achieve herd immunity which protects those that *can’t* get vaccinated, as well as very young children who haven’t been vaccinated yet.
And that last category is one that is likely to grow, thanks to the Trump administration’s blatantly stupid executive order attempting to curtail how childhood vaccines are delivered and when. Not to mention the constant muddy waters Kennedy himself creates as to whether vaccines are good or bad, when they are so, what risks they carry, and so on. It is not an overreach to say that this administration, and Kennedy’s decades of bullshit in particular, got these people killed.
> *Still, anti-vaccine rhetoric, misinformation, and disinformation have shaken confidence in the vaccine, driving down vaccination rates. Some of that damaging discourse has come from Trump administration officials, most notably ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is currently the US health secretary. But President Trump has also contributed, falsely claiming in a White House press event two weeks ago that the MMR vaccine can be “[quite lethal][14].” The MMR vaccine has never been linked to a death in a person with a competent immune system (it’s not recommended in those who are immunocompromised).*
One hundred percent correct. People look to their leaders for guidance on things like public health. Or they used to, at least. For some non-insignificant percentage of the country, they really do think Trump and Kennedy know what they’re talking about when it comes to matters of medicine. They don’t, of course. Not even close. But enough people are listening to them that it puts all of us in danger.
This *has to end*. Outbreaks of infectious diseases at the level of the measles tend to grow exponentially if not addressed. That’s why we’re already past last year’s case count. The project for getting back to herd immunity and proper vaccination rates will not be a short one. It will take years.
And I very much doubt that we won’t pass the death count here before the end of the year as well.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/30/2025-measles-cases-in-america-surpass-the-2000-mark/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/tag/measles/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/22/measles-outbreaks-abound-under-rfk-jr-s-inaction/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/14/new-year-but-the-same-measles-crises-rages-on/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/23/rfk-jr-wipes-his-hands-of-this-whole-measles-outbreak-thing/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/27/cdc-dep-director-on-measles-going-kazoo-its-just-the-cost-of-doing-business/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/10/rfk-jr-talks-about-how-great-a-job-hes-doing-managing-the-measles-outbreak/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/29/u-s-measles-cases-eclipse-2025s-record-case-count/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/two-unvaccinated-people-die-from-measles-in-pennsylvania-officials-confirm/
[10]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/07/measles-cases-reach-33-year-high-as-rfk-jr-pursues-anti-vaccine-agenda/
[11]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/unvaccinated-school-aged-child-dies-of-measles-in-texas-amid-growing-outbreak/
[12]: https://web.archive.org/web/20151215033618/https:/doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/2015NewsReleases/15119WAMeaslesRelatedDeath
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/19/even-as-disease-outbreaks-abound-american-vaccination-rates-in-children-fall/
[14]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/trump-signs-bonkers-order-that-cuts-vaccines-promotes-ones-that-dont-exist/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/two-die-in-pennsylvania-of-measles-marking-the-first-deaths-of-2026/

2026-08-26 22:25:28 CEST

ICE Tries, Fails To Illegally Raid An Immigration Law Office; Settles For Empty Threats Instead
The thing about raiding law offices is that they tend to be filled with people who actually know the law. A bunch of opportunistic ICE officers thought they might be able to talk their way into an illegal search, but that initiative (is that the word for this?) died out almost immediately when the interloping officers were greeted by a small group of immigration lawyers.
As is to be expected, this attempted illegal raid occurred [in a “blue” state][1] — the states that are still seeing large amounts of immigration officer activity [just because their populations][2] refused to throw a majority of their support behind Donald Trump during the last three elections.
[The Sacramento Bee broke the news][3], covered here by Mathew Miranda:
> *Multiple U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents armed with guns attempted to inspect a Sacramento immigration law firm — and threatened to return later and break windows — on Friday morning, according to several employees of the building.*
>
> *Employees of the North Natomas law firm and next door dentistry office said the agents, who arrived in at least four vehicles, claimed to have received a list from Washington, D.C., which listed the building’s address as the primary mailing address for many people. The ICE agents requested to tour the office for beds, but were ultimately turned away after failing to provide a warrant.*
You can see the pretense. And you can see how everyone else would have recognized it was a pretense, even if the ICE officers hadn’t backed down immediately in the face of “get a warrant” demands from the occupants of the law office.
ICE pretended that a lot of migrants using the law office as a mailing address (something likely limited to court documents, etc.) was evidence that the law office was illegally housing dozens of migrants. But, as a migrant trying to work your way through the immigration system, it just makes sense to list a law office as the address of contact when engaging court proceedings, especially if your housing situation may be in a constant state of flux. Telling courts to send summons, notices, etc. to your legal reps is the smart way to handle things like naturalization proceedings, given [that the rules seem to keep changing][4], and our current government is [doing whatever it can][5] to disrupt immigration proceedings to maximize arrests and detentions.
It would be immediately clear to anyone but an opportunistic ICE thug that the Morris Law Office was incapable of housing a large number of migrants. It’s a strip mall law office that shares a building with a dental implant clinic.
Having rushed directly into a stone wall composed of well-composed immigration lawyers (as well as the absolute stupidity of having to pretend a strip mall law office could be a second home for a large number of migrants), ICE officers retreated empty-handed, but not before issuing a threat that only later proved to be as empty as their fingerless gloved hands:
> *Raissa Morris, owner of the Morris Law Group, received a text at 9:16 a.m. which read “immigration is here.” The message came from one of her employees who told her an agent, who was armed and wearing an ICE badge, had entered the front lobby and asked to speak to an office manager.*
>
> *She quickly told one of her employees to tell an agent that they could not inspect the building without a warrant. The agent responded by saying that they had received a list from Washington, D.C., which featured multiple clients using the law firm’s address. He asked to inspect the office for beds and said if they received follow-up orders that they could return at 3 a.m. to break windows and enter.*
Thugs to the very end. “If you won’t let us abuse our power and ignore your rights, we’ll just ask someone back at the office to swear out some paperwork that will let us get what we want without your cooperation.” Obviously, this paraphrasing is far more coherent and polite than anything uttered by your average ICE officer (and, at this point, *almost any* ICE officer would be lucky [to be considered “average”][6]). But the ultimate point remains: if ICE doesn’t get what it wants *immediately*, it will find a way to get it *eventually*.
[Additional coverage by local news station KCRA][7] includes some on-site reporting, along with screenshots of several photos of ICE vehicles shared by law firm employees. It also includes a comment from the DHS, which apparently couldn’t be bothered to respond to questions from reporters at the publication that first broke the news.
> *In a statement to KCRA 3, DHS said, “On August 14, ICE officers approached an unmarked door during a targeted enforcement operation, thinking it was the target address as it was listed as the address of the illegal aliens they were planning to arrest. Upon finding out it was a law firm; they departed the address.”*
This statement is only true if you ignore the officers’ attempt to engage in a warrantless search, as well as the parting threat they issued when they were ejected by Morris Law employees. ICE had to know it was a law firm because that would be the first result in any *normal* search of that address. And officers couldn’t pretend it was just some hostel for migrants when they rolled up in at least four separate unmarked vehicles. They were clearly in a quasi-strip mall parking lot facing a business with the business name clearly displayed above the address the DHS now claims was so inscrutable it took an accosting and a confrontation with people *who actually know and respect the law* to inform the officers of their “mistake.”
The DHS statement is idiotic, which just means it’s on-brand for this administration. So far, the threat to come back and break windows while no one’s in the office has yet to materialize. But this government is filled with sore losers and [sore *winners*][8] (that would be the big baby boy sitting behind the Resolute Desk), so I wouldn’t put any money on ICE just taking this L and moving on to other things.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/18/data-shows-ice-deportation-efforts-are-way-more-aggressive-in-blue-states/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/03/kristi-noem-lies-says-national-guard-deployments-to-blue-cities-arent-politically-motivated/
[3]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article316885229.html
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/us/ice-arrests-airports-visa-overstay.html
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/01/doj-admits-ice-has-engaged-in-illegal-courthouse-arrests-for-most-of-the-past-year/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/14/one-country-for-old-men-desperate-ice-drops-age-cap-for-new-hires/
[7]: https://www.kcra.com/article/sacramento-immigration-law-firm-ice-agents/73441433
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/17/worlds-sorest-winner-trump-demands-15-billion-from-ny-times-for-not-fluffing-his-ego-enough/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/ice-tries-fails-to-illegally-raid-an-immigration-law-office-settles-for-empty-threats-instead/

2026-08-26 20:07:30 CEST

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[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-essential-matlab-and-labview-mega-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/daily-deal-the-essential-matlab-labview-mega-bundle-2/

2026-08-26 18:24:55 CEST

As Flock Vandalism Goes Mainstream, One Grand Jury Says Alleged Flock Vandal Did Nothing Wrong
Flock Safety has been on the wrong side of the press cycle — if not [the wrong side of history][1] — for most of the last couple of years. Flock’s automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are more comprehensive than many of those previously deployed by law enforcement agencies. Not only do they capture plate/location data, they take photos of the entire vehicle, providing searchable info about distinguishing vehicle features as well as setting the stage for the almost-inevitable introduction of facial recognition tech.
Flock’s network of cameras is capable of capturing [20 *billion* plate/vehicle images a *month*][2]. What the public is receiving in return for this remarkable gain in law enforcement “efficiency” is a lot of false positives, illegal second-hand access by federal officers, and the sickening — but wholly expected — news that cops are using this tech to [stalk ex-wives, ex-girlfriends][3], and [women seeking abortions][4].
Reacting [poorly and belatedly][5], Flock has finally decided to institute a few more on-by-default options meant to deter abuse of its systems and databases, as well as lowering the default record retention period from 30 days to one week. While it is good to see Flock recognizing its contribution to the ACAB ecosphere, the new guidelines don’t appear to prevent cop shops from bypassing the presets and going right back to lengthy retention periods and stripping measures meant to give supervisors a head’s up on potential misuse of Flock plate records.
Given the disinterest of both Flock and its main customers to police themselves, [US citizens are now behaving more like their European counterparts][6] who [have been deliberately destroying][7] speed/license plate cameras for years.
> *Over the last few months, people have cut down surveillance cameras owned by the company Flock Safety with an electric saw in [upstate New York][8], thrown paint [on them in Oakland, California][9], and rammed [a truck into them in Idaho][10]. One man in Florida [sits in a lawn chair][11] holding up a piece of cardboard on a pole to block the camera’s view. City governments have joined in by deactivating the cameras or canceling contracts with Flock in Fort Collins, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Knoxville, Tennessee; Syracuse, New York; and Walla Walla, Washington.*
Civil disobedience still works, folks. If cops want to keep their Flock cameras, they’re going to have to spend more time surveilling the surveillance devices. We’ll keep paying their overtime and they’ll keep failing to recognize the sublime irony of their actions.
It’s not just about persistent surveillance. It’s that this persistent surveillance directly contributes to law enforcement misconduct by generating a massive set of records that can be accessed by pretty much any officer for no reason at all. Hence, all the stalking. Also hence: feeding federal officers info on migrants even though the feds aren’t legally allowed to access Flock’s systems directly.
But the best indicator that the public tide has turned against Flock isn’t the protests, the abandonment of contracts by several US cities, or even the increasing acts of hostility towards the cameras themselves by pissed off citizens. Instead, it’s this: [prosecutors waging a one-sided battle to secure an indictment][12] can’t even get that done. Welcome to the resistance, Cody Morelock — and more importantly, the members of this grand jury.
> *A Clermont County man, who was facing felony vandalism charges for allegedly destroying a Flock camera in Union Township, had his case dismissed.*
>
> *Cody Morelock was accused of damaging the camera on Mount Carmel-Tobasco Road near Glenrose Lane on June 13, according to Union Township police.*
The government’s prosecutors even had visual evidence of Morelock’s actions:
> *Police said surveillance footage from other nearby cameras helped identify Morelock as the suspect.*
But, at the end of the prosecutorial day, the people (of the grand jury) decided the government didn’t get to ring Morelock up for doing something they apparently didn’t feel was criminal enough to result in an indictment.
> *A Clermont County grand jury declined to indict Morelock on felony charges.*
There’s your jury nullification, I guess. Prosecutors wanted a felony and assumed they had this on lock given the average value of a Flock camera. But they didn’t. Either the grand jury decided the prospective value of the property didn’t support a felony charge, or it simply decided the government wasn’t going to get to punish someone for damaging a Flock camera because… well… pick any of the reasons listed above.
We don’t know for sure what happened here. And there’s a good chance we’ll never find out, given that grand jury records are rarely, if ever, made public. But it does look like the government went hot and heavy with the vandalism charges only to be met with the indifference of regular people who don’t care whether or not Flock cameras are vandalized. And when the government can’t sell its stuff to a captive audience that only gets to hear one side of the story, the government should recognize its actions — ranging from the installation of the cameras to this failed prosecutions — no longer reflect the will of the people and adjust accordingly.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/20/area-atlantic-columnist-decides-now-is-the-time-to-start-defending-flock-safety/
[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/flock-police-cameras-scan-billions-month-sparking-protests-rcna230037
[3]: http://techdirt.com/2026/08/10/its-official-flock-is-for-stalking/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/17/flock-safety-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-for-a-missing-person-it-was-an-abortion-investigation/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/17/flock-safety-decides-to-implement-a-few-changes-after-months-of-negative-press/
[6]: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/us/flock-camera-vandalism-protests-cec
[7]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46822472
[8]: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/three-flock-safety-cameras-damaged-troy-22358846.php
[9]: https://oaklandside.org/2026/04/24/who-is-paint-bombing-oaklands-flock-cameras/
[10]: https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho/idaho-man-faces-felony-charge-damaged-flock-safety-cameras-pocatello/277-5b0109cb-7c45-40d6-8373-74d3b0cd2e3d
[11]: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/product-pages/Remembering-Dylan-Lyons/news/2026/07/27/local-man-protests-flock-cameras
[12]: https://local12.com/news/local/felony-charges-dismissed-against-clermont-county-man-destruction-flock-camera-cincinnati-union-township-cody-morelock-damage
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/as-flock-vandalism-goes-mainstream-one-grand-jury-says-alleged-flock-vandal-did-nothing-wrong/

2026-08-26 14:27:52 CEST

Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Forced To Rehire Columnist Fired For Quoting Deceased Bigot Charlie Kirk
Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post simply isn’t what it used to be. During the Trump era Bezos and his lackeys have [fired all of the paper’s black columnists][1], turned the [op-ed section into pro-corporatist agitprop][2], censored [cartoonists that criticized Jeff][3], and generally shifted the paper’s journalistic tone in a more right wing, corporate/autocrat-friendly direction.
You know, like the majority of other U.S. corporate media outlets owned by rich, tone-deaf assholes.
Last fall you might remember that WaPo’s management [fired opinion columnist Karen Attiah][4]. Her crime? According to a [letter sent by Post leadership obtained by Oliver Darcy][5], Attiah had made “unacceptable Bluesky posts” that criticized “white men,” including this one that simply quoted deceased right wing bigot Charlie Kirk’s own racist and sexist words:
> [Karen Attiah Bluesky post quoting Charlie Kirk: "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot". -Charlie Kirk ]
Even before Trumpism, major papers just didn’t really like it when their writers (journalists or opinion columnists) expressed *human opinions on social media*. [They feel][6] it reflects poorly on the reputation and impartiality of the paper; that columnists and journalists somehow can’t separate their own beliefs from factual reality and should, in effect, *display no meaningful personality while using social media*.
It’s a very dated and silly idea; long-since made irrelevant by autocracy’s industrialized racism (why would a human journalist not be allowed to express an honest opinion on systemic, racist evil?), and the WaPo’s ownership’s clear goal of destroying the paper’s reputation all by themselves.
In this case it was clear Attiah, who hired Saudi-murdered columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 and was central in shaping the former WaPo’s opinion pages, was fired for the cardinal sin of upsetting thin-skinned Republicans and rich people.
Unfortunately for the latter, Attiah took her complaint to binding arbitration and recently won, forcing WaPo to immediately reinstate her.
> BREAKING: After the Washington Post fired me last year for speaking the truth in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, I fought back. And I'm happy to announce: I won my case against the Washington Post. They have been ordered to reinstate me immediately. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/b…
>
> — [Karen Attiah (@karenattiah.bsky.social)][7] [2026-08-24T11:12:05.503Z][8]
The arbitrator ruled that WaPo management’s decision wasn’t based on any actual, meaningful offense:
> *Sarah Miller Espinosa, the arbitrator, said in a written decision Thursday that The Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” to terminate Ms. Attiah and “violated” its labor agreement, according to a copy of the decision shared with The New York Times by Ms. Attiah’s lawyers.*
>
> *“The Washington Post failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” Ms. Espinosa wrote.*
That’s a real bummer for Bezos, who has tried to reshape the Post’s opinion columns so they focus exclusively on “personal liberties and free markets” (again that’s code for coddling Republicans, rich people, and corporations). Amusingly Attiah outlasted [Adam O’Neill][9] and [Will Lewis][10], the two WaPo “leaders” who fired her for expressing human opinions about insufferable bigots.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/17/the-washington-post-fires-its-last-black-opinion-columnist-for-directly-quoting-a-bigot/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/27/jeff-bezos-frees-wapo-opinion-pages-of-the-personal-liberty-of-expressing-their-opinion/
[3]: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5248299/cartoonist-quits-wapo-over-bezos-trump-cartoon-washingtonpost
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/17/the-washington-post-fires-its-last-black-opinion-columnist-for-directly-quoting-a-bigot/
[5]: https://bsky.app/profile/newsjennifer.bsky.social/post/3lywccxseb22j
[6]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/policies-and-standards/
[7]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iiofy6mupgapoiz2b3lgfyr7?ref_src=embed
[8]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iiofy6mupgapoiz2b3lgfyr7/post/3mtt6bari2s2w?ref_src=embed
[9]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/31/adam-oneal-departs-post-opinions-editor-after-year/
[10]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/12/will-lewis-washington-post-publisher
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/jeff-bezos-washington-post-forced-to-rehire-columnist-fired-for-quoting-deceased-bigot-charlie-kirk/

2026-08-26 05:09:36 CEST

Pentagon Fires Chief Editor Of ‘Stars & Stripes’ For Promising To Do Independent Journalism
To say that Donald Trump has been waging an ideological war against the American [free press][1] would be an understatement in the extreme. Even attempting to list out the many, many ways in which he has attempted to threaten, sue, undermine, stifle, chill, attack, and hamstring media outlets would be a waste of time. No thinking person fails to understand that he hates any media outlets that don’t behave like full sycophants and no reasonable person thinks that his actions are a positive for the country.
But sometimes his administration really does endeavor to show just how corrupt and against the First Amendment it is, in the starkest possible terms. *Stars & Stripes* is a news outlet partially funded by the Pentagon. It is under congressional mandate to operate on 1st Amendment principles [and describes its work like this][2]:
> *Stars and Stripes provides independent news and information to the U.S. military community, including active-duty servicemembers, DoD civilians, veterans, contractors, and their families. Stars and Stripes retains its editorial independence and is congressionally mandated to be governed by First Amendment principles, but it is part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity. The Pentagon funding that makes up roughly half of Stars and Stripes’ annual budget is primarily used to print and distribute the newspaper to troops scattered across the globe, including in warzones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The remainder of the news organization’s funding comes from advertising and subscriptions.*
Earlier this year, however, a Pentagon spokesman said the administration planned to overhaul *Stars & Stripes*, with a specific aim to remove content it considered to be “woke distractions that siphon morale” and instead, presumably, force in content that does the opposite. If any of that sounds like an encroachment on editorial independence, congratulations, you have a working prefrontal cortex.
Erik Slavin has worked at *Stars & Stripes* for over two decades and was named Editor in Chief in 2025. He recently [sat for an interview with CBS][3] and was asked about the Pentagon’s stated aim to interfere in the editorial content of the paper. While noting that he had no idea what “woke content” the Pentagon was objecting to and what the standard for that would be, because nobody at the Pentagon bothered to tell him, he indicated that any attempt to censor the paper by the Pentagon would be his red line and counter to both the law and Pentagon policy that the paper be independent.
So [of course Pete Hegseth fired him][4].
> *The Pentagon on Friday fired [the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes][5] and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence. It was the latest move by an administration that has grown increasingly aggressive toward the news media.*
>
> *Slavin said he was being fired “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” Korte participated in the same interview.*
>
> *“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies,” Slavin said.*
This is a newspaper with a long, long history. It has been publishing since the American Civil War. It has endured despite the ire of military men far greater than its current whiskey-soaked Secretary of Defense/War/Whatever. General George Patton once tried to ban the paper over cartoons depicting American soldiers in a way he didn’t like, only to have General Eisenhower tell him to calm the hell down and not interfere.
The skin of people like Trump and Hegseth is apparently as thin as the paper upon which *Stars & Stripes* is printed. To so perfectly encapsulate their own anti-speech desires by firing someone simply for saying he wouldn’t bow to government censorship is significant, though unsurprising.
Meanwhile, American military members appear to be losing a news outlet that focuses on them.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/search/?q=trump+press
[2]: https://www.stripes.com/help/miscellaneous-faq/
[3]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-battle-over-stars-and-stripes/
[4]: https://apnews.com/article/stars-stripes-pentagon-censorship-media-d42affb0c17fef31c6089645c8dbbe70
[5]: https://apnews.com/article/stars-stripes-pentagon-publisher-retire-journalism-policy-ae5277e248f51d10dfcb49d7796e7d2f
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/pentagon-fires-chief-editor-of-stars-stripes-for-promising-to-do-independent-journalism/

2026-08-25 20:20:54 CEST

Trump Told Asylum Seekers To Do It “The Legal Way.” Now He’s Revoking 200,000 Of Their Visas.
Many Trump supporters keep insisting that his immigration purges are justified because the people swept up in them came here “illegally,” so who cares if they get kicked out (or shipped off to some random war-torn country). When asked what people seeking asylum should do, the answer is often “do it the legal way.” That the US government has spent years making “the legal way” harder and harder — and, as we’re about to see, has now started punishing the people who actually took it — never seems to enter the conversation. But here we have a really clear example of people doing it “the legal way, as instructed by Trump himself” who are about to get kicked out of the US.
The AP is reporting that the administration [is about to pull out on the order of 200,000 visas][1] from those who *came to the US legally* under B1 or B2 visas, and then sought asylum, just as Trump said they should. This would be the largest mass revocation of visas in US history.
> *The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.*
>
> [*Unless challenged*][2] *or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have* [*sought asylum*][3] *or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.*
>
> *“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.*
Go back to 2018, when the first Trump administration [proclaimed that anyone crossing the southern border anywhere other than an official port of entry would be ineligible for asylum][4]. The whole framing was that there was a legal way to seek asylum and an illegal way, and only the legal way was going to count. In remarks about this executive order, Trump said that those who wished to seek asylum would have to “[lawfully present themselves at a port of entry][5],” at which point they could seek asylum.
> *Under this plan, the illegal aliens will no longer get a free pass into our country by lodging meritless claims in seeking asylum. Instead, migrants seeking asylum will have to present themselves lawfully at a port of entry. So they’re going to have to lawfully present themselves at a port of entry.*
A few months later, in his State of the Union, he claimed [he wanted immigrants to enter the country legally][6] (in large numbers!):
> *“I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally,” he declared…*
Note that these are two separate demands: show up at a port of entry rather than sneaking across, and get into the country through legal channels in the first place. The people about to lose their visas satisfied both, and then some. They applied for a visa, got vetted and approved by the State Department, walked in through the front door, and filed an asylum claim through the official process. If there’s a more “legal way” available, nobody has described it.
That demand, that people come “legally” and then make their asylum claims at a port of entry (though the courts later deemed this “asylum only counts at port of entry” to be [wildly against the law][7]) still resulted in a ton of people getting legal visas to the US, and then [seeking asylum][8] when they entered.
It now appears that (unsurprisingly) the Trump administration was full of shit when they claimed they wanted asylum seekers to “come the legal way.”
There was nothing in what Trump said initially that said they had to get other types of visas to seek asylum. It just said “get here legally and then make your case.” Which is exactly what all of these people did, and Trump and Marco Rubio are about to pull their visas, even though they literally did things “the legal way” that Trump himself had encouraged.
While this won’t necessarily mean immediate deportations, it will likely mean that people with live, pending asylum claims lose their lawful status while those claims are still being adjudicated — which is precisely how you end up removable. And with bands of roving ICE thugs looking for anyone without legal status to deport, you know these people are likely to be added to the target list.
So once again, doing things “the legal way” turns out to protect you from exactly nothing. Follow the instructions the president himself gave you and on the visa the State Department itself issued you, file the paperwork the process demands, and the reward is having that visa pulled while your claim is still pending. What good is doing things “the legal way” when, with the stroke of a pen, Trump and Rubio will make that “legal way” illegal?
The New Colossus poem on the Statue of Liberty reads:
> *Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…*
To which the Trump administration responds: “get the fuck out of here.”
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-rubio-visas-revoke-e9c14fdfd0ada439d2b9d8694e678a46?link_source=ta_bluesky_link&taid=6a8cab410602a6000171c92d&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+New+Content+(Feed)&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky
[2]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-administration-visa-ban-immigration-64feb19b54d1bce50891437a5ba25d50
[3]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-asylum-appeals-court-ed8f8f193579b757d7f384cd7f9e9e60
[4]: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-9822-addressing-mass-migration-through-the-southern-border-the-united-states
[5]: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-illegal-immigration-crisis-border-security/
[6]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trump-plays-on-immigration-myths
[7]: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/02/28/18-17274.pdf
[8]: https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-shows-asylum-claims-spiking-195022981.html
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/trump-told-asylum-seekers-to-do-it-the-legal-way-now-hes-revoking-200000-of-their-visas/

2026-08-25 20:14:38 CEST

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https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/daily-deal-headway-premium-24/

2026-08-25 18:33:54 CEST

Flock Once Tried To Turn Every Ride Share Driver Into Part Of Its ALPR Network
Until just recently, Flock never felt it needed to rehabilitate its image, even when several cities were dumping contracts and cameras over persistent surveillance concerns. When cities shut down systems, [Flock just kept running][1]. In some cases, it [even *installed* cameras][2] that without proper permits or any other legal authorization.
What’s hurting Flock now is that its biggest user base — US law enforcement agencies — are filled with people who see the Flock camera network [as a cool and easy way][3] to stalk their exes, their exes’ friends, families, and new significant others, or aid in harassment of critics, protesters, or anyone else a bored cop might want to track.
While Flock is only now [introducing limits][4] that *might* deter misuse (but that wholly rely on law enforcement agencies implementing the changes), its latest effort to polish its ALPR turd needs to be weighed against its entire history, especially the stuff that happened not that long before the company decided it might be best to engage with the general public’s concerns, rather than just do whatever seemed immediately pleasurable to cop shops.
[Joseph Cox brings us the unsettling news that Flock attempted][5] to turn a nation of underpaid gig workers into an extension of its massive, persistent surveillance network:
> *Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media.*
>
> *The document provides more details on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam company. [404 Media first revealed][6] the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching this partnership, and its use of Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers right around the time 404 Media reported on it.*
Following this leak and 404 Media’s subsequent reporting, Flock went on the record to claim that the reported partnership never materialized. Flock didn’t specify why it chose to drop the pursuit of this extension of its surveillance network, however. It left it up to 404 Media to suss out what had failed, but without the ability to explain *why* this never came to fruition.
The documents 404 Media obtained showed Flock pitching a Lyft/Uber dashcam partnership to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. That pitch stated the obvious: a network of cameras already voluntarily enabled by rideshare drivers would be added/infected by Flock’s ALPR system, increasing coverage anywhere ridesharing services were available. Not included in the presentation or documents: any notification of drivers that they were now part of a law enforcement surveillance network.
Also not explained in the documents was how any of this was legal. What Flock was proposing was the hijacking of cameras operated by individuals in their private vehicles. It seems Flock was relying on the simple addition of more boilerplate to already lengthy end user agreements governing ridesharing services to obtain the “consent” necessary to turn these cameras into government surveillance options.
It’s also not clear that Flock has completely abandoned this project. None of the involved parties — Lyft, Uber, Flock, or third-party linkage apparatus Nexar — have responded with an official statement or even a direct “no comment.” So, while my headline suggests this was a failed attempt to expand Flock’s surveillance reach, there’s really nothing on the record that indicates this has been taken completely off the table.
We’re looking at allegations dismissed without prejudice, to borrow a judicial term. Just because Flock might think it’s a bad idea to pursue this *now* doesn’t mean it won’t make another attempt in the future. And rest assured that the cop shops that loved the proposal won’t lose any sleep during this negative press-provoked pause. All they have to do is wait until Flock tries again and help themselves to whatever this network gathers with or without the explicit permission of the cameras’ owners.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/flock-again-activates-a-camera-system-a-town-had-voted-to-shut-down/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/05/alpr-maker-flock-broke-laws-repeatedly-while-installing-cameras-courting-cop-shops/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/10/its-official-flock-is-for-stalking/
[4]: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-guardrails-address-lpr-privacy-concerns-and-police-transparency
[5]: https://www.404media.co/flock-pitched-a-plan-to-turn-uber-and-lyft-drivers-into-roaming-surveillance-vehicles/
[6]: https://archive.ph/o/D2lyW/https://www.404media.co/flock-wants-to-partner-with-consumer-dashcam-company-that-takes-trillions-of-images-a-month/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/flock-once-tried-to-turn-every-ride-share-driver-into-part-of-its-alpr-network/

2026-08-25 14:26:32 CEST

More Details Emerge On How Trump Cronyism Ruined The Attempt To Break Up Ticketmaster
Last March it was revealed that the Trump DOJ stabbed its antitrust lawsuit state partners in the back and [struck a terrible settlement with Ticketmaster][1], scuttling a generational opportunity to break up one of the more glaring examples of modern monopoly power. Quite a curious choice for a Trump-addled party that spent all last election season insisting it was now “[serious about antitrust reform][2].”
The states would go on to amazingly win their own lawsuit against Ticketmaster and LiveNation, though we’re still waiting to see if the remedies actually accomplish anything.
A follow up [Wall Street Journal report][3] (paywalled) this week offers some additional insight into the process that let Ticketmaster of the hook. Not too surprisingly, the story details how Trump demanded the DOJ settle the investigation just days before it was set to go to trial, which seemingly surprised (however credible that is) DOJ people already use to such ham-fisted interventions:
> *“White House involvement in law-enforcement matters, once taboo, is a regular feature of Trump’s second term. But many DOJ officials regarded the political interference in the Live Nation case as extreme even for an administration in which the president has openly pressured law-enforcement officials to pursue perceived enemies and pardoned allies.”*
The settlement comes despite oodles of Trump promises that he was going to meaningfully crack down on Ticketmaster. It was one of several 2024 election-season campaign promises designed to pretend that corrupt authoritarianism was a genuine populist movement interested in antitrust reform (I did [my very best to warn people as frequently as I could how this was bullshit][4]).
From the story, it appears that Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, leveraging a connection to former Sinclair Broadcasting weirdo Boris Epshteyn (you might recall him from Sinclair’s [“must run” propaganda segments][5]) simply asked for the favor, and received it shortly thereafter. In exchange for some help booking guests at the then-Trump-controlled Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts:
> *“On Friday, Feb. 27, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino met with Trump in the Oval Office. Trump had called the meeting to discuss how to improve bookings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, according to people familiar with the conversation. He also wanted to know why the company hadn’t reached a deal over its lawsuit, the people said.”*
Ticketmaster also simply had to hire Sullivan & Cromwell to take over settlement negotiations, because they knew [the firm’s close ties to Trump would help][6].
So basically, the backstory is every bit as corrupt and stupid as one would imagine, though perhaps slightly dumber. It’s consistent in some ways, such as Trump’s promises being meaningless, and his policies once again being easily influenced by whoever was last whispering in his hear and promising him personal favors.
This was going on simultaneously alongside efforts to purge the folks in MAGA, [like Gail Slater][7], that actually did occasionally seem semi-interested in antitrust reform. And even **those** folks weren’t really what you’d call consistent when it comes to standing up to consolidated corporate power.
In reality MAGA was always about one thing: Donald Trump’s power and wealth. These sorts of egomaniacal autocrats exploit existing corruption and institutional failure to ride into office on the back of fake populism pretending they alone can fix it, then, once entrenched, introduce something far worse. The administration’s “anti-war,” “anti-corporate,” “anti-corruption” rhetoric are all part of the same lie.
In the Ticketmaster case it’s worth repeating that the states were [completely blindsided][8] by this settlement, which involved a relatively tiny (compared to Ticketmaster revenues) $280 million payout, and some pinky swearing related to ending exclusive booking at around 13 amphitheaters.
The states [still managed to win their lawsuit last April][9], and we’re now simply left waiting to see if the finalized remedies actually accomplish anything, or include an actual physical breakup of the monopoly (fairly necessary when it comes to actually policing consolidated corporate power).
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/13/trump-doj-wimps-out-on-ticketmaster-again-revealing-hollowness-of-maga-antitrust/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/18/just-a-reminder-authoritarians-dont-actually-support-antitrust-reform/
[3]: https://www.wsj.com/business/media/trump-live-nation-antitrust-doj-f82b2c55
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/18/just-a-reminder-authoritarians-dont-actually-support-antitrust-reform/
[5]: https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/07/10/boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcasting-240359
[6]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/12/trump-doj-sullivan-cromwell-00993916
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/13/magas-always-bogus-antitrust-movement-comes-to-a-screeching-halt-with-firing-of-gail-slater/
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/us-blindsides-states-with-surprise-settlement-in-live-nation-ticketmaster-trial/
[9]: https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/live-nation-and-ticketmaster-antitrust-verdict
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/25/more-details-emerge-on-how-trump-cronyism-ruined-the-attempt-to-break-up-ticketmaster/

2026-08-25 05:01:43 CEST

Sony Keeps Getting Punched In The Face Over Going Disc-less In Unrelated Places
If Sony thought that the outrage over its decision to make the next PlayStation entirely [disc-less][1] was going to dissipate quickly, it was wrong. There are actually multiple organic campaigns to protest Sony’s decision to ditch physical media now. We already talked about the plans for a purchase and usage [blackout][2] of all things PlayStation in late August. Now we can add to that a social media campaign of sorts going around, called “No disc, no buy.” While the name is self-explanatory as to its purpose, what’s interesting is how this mantra and pushback using it are appearing *everywhere*.
An example of that can be found in the [most recent State of Play showcase][3] Sony held for *Phantom Blade Zero*, during which Sony decided to keep the chat associated with the stream live. You [already know what happened from there][4].
> *Choosing to leave chat open for this particular State of Play was a curious move from Sony, given how the forthcoming action-RPG from Chinese team S-Game has already courted controversy when it was revealed [its pre-orders are entirely digital][5], with no disc-based version being touted. That led to much speculation that the October 29, 2026 game may be releasing without a physical version at all, leaping to the front of the pack ahead of [Sony’s plan to eliminate discs entirely by 2028][6]. And given there’s nothing PlayStation-related of late that isn’t inundated with furious remarks from those fighting for physical media, you can be sure they were out in force throughout the presentation.*
The comments relating to bringing back physical media, or simply repeating the “NO DISC NO BUY” mantra, went on and on and on. Sony since attempted to play hide and seek with all of this by disallowing chat replay on the video, but the damage had already been done.
And this isn’t a one-off. In other game showcases Sony has likewise been inundated with fury over its decision to end physical media for its next console. And, as Kotaku rightfully points out, while digital purchases dominate the American market, that isn’t the case internationally. In other words, the anger overseas is far greater than here in the States.
> *It’s tempting to write off these respondents, given the reality that now only 15 percent of PlayStation games are ever bought on disc. However, what often goes forgotten is that the 15-percent stat represents the United States, and doesn’t reflect the game-buying habits of players in many other countries. According to [a recently published report from Germany][7], Germans still buy 58 percent of their games on physical discs. In France, disc buyers [are also still in the majority][8] at 55 percent. Even Sony’s homeland of Japan sat at 51-percent physical [when it came to Resident Evil Requiem][9]. Meanwhile in the UK, reports suggest 40 to 45 percent of games are still sold on real, plastic discs. The end of discs is going to disproportionately affect many countries, and there’s a good chance these people are letting their voices be heard!*
Will Sony listen to this sizable percentage of its customers? I doubt it. Surely the company knew this would be a controversial decision and has likely already steeled itself in preparation for all of this anger. Digital games mean more margin for Sony and they’ve done whatever math which has led them to believe that this is the more profitable decision.
This means that game preservation will become much harder. It also means the stories we currently hear about people having their digitally “bought” games ripped away from them are likely to increase exponentially.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/sony-announces-an-end-to-playstation-discs-everyone-hates-it/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/28/a-blackout-protest-over-sony-ditching-disks-is-brewing/
[3]: https://kotaku.com/phantom-blade-zero-sony-playstation-no-disc-no-buy-protest-2000725318
[4]: https://x.com/thegamersjoint/status/2089534457267331152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2089534457267331152%7Ctwgr%5Ebfd73e81afd9eb90cebcd6ae37078b014985511f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fkotaku.com%2Fphantom-blade-zero-sony-playstation-no-disc-no-buy-protest-2000725318
[5]: https://kotaku.com/phantom-blade-zero-physical-disc-release-playstation-ps5-sony-2000723821
[6]: https://kotaku.com/sony-not-budging-on-ending-playstation-discs-in-the-face-of-fan-protests-were-going-to-cautiously-move-this-forward-2000720708
[7]: https://www.game.de/guides/jahresreport-der-deutschen-games-branche-2026/
[8]: https://en.univers-simu.com/news/jeu-video-physique-france-dematerialise-ventes-126036/
[9]: https://x.com/JuunTV/status/2087573930819067976
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/sony-keeps-getting-punched-in-the-face-over-going-disc-less-in-unrelated-places/

2026-08-24 22:05:54 CEST

Trump Threatens Think Tank With Libel Lawsuit For Telling The Truth About National Guard Deployments
Whenever Trump doesn’t like the facts, [he calls it “fake news”][1] or does what he’s doing here: tries to shoot the messenger by threatening them [with a lawsuit][2].
The administration has been sending National Guard troops to various US cities ever since it became clear its mass deportation efforts weren’t nearly as popular with US residents ([or the troops themselves!][3]) as they were with the bigoted ghouls who infested the White House.
Trump claimed the National Guard deployments were necessary because the cities they were sent to (Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, etc.) were so gutted by violent crime that the only solution was one that pushes up [against the edges of martial law][4].
Most of the early deployments targeted states or cities where Trump had failed to secure a majority of the popular vote. Later deployments to Tennessee and Louisiana were actually welcomed by state reps who were more closely aligned with MAGA ideals than the rights and liberties of their states’ residents.
But no matter where the National Guard went, the promised reduction in violent crime failed to materialize. It’s an assumption anyone could make, given that it was more a show of force meant to force more cities and states to bend the knee, rather than a well-designed plan to address alleged crime epidemics.
The Center for American Progress [released a report early last month][5], one that showed National Guard deployments weren’t doing much in terms of crime. Instead, the administration was spending more than a billion dollars ($1.7 billion at last count) in an attempt to take credit for the status quo: a long, sharp decline in violent crime rates that long proceeded either of Trump’s two presidential terms.
> *In an effort to falsely claim his policies have reduced crime, the president is exploiting the fact that violent crime and murder were already declining in the cities his administration targeted with these extreme interventions. On average, the 11 cities where the National Guard was deployed or threatened to be deployed saw a 14 percent decrease in their 12-month rolling violent crime rate and a 22 percent decrease in their 12-month rolling murder rate from June 2024 to June 2025, before the National Guard was first deployed to Los Angeles.*
>
> *These recent violent crime trends, predating even Trump’s second inauguration, suggest that, more than likely, violent crime would have continued trending downward in these cities by the end of 2025, regardless of any additional interventions. However, the Trump administration has ignored this fact when reporting year-over-year crime statistics to claim these extreme tactics have made Americans safer.*
Trump is the real lagging indicator here. The report was released July 10. It took until a few days ago for [Trump to threaten the left-leaning think tank with a bogus libel lawsuit][6]. This threat was delivered by someone in Trump’s personal employ, rather than any of the dozens (or hundreds) of lawyers employed by the federal government, for obvious reasons.
> *On Monday, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Alejandro Brito, wrote a letter to the center warning that he would file the suit if the group did not fully retract the report, which was published on its website on July 13. The letter, viewed by The New York Times, was addressed to the group’s president and chief executive, Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic official who served as a senior adviser to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and to several of its board members.*
>
> *Mr. Brito claimed that [the report about the National Guard][7] was full of malicious and false statements. He gave Ms. Tanden and members of her board until 5 p.m. on Friday to retract it and apologize to Mr. Trump.*
Libel lawsuits are personal causes of action. The federal government cannot file a defamation lawsuit on its own behalf. Hence, the need to portray this criticism of the *administration’s* policies and claims are being portrayed as defaming Trump *personally* for the sole purpose of silencing critics of this iteration of the federal government.
The New York Times report doesn’t contain anything *specific* Trump’s lawyer claimed was defamatory in the threat letter he issued on behalf of his boss. It’s safe to assume Brito provided no specifics, but relied on intentional vagueness in hopes of making the legal threat stick. And because it’s an obviously bogus legal threat, the letter concludes with a phrase almost always deployed by people who know they have no legitimate case to make:
> *The letter ended: “PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY.”*
No problem, said the Center for American Progress lawyers. We are governed accordingly:
> *“This is utterly absurd,” the lawyer, Kevin H. Metz, wrote to Mr. Brito. “Truth is not and cannot be defamation.”*
>
> *Mr. Metz went on to say that the center welcomed the opportunity to make its case in court and receive more information on the National Guard deployments through the process of discovery.*
We’ll see if Trump tries to press this case or whether he’ll wander off to yell at the next thing that momentarily makes him angry. But even if he moves off of this particular provocation, he’s still got a year to let this simmer on the back burner.
It’s performative but it still serves a purpose: to deter others who might publish facts Trump doesn’t like but may not have the money, time, or legal acumen to fight back when the president decides he wants to sue in his personal capacity. And while we all know this is meaningless and unjustified, the fact is that Trump has pretty much unlimited amounts of time and money and, apparently, enough lawyers on hand willing to jeopardize their careers and reputations for a guy [who ultimately may stiff them][8] when it’s time to collect their legal fees.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/15/judge-tosses-trumps-ridiculous-10-billion-defamation-suit-against-rupert-murdoch/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/02/court-tosses-another-bogus-libel-lawsuit-brought-against-the-washington-post-by-donald-trump/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/national-guard-troops-arent-happy-theyre-just-trumps-toy-soldiers/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/26/trump-deploying-the-national-guard-to-fight-crime-blurs-the-legal-distinction-between-police-military/
[5]: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-1-7-billion-national-guard-deployments-fail-to-reduce-urban-crime/
[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/politics/trump-lawsuit-liberal-think-tank.html
[7]: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-1-7-billion-national-guard-deployments-fail-to-reduce-urban-crime/
[8]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/trump-files-time-trumps-lawyers-sued-trump/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/trump-threatens-think-tank-with-libel-lawsuit-for-telling-the-truth-about-national-guard-deployments/

2026-08-24 20:13:12 CEST

Even Some Of The Loudest Kids’ Online Safety Advocates Are Now Warning Against Social Media Bans
We’ve been talking for a while now about how the rush (much of it driven by politicians’ obsession with Jonathan Haidt’s [mostly debunked][1] book) to ban kids from social media is dangerously stupid. It [misdiagnoses the problem][2] and creates a solution that both [does not work][3] and [makes actual problems worse][4]. Previous reporting has already shown that a massive number of kids easily get around the bans, and among those who haven’t were those who actually relied on these services for community. Given the obvious failures and the clear damage already done in Australia, it’s bizarre that so many other countries are still rushing to copy it.
But with France’s Constitutional Council [recently blocking][5] Emmanuel Macron’s version (shoved into law almost immediately after he sat down with Haidt), some sense is finally creeping into the conversation, with a growing number of experts [speaking out against blanket blocks][6]:
> *The rash of new laws and the subsequent backlash is prompting people to ask if social media bans are going too far, too fast — and whether there may be a smarter way to protect kids online than forcing them off.*
> *Lorena Giuberti Coutinho, an online safety commissioner for Brazil’s independent data protection authority, told POLITICO that social media bans increasingly appear “quite hard to impose,” and questioned whether global momentum for that approach would persist.*
> *“The incentives for teenagers to continue on social media are quite strong because this is where they communicate,” said Coutinho.*
This matters, because for the last year or so it’s felt almost inevitable that social media bans would become the global default — despite the science not supporting them, and despite nobody having any real evidence about what the bans themselves would do to kids. Indeed, for all the people running around screaming about how this needs to be done to stop companies from “experimenting on children,” cutting kids off from their communities online is, itself, an experiment on the mental health and psyche of children without any understanding of what it might do.
It’s especially notable that this skepticism is coming from Brazil’s online safety commissioner, because, as we discussed [recently on Ctrl-Alt-Speech][7], Brazil has been going through yet another social media moral panic, one that has forced [Discord to disable livestreaming][8], after a horrific case in which a 13-year-old girl was allegedly coerced by other users into taking her own life (Discord disputes that the death itself was broadcast live). Everything about that story is horrifying. But blaming it on the existence of livestreaming on one particular platform — when the exact same tech exists on nearly every other platform — mostly guarantees that the next tragedy happens somewhere the regulators aren’t looking.
But whatever you make of that particular mess, the pushback isn’t limited to Brazil. It’s showing up more or less everywhere these bans have been tried.
> *In the United States, protecting children from social media is a priority among politicians of all partisan stripes — from Texas Senator Ted Cruz to California Governor Gavin Newsom. But no legislative ban for teen users has moved forward at either the state or federal level.*
> *There are broad concerns that bans could violate children’s free speech rights by restricting their ability to engage with lawful speech online, as well as pushback from activists, like those in the LGBTQ+ community, who say that social media can also be a place where otherwise isolated youth can stay informed and connect with peers.*
Surprisingly, even the activist groups responsible for some of the worst anti-internet bills of the last half decade — [like 5Rights, whose founder has been drafting California’s censorship laws][9] — are now calling out the dangers of blanket bans:
> *A* [*report by a group of youth behavioral experts*][10]*, delivered ahead of an expected EU-wide proposal this fall, appeared doubtful that age restrictions alone are the solution. One pointed to “circumvention” around Australia’s solution. The experts make a point of anticipating changing user habits: They recommend that solutions are aimed at all the online places where young people will be spending their time, which increasingly includes AI chatbots.*
> *Several experts who consulted the European Commission on the proposed measures, including Leanda Barrington-Leach of the 5Rights Foundation and the London School of Economics’ Sonia Livingstone, wrote a* [*letter*][11] *to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to warn against blanket measures. Total bans are not in line with protecting children’s fundamental rights because they cut off their access to information, which may lead them to more dangerous, unregulated online spaces, the letter says.*
This might be the one and only thing I’ve ever agreed with 5Rights on, even if the global rush to ban social media is the entirely predictable end result of years of their own misleading advocacy.
Right now the activists who pushed these bans look a lot like the dog who caught the car. They got the laws they wanted and now the evidence suggests that these laws don’t actually benefit kids and may, in fact, harm them. There’s a real cost to putting in place these superficial “something must be done, this is something, we will do this” kinds of solutions, rather than dealing with the actual underlying root causes. So instead of funding real mental health support, or building better tools that let people protect themselves, we got a pile of headline-grabbing laws that make politicians look busy while leaving every underlying problem exactly where it was.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/10/experts-universally-pan-jonathan-haidts-the-anxious-generation-as-unscientific-garbage-but-politicians-keep-buying-it-anyway/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/21/the-science-is-not-settled-how-weak-evidence-is-fueling-a-national-push-to-ban-social-media-for-youth/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/australias-social-media-ban-is-isolating-kids-with-disabilities-just-like-critics-warned/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/10/adults-broke-the-internet-and-theyre-trying-to-fix-it-by-kicking-kids-off/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/19/french-constitutional-council-blocks-under-15-social-media-ban-in-a-ruling-that-should-concern-every-other-eu-country/
[6]: https://www.politico.eu/article/social-media-bans-minors-global-backlash/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/21/ctrl-alt-speech-school-of-hard-blocks/
[8]: https://abcnews.com/Technology/wireStory/discord-halts-livestreams-brazil-after-watchdog-cites-child-135722383
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/25/why-is-a-british-baroness-drafting-california-censorship-laws/
[10]: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-new-take-on-social-media-is-tougher-than-it-looks/
[11]: https://pro.politico.eu/news/220044
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/even-some-of-the-loudest-kids-online-safety-advocates-are-now-warning-against-social-media-bans/

2026-08-24 20:08:01 CEST

Daily Deal: The Ultimate Microsoft Office 2021/365 Training Bundle
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[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-ultimate-microsoft-office-2021-365-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/daily-deal-the-ultimate-microsoft-office-2021-365-training-bundle-2/

2026-08-24 18:37:40 CEST

Border Czar Tom Homan Says The Glove Tasering Will Continue Until Morale Improves
We’ve moved into a new era where the administration’s constant cruelty, violence, and actual murders simply aren’t enough to keep Trump appeased or entertained. ICE is now goosing its arrest numbers by arresting holders of expired visas at domestic airports. Now we’re being treated to additional abject cruelty in the places where boots are on the ground.
An option only rarely secured by agencies that oversee jails — confined areas filled with convicted criminals that might need more immediate response alternatives — is now the subject of a $20 million no-bid contract. Once fulfilled, this will outfit any number of federal immigration officers with gloves capable of standing in for Tasers.
And while the company selling these G.L.O.V.Es (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters) has draped itself with CYA fine print to offload any eventual deaths/maiming on owner/operators, it’s really just giving them all they need to [joy buzzer people into submission/death][1] while absolving themselves of their contributory actions.
Hell, [the owner’s manual][2] even pretends [Excited Delirium][3] is an actual medical condition, even when the AMA (and others) refuse to recognize a “syndrome” that somehow is only witnessed by cops who have restrained someone to death. It rephrases this as an “Agitated Chaotic Event (ACE)”, which would suggest that agitation and chaos are things cops bring the restraint party while simultaneously suggesting agitation and chaos are things in need of additional force deployment.
Managing chaos in a prison might call for some immediate incapacitation options. But ICE et al are operating out in the open. Any situation that’s uncontrollable is largely the fault of officers who’ve never been properly trained to do the job they’re now doing. CBP historically has handled illegal border crossings, patrolling southern deserts and/or pitching in with Border Patrol operations at border crossing points. Prior to Trump’s revamp of ICE to focus entirely on any migrant anywhere in the nation, ICE spent most of its time handling the customs side of its purview.
Now, every DHS agency (and plenty of voluntolds from the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals Service, etc.) is a masked jump-out squad participating in open-air ambushes and kidnappings. Unsurprisingly, they’re so bad at it that they routinely murder people literally any other law enforcement agency would arrest peacefully, if not ignore completely.
Having realized no one is up for the task — especially since ICE has drastically cut back its training regime while simultaneously loosening entry requirements — the government must now rely on increased violence to meet its arrest goals.
Enter the G.L.O.V.E. And enter Tom Homan, [who just sees this as the next step][4] in the “truth, justice, and the American way” continuum:
> *White House border czar Tom Homan defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s [plan to give officers][5] gloves that deliver painful electric shocks, calling them a tool to help officers end confrontations without using deadly force.*
>
> *“It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not,” Homan said Thursday in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.” “You can’t just go from 0 to 100, right, and the first thing you go for is lethal force.”*
Well, what’s wrong with whips? I mean, that’s a historic method that was used to great effect to make non-whites fall in line while slavery was still the operative policy, as well as for years after the slaves had been freed. How about fire hoses? That takes us all the way up to the mid-60s, where meeting “0 to 100” midway meant pinning people to the wall with water pressure meant to subdue industrial fires.
Why is shocking people with electrified gloves suddenly a smart option when ICE, CBP, etc. have never had to rely on this tech prior to this point? Homan pretends it’s about compliance when it’s really about subjugation and maximum pain infliction. He says the gloves are something that sits between the “0 to 100” scale of law enforcement violence, deliberately ignoring the fact that ICE officers will choose the option closest to 100 no matter where on the 0-100 scale the threat level actually is.
If we could trust immigration officers to not murder people simply because they’re (1) inconvenient or (2) driving vehicles, we might be able to accept a “compliance” tool in limited situations, like detention centers or border crossings. But Homan — and the agencies he (sort of) represents — want to see these used everywhere, all the time. Why limit yourself to punching someone when you can immobilize them before handing out a beating? Why consider de-escalation when everything you wear and everything you hear from your supervisors says do unto others *first.*
A nation that has still managed to raise its voice against Trump despite being beaten, shot, stripped of due process rights, and depicted as “garbage” from “shithole countries” is going to be silenced, immobilized, and violated by officers who now get to add stealth stun options to the “roving death squad” loadout they’ve preferred ever since Trump took office again. Homan is just here to blame the victims for their own injuries or deaths.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/ice-is-buying-stun-gloves-for-officers-because-theyre-just-not-injuring-killing-enough-migrants/
[2]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28552164-gen-3-4-glove-user-manual/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/07/company-that-turned-excited-delirium-into-a-thing-thinks-it-can-solve-school-shootings-with-drone-mounted-tasers/
[4]: https://apnews.com/article/ice-electric-shock-gloves-d29adffffd08fc95d7bbef618ddce52f
[5]: https://apnews.com/article/ice-electric-shock-gloves-85ff746d3e0ee5f39e7a9a3f1f576252
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/border-czar-tom-homan-says-the-glove-tasering-will-continue-until-morale-improves/

2026-08-24 14:34:09 CEST

Telecom Experts Say Elon Musk’s Wireless Plan Is Historically Stupid
Earlier this month [I noted that][1] Elon Musk’s Starlink is giving very unsubtle indications that the company wants to jump into the wireless business. I also noted that there’s a very long list of reasons why this isn’t likely to go well for him, ranging from the extremely high cost of network build-outs, to the fact that entrenched giants like AT&T and Verizon are very good at crushing insurgents.
As a launch gets closer we’ve seen more details into how Starlink actually hopes to try and make a wireless phone service work. Experts have already noted that the low-Earth-orbit Starlink satellite network is [generally too congested to scale][2] in the way the SpaceX IPO claims it can. The IPO projects a jump from 10 million to 300+ million in just a few years; an impossible feat.
Some had speculated that Starlink would accomplish this by buying a company like T-Mobile. The company also is poised to buy around $17 billion in AWS-4 and H-block wireless spectrum licenses from Echostar after Brendan Carr specifically launched an “[investigation][3]” into Echostar making it possible.
But instead of buying T-Mobile, Musk seems convinced that he can launch a nationwide wireless phone service by simply plunking down thousands of [meshed femtocells][4] installed on customer rooftops alongside existing LEO satellite dishes. Such femtocells would eat up backhaul capacity shared with the already capacity-constrained satellite-delivered broadband.
Even normally staid analysts at industry trade mags have called the idea [incredibly stupid][5]:
> ***“This ranks as one of the top three dumbest ideas in my four decades of being in this industry,”** said Earl Lum, the founder of analyst company EJL Wireless Research. What’s currently unclear is SpaceX’s precise definition of a small cell, but a typical outdoor small cell would come with power output of 5 watts per channel, in Lum’s book, and be difficult to install at residential properties.*
>
> *“You need a real antenna in three sectors. To deploy this, it means you have to have a pole on a roof that’s good enough to hang three radios and three antennas, which is going to be hard,” he said. “You would have to go through the standard permitting for any macro cell site, and at that point why do you want a small cell?”*
Keep in mind that Musk’s companies (especially Starlink and Tesla solar) don’t really have, or believe in, [functional customer service][6]. So the idea that existing Starlink customers are going to make all this work without coherent support is another wrinkle. There’s very little indication this would work; and it’s near impossible to make it scale up in urban areas where they’d compete with AT&T and Verizon.
Musk and friends may belatedly realize the unworkable nature of the idea later, at which point they just gobble up T-Mobile, which has steadily become [shittier and shittier][7] in the wake of the Sprint merger (precisely as deal critics predicted). Though even that would be very expensive and include lengthy, cumbersome integration, with no guarantee of meaningful success.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/elon-musk-wants-to-get-into-wireless-phones-and-hes-probably-not-going-to-have-a-good-time/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/31/study-shows-musks-starlink-too-congested-to-tackle-u-s-broadband-woes-despite-billions-in-new-subsidies/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/10/trumps-fcc-just-used-a-fake-investigation-to-shower-att-and-elon-musk-with-billions-in-valuable-spectrum/
[4]: https://www.lightreading.com/satellite/musk-s-mobile-network-moonshot-is-in-danger-of-a-crash-landing
[5]: https://www.lightreading.com/5g/small-cells-big-mess-why-musk-s-spacex-telecom-plan-won-t-work
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/01/27/musks-starlink-continues-to-struggle-with-very-basic-customer-service/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/02/t-mobile-jacks-up-prices-for-everybody-ignores-years-of-uncarrier-promises/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/telecom-experts-say-elon-musks-wireless-plan-is-historically-stupid/

2026-08-23 21:00:53 CEST

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, [MrWilson][1] takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about [opportunistic ICE arrests][2]:
> *ICE keeps trying to find more victims to prove the false narrative of how many undocumented immigrants there are in the country, so individual agents probably want to make their own abductions to show dear leader that their jackboots are loyal rather than hand it off to someone else.*
In second place, it’s a response to our post about the MAGA GOP [warning about communism while taking ownership stakes in private companies][3]:
> *Another angle is seeing it as just more fascism. The Nazi government in Germany was deep in it with corporations and seized assets and controlled factories and controlled how they did business*
>
> *Trump isn’t seizing or nationalizing the means of production for the benefit of the people or the workers. He’s getting more power and money for his corruption machine. We’re not seeing all of what’s happening in the background, but you know he’s personally benefiting from these moves.*
>
> *And when a Democrat gets into the White House, watch for Fox News and GOP politicians to decry the “communism” that Democrats are perpetuating and they’ll ignore Trump’s moves entirely or our local propaganda repeater will stop by to tell us it was legal under Trump and completely different but any Democrats doing 5% of the same thing are dirty commies.*
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of comments about the federal court ruling that said recommendation algorithms aren’t protected speech. First, it’s [Stephen T. Stone][4] with a reply to a commenter who asserted that [“the government needs the power to control what companies recommend”][5]:
> *No. No, it does not. As the article asks, do you really want the Trump administration in control of what content social media services can/will recommend? Because that seems like a surefire way to privilege TRASH speech over all other kinds. But feel free to point out how that wouldn’t be the case!*
Next, it’s an anonymous comment about the line in the ruling saying [the social media companies had not shown that their feeds constitute fully protected speech][6]:
> *Uh… Protected speech is assumed. The court needs to fully explain how something is not protected. They have utterly failed to do this so far.*
>
> *Not that i don’t think plenty of these companies, and plenty of algorithms, pretty much suck to one degree or another. However, one is free to search or refresh or better train how the algorithm serves them, at least to a point. And one is free to leave. One is also free to educate one’s children in media literacy.*
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is [MrWilson][7] yet again, this time with [another reply to that same commenter][8]:
> *No. No, it does not. As the article asks, do you really want the Trump administration in control of what content social media services can/will recommend? Because that seems like a surefire way to privilege TRASH speech over all other kinds. But feel free to point out how that wouldn’t be the case!*
In second place, it’s an anonymous comment from last week’s comments post, in which I lamented that [there were no more Star Trek jokes for me to highlight][9]:
> *Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!*
(Though several commenters associated “this far and no further” even more strongly with the iconic final episode of the initial run of Columbo, *another* greatest-show-of-all-time. Techdirt readers have great taste!)
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from [PB&J][10] about [MAGA’s fearmongering about communism][11]:
> *obligatory meme: “If Those Kids Could Read They’d Be Very Upset”*
>
> *We all know that 50% of Americans don’t know what communism is — like, they literally cannot define it — and another 49% think it means “The Democrats”.*
Finally, it’s one more anonymous reaction to the ruling that algorithms aren’t protected speech [because they just reflect what people want back to them][12]:
> *Today I learned that portrait photography is not protected under the Constitution because it is merely a mirror held up to that person.*
That’s all for this week, folks!
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/mrwilson/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/19/ice-opportunism-expands-to-passengers-on-domestic-flights/#comment-5570222
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/18/maga-gop-keeps-taking-ownership-stakes-in-private-companies-then-warning-you-the-communists-are-coming/#comment-5568508
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/regularstone/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/17/federal-court-rules-that-blocking-speech-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment-but-recommending-it-isnt/#comment-5567041
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/17/federal-court-rules-that-blocking-speech-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment-but-recommending-it-isnt/#comment-5567355
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/mrwilson/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/17/federal-court-rules-that-blocking-speech-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment-but-recommending-it-isnt/#comment-5567239
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/16/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-221/#comment-5564958
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/pbj/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/18/maga-gop-keeps-taking-ownership-stakes-in-private-companies-then-warning-you-the-communists-are-coming/#comment-5570225
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/17/federal-court-rules-that-blocking-speech-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment-but-recommending-it-isnt/#comment-5566759
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/23/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-222/

2026-08-23 20:16:47 CEST

This Week In Techdirt History: August 16th – 22nd
**This Week in 2016**
* [Snowden Docs Show NSA, New Zealand Spied On Pro-Democracy Activists][1]
* [Which Crazy Copyright Holder Took Down Katie Ledecky/Carlos Santana ‘Smooth’ Mashup First?][2]
* [Billionaire Backer Of Palantir & Facebook Insists He’s Bankrupting Journalists To Protect Your Privacy][3]
* [Donald Trump Says He’ll Turn Off The Internet For Terrorists][4]
* [Twitter Suspends Hundreds Of Thousands Of Terrorist Accounts, Gives Everyone Its ‘Quality Filter’][5]
* [Recording Industry Whines That It’s Too Costly To Keep Copyright Terms At Life Plus 50, Instead Of Life Plus 70][6]
**This Week in 2011**
* [Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter?][7]
* [Dear Musicians: The RIAA Is About To Totally Screw You Over (Again!)][8]
* [Waffle House Says Rap Song Called Waffle House Violates Its Trademark][9]
* [Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft][10]
* [MPAA Calls MPAA Intellectually Dishonest For Claiming That Infringement Is Inevitable][11]
* [As Expected, Backpage Is Not Liable For Prostitution Ads][12]
**This Week in 2006**
* [Oh Look, The More Hollywood Attacks, The Further Underground File Sharing Goes][13]
* [Cabbies Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Navigation Systems][14]
* [Captain Copyright Gets A Rewrite?][15]
* [Ignoring Obsolete Analog Technology Is Now Considered Circumventing Copy Protection?][16]
* [There Ought To Be A Law… Any Law… To Protect The Children][17]
* [Where’s The Checkbox For ‘New FBI Computer System Is So Bad I Plan To Go On A Crime Spree’?][18]
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/15/snowden-docs-show-nsa-new-zealand-spied-pro-democracy-activists/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/15/which-crazy-copyright-holder-took-down-katie-ledecky-carlos-santana-smooth-mashup-first/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/16/billionaire-backer-palantir-facebook-insists-hes-bankrupting-journalists-to-protect-your-privacy/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/17/donald-trump-says-hell-turn-off-internet-terrorists/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/18/twitter-suspends-hundreds-thousands-terrorist-accounts-gives-everyone-quality-filter/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/19/recording-industry-whines-that-too-costly-to-keep-copyright-terms-life-plus-50-instead-life-plus-70/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/15/could-internet-television-be-making-everyone-smarter/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/16/dear-musicians-riaa-is-about-to-totally-screw-you-over-again/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/17/waffle-house-says-rap-song-called-waffle-house-violates-its-trademark/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/17/dear-mpaa-stomp-your-feet-repeat-it-as-many-times-as-you-want-infringement-is-not-theft/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/18/mpaa-calls-mpaa-intellectually-dishonest-claiming-that-infringement-is-inevitable/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/19/as-expected-backpage-is-not-liable-prostitution-ads/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/14/oh-look-the-more-hollywood-attacks-the-further-underground-file-sharing-goes/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/14/cabbies-dont-need-no-stinkin-navigation-systems/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/15/captain-copyright-gets-a-rewrite/
[16]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/16/ignoring-obsolete-analog-technology-is-now-considered-circumventing-copy-protection/
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/17/there-ought-to-be-a-law-any-law-to-protect-the-children/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/18/wheres-the-checkbox-for-new-fbi-computer-system-is-so-bad-i-plan-to-go-on-a-crime-spree/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/22/this-week-in-techdirt-history-august-16th-22nd/

2026-08-13 22:19:39 CEST

ICE Is Buying Stun Gloves For Officers Because They’re Just Not Injuring/Killing Enough Migrants
The administration has no legitimate justification for this action. It’s all about [inflicting as much literal pain as possible on *anyone*][1] ICE officers happen to encounter.
> *Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals.*
>
> *ICE [plans to spend][2] up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a [notice published Monday][3] by the Department of Homeland Security.*
It’s a Taser but it’s a glove. It’s something hardly anyone in law enforcement has ever needed. And yet, there’s a $20 million no-bid contract that is going to make (lol) Compliant Technologies that much richer. Compliant Technologies [describes the G.L.O.V.E.][4] (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter) this way [all quotation marks in the original]:
> *The G.L.O.V.E. quickly transforms into a CD3 (Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device) when used within the Force Continuum to supplement existing tools for law enforcement, corrections, security, EMS and the military. It is available as an “invisible partner” to enhance the user’s effectiveness when operating within their agencies’ already established tactics, techniques and procedures. This is why we call the G.L.O.V.E. the “Force Multiplier” and how it operates within the Force Continuum as “The New Protocol in Peace Keeping.”*
Oh my. “Force multiplier.” “Invisible partner.” “New Protocol in Peace Keeping.” That’s a whole lot of jargon right there. It’s an ambush tactic (a glove with a juiced up joy buzzer inside) that will definitely be a “force multiplier” (if by “force,” you mean “excessive”) in/on the hands of ICE officers.
I mean, they’re really not showing any restraint *now*, whether they’re [raiding flea markets][5], subjecting migrants to [continuous rights violations][6] in ICE detention facilities, or straight up [murdering people][7] in the streets.
I’m not kidding. It’s basically Taser, but in glove form. The [user’s manual][8] (embedded below in case the company decides to make it disappear) compiled by Compliant Technologies even uses [Taser’s jargon][9] for “but the person died of something other than continuous electric shocks:”
> ***AGITATED CHAOTIC EVENT (ACE) PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS EXCITED DELIRIUM SYNDROME (EXDS) AND SUICIDAL CONSIDERATIONS***
>
> *Compliant Technologies does not prescribe any protocols for using a CD3 device in a situation involving an ACE or suicidal people. It is the responsibility of the officer to deal with these cases according to their agency’s protocols and procedures.*
Yeah, that ought to keep the blood off Compliant’s hands. (But not so much the ICE officers whose electro-gloves may now be covered in the blood of people who’ve had the privilege of being subjected to the “new protocol in peacekeeping.”)
The manual makes it clear there will be plenty of opportunity for “friendly fire:”
> *It is recommended to have an additional officer on scene to cuff/restrain while the G.L.O.V.E. is being deployed. Always advise other officers of G.L.O.V.E. deployment by saying, “G.L.O.V.E. ON!”*
Hmmm. I wonder how many times be-GLOVEd officers’ “GLOVE on!” shouts will be misheard as something about a gun. Shout that phrase loud and fast with as much “rapidly-evolving situation” tension as you can apply. [The hard G alone][10] will probably be enough to bring multiple ICE firearms into the firing position. Repeating the phrase for clarity will probably just make ICE officers believe they misheard correctly the first time.
To date, almost every user of this device is someone working in a correctional facility where this probably makes a bit more sense. I’m not saying there’s any reason for these gloves to exist *at all*, but when you’re trying to subdue someone while surrounded by convicted criminals, any help is probably appreciated.
As for any comments from ICE about officers receiving appropriate training before being given a pair of stun gloves, the agency can go fuck itself. It’s been [on a hiring spree][11] since Trump took office. To maintain the [number of officers][12] needed to make the administration’s bigots happy, ICE has gutted its training program and lowered its hiring standards.
And even if officers are receiving the full load of training, it’s hardly specific to the roving-gang-of-masked-thugs work most officers are doing *now.* Prior to everyone calling for ICE’s abolishment, ICE spent most of its time seizing *things,* rather than people — something one would expect from a *customs enforcement* agency. For years, immigration problems were largely handled by the agencies that dealt with the largest number of immigrants: CBP and the Border Patrol.
Adding this to the arsenal just means more people are going to be seriously injured or killed. It will do absolutely nothing to make ICE better, more efficient, or capable of meeting sky-high arrest quotas. The misanthropes running this government are apparently just googling up whatever new means of pain/torture they can get their hands on/in. We can only hope a lot of officers will forget they still have their gloves engaged when doing things like adjusting their masks or [scratching their balls][13].
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/ice-electric-shock-gloves-85ff746d3e0ee5f39e7a9a3f1f576252
[2]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-enforcement-dhs-ice-deportation-9eef2e24fede3e4d593be462cbcf31f2
[3]: https://apfs-cloud.dhs.gov/record/74524/public-print/
[4]: https://www.complianttechnologies.net/the-glove
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/25/ices-military-style-raid-of-a-los-angeles-flea-market-netted-only-two-arrests/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/25/ice-detention-center-contractor-endangered-detainees-destroyed-homicide-evidence/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/21/tom-homan-again-promises-that-ice-will-keep-murdering-people-until-democrats-stop-calling-them-murderers/
[8]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28552164-gen-3-4-glove-user-manual/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/07/company-that-turned-excited-delirium-into-a-thing-thinks-it-can-solve-school-shootings-with-drone-mounted-tasers/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/26/an-american-murder/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/14/one-country-for-old-men-desperate-ice-drops-age-cap-for-new-hires/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/03/the-people-applying-for-ice-jobs-are-exactly-who-you-think-they-are/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/31/ice-airport-deployment-shows-officers-only-need-masks-when-theyre-kidnapping-people/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/ice-is-buying-stun-gloves-for-officers-because-theyre-just-not-injuring-killing-enough-migrants/

2026-08-13 20:00:22 CEST

The Fake Free Speech President Has Unleashed ICE On Its Critics
It still amazes me that there are people out there who think that Donald Trump is a supporter of free speech. It has never been true. [Anyone who looks][1] will note that the Trump administration [regularly engages][2] in clearly unconstitutional attempts to suppress speech. But because he and his supporters like to *claim* he’s a free speech supporter, they believe it.
But here’s yet another story showing how that’s bullshit. The Wall Street Journal has a detailed report on how Trump’s personal secret police militia, ICE, is actively [investigating, intimidating, and silencing people][3] who criticize them online.
> *In recent months, ICE has deployed *[*a round-the-clock digital dragnet*][4]* to scour the public internet—from *[*Facebook*][5]* to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission. The government has paid millions to private contractors to surface everything from potential threats to agents to activities that could disrupt ICE’s operations, according to federal documents, contractors and former Homeland Security Investigations agents.*
>
> *The program has ensnared U.S. citizens and activist groups that alert community members about ICE activity. Contractors prepare daily reports and dossiers on threat actors, identifying the poster’s name, location, date of birth, workplace, Social Security number, vehicle registration and criminal history when possible. *
>
> *To unmask anonymous online critics, DHS has sent hundreds of subpoenas to social-media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Its agents have tracked down Americans at work and on the road, asking them to sign letters acknowledging their online speech about ICE “may” be a crime.*
Criticizing ICE online is not a crime. It’s protected speech under the First Amendment. I’d point out that all of this clearly violates Trump’s [early executive order on free speech][6], but did anyone ever take any of that seriously? It was always just red meat to throw out to his cultish base, rather than anything real.
Indeed, you can see that in the fact that the very same MAGA trolls who falsely insisted that the Biden admin was actively “censoring” people on social media will be quick to defend what ICE is doing here, even though it’s way more clearly an attack on the First Amendment rights of ICE’s critics.
> *DHS sent administrative subpoenas to *[*Reddit*][7]* for the information of 11 accounts that had posted “content critical of federal actions” between July and December of last year, the company’s most recent transparency reporting period, according to a person familiar with the matter.*
While the article notes that Reddit (thankfully) pushed back on these requests, this is still quite different from the reports the Biden administration occasionally sent to social media companies, which tended to be much more “does this violate *your* rules?” not “reveal who these critics are.”
The article notes that these attacks on free speech appear to be ratcheting up as ICE and Trump grow more desperate to control the narrative around their secret police activities. That escalation now includes seeking grand jury subpoenas for critics’ information. And now that Trump gave ICE a lot more money, they’re investing millions in surveillance tech to track down online critics:
> *In the past year, OPR spearheaded an initiative to dramatically expand the agency’s ability to monitor online critics and potential threats, according to contractors, federal documents and former HSI agents.*
>
> *Teams of contractors now scour the internet using sophisticated surveillance tools to find commentary that the agency regards as potentially dangerous.*
>
> *ICE spending on surveillance technology and consultants has surged, reaching $258 million during Trump’s first full year back in the White House, a 57% increase from the same period a year prior, according to the Journal’s analysis.*
>
> *ICE has inked at least six contracts that involve scanning public records for “threats,” paying out nearly $50 million since 2020. More than half those funds were obligated since last January, and another award potentially worth up to $50 million the agency continues to extend. The most recent awards call for contractors to help the agency geolocate individuals labeled as “extremists,” compile reports on individuals and cross-reference information with government databases, contracting documents show.*
Of course, MAGA folks will claim they have to track down “threats,” but much of the content doesn’t sound threatening at all. For example:
> *… a New York poll worker named Paigelynne Gonyea received a voicemail from a man identifying himself as an agent with Homeland Security. *
>
> *“We were just calling you in reference to a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE agent back in January,” said the caller. *
>
> *Shortly after, two agents from ICE OPR arrived at the voting site where she was working. *
>
> *They held printed screenshots from her account, she said, including the post in question. The agents flipped by it quickly, she said, but she caught one thing: The post included a photo of Ross, the immigration officer who killed Good.*
>
> *The file that agents were holding also contained Gonyea’s address, date of birth and what looked like a picture of her taken at airport security, she said. They told her to take down the post and asked her to sign a letter acknowledging she had been informed that she “may” have violated federal law with her social-media account.*
>
> *Gonyea said she was only able to find one post that spoke about a specific ICE agent: ”I think today is a great day for Jonathan Ross to be indicted!” the 40-year-old influencer and author had written in the post, referencing the Minnesota Star Tribune article that first named him. *
All of this is textbook behavior for thin-skinned authoritarians unwilling to tolerate even the mildest criticism. But in America, we’re supposed to have rights, including the right to free speech. But somehow all the people who claimed that Biden was suppressing speech have gone completely silent about stories like this one. Trump claiming to be the free speech president and claiming to outlaw anyone in the government from suppressing free speech means absolutely nothing as activities like the ones described here continue to happen daily.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/21/trumps-war-on-free-speech-gets-the-john-oliver-treatment/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/16/trumps-free-speech-presidency-racked-up-200-censorship-attempts-in-its-first-year/
[3]: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ice-surveillance-internet-critics-e3b22f49?st=A2x7AA&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
[4]: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/immigration-ice-arrests-surveillance-6f1cef64?mod=article_inline
[5]: https://www.wsj.com/topics/subject/facebook
[6]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship/
[7]: https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/RDDT
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/the-fake-free-speech-president-has-unleashed-ice-on-its-critics/

2026-08-13 19:55:08 CEST

Daily Deal: The AWS Certification Paths Bundle
If you’re looking for a career in cloud computing, there’s no better place to start than with the AWS certification. Whether you want to be an Architect or a Developer, these certifications open doors to incredible opportunities. But how do you get one? You need to use realistic exam simulators that present you with questions just like the ones you might face on the actual exam. The [2026 AWS Certification Paths Bundle][1] includes exam simulators with Performance-Based Questions (PBQs) following the Official AWS certification exam objectives. It’s on sale for $30.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-2022-aws-certification-paths-bundle-lifetime-access?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/daily-deal-the-aws-certification-paths-bundle/

2026-08-13 18:29:07 CEST

Flock (Again!) Activates A Camera System A Town Had Voted To Shut Down
The easiest way to tell that [Flock Safety][1] doesn’t really care that its massive network of ALPR (automatic license plate reader) cameras is [being abused by cops][2] to [stalk their exes][3] and harass residents is to judge it by its actions. When confronted with court case after court case detailing these allegations (and those are just the cops who actually got caught!), the company says two things: first, we’re not personally responsible for the actions of “bad apples” and second, some vague “fixes” are on the way at some indeterminate point in the future.
The other way you can tell Flock doesn’t care about anything but future profitability is this: when cities pull the plug on Flock systems due to local backlash, Flock has — one more than one occasion! — decided to to simply *[turn the cameras back on][4].*
Dayton, Ohio ended its contract with Flock following public complaints and some apparently forbidden sharing of data with federal immigration officers. But the city had to resort to *covering Flock cameras with garbage bags* to prevent further recordings since even the PD seemed unsure of whether or not it could actually control this function and Flock itself remained deliberately vague about when (or if!) it would be showing up to remove the recording equipment that contractually still belonged to it.
Dayton’s government had [good reason to be concerned about Flock][5]:
> *Last week, for example, the mayor of Menominee, Wisconsin [said that Flock cameras in the city][6] “have been activated without city council approval.” *
>
> *[…]*
>
> *[Evanston, Illinois] previously **[ordered Flock to shut down][7]** 19 cameras (18 stationary and one flex camera that can be attached to a squad car) provided by the company and put its contract with Flock on a 30-day termination notice on Aug. 26. **The company took down 15 of the 18 stationary cameras by Sept. 8, only to reinstall all of them by Tuesday.** *
Neat, huh? That’s on top of an audit performed by the South Carolina Secretary of Transportation that found more than ***200 unpermitted*** Flock cameras operating on public roads.
Now, we can add Littleton, Massachusetts to [the growing list of Flock’s ALPR+DGAF activities][8]:
> *Like in [dozens of communities across the country][9], many Littleton residents were displeased to learn about the installation of Flock Safety’s automatic license plate-reading cameras earlier this year. In May, following backlash, town officials [voted to shut down the six cameras][10] on public roads.*
>
> *Last week, police discovered Flock had restored power to the cameras without notifying the town.*
>
> *The discovery, detailed in a Littleton Police Department notice this week, led the department to order the cameras remotely powered down, disable system login access for officers, and confirm a Flockwork order was in place to remove the cameras from utility poles “as soon as possible.”*
That’s pretty fucked up. That’s Flock saying that not only is the customer never right but the customer shouldn’t be allowed to make their own decisions. It’s Flock unilaterally deciding that the rest of the nation’s users of Flock’s ALPR systems shouldn’t be deprived of access to Littleton’s cameras just because the entity paying for its services decided it no longer wanted to do business with Flock.
The Littleton PD did everything it could to abide by the vote and the town’s wishes. Flock, however, went the other way seemingly simply because it *could*. While PD officials have said this might have been the result of some miscommunication between the PD and Flock, it would seem an existing Flock work order to remove cameras would not have honestly resulted in this:
> *According to the statement, Littleton Police Chief Douglas Landry met with a Flock technician following the incident, and that “given the volume of vandalism and tampering incidents the company has dealt with nationally, it would not necessarily be treated as unusual on [Flock’s] end” to have a camera need to be turned back on unexpectedly.*
Do what now? Flock was told to remove the cameras. Instead, Flock decided this meant it could flip the on/off switch as often as it wanted to until it actually got around to removing the cameras, due to vague concerns about backlash Flock has absolutely earned.
And I can guarantee you whatever things Flock is saying at this point, it’s only saying because it got *caught*. I have yet to see an incident where Flock has *informed* cities or PDs of inadvertent activation or [illegal access][11]. In *every *case, it’s always Flock making excuses after the fact for things it could have done more of to prevent (illegal access) or abusive things it did itself (re-activating/re-installing cameras) that contradicted the intent of city residents and their governments. These are not the actions of a trustworthy tech provider. These are the actions of a company that clearly believes it cannot be fucked with because it has managed to corner this market.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/23/rings-super-bowl-ad-generates-so-much-backlash-it-has-ended-its-partnership-with-flock-safety/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/16/cops-continue-to-prove-they-cant-be-trusted-with-surveillance-tech/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/15/flock-is-the-new-tool-of-choice-for-cops-who-love-stalking-their-exes/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/04/because-flock-cant-be-trusted-cities-are-covering-cameras-with-garbage-bags/
[5]: https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/
[6]: https://archive.ph/o/gO2IH/https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1344710714170897
[7]: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/26/evanston-shuts-down-license-plate-cameras-terminates-contract-with-flock-safety/
[8]: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/06/business/flock-littleton-license-plate-camera-disable/
[9]: https://archive.ph/o/i0CpW/https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/30/business/flock-safety-cameras-pushback-massachusetts/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link
[10]: https://archive.ph/o/i0CpW/https://www.littletonma.org/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/593
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/13/cops-criticize-flock-safety-after-its-caught-handing-out-access-to-federal-agencies/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/flock-again-activates-a-camera-system-a-town-had-voted-to-shut-down/

2026-08-13 14:31:52 CEST

‘Trump Said A Thing’ Journalism Must Stop
One obvious byproduct of letting what’s left of U.S. journalism [consolidate in the hands of a bunch of giant corporations][1] is the end result winds up being a feckless mess. Generally corporations don’t want to upset advertisers, ownership (usually Conservative, white, and male), event sponsors, or potential advertising targets, so their journalism winds up being hollow, performative, and toothless.
One end result of this is something I affectionately call “[CEO said a thing!][2]” journalism, which kind of **looks** like journalism, but generally involves mindlessly parroting whatever a wealthy executive (or politician) says without context, correction, or even third-party objective analysis.
You’ll endlessly see this in corporate press coverage of corporations and tech. But it’s more generally reflected in their coverage of all rich men. Especially guys like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who have found it incredibly easy to manipulate what’s left of our press into [parroting every brain fart they have][3], regardless of whether there’s any useful new information or meaningful tether to factual reality.
This has been on particularly proud display when it comes to Trump and his unpopular and pointless war in Iran, with each week bringing a new headline of a plan that doesn’t exist, a pivot that never happened, or a strategy that isn’t coherent — or even real. The U.S. press, with occasional refreshing exception, endlessly just repeats whatever Trump says, regardless of whether what he’s saying is useful, real, or true.
Media critic Dan Froomkin has it right when he [calls for a moratorium on “Trump says” headlines][4] where every statement by our mad idiot king is mindlessly repeated without context or correction:
> *“It’s simple: Newsroom leaders should ban headlines based on what Trump says if there is legitimate reason to suspect that he may not be relating truthful, accurate, and durable information.*
>
> *I’m only a tiny bit more tolerant of the Trump “claims”, “maintains”, “blames”, and “insists” headlines, but at least those impart an iota of doubt.”*
The problem is this has been going on for *generations*. We’re more than ten years into Trump authoritarianism and propaganda. There’s *no more room for giving meaningful credence* to the idea that newsrooms and top editors are doing this *simply because they don’t know any better*.
They do this because corporate consolidated media isn’t interested in truth-telling journalism, they’re interesting in journalistic simulacrum and infotainment kayfabe that props up the interests and values of the *extraction class*. The public interest, hard-nosed journalism, and a properly informed electorate is the last thing on these gentlemen’s minds.
This isn’t some funny accident and it’s not subtle. Republicans and most rich white men are treated with kid gloves by 75% of the U.S. press because the corporations that own what’s left of these companies don’t want to rock the boat. They want their latest giant shitty merger approved. Their ownership likes tax cuts. Journalism that tells the truth *isn’t what they’re here for*.
Froomkin remains hopeful all the same:
> *“Surely our top newsroom leaders don’t see themselves as being in the business of spreading disinformation. But that’s what happens when they use the headlines and the tops of their articles to tell us what “Trump says” without caveats or pushback — when their headlines and leads should instead be devoted primarily to those caveats and pushbacks.”*
Froomkin is right, though I’d argue this isn’t something that a compelling *letter to the editor* can fix. This sort of abject cowardice is systemic and by design. And while there’s still great journalism that can occur at many modern media companies, it’s increasingly becoming the exception, not the rule. We’re not debating our way out of this. The fix is massive structural reform.
The fixes are obvious and have always been there, and they involve things large media company owners don’t like: like reforged media consolidation limits, real antitrust enforcement, media [ownership diversity requirements][5], improved media literacy and education standards (an informed audience that demands more of our journalistic institutions **can** shape coverage), a restoration of U.S. public media, and creative new funding models for real independent, worker-owned (and inevitably unionized) journalism.
We’re **way** past the point where we can assume this isn’t intentional, or can believe that simply asking better of these companies will result in the outcomes we’re all looking for.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/brendan-carrs-fcc-rewrites-media-ownership-law-only-congress-can-actually-change/
[2]: https://karlbode.com/ceo-said-a-thing-journalism/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/11/hey-journalists-not-every-elon-musk-brain-fart-warrants-an-entire-news-cycle/
[4]: https://presswatchers.org/2026/08/calling-for-a-moratorium-on-trump-says-headlines/
[5]: https://www.insideradio.com/free/gigi-sohn-opposes-fairness-doctrine-but-thinks-fcc-needs-more-data-on-station-diversity/article_7354a7d8-5bf0-11ec-9aef-e3d20f1cd7c6.html
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/13/trump-said-a-thing-journalism-must-stop/

2026-08-13 05:05:09 CEST

John Oliver Doubles Down After Latest Buc-ee’s Trademark Bullying Lawsuit
The [Buc-ee’s][1] trademark bullying saga continues! The company, once best known for building ridiculously enormous gas station and convenience store combinations has more recently become nearly as infamous for its bullying and litigious behavior. Buc-ee’s has a habit of suing all kinds of other businesses for trademark infringement, so long as those other businesses use cartoon animals in their logos, or have any kind of reference to beavers in their name and branding. John Oliver and his crew on *Last Week Tonight* recently [caught wind][2] of all of this and decided to poke the beaver in the eye, spinning up their own store featuring clothing with its anthropomorphic squirrel mascot on it and text that reads “Buc Off!”, and closed that segment begging Buc-ee’s to file suit over it all.
The company didn’t do so. Instead, they continued their trademark bullying ways [and sued][3] a small convenience store in Beavercreek, Ohio, called Beaver’s Mini Mart. Notably, that store has been doing business for many years and Buc-ee’s only recently opened a location 16 miles or so away.
If you thought this would somehow escape Oliver and his team, you were wrong. Oliver once again [closed his latest show with the same topic][4].
> *But in Last Week Tonight’s Aug. 9 episode, Oliver doubled down, extending the timeline of Buc-Off merch sales in response to [Buc-ee’s suing Beaver’s Mini Mart in Ohio][5].*
>
> *“The good news is we’ve raised almost half a million dollars for Hunger Free America so far,” Oliver said. “The bad news is it doesn’t seem Buc-ee’s got the message, because apparently they’re at it again. Yep, turns out, they’re still filing lawsuits,” Oliver continued. “You might be trying to name the Buc-ee’s beaver Mitch McConnell, because it seems this b—h will not quit.”*
You can see the clip below if you have an HBO subscription (the link is for the whole episode, but it should start at the 31 minute mark).
Oliver recounts several details why this latest lawsuit is so stupid. The name of the town. The way the company is pissing off the local residents and causing them to rally around the local convenience store. The bad press. And, lastly, drawing the continued ire of *Last Week Tonight*, which seems dedicated to continuing to point out just how shitty Buc-ee’s is being in all of this.
> *Oliver noted that while the Buc-Off online store was supposed to close Sept. 8, it is “staying f–king open” for as long as Buc-ee’s is suing Beaver’s Mini Mart. Chron has reached out to Buc-ee’s legal counsel for comment. *
>
> *Before the episode ended, Last Week Tonight mascot Mr. Nutterbutter made an appearance in a Beaver’s Mini Mart T-shirt. When the mascot made a sad gesture, Oliver asked if he was disappointed that the travel stop still hadn’t sued them. When Mr. Nutterbutter said yes, Oliver had words of reassurance for the giant squirrel. *
>
> *“It could still happen,” Oliver said. “Especially because our store is still open.”*
I can only hope that Buc-ee’s’ plan to wait for Oliver to get bored of all of this doesn’t work.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/company/buc-ees/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/30/john-oliver-dares-buc-ees-to-sue-him-over-trademark-infringement/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/buc-ees-shies-away-from-john-oliver-challenge-sues-tiny-ohio-convenience-store-instead/
[4]: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/john-oliver-bucees-ohio-beavers-22382460.php
[5]: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/buc-ees-ohio-beavers-mini-mart-suit-22371551.php
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/john-oliver-doubles-down-after-latest-buc-ees-trademark-bullying-lawsuit/

2026-08-12 20:07:49 CEST

Trump Rushes To Stock FCC With Personal Lackeys, Refuses To Seat Dem Commissioners
When Trump FCC Boss Brendan Carr isn’t [trampling free speech][1] or [harassing major networks for platforming comedians][2], he’s been illegally taking a hatchet to[ whatever’s left of media consolidation rules][3] and [telecom consumer protection oversight][4].
While he’s been pretty effective at this, Carr would find it even easier to convene meetings and hold agency votes if he had a full 3 member Republican FCC majority. So last Friday he appointed Danielle Thumann Severs, his [own longtime personal legal aide][5], to fill the empty spot. She’d basically be there to do whatever Carr (and Trump) tell her to do.
Like, say, [illegally help broadcasters consolidate][6]. Or [undermine the agency’s cybersecurity policies][7]. Or collude with right wing executives to [manufacture controversies in order to harass media companies that platform politicians Donald Trump and Trump Republicans are afraid of][8].
Technically Democrats are supposed to hold two FCC commissioner spots as a sort of counterbalance. But unsurprisingly, Carr has made no moves to appoint lone Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez (who has been a very vocal critic of Carr’s sloppy censorship efforts) to another five year term, nor fill the second vacant FCC Democratic seat.
Democrats have responded by [stomping their feet a little][9]:
> *“If President Trump wants to fill these positions, he should do them in a bipartisan way,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the top Democrat on Commerce’s telecom subcommittee, told POLITICO. “I would certainly hope my Republican colleagues on the committee want to see some semblance of balance as well. Because who’s going to be the next president?”*
Republicans do not, it should go without saying, “want to see some semblance of balance.” Over at the FTC, [you might recall Trump illegally fired both Democratic FTC Commissioners][10], and is now just waiting for his lackey-stacked courts to change the law to suit his authoritarian whims (there are [some interesting legal differences between the agencies here you may find useful to read about][11]). And should Democrats regain the presidency, it’s very unlikely they respond with any sort of bare-knuckled political retort.
A fully-stocked Dem majority can’t do much beyond publish the occasional press release, but they can throw some procedural sand in the gears of Carr’s mindless deregulation and censorship efforts, which cumulatively can and do matter.
Ideally what guys like Brendan Carr want is an FCC full of bobble-heads to rubber stamp his censorship and “delete delete delete” agency “[modernization][12]” agenda, the latter of which often gets obscured in the press by his ham-fisted assault on journalism and the First Amendment. Prison monopolies, telecom monopolies, right wing broadcasters, and robocall scammers have been [big fans of these efforts][13].
Severs has a tight window for confirmation given the looming midterms, but Republicans have a knack for getting their own terrible commissioners quickly confirmed, while center-right Democrats (like Joe Manchin) help Republicans delay and destroy the nomination of actual, popular reformers that work in the public interest (recall [what happened to Gigi Sohn’s appointment to the FCC][14]) via circular firing squad.
Some of the Democrats whining because Carr has failed to seat new Dem Commissioners [contributed to that railroading of Sohn][15], I should point out. So it’s hard to believe these same Dems will respond to Trump and Carr’s illegal appointment blockade with much beyond a *stern talking to* and ambiguous calls for a return to “bipartisanship.”
Here, as with everywhere else, the Democratic party is in desperate need of a meaningful rebuild.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/17/a-first-amendment-legend-eviscerates-brendan-carr-with-substance-and-style/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/29/former-fcc-officials-line-up-to-blast-brendan-carrs-lawless-censorship-of-abc/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/brendan-carrs-fcc-rewrites-media-ownership-law-only-congress-can-actually-change/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/29/brendan-carr-says-destroying-consumer-protection-media-consolidation-rules-and-corporate-oversight-will-be-great-for-everyone/
[5]: https://www.axios.com/2026/08/10/trump-fcc-danielle-thumann-severs
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/brendan-carrs-fcc-rewrites-media-ownership-law-only-congress-can-actually-change/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/12/brendan-carrs-baseless-xenophobia-derails-new-fcc-internet-of-things-iot-device-security-standards/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/abc-shows-a-backbone-in-fcc-fight-shows-fcc-manufactured-a-controversy-surrounding-james-talarico/
[9]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/07/democrats-wary-of-advancing-trumps-fcc-pick-without-bipartisan-pairing-01029423
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/22/judge-reinstates-fired-ftc-commissioner-while-everyone-including-the-judge-knows-the-supreme-court-will-overturn/
[11]: https://techpolicyinstitute.org/publications/freespeech/the-particular-dangers-of-slaughters-impact-on-the-fcc/
[12]: https://www.fcc.gov/streamlining-regulations-and-modernizing-agency-operations
[13]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/isps-and-robocallers-love-the-fcc-plan-to-delete-as-many-rules-as-possible/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/07/telecom-monopolies-win-again-gigi-sohn-forced-to-withdraw-from-fcc-nomination/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/07/telecom-monopolies-win-again-gigi-sohn-forced-to-withdraw-from-fcc-nomination/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/trump-rushes-to-stock-fcc-with-personal-lackeys-refuses-to-seat-dem-commissioners/

2026-08-12 20:02:38 CEST

Daily Deal: The 2026 Complete Linux Certification Learning Paths
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[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-2022-complete-linux-certification-learning-paths-lifetime-subscription?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/daily-deal-the-2026-complete-linux-certification-learning-paths/

2026-08-12 18:31:58 CEST

Judiciary Committee Dems Open Investigation Into DOJ’s Reflecting Pool Revenge Prosecutions
The current president continues to self-destruct. Fortunately for us, [he insists on doing this publicly][1].
After handing a donor and an unproven company the massive job of redoing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in “American flag blue” in hopes of being able to use it to celebrate himself during America’s 250th birthday, everything went t̶i̶t̶s̶ tints up. The lining fell apart. And the “American flag blue” was soon replaced by an [“Antifa Frog green”][2] influx of algae.
Rather than demand an explanation from the no-bid contractors or simply decide to shift his focus elsewhere, Donald Trump immediately claimed (without evidence!) that this was the work of anti-American vandals. Trump’s claims were immediately echoed by both Interior Department head Doug Burgum and DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro. While all three insisted there was tons of damning evidence to support their outlandish claims, to date not one of them has produced anything remotely resembling a smoking gun.
Instead, we’ve been (mis)treated [to malicious prosecutions][3] that were immediately abandoned after the government’s own star grand jury witness said the damage supposedly caused by vandals was actually the [result of shoddy workmanship][4].
Pirro did the right thing [and dismissed charges][5] against the Reflecting Pool defendants, starting with former Olympian David Hearn — the only one of the defendants facing a felony charge. Trump wanted Hearn cuffed and stuffed as a trophy of his ability to beat the truth at its own game.
[Pirro went to bat for herself][6] and threw Burgum under the bus following these dismissals. But that didn’t stop both Burgum and Trump from continuing to insist the Reflecting Pool failures were the work of vandals, all while publicly verbally assaulting Pirro for doing the same thing both of these men are doing: trying to save their own asses.
To this day, Trump continues to insist mountains of evidence exist. But the administration’s smoking gun more resembles a weapon purchased on layaway that it has yet to make a payment on. And after several days of being undercut by facts in literal evidence, [Trump has finally changed his tune… a bit][7].
> *“There was substantial damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” he wrote on [Truth Social][8]. “We are working on the Pool, and it will reopen shortly. As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.”*
These are surprising admissions, given the source. Not only does Trump admit (while doing as much downplaying as possible) that some damage might be the result of his no-bid contractors, he has also admitted the government has no evidence to support criminal charges against *anyone*.
That admission gives credence to Pirro’s claims during the DOJ’s dismissals — that the DOJ had been misled by Doug Burgum and his DOI lackeys to believe evidence existed to support the charges. But that hardly excuses Pirro, who basically insisted that everyone the DOJ had charged was guilty AF [during her appearance on Fox News][9] earlier this year.
Whatever Pirro did or didn’t know at the point she decided to start pursuing these investigations may become public knowledge in (hopefully) the near future. Not content to just let Trump, Pirro, and Burgum walk away from a handful of revenge prosecutions performed for the sole purpose of allowing Trump to punish other people for his own failures, [members of the House Judiciary Committee are mobilizing the system of checks-and-balances][10] to find out who knew what and when. Greg Sargent has the details for The New Republic:
> *Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are set to launch an investigation into the decision to criminally charge Hearn and others over the Reflecting Pool fiasco, I’m told. Although Democrats are in the minority, their probe offers a blueprint for what they’ll pursue with subpoena power if they control the House in six months.*
>
> *This week, Representative Jamie Raskin—the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and potentially its future chair—will formally demand that the Justice and Interior Departments turn over a wealth of documents related to the charging decisions made in this case.*
While it’s true this will run into considerable opposition from GOP Committee members, it’s not like the minority party has to ask permission to open investigations. However, they will need some Republican support if they want this investigation to be anything more than symbolic.
But that’s not the only pressure the Trump DOJ is facing. David Hearn’s case may have been dismissed (but notably, *without* prejudice, which means the government can always try again), but his lawyers aren’t quitting. They’ve been demanding grand jury documents for weeks.
> *Eisen and Hearn’s other lawyers are not letting this drop. For some time now, they’ve been [seeking][11] access to full transcripts of the grand jury proceedings—including instructions that prosecutors gave jurors on charging guidelines—to determine whether prosecutors misled them to secure Hearn’s indictment.*
Trump obviously wants to keep this thing alive. He may live to regret this decision. The people opposed to him and his actions want the same thing, but for the purpose of pursuing justice, rather than — like Trump and his administration — hoping to pervert it further.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/10/trump-doubles-down-on-conspiracy-theories-after-doj-drops-reflecting-pool-vandalism-charges/
[2]: http://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iohewl4fc7oyxy3solhq6bdi/post/3m2fmqrnjtk2q
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/23/trump-starts-arresting-people-because-his-reflecting-pool-makeover-is-just-algae-and-peeling-paint/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/03/doj-dumps-reflecting-pool-charges-admits-it-was-all-the-fault-of-trumps-no-bid-pool-guys-while-trump-sticks-by-his-vandalism-story/
[5]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28530807-doj-pool-bois/
[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/us/politics/trump-jeanine-pirro-showdown.html
[7]: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6019582-contractor-error-reflecting-pool-renovations/
[8]: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117067837821298859
[9]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GTNueMFBDE
[10]: https://newrepublic.com/article/214121/trump-reflecting-pool-fiasco-get-even-worse
[11]: https://legacy.www.documentcloud.org/documents/28517213-260727-hearn-grand-jury
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/judiciary-committee-dems-open-investigation-into-dojs-reflecting-pool-revenge-prosecutions/

2026-08-12 05:03:31 CEST

Donald Trump Just Became The World’s Most Famous Anti-Vaxxer Nonsense Peddler
When it comes to the bullshit, batshit-crazy [anti-vaxxer][1] movement that currently has the United States in its un-scientific grip, I’ve focused most of my attention on [RFK Jr.][2] And, frankly, for good reason. For arguably decades, but definitely for the last five to ten years, RFK Jr. was the most infamous anti-vaxxer in the world. Kennedy would deny this, of course. In fact, it is old habit for him to talk out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to vaccines, but his anti-vaxxer side speaks much more loudly. And, because of course, one of his chief claims has been that there is a link between childhood vaccinations and autism.
When Donald Trump tasked Kennedy with [finding][3] the “cause” of autism, it came off looking like Trump fulfilling his promise to let Kennedy promote his pet conspiracy theories in exchange for gobbling up the MAHA vote when he ran for president. Then Trump himself started [parroting][4] some of the same claims you would normally hear from Kennedy. Still, it all looked like performative promise-keeping.
All of that has changed. Donald Trump just made himself the most famous anti-vaxxer on the planet. On Monday, Trump signed an Executive Order making [enormous changes to vaccine schedule recommendations][5] for children, both limiting the number of vaccines recommended and advising that vaccines be split up and not offered in combo-shots.
> *The vaccine changes are not backed by evidence or spurred by new findings. Rather, they are based on false anti-vaccine fearmongering about harms, including the debunked claim that they cause autism, and misinformation that multiple vaccinations can “overwhelm” children’s immune systems. This [false claim][6] has also been [repeatedly debunked][7] and [explained][8].*
>
> *During a signing event at the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump falsely claimed that pediatricians “have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda,” that is “poured into a little child’s body, and bad things happen in too many cases. This is an explosion; this is an epidemic,” Trump said.*
>
> *He also tied the new vaccine recommendations to his goal of finding out “what’s going on with autism.” Dozens of high-quality studies encompassing data on millions of children have found no evidence linking the neurodevelopmental condition to immunizations. Nevertheless, Trump suggested that the changes outlined in the order would reduce autism rates in the US.*
This is madness. Trump has no understanding of the science or medicine behind vaccines. The fact that he’s layering lies into his signing ceremony for this unscientific proclamation should tell you everything you need to know. It was not that long ago that my own children received their childhood vaccines. I can promise you that no doctor approached them with a syringe the size of a soda can to pour into them. These are lies. Bald-faced lies.
And, while this has been pitched as putting America in line with the vaccine schedules of other developed nations, that is also a lie.
> *Under the new recommendations, Trump said children should get fewer vaccines, suggesting that the US recommends an excessive number of vaccines compared with other high-income countries. In reality, by dropping down to only 11 recommended vaccinations, the US becomes an outlier in recommending so few, according to [fact-checking by Stat News in January][9]. The only other country that recommends so few vaccines is Denmark, a small, relatively homogenous country with universal healthcare.*
As for breaking up the MMR vaccine into individual shots, that specific part of the EO also came with lies from Trump. In the signing ceremony, he claimed that the combo MMR shot was “quite lethal.” There is has never been a death linked between the MMR shot and a person with a normally functioning immune systems. Those who are immuno-compromised are already warned against getting the combo shot. In fact, that warning and inability to get what are otherwise normal vaccinations is why it’s so damned important that everyone else immunize based on the previous recommendations, which were made under good science. It’s herd immunity that protects the immuno-compromised. This EO, to whatever extent it is implemented, will be “quite lethal” or otherwise produce negative health outcomes for a non-zero number of people, mostly young children.
*This EO will almost certainly result in the deaths of at least some children*.
And why? Ego, it appears.
> *The order is in line with reports that [Trump personally promotes the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism][10] and that he wants part of his legacy tied to curing autism. Trump had reportedly put pressure on anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to do more to link vaccines and autism. In the signing event, Trump praised Kennedy, saying, “He’s doing a fantastic job,” and telling the anti-vaccine advocate “I’m proud of you.”*
That Trump would prioritize his own legacy over the health of American children is about as surprising dilated pupils at a Grateful Dead concert. But Trump now directly owns the consequences of promoting anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories to his dedicated flock, as well as the health outcomes for their children. I expect lawsuits to come fast and furious from medical associations and institutions. And I hope they work, but they won’t be enough.
Some percentage of the country will listen to Dear Leader, because that is how cults work. And their innocent children, vulnerable to the misinformed demands of their parents, will be hurt. Perhaps time, money, and effort will be wasted doing trials on individual vaccinations for measles, mumps, and rubella. What comes next is not certain.
But what *is* certain is that this EO is crafted from a place of selfish ignorance. It does no good and can only cause harm. And our own president is the one harming us.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/tag/vaccines/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/tag/rfk-jr/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/14/rfk-jr-commits-to-knowing-the-cause-of-autism-by-september-of-this-year/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/28/dr-donald-trump-declares-that-autism-doesnt-occur-naturally/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/trump-signs-bonkers-order-that-cuts-vaccines-promotes-ones-that-dont-exist/
[6]: https://ysph.yale.edu/research/information-sheets/childhood-vaccinations/#4-children-receive-so-many-more-vaccines-these-days-why?-is-this-okay?
[7]: https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/fact-checked/fact-checked-receiving-multiple-vaccines-does-not-overwhelm-a-childs-immune-system/?srsltid=AfmBOoovXqfwyvncJ033i3DSQ2JVCCCKj3OXSh7L_HofpbC0IghwajFN
[8]: https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/do-multiple-vaccines-overload-childs-immune-system-heres-what-science-says
[9]: https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/09/childhood-vaccination-fact-check-denmark-not-america-is-the-outlier/
[10]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/07/report-trump-mad-rfk-jr-hasnt-cut-more-vaccines-or-proven-autism-link/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/donald-trump-just-became-the-worlds-most-famous-anti-vaxxer-nonsense-peddler/

2026-08-12 00:46:39 CEST

Hundreds Of Drone-as-First-Responder Programs Could Soon Be Launched Across The Country
Police departments across the country are lining up to launch drone-as-first-responder (DFR) programs, and hundreds have cleared a necessary hurdle toward making deployment a reality, expanding aerial surveillance and data collection even in areas patrol officers typically can’t reach.
As of February 2026, [over 1,000 public safety agencies][1]—including police, fire, and other emergency management agencies—had received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waivers needed to automate drone operations and launch a DFR program, according to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) release listing agencies that have obtained [Part 91 waivers][2] since the [FAA ][3]streamlined and sped up the process in April 2025.
The changes led to a massive increase in the number of waivers issued. Only 976 DFR waivers had been granted since the first DFR program launched in 2018 through April 2025, according to an FAA representative. The agency issued more waivers between April 2025 and February 2026 than it had in the previous seven years combined.
*^{A map illustrating the locations of police departments and other public safety agencies that have received Part 91 waivers, making it possible for them to launch drone-as-first-responder programs. (This map image links to Google Maps, which is governed by Google’s privacy policy)}*
The new FAA process for waivers and the rush of police departments to obtain them signifies a shift in law enforcement’s use of drones: from human-operated aerial surveillance to AI-based autonomous drone use.
Typically, a drone operator is only permitted to fly in areas that can still be seen by the pilot, and that drone pilot needs to be certified under FAA Part 107. To fly drones “Beyond Visual Line of Sight” (BVLOS) requires additional approval from the FAA, as do flights above 200 feet, due to the risk of colliding with planes and other aircrafts. Without such approval, an officer could not pilot a drone from a desk inside a building and fly it to a call across the city because they could not possibly have line of sight on the drone.
FAA rules for police drones also required a human operator to manually fly the device to a scene, but DFR technology has become [a more common and more automated police technology][4]. DFR programs increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to automate drone flights from launchpads placed around the city, often atop municipal buildings, and make it possible for one drone operator to “fly” multiple devices at once. Though not every police department that has received BVLOS has launched a DFR program yet, by going through this process, [every department on this list][5] has signified it has strong enough interest to clear the necessary regulatory hurdles.
Police departments and the companies that sell DFR equipment claim that these drones make it easier for officers to establish “situational awareness” of a scene before they arrive. Early drone adoption centered on similar claims, particularly related to high-risk situations like vehicular accidents or incidents involving an armed suspect. However, these kinds of situations may make up only a small portion of deployments, which often occur in response to low-risk calls for service related to unhoused people, mental health concerns, and [loud music][6], as a [Government Technology analysis][7] of the system in Chula Vista, California, found*.*
DFR programs have become important sources of revenue for companies like Flock Safety and Axon, the latter of which [reported that its DFR][8] platform has become one of the company’s fastest growing sectors. Axon is also known for products like the TASER and the Fusus camera system that lets police integrate viewing of public and private cameras.
Footage from drone flights is streamed back to a police office, and it can be stored, shared, and analyzed like other video. Turning drone footage into fodder for automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, for example, requires very little additional software, and Flock Safety was [quietly able to turn its drones into “flying ALPRs” last year][9].
The normalization of police DFR programs jeopardizes privacy in communities across the country. As flying cameras, drones can capture footage from areas typically inaccessible to a casual patrol officer—backyards, roofs, through windows—at distances that leave subjects of surveillance completely unaware of the spy in the sky. [A recent leak of drone footage][10] from the San Francisco Police Department illustrated the ease with which surreptitious drone flights could observe innocent individuals for minutes without them realizing it. EFF’s [Atlas of Surveillance][11] contains a list of police departments with drones, including those with DFR programs.
While daytime DFR use grows, police departments are exploring other ways to expand overhead surveillance. In October 2024, the [Campbell Police Department in California announced][12] it had received the first FAA approval for BVLOS operations at night, claiming it was the “first to incorporate radar technology with electro-optical sensors to enhance airspace monitoring, enabling a single remote pilot to safely deploy drones both day and night.”
As communities consider drone use, it’s crucial that they have a say in whether the program is acquired at all, not just how it’s run once purchased. Throughout the process, police should be transparent with the community and comply with local regulations about its adoption.
Many cities provide portals that log the flight paths and reasons for each drone flight, often in real time, an important transparency practice. In California, under [AB 481][13], police departments are required to provide advance notice of intent to acquire drones, establish policies before they’re procured, and provide annual updates on their uses—giving communities and city councils the opportunity, before any contract is signed, to weigh in or object to the acquisition itself.
For police departments and communities considering drone use, clear policies on appropriate use, transparency around deployment, and regular re-evaluation—including the choice to discontinue a program that isn’t working—are all vital for protecting people’s privacy and security.
*Originally published to the [EFF’s Deeplinks blog][14].*
[1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FpoISaAdmQLtMKelPy1sdCOLvYVNxSXBVzASo-I-djI/edit?gid=0#gid=0
[2]: https://www.faa.gov/uas/public_safety_gov/public_safety_toolkit/Public_Aircraft-Public_Safety_Operation_CoW-COA_FAQ.pdf
[3]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/drone-first-responder-programs-2025-review
[4]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/beware-bundle-companies-are-banking-becoming-your-police-departments-favorite
[5]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FpoISaAdmQLtMKelPy1sdCOLvYVNxSXBVzASo-I-djI/edit?gid=0#gid=0
[6]: https://www.aclu.org/documents/eye-in-the-sky-policing-needs-strict-limits
[7]: https://www.govtech.com/biz/data/drone-cops-the-future-of-policing-american-cities
[8]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1069183/000162828026031285/axon-20260506xex991.htm
[9]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/drone-sky-could-be-tracking-your-car
[10]: https://www.wired.com/story/sfpd-drone-video-leak-surveillance/
[11]: https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/search?location=&technologies%5Bdrones%5D=on&sort=
[12]: https://www.campbellca.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/976
[13]: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB481/id/2435304
[14]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/hundreds-drone-first-responder-programs-could-soon-be-launched-across-country
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/hundreds-of-drone-as-first-responder-programs-could-soon-be-launched-across-the-country/

2026-08-11 22:30:10 CEST

Techdirt Podcast Episode 453: Meet The EFF’s New Executive Director
[Support us on Patreon »][1]
If you know anything about Techdirt, you know we’re big fans of the EFF and its decades of advocacy for digital rights and the open internet. Recently, the organization went through a big change in the form of [a new executive director][2]: legal expert and long-time leader in the space [Nicole Ozer][3]. On this week’s episode, Nicole joins the podcast to talk about [her new role and what’s coming next for the EFF][4].
You can also [download this episode directly][5] in MP3 format.
*Follow the Techdirt Podcast on [Soundcloud][6], subscribe via [Apple Podcasts][7] or [Spotify][8], or grab the [RSS feed][9]. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes [right here on Techdirt][10].*
[1]: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=4450624&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.patreon.com%2Ftechdirt
[2]: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/nicole-ozer-named-electronic-frontier-foundations-executive-director
[3]: https://www.eff.org/about/staff/nicole-ozer
[4]: https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/meet-the-effs-new-executive
[5]: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2379932868-techdirt-meet-the-effs-new-executive.mp3
[6]: https://soundcloud.com/techdirt
[7]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/techdirt/id940871872?mt=2
[8]: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qXCFL3MjSpiD8O0pZgcsi
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/podcast.xml
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/blog/podcast/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/techdirt-podcast-episode-453-meet-the-effs-new-executive-director/

2026-08-11 20:00:23 CEST

Daily Deal: Retropian Color Retro Handheld Gaming Console
Rediscover the thrill of classic gaming with the [Retropian Color][1], the pocket-sized powerhouse designed to revive your favorite retro titles in vibrant detail. This handheld console delivers nostalgia on the go, featuring a crisp 3.5-inch IPS display, an open-source Linux system, and support for 10,000+ games. Whether you’re into arcade classics, 8-bit adventures, or 32-bit legends, this handheld console emulates a vast range of retro systems, making it the perfect portable gaming companion. It’s on sale for $75.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/retropian-color-retro-handheld-gaming-console-white?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/daily-deal-retropian-color-retro-handheld-gaming-console/

2026-08-11 18:27:07 CEST

Minnesota Is Trying To Talk Texas Into Extraditing An Arrested ICE Officer To Face Assault Charges
Will anyone ever hold an ICE officer accountable for shooting or killing someone? Maybe, but it won’t be anyone from this administration — one that has actively blocked state investigators from following up on ICE shootings and even pulled FBI agents from ongoing investigations so ICE can forgive itself for its officers actions.
While ICE continues to engage in violent acts and the administration scrambles to cover for their actions, immigration officers are undermining prosecutions targeting the victims of their violent actions because they can’t stop lying.
And while this seems to be a long shot, maybe we’ll see at least one ICE officer convicted for their criminal acts. It’s not just the jurisdiction issues that lower these odds. And that’s if you just limit it to state vs. federal. In this case, one of Trump’s favorite targets is [requesting assistance from one of Trump’s most loyal supporters][1].
> *A Minnesota prosecutor is asking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to authorize the extradition of a federal officer who shot and injured an immigrant in Minneapolis in January.*
>
> *Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a letter to Abbott that his sign-off is the “final step” in transferring Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Christian Castro to Minnesota to face state criminal charges.*
As long as Trump remains in office, I can’t see Greg Abbott doing the right thing and turning over an ICE agent his state actually *arrested* using a warrant issued by Minnesota law enforcement.
Castro is facing multiple criminal assault charges for firing into a home and wounding Julio Sosa-Celis. This happened in January, only a few days before immigration officers murdered Minneapolis residents [Renee Good and Alex Pretti][2] just four days apart.
The DHS immediately [responded with lies that were disproven shortly thereafter][3].
> *In the immediate wake of the shooting of Mr. Sosa-Celis, federal officials defended the agents, saying they had been attacked with a broom and shovel. Kristi Noem, who was then the secretary of homeland security, described it as “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” Within days, Mr. Sosa-Celis and a housemate, Alfredo A. Aljorna, who was also from Venezuela and involved in the confrontation, were charged with federal felonies.*
>
> *But aspects of the government’s account soon began to unravel. The [charges against both men were dropped][4], and federal officials said they were instead investigating the agents. [Video footage of the incident obtained by The New York Times][5] did not show a sustained attack with a shovel and more broadly contradicted the agent’s claim of a roughly three-minute beating. *
So far, so ICE. But the charges managed to stick, even though the FBI locked state officials out of the investigation almost immediately. More amazingly, Texas law enforcement actually arrested an ICE officer on a Minnesota warrant.
The wheel of justice, etc. But anything going forward depends on a lot of things that don’t work in Minnesota’s favor. First, the Supremacy Clause is a tough hurdle since it can easily block state prosecutors from bringing cases against federal officers. Then there’s the ICE officer himself, who has refused to voluntarily comply with extradition requests. Finally, there’s a man who’s as corrupt as Trump himself — one who’s certainly not going to “export” a jailed ICE cop, especially not to the People’s Republic of Minnesota. But here’s hoping Governor Greg Abbott decides an ICE officer with a Mexican-sounding last name can get out there and “take one for the team.”
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/07/minnesota-prosecutor-asks-texas-extradite-ice-agent-face-charges-shooting-case/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/26/an-american-murder/
[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/ice-agent-minnesota-shooting-extradition.html
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/us/prosecutor-dismiss-charges-men-shot-by-ice.html
[5]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/us/minnesota-ice-shooting-video.html
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/minnesota-is-trying-to-talk-texas-into-extraditing-an-arrested-ice-officer-to-face-assault-charges/

2026-08-11 14:23:51 CEST

Elon Musk Wants To Get Into Wireless Phones And He’s Probably Not Going To Have A Good Time
There have been rumblings for a while that America’s richest and most annoying white supremacist, Elon Musk, really wants to get into the wireless phone business. His lobbyists have been [making noise in support for broader phone unlocking rules][1], and there’ve been [several IPO-fluffing press leaks][2] over the last few months indicating they’re keen on building a Starlink phone.
They’ve [also leaked word to Semafor][3], likely in part to boost Musk’s sagging and disastrous IPO, that Musk’s companies are on the hunt for spectrum allowing them to offer wireless phone service in more dense, urban markets (since Starlink LEO satellite [lacks the capacity][4] for that):
> *“SpaceX, which is trying to fill a hole in its airwaves crucial for a full-service wireless network, has been hunting for spectrum that works well in cities and dense areas, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is considering buying competitors to acquire the spectrum or [competing at a government auction][5] set for next year, the people said.”*
There have been some rumblings that Musk Corp could try to acquire T-Mobile, which they’re already partnering with on a hybrid LEO satellite and cellular phone offering that lets you use Starlink in remote areas for calls and cellular when in more dense locations.
One of several problems for Musk is his highly-fraudulent IPO is [cratering][6], adding additional financial pressure to the mix. Massive acquisitions, which you’d probably need to do this effectively, are costly, debt-riddled, notoriously time-consuming and resource intensive.
SpaceX’s IPO promised that Starlink would quickly jump from 10 million current subscribers to 300 million or more in very short order. That’s pretty much impossible with just Starlink (despite some [delusional numbers being tossed around by Jason Calacanis and friends][7]). Even if you acquired T-Mobile (142.6 million subscribers) it would take years and a **ton** of good luck to get anywhere close.
Telecom is also a massively cash-intensive business to jump into. Spectrum, tower leases, backhaul is all annoying, complicated, pricey, and time consuming to get right. Assuming 100% competency you’d be talking years before any sort of meaningful traction, by which time they could be facing less Musk-friendly regulators at the FCC.
Companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast also just inherently loathe competition, and can be quite formidable when they join forces to box out any new competitors. The highway of telecom history is littered with corpses of folks who believed they could break through the monopolistic, government-coddled logjam (Dish Network being just the latest). As is the highway of very deep-pocketed companies trying to offer their own smartphones (Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft).
You’ve also got [other companies like Amazon considering similar phone networks][8]. Musk’s companies, especially Starlink, also are notorious for [refusing to have competent customer service][9], something they’d need to excel at to disrupt cellular and gain fast market share. And this is all while Musk continues to show signs of massive instability as he dedicates the majority of his time to being a bizarre and unhinged egomaniacal racist on his personal propaganda website.
Though Musk does have some things in his favor. Like an army of cultists who’ll praise his barely available and expensive phone service no matter how clumsy or half-completed any network build is. People in the extended Roganverse already think the costly and congested Starlink network [is akin to magic][10], and the marketing hype surrounding a Musk phone would be utterly deafening.
That doesn’t naturally equate to success in competently challenging some of America’s biggest and most politically powerful monopolies in brick-and-mortar reality, though.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/07/corruption-showdown-verizon-spacex-square-off-over-cell-phone-unlocking/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/02/more-ipo-fluffing-musks-starlink-hints-at-becoming-full-wireless-phone-company/
[3]: https://www.semafor.com/article/07/29/2026/spacex-looks-to-compete-with-the-carriers
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/13/musks-starlink-socks-customers-with-1500-high-demand-surcharge/
[5]: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-plan-c-band-auction-july-2027/carr-statement-0
[6]: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/17/spacex-stock-starship-test-flight-aborted.html
[7]: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/jason-calacanis-the-silicon-valley
[8]: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/27/amazons-new-satellite-network-for-mobile-phones-could-turn-up-the-heat-on-spacex/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/01/27/musks-starlink-continues-to-struggle-with-very-basic-customer-service/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/30/donald-trump-and-joe-rogan-think-elon-musks-starlink-is-akin-to-magic-pixie-dust/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/11/elon-musk-wants-to-get-into-wireless-phones-and-hes-probably-not-going-to-have-a-good-time/

2026-08-11 00:33:59 CEST

SpaceX’s Earnings Show Elon Wiped Out Two-Thirds Of Twitter’s Ad Business
When SpaceX filed for its IPO, [we went through the S-1][1] to point out just how far off the mark Elon Musk’s predictions about his Twitter takeover turned out to be. Indeed, the failure of Twitter as a business was so catastrophic, Musk had to hide it by merging all his Xs together: he had xAI buy X (formerly Twitter), and then had SpaceX buy xAI. But when Musk was buying Twitter and needed investors, he made bold promises about how he would succeed — promises the media and his investors treated as perfectly reasonable. He said he would take Twitter’s ad revenue from $4.5 billion in 2021 to $12 billion in 2027 (and then also many more billions in subscription revenue).
Now that SpaceX is a public company, he has to report some of that revenue, though it’s all merged and buried in footnotes. But there’s enough info in there to show that advertising revenue [is way, way below][2] what it was when he took over the site. And it’s shrinking.
In the [10-Q][3], all of X’s revenue is now (misleadingly) labeled “AI” revenue, but even then the reporting has to admit ad revenue took a big hit, dropping $160 million compared to the first half of 2025 (which was already way, way, way lower than when Elon took over the site), going from $870 million in 2025 to $710 million in the first half of 2026. The company tries to claim that this decrease in ad revenue is because they “transitioned to a new advertising platform which impacted ad sales for a short period of time.” Which is a curious explanation, given that on the analyst call, CFO Bret Johnsen credited that very same “overhauled” ad-tech platform for the very slight quarter-over-quarter uptick in ad revenue. The same overhaul apparently both tanked the business and rescued it, depending on which direction the number was moving.
And even the claim that the overhaul increased ad revenue is suspicious given that if you compare the 2nd quarter from last year to this year… ad revenue dropped from $426 million to $367 million, year over year. Some overhaul.
I kinda think that if your transition to a new ad platform *decreases ad sales by $160 million*, someone fucked up badly somewhere. Especially when it’s a nearly 20% year-over-year drop.
Let’s break all this down: In the second quarter of 2022, the last full quarter before Elon took over, Twitter brought in $1.08 billion in ad revenue. In the second quarter of 2026, X brought in $367 million. That’s $713 million a quarter, gone. Elon has wiped out two-thirds of Twitter’s ad business over the exact period in which he promised investors he’d nearly triple it.
And it’s not for lack of trying. Over the past year X has made a ton of experiments and revamps to improve the experience (though the main person in charge of all that, [just left][4]). I’d argue that the company was just rebuilding all of the stuff Elon killed after first taking over the company, but none of it has brought advertisers back.
Turns out that telling advertisers to [go fuck themselves][5]… and then [suing other advertisers][6] for not advertising… doesn’t make anyone want to advertise with you.
Still, it seems like someone should be pointing out how far off the mark Elon has been. He promised twelve billion dollars in ad revenue within the next year. That’s three billion a quarter. X just did $367 million — about an eighth of the pace, and shrinking. You can talk all you want about his rockets and robots, he’s not magically going to grow ad revenue 700% in the next 18 months.
So, tell me again how Elon is a business genius?
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/22/spacexs-ipo-filing-shows-elons-twitter-business-genius-was-a-fantasy/
[2]: https://finance.yahoo.com/media-advertising/articles/spacex-q2-earnings-show-xs-195305496.html?_guc_consent_skip=1786320749
[3]: https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2/dc41a8f3-2234-40ec-95e3-3867336ae181.pdf
[4]: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/05/nikita-bier-steps-down-as-xs-head-of-product/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/30/elon-after-personally-driving-away-advertisers-tells-them-to-go-fuck-themselves-repeatedly-and-says-earth-will-judge-them-for-killing-extwitter/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/07/it-always-gets-dumber-elon-sues-the-ad-coalition-he-just-rejoined-because-he-thinks-its-illegal-to-not-advertise-on-extwitter/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/10/spacexs-earnings-show-elon-wiped-out-two-thirds-of-twitters-ad-business/

2026-08-10 19:59:05 CEST

Daily Deal: flowkey Piano Learning App
[flowkey][1] is a fun, interactive piano learning platform that helps anyone go from absolute beginner to confident player — at their own pace. It combines step-by-step courses with thousands of songs you know and love, tailored for every skill level, from first-time learners to advanced pianists. The app listens as you play and gives instant feedback so you can improve faster, practice technique, and master sheet music with confidence. Whether you’re learning scales or your first full song, flowkey makes piano practice easy, fun, and rewarding. A one year subscription is on sale for $40, two years for $60, or five years for $80.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/flowkey-classic-plan-1-year-subscription?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/10/daily-deal-flowkey-piano-learning-app-2/

2026-08-10 14:32:22 CEST

Comcast Sued For Punishing Employees With Pies To The Face
There are so many shitty U.S. companies across tech, energy, and AI that criticism of our massively-unpopular telecom monopolies has fallen out of fashion. It’s easy to forget, for example, that Comcast routinely used to make headlines for setting peoples homes on fire, torturing pets, or at times [killing people][1] (most of the stories I used to write about this at DSLReports.com have been deleted after the owner abruptly and unceremoniously shut the website down).
So it feels like a bit of a throwback for Comcast to be under fire once again, this time for [hitting low-performing employees in the face with pies][2]. The company is facing a [new lawsuit][3] by employees who say one store manager made pies-to-the-face a tradition at a local company store. And encouraged everybody to videotape it:
> *“A lawsuit against Comcast’s cable division alleges that a store manager humiliated the lowest performing salesperson each month with a strange ritual in which a cream pie was smashed into the employee’s face. The lawsuit claims the store manager took videos of the assaults and ordered employees to participate in the assaults and record their own videos.”*
Good times! Very on brand!
The full [complaint][4] makes for interesting reading, and includes paragraphs like this one:
> *“Specifically, for the entire time Plaintiff was employed by the Defendant, Defendant had a policy that the highest-ranked Retail Sales Consultant for the prior month was instructed by his or her supervisor-Ms. Peterson, the Comcast Store manager-to tie the lowest ranked sales consultant for the prior month to a chair in the back office and thereafter assault that person by violently smashing a cream pie in their face.”*
In addition to wisely having employees videotape the harassment, the store manager also made sure to document the pies-to-the-face employees received on a store whiteboard.
This is, as somebody who spent decades writing about Comcast for various websites, child’s play when it comes to the width and breadth of poor judgement that can be found at this particular company.
[1]: https://www.fierce-network.com/installer/comcast-reels-from-back-to-back-installer-crime-viral-headlines
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/comcast-store-punished-low-sales-by-smashing-pies-in-workers-faces-lawsuit-claims/
[3]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/comcast-store-manager-lawsuit.pdf
[4]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/comcast-store-manager-lawsuit.pdf
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/10/comcast-sued-for-punishing-employees-with-pies-to-the-face/

2026-08-09 21:01:05 CEST

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is [Thad][1] with a comment about [Capital One’s stated reasons for shutting down Trump accounts][2]:
> *Would be nice to have some disclosure laws so that if a presidential candidate’s had his bank accounts closed for money laundering, we don’t learn about it years later in a lawsuit.*
In second place, it’s [MrWilson][3] with a reply on that same post to [someone claiming Trump was targeted for political reasons][4]:
> *“for political reasons” = Trump violating his oath of office, multiple laws, the Constitution, human and civil rights, et al.*
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with [an anonymous comment about the Paramount merger][5]:
> *Given that Oracle laid off around 25,000 employees (of 162,000) last May just to keep inflating the AI hype, I won’t be surprised if Paramount has already planned layoffs to offset the giant debt of the deal.*
Next, it’s [Commenter #5759][6] with a comment about Buc-ee’s shying away from their John Oliver challenge and [suing a tiny convenience store instead][7]:
> *I wonder if John Oliver can convince HBO to fund this store’s legal defense.*
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is [an anonymous comment about the Trump/Capital One dispute][8]:
> *A Republican: Tell me how I can be like you.
> Trump: You have to start an insurrection, and launder money.
> Republican: Why launder money?
> Trump: See, nobody cares about the insurrection.*
In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about requests to post proof of the claim that [there are “numerous videos” of people cutting into the reflecting pool][9]:
> *He can’t. They go to school in Canada.*
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got an exchange about RFK Jr.’s latest embarrassing display. First, it’s [Heart of Dawn][10] with [an initial reaction][11]:
> *If only the worms had finished what they started.*
Next, it’s [WTF over][12] with [a reply][13]:
> *Unfortunately, the worms died of starvation.*
That’s all for this week, folks!
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/thad/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/capital-one-says-money-laundering-not-january-6-riot-led-to-shutdown-of-trump-accounts/#comment-5541332
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/mrwilson/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/capital-one-says-money-laundering-not-january-6-riot-led-to-shutdown-of-trump-accounts/#comment-5541946
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/gavin-newsom-makes-an-ass-of-himself-on-antitrust-paramount-merger/#comment-5540912
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/commenter5759/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/buc-ees-shies-away-from-john-oliver-challenge-sues-tiny-ohio-convenience-store-instead/#comment-5548173
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/capital-one-says-money-laundering-not-january-6-riot-led-to-shutdown-of-trump-accounts/#comment-5541735
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/03/doj-dumps-reflecting-pool-charges-admits-it-was-all-the-fault-of-trumps-no-bid-pool-guys-while-trump-sticks-by-his-vandalism-story/#comment-5539404
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/heartofdawn/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/rfk-jr-just-embarrassed-himself-publicly-on-cnn/#comment-5542184
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/user/mritter1981/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/rfk-jr-just-embarrassed-himself-publicly-on-cnn/#comment-5542184
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/09/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-220/

2026-08-08 21:00:35 CEST

This Week In Techdirt History: August 2nd – 8th
**This Week in 2016**
* [Manhattan DA Continues To Claim ‘We Don’t Want Crypto Backdoors…’ By Which He Means He Wants Crypto Backdoors][1]
* [No Matter Who Our Next President Is, They Won’t Understand Technology][2]
* [Broadband Industry Formally Tries, Once Again, To Kill Net Neutrality][3]
* [Comcast Tells The FCC It Should Be Able To Charge Broadband Users A Premium For Privacy][4]
* [Getty Sued Again Over Abusing Copyright Law, Licensing Images It Has No Rights To][5]
* [DOJ Makes Smart Decision On Music Licensing… Music Publishers Completely Lose Their Shit][6]
**This Week in 2011**
* [Court Finds Megaupload Could Be Guilty Of Direct Infringement In Perfect 10 Case][7]
* [Is Google Antitrust Investigation Simply A Repeat Of Wasteful Microsoft Antitrust Effort?][8]
* [Ron Wyden Puts Hold On FISA Amendments Act; Wants Answers To How Many Americans Have Been Spied On][9]
* [Huge Ruling: Court Says Proving Copyright Infringement Does Not Automatically Mean Irreperable Harm][10]
* [Righthaven Fails To Pay Sanctions; Complains A Day Late][11]
* [Mattel’s Lawsuit To Claim Ownership Of Bratz Comes Back To Bite Big Time: Told To Pay $309 Million][12]
**This Week in 2006**
* [Instant Messaging Still Not Ruining Kids’ Grammar][13]
* [Earth-Shattering Study Confirms Young People Dig New Technology][14]
* [Death Of Old Media Still Greatly Exaggerated][15]
* [Fake Bill Gates Quotes More Boring Than The Real Thing][16]
* [Now The Internet Makes You Neglect Family And Chores?][17]
* [Germany Says You Can’t Resell Software][18]
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/01/manhattan-da-continues-to-claim-we-dont-want-crypto-backdoors-which-he-means-he-wants-crypto-backdoors/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/01/no-matter-who-our-next-president-is-they-wont-understand-technology/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/02/broadband-industry-formally-tries-once-again-to-kill-net-neutrality/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/04/comcast-tells-fcc-it-should-be-able-to-charge-broadband-users-premium-privacy/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/04/getty-sued-again-over-abusing-copyright-law-licensing-images-it-has-no-rights-to/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/05/doj-makes-smart-decision-music-licensing-music-publishers-completely-lose-their-shit/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/01/court-finds-megaupload-could-be-guilty-direct-infringement-perfect-10-case/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/01/is-google-antitrust-investigation-simply-repeat-wasteful-microsoft-antitrust-effort/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/02/ron-wyden-puts-hold-fisa-amendments-act-wants-answers-to-how-many-americans-have-been-spied/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/03/huge-ruling-court-says-proving-copyright-infringement-does-not-automatically-mean-irreperable-harm/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/04/righthaven-fails-to-pay-sanctions-complains-day-late/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/05/mattels-lawsuit-to-claim-ownership-bratz-comes-back-to-bite-big-time-told-to-pay-309-million/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/31/instant-messaging-still-not-ruining-kids-grammar/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/01/earth-shattering-study-confirms-young-people-dig-new-technology/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/01/death-of-old-media-still-greatly-exaggerated/
[16]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/02/fake-bill-gates-quotes-more-boring-than-the-real-thing/
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/03/now-the-internet-makes-you-neglect-family-and-chores/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/08/04/germany-says-you-cant-resell-software/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/08/this-week-in-techdirt-history-august-2nd-8th/

2026-08-08 04:40:03 CEST

Buc-ee’s Shies Away From John Oliver Challenge, Sues Tiny Ohio Convenience Store Instead
[Buc-ee’s][1] trademark bullying ways continue! This company that has long been famous for its enormous gas station and convenience stores practically dripping in Americana is quickly building a national reputation for itself as a petulant trademark bully. It’s lawsuits are typically dumb and usually feature Buc-ee’s claim that it somehow owns every cartoon animal mascot depiction for convenience stores and gas stations, and even cartoon human mascots at times. It’s so bad that it even caught the attention of John Oliver recently, resulting in the show creating its own merchandise that is far more similar to the Buc-ee’s beaver than most of its lawsuit victims and Oliver literally [begging][2] them to file a lawsuit over it.
Well, the Buc-ee’s people appear to be cowards. Oliver made it clear that he and HBO have the willingness and legal war chest to do battle with Buc-ee’s. To date the company has not filed any lawsuit against Oliver or HBO. But it did just file another trademark suit [against another small local convenience store][3] after having just moved into the market.
> *Buc-ee’s, which [opened its first location in Ohio earlier this year][4], is suing Beaver’s Mini Mart in Beavercreek for what they allege is trademark infringement. *
>
> *In the suit, filed days ago, Buc-ee’s alleges that the Mini Mart’s cartoon beaver mascot is too similar to their own, with its “wide eyes and a smile” that also “uses red as a predominant color,” and could cause confusion. *
>
> *The new Buc-ee’s location in Huber Heights, Ohio, is 16 miles from Beaver’s Mini Mart. Beaver’s Mini Mart customers say they have been shopping there for decades, while Buc-ee’s has existed in the Buckeye State only since April.*
This is common practice for Buc-ee’s. The company expands into a new market and goes on a trademark suit blitz against anyone using one of these cartoon animal logos, beaver or otherwise. It doesn’t matter how long the victim company has been doing business there. It doesn’t matter how ingrained into the community they are. It doesn’t matter if every local in the area insists that there’s no confusion to be had between the two entities.
In this case, the Beaver’s Mini Mart has been around for decades. The entire community is awash in beaver-y iconography. I’ll let one of our anonymous commenters from our John Oliver post chime in here.
> *They are now trying to sue a place near where I grew up, the “Beavers MiniMart” convenience store in Beavercreek Ohio, where the local high school, Beavercreek High School, once had Bucky the Beaver as a mascot for their football team, the Battling Beavers, their cheerleaders are called the Beaverettes and there’s pep squad called the Beaver Patrol. There’s concrete statues that are 6-8 feet tall, all over the city. The city loves it’s fuckin’ beavers. Buc-ee’s probably doesn’t know what’s about to happen to them. It wont be pretty.*
The signage from Buc-ee’s own lawsuit show just how unalike the branding for the two companies is.
From this, and wielding a trademark Buc-ee’s somehow has on the word “Beaver’s” Buc-ee’s alleges that there will be “confusion among consumers,” that the Mini Mart is trading on Buc-ee’s “goodwill,” and that all of this is causing “irreparable injury” to Buc-ee’s.
Ironically, it appears this very lawsuit is causing a dip in all of that supposed goodwill Buc-ee’s has in this particular community.
> *“Reading into it more that Buc-ee’s has gone after other companies over this… It just put a bad taste in my mouth because they just seem like such a fun company,” resident Sam Bryan told Nexstar’s WDTN. “To see this, that they’re coming after a small business like this, it upset me like it did a lot of Beavercreek residents.”*
The town is named Beavercreek, the branding doesn’t look anything alike, and nobody is going to be confused about any of this. Buc-ee’s knows all of that. But trademark bullies typically just can’t help themselves and this is yet another in a long list of bullshit trademark lawsuits the company has filed.
If Beaver’s Mini Mart fights this, however, it would be an interesting move in its defense to point out that there is no similar lawsuit against John Oliver.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/company/buc-ees/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/30/john-oliver-dares-buc-ees-to-sue-him-over-trademark-infringement/
[3]: https://www.wdtn.com/news/local-news/buc-ees-suing-beavercreek-mini-mart-for-trademark-infringement-claim/
[4]: https://www.wdtn.com/news/buc-ees/buc-ees-grand-opening-draws-massive-crowds-big-speakers/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/buc-ees-shies-away-from-john-oliver-challenge-sues-tiny-ohio-convenience-store-instead/

2026-08-08 00:19:34 CEST

Farmers Are Getting Control Of Their Equipment Back
For years, John Deere had actively made repairing their tractors near-impossible for anyone but itself and the few “authorized” repair shops—regardless of the ability of its customers to actually visit such shops. Now, in a major win for farmers and right to repair advocates, John Deere must soon provide farmers with not just the tools and resources to finally repair their own John Deere equipment, but also access to future updates for said equipment.
In 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought a suit against farm equipment manufacturer John Deere, alleging John Deere used their control over equipment repair tools and resources to limit the ability of farmers and independent repair providers (IRPs) to repair John Deere equipment. Earlier this month, John Deere reached [a settlement ][1][with the FTC][2] in which they will immediately make available a tranche of repair resources, then continue to make further resources available until the end of the year. Five states joined the FTC in this suit, and over the next 10 years these states will work alongside the FTC to ensure John Deere complies with this settlement.
It is worth noting there is a second, farmer-initiated antitrust lawsuit against John Deere, also concerning a farmer’s right to repair their own equipment. In April, John Deere agreed to a[ $99 million settlement ][3]in that case, which also includes right to repair provisions.
This fight is just one example of how, as machines become increasingly computerized, companies [like John Deere ][4]restrict your ability to repair machines behind software[ subject to legal regimes ][5]that don’t just lock down repair, but make unauthorized repair a potential criminal offense.
John Deere’s market dominance in farm equipment led to an extraordinary power over access to the tools and resources of repair. John Deere actively restricted who had access to repair tools, and monopolized who could do the repair. This revenue stream—and control of it—is built into the business models of a lot of the technology we buy today. It also encourages companies to move away from the kinds of devices that can be easily fixed at home to ones that offer bells and whistles no one wants but makes repair difficult—like app-enabled toasters.
This whole saga with John Deere has been an exemplar of the greater need for right to repair laws, policy, and enforcement. There was a time when you bought a tractor and with some know-how and a manual could fix it yourself. It is easy to envision why someone with John Deere farm equipment might find it inconvenient to wait for John Deere approved repairpeople to come and fix any broken equipment. Especially when it meant waiting for days or weeks. Especially if it meant their crop was [withering on the vine][6]. This settlement will help ensure this is no longer the case.
But it’s not just about farm equipment; [If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it][7]. While some might feel more willing to agree they “shouldn’t” futz with laptops or smartphone, it still stands that — whether it’s farm equipment, a car, a laptop, or even your phone — if you legally cannot fix it yourself, if you must go hat in hand to an “approved provider,” you are at the mercy of a corporation. It is why EFF continues to support right to repair laws that ensure people truly own what they buy. And it is why EFF continues to fight for exemptions to the law that makes it most difficult to tinker and repair your own devices.
*Originally published to the [EFF’s Deeplinks blog][8].*
[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Deere-JointMotion-StipOrd.pdf
[2]: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/07/ftc-states-secure-settlement-deere-company-advancing-farmers-right-repair
[3]: https://nationalaglawcenter.org/john-deere-agrees-to-settle-antitrust-lawsuit/
[4]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/john-deere-really-doesnt-want-you-own-tractor
[5]: https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking
[6]: https://publicinterestnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Out-to-Pasture.pdf
[7]: https://www.eff.org/issues/right-to-repair
[8]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/farmers-are-getting-control-their-equipment-back
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/farmers-are-getting-control-of-their-equipment-back/

2026-08-07 22:08:35 CEST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: In The Modi For Takedowns
**[Ctrl-Alt-Speech][1] is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and [Everything in Moderation][2]‘s Ben Whitelaw. **
**Subscribe now on [Apple Podcasts][3], [Overcast][4], [Spotify][5], [Pocket Casts][6], [YouTube][7], or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to [the RSS feed][8].** **To get extended episodes with additional coverage, [support us on Patreon][9].**
In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:
* [India summons Meta executives over briefly restricted Modi Facebook post][10] (Reuters)
* [‘No explanation given’: Arvind Kejriwal claims Meta restricted his account in India][11] (The Times of India)
* [Meta apologises to India for restricting PM Modi’s post][12] (Reuters)
* [India temporarily bans Telegram over exam paper leak concern][13] (BBC)
* [eBay agrees $56m settlement with bloggers over harassment case][14] (BBC)
* [Artist starts legal case against Meta for deleting her Instagram account][15] (The Art Newspaper)
And in the extended episode for [Patreon supporters][16], they cover:
* [Telegram CEO says an extortionist planted CSAM in a chat to get it pulled from the App Store][17] (The Verge)
* [TikTok Withheld a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide][18] (Bloomberg)
* [TikTok Says ‘Moderator Error’ Kept Perez Hilton Livestream Up][19] (Wired)
Our fun links this week are the [Nintendo gameplay counsellors][20] and a [revamped app for sharing your toilet flushing habits][21].
If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can[ get the extended episode on Patreon][22].
[1]: https://ctrlaltspeech.com/
[2]: https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/
[3]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ctrl-alt-speech/id1734530193
[4]: https://overcast.fm/itunes1734530193
[5]: https://open.spotify.com/show/1N3tvLxUTCR7oTdUgUCQvc
[6]: https://pca.st/zulnarbw
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcky6_VTbejGkZ7aHqqc3ZjufeEw2AS7Z
[8]: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2315966.rss
[9]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[10]: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/india-summons-meta-executives-over-briefly-restricted-modi-facebook-post-2026-07-30/
[11]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/no-explanation-given-arvind-kejriwal-claims-meta-restricted-his-account-in-india-alleges/articleshow/132982268.cms
[12]: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/meta-apologises-india-restricting-pm-modis-post-2026-08-05/
[13]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn074j04l3eo
[14]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj039p238r5o
[15]: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/07/30/artist-starts-legal-case-against-meta-for-deleting-her-instagram-account
[16]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[17]: https://www.theverge.com/tech/975300/telegram-app-store-takedown-extortion-pavel-durov
[18]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-08-04/confidential-tiktok-report-shows-algorithm-safety-feature-withheld-from-millions?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4NTg4MDgzNCwiZXhwIjoxNzg2NDg1NjM0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSjlKT0dLR1pBS0wwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4OUM4OTNDMDhGOTQ0NThDQkQwQTQyREY1RDFCOTY0QyJ9.tMOZWjAXRRdbkzg56wnLVgH9O83cCgY5k5OetdzzWQY
[19]: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-says-moderator-error-kept-perez-hilton-livestream-on-platform/
[20]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joesmith-pathetic_nintendo-once-employed-400-people-as-gameplay-ugcPost-7490726841490620417-eT_W/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAWdP_cB471ESzCxlSkInD88tQp2Y7oM280
[21]: https://flushes.app/
[22]: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2176497?view=condensed
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/ctrl-alt-speech-in-the-modi-for-takedowns/

2026-08-07 20:07:59 CEST

Daily Deal: The 2026 Data Engineering Bundle featuring Databricks
The [2026 Data Engineering Bundle][1] has 7 online courses designed to help learners build skills that align directly with industry expectations. The focus is on practical tools and languages used by data professionals: Python for programming, Pandas and NumPy for data manipulation, foundational certification prep and specialized work with Databricks, an industry-standard platform for data engineering and analytics workflows. The content is on-demand, self-paced and designed to be revisited as learners build proficiency over time. It’s on sale for $35.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-2026-data-engineering-bundle-featuring-databricks?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/daily-deal-the-2026-data-engineering-bundle-featuring-databricks-3/

2026-08-07 14:28:32 CEST

16 Groups Warn FCC’s New ‘Robocall Plan’ Is Really About Dramatically Undermining Privacy
Back in May [I noted how][1] the Trump FCC had unveiled a brand new plan to “[stop robocalls][2].”
I also noted how the plan doesn’t *[actually stop robocalls][3]* because a well-lobbied U.S. government (1) refuses to hold big companies accountable or collect fines, (2) constantly embraces [weak rules that make telemarketers and debt collectors happy through endless loopholes][4], and (3) has an unhealthy fixation with undermining regulatory oversight at the behest of large companies.
Worse; buried in the Trump FCC plan are several initiatives that would harm U.S. privacy and help ICE and other government domestic surveillance efforts. The biggest being a plan to crack down on burner phones by forcing telecoms (the ones [bone-grafted to our domestic surveillance operations][5]) to dramatically scale up the information they collect from consumers.
More specifically, the Trump FCC is planning to expand the agency’s Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements by imposing a requirement to “at a minimum, obtain and retain the name, physical address, government issued identification number, and an alternate telephone number of any new and renewing customer.”
That’s unsurprisingly [raised concerns among privacy advocates and civil rights groups][6] well aware that greater surveillance will be abused by the Trump administration and beyond. It also ignores that there’s often very good reasons why abuse victims, whistleblowers, journalists, refugees, and others might be seeking an anonymous prepaid burner phone.
On the off chance they might be able to sway Brendan Carr’s thinking, sixteen privacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have [fired off a letter][7] to the agency warning the FCC to avoid undermining public privacy:
> *“Beyond creating acute privacy risks for all subscribers, the proposal would endanger anonymous communications that have long protected whistleblowers, activists, journalists, and domestic violence survivors. A survivor of domestic violence fleeing an abuser should not have to create a record that leads back to their door in order to get a phone. Nor should a whistleblower or a survivor escaping a trafficking situation. Further, the FCC is responsible for protecting privacy of customer information through its telecom privacy provisions and laws like the Safe Connections Act. This proposal undercuts those protections.”*
The additional requirements would also push anonymity out of reach for untold millions of unhoused
individuals, low-income Americans, older adults, foster youth, and others who need anonymity but may struggle to provide required identifiers. The groups note it also puts even greater private information in the hands of companies with some of the worst track records on privacy in America.
> *“In 2021, a T-Mobile breach exposed the Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers of approximately 77 million people and, in 2024, an AT&T breach exposed the call and text records of nearly all its wireless customers (roughly 110 million subscribers). *
>
> *Mandating that thousands of originating providers, including small carriers with limited resources to protect the privacy and security of such an extensive amount of information, collect and retain government IDs for the life of the customer relationship plus four years creates significant new exposure.”*
Of course the Trump administration doesn’t really care about “fixing robocalls.” If it did, it would hold the biggest scam callers (large legitimate companies and debt collectors) accountable, actually follow through on penalties, stop [embracing mindless deregulation][8], and take aim at the biggest domestic telecoms that have historically dragged their feet on enforcement (and adopting anti-spoofing authentication technology) because they’ve profited from the scams and harassment of their own customers.
Brendan Carr isn’t the type of guy who cares about holding large U.S. companies accountable for anything. He’s more into broadly gutting corporate oversight at the behest of monopolies, [dismantling the First Amendment][9], and expanding domestic surveillance — especially of vulnerable populations being targeted and brutalized by ICE.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/19/new-trump-fcc-plan-to-fight-robocalls-raises-red-flags-and-major-privacy-concerns/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/19/new-trump-fcc-plan-to-fight-robocalls-raises-red-flags-and-major-privacy-concerns/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/08/america-is-drowning-in-scam-calls-and-texts-and-donald-trump-is-making-it-worse/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/08/america-is-drowning-in-scam-calls-and-texts-and-donald-trump-is-making-it-worse/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2015/08/17/new-leaks-confirm-ats-position-as-nsas-favorite-telco-partner/
[6]: https://www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to-kill-burner-phones-by-forcing-telecoms-to-get-all-customers-ids/
[7]: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/CDT_FCC_Know-Your-Customer_Sign-On-Letter.pdf
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/17/big-telecom-robocallers-love-brendan-carrs-plan-to-lobotomize-the-fcc/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/17/a-first-amendment-legend-eviscerates-brendan-carr-with-substance-and-style/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/07/16-groups-warn-fccs-new-robocall-plan-is-really-about-dramatically-undermining-privacy/

2026-08-07 05:04:49 CEST

Erica Schwartz Confirmed As CDC Director Right After She Ruined Her Reputation
When Erica Schwartz was first [nominated][1] for Director of the CDC, you could almost hear both a gasp of surprise and a collective sigh of relief from healthcare providers throughout the country. Schwartz is well qualified for the role, after all, and many took her nomination as a sign that the White House was attempting to rein in RFK Jr. Then came Schwartz’s [confirmation hearings][2]. While there was some good in Schwartz’s performance during those hearings, there was a lot of bad. The kind of bad that suddenly has a whole bunch of people who were previously sighing in relief suddenly nervous, and even pulling their endorsements. The biggest issue was Schwartz not affirming that she would refuse Kennedy’s influence and desires in favor of good science.
Well, Schwartz is [now the confirmed Director of the CDC][3], so it seems what she did to ruin her reputation with a whole lot of people didn’t matter in the end.
> *Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Schwartz’s testimony came when senators repeatedly asked her what she would do if (or when) she’s put in the same position as Monarez. Schwartz responded as if it hadn’t happened and would never happen. “I do not believe that the president or the secretary would ever do what you just mentioned,” she told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at one point, prompting him to reply: “Really?”*
>
> *While senators expressed their disappointment with her responses, health experts dropped their endorsements.*
And if you want to get really, *really* pissed off, allow me to tell you how Bill Cassidy was a key and potentially deciding vote when it came to Schwartz’s confirmation. Cassidy has the ear of other reasonable GOP senators in these hearings and in Senate generally when it comes to health-related concerns. And it may start to sound familiar when I tell you that Cassidy first indicated he was very troubled by Schwartz’s response in her confirmation hearings, but had been assured privately afterwards that his concerns were unfounded.
> *Critical to Schwartz’s confirmation was support from self-proclaimed vaccine advocate Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also cast a critical vote to confirm Kennedy as health secretary. While Cassidy called Schwartz’s performance in the confirmation hearing “disappointing,” he later said he had been reassured. He said he had spoken with her more after the hearing as well as with her former colleagues. “I’m confident that she knows what she is doing,” he said, [according to Stat News][4].*
If I dialed the clock back to 2025 and replaced Schwartz’s name with Kennedy’s, it’d be the exact same story.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope that Schwartz’s qualifications rule the day and she can resist Kennedy’s nonsense and make good, scientifically sound decisions and hires. But so long as Kennedy is at the helm, I have my doubts.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/24/rfk-jr-white-house-appear-at-odds-over-attempts-to-rein-him-in/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/16/the-good-the-bad-in-erica-schwartzs-confirmation-hearings-to-lead-cdc/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/schwartz-confirmed-as-cdc-director-after-bungling-confirmation-hearing/
[4]: https://www.statnews.com/2026/07/30/senate-panel-backs-confirmation-health-nominees-schwartz-cdc-kaufman-aspr/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/erica-schwartz-confirmed-as-cdc-director-right-after-she-ruined-her-reputation/

2026-08-07 00:28:07 CEST

Trump’s AI Framework Is So Bad They Won’t Show You What’s In It
For a while now we’ve been mocking the Trump White House’s plans for an “AI framework” that would have the frontier AI labs hand over their top models for an initial review. After all, this was more or less the [exact same plan][1] that the Biden admin worked out in 2023, but it was done in a thoughtful and careful manner. And it caused [a bunch of the VC bros][2] in Silicon Valley to come out in support of fascism, while claiming it was a necessary defense against Biden’s attack on supposedly open innovation. Of course, all of that was bullshit, and that’s made even more clear by every step the Trump White House has taken to reinvent a similar “voluntary” AI review plan, but dumber.
Indeed, Trump’s AI framework is so dumb… that [they’re keeping it a secret][3].
> *The White House does not plan to publicly release its new framework for evaluating advanced AI models, three sources familiar with the discussions told Axios.*
Ah, transparency at work. It’s also [wreaking havoc on the rest of the AI ecosystem][4] that wasn’t invited to the White House to get the details.
> *The Trump administration invited staffers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and other leading AI companies to the White House on Tuesday to share an overview of its new AI oversight framework, the people said. AI developers will have the ability to voluntarily submit new models to the federal government up to 30 days ahead of their public release. The White House will then vet their cyber capabilities according to a classified benchmarking system and share the AI models with federal agencies and trusted corporate partners.*
>
> *The White House isn’t sharing more information about its testing criteria or which AI models will be covered by the framework, though open models will *[*reportedly*][5]* be excluded, according to Axios. That has left smaller AI startups, safety advocates, and third-party researchers in the dark about crucial aspects of how the federal government is addressing the cyber risks posed by advanced AI systems. Some argue that the secretive process will give an advantage to larger companies.*
Considering that the likes of Andreessen Horowitz (investors in OpenAI) claimed they had to support Donald Trump over Joe Biden because they would support anyone who agreed with their “little tech agenda,” I’m curious how they can possibly square that with the fact that this new framework is significantly worse than the Biden framework, specifically for the “little tech” companies that a16z has used as a shield to defend their support for authoritarian politics?
Of course, the other reason why the White House is probably keeping the framework a secret is *because it would show how incompetent they are*. All the reporting so far suggests the [entire process has been a clusterfuck][6], which is much more about which companies get to set up which regulatory moats to protect their own business models, rather than what’s best for either innovation or the American public.
> *At Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and Meta, executives grew increasingly concerned that Anthropic and OpenAI would win over the White House with their arguments for tighter restrictions, according to two of the people. That would potentially cement the A.I. start-ups’ positions as market leaders,*
>
> *Other A.I. labs were at risk of falling permanently behind, the people added. And because several of the companies make their own open-source models or supply hardware to businesses that use open-source technology, they worried the restrictions could harm them.*
>
> *Over private texts, phone calls and video conferences, executives quietly built an argument that open-source models were good for the world and for American innovation, according to three of the people familiar with the talks.*
But, of course, that’s just the way things work when you have a White House that makes decisions entirely based on transactional motives, rather than anything involving principles.
As we discussed last week, so much of this is all about [whose vision of the AI world][7] wins out — whether a handful of giant companies get to lock in the regulatory moat they’ve built for themselves, or an actually competitive market lets people make their own decisions and keep control over their own experiences. Maybe that’s the real reason nobody’s allowed to see the rulebook: because it would reveal who the administration agreed to let write the rules.
[1]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-24283/safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/05/trumps-ai-oversight-plan-is-everything-vcs-claimed-to-hate-about-bidens-plan-only-worse/
[3]: https://www.axios.com/2026/08/04/white-house-ai-framework-under-wraps
[4]: https://www.wired.com/story/the-white-house-is-keeping-its-ai-cybersecurity-framework-secret/
[5]: https://www.axios.com/2026/08/04/trump-ai-framework-open-models?utm_campaign=mrf-utm_campaign=editorial&utm_source=x&utm_medium=owned_social&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&mrfcid=202608046a7107cca447ee21c3cb6e0f
[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/technology/ai-washington-regulation-whiplash.html
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/29/anthropic-says-its-against-a-ban-on-open-weight-models-it-just-wants-to-ban-everything-that-makes-them-good/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/trumps-ai-framework-is-so-bad-they-wont-show-you-whats-in-it/

2026-08-06 22:44:29 CEST

Budget Cuts, Apathy Lead To Trump Administration Being Slow Acknowledging Two Cyclosporiasis Deaths
A couple of weeks ago [we discussed][1] how the cuts made to HHS and specifically the CDC’s FoodNet tracking platform were making it much harder to track and back trace the source of the country’s current cyclosporiasis outbreak. You’ll have heard about this outbreak in the news by now. It’s the one where you begin pooping yourself uncontrollably. It is not, however, funny. 10% of cases will result in hospitalization. The most recent counts from the CDC suggest that there have been [more than 22,000 cases of the illness][2] across 15 states. Those numbers are very much in question, however, both due to general underreporting and, again, funding and staffing cuts at CDC.
Just this week, in fact, we have now learned that two people in Michigan have died from cyclosporiasis. That information was and is, at the time of this writing, missing [from the FDA’s dedicated page][3] to inform the public on the outbreak. That page hasn’t been updated since July 24th, in fact, which is the exact opposite of what you’d want the government to be doing in a public health emergency. And it’s reportedly not because the [government isn’t aware of these deaths][4].
> *While news of the deaths made widespread headlines Monday, federal health agencies under the Trump administration were mostly silent. The Food and Drug Administration—which is conducting traceback investigations to identify foods contaminated with the parasite—has not updated its [outbreak investigation page since July 24][5], nearly two weeks ago, as of publication time.*
>
> *The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, added a banner notice on its [outbreak update webpage][6] saying that the agency was “aware” of the two cases. But its reporting data was not updated to include the two deaths as of this publication.*
Why has this government been so slow to report accurately on these unfortunate deaths and the overall case counts for the outbreak? Some combination of those same budget and staff cuts along with a general apathy at HHS. With fewer people and resources to not only track the disease, but to maintain the dashboards meant to update the public, the numbers are slow to come in and untrustworthy when they do.
And with RFK Jr. at the helm of public health, well, the government is generally in the land of We-Don’t-Give-A-Shit.
> *Two weeks ago, Kennedy confidentially told reporters that the Cyclospora outbreak—linked to lettuce and other unidentified fresh produce—was “[under control][7].” Last week, he announced his own cooking show on YouTube and released the first episode in which he helped prepare a meal that included [a fresh salad][8].*
The buffoonery on display from Kennedy and our health agencies is breathtaking. They should be assisting in combating this outbreak, along with those of measles and pertussis. Putting that aside, they should at least be able to tally up the case count numbers to demonstrate their own failures, but it’s clear they’re not really interested in doing that either. Instead, Kennedy in particular wants to host his [cooking show][9] and [yell at journalists][10] instead. Kid Rock must not be returning his calls any longer, I suppose.
Now, to be clear, this illness carries a 2 week incubation period, and the recalls of the suspected produce that is believed to have caused all of this are within a time frame that cases may still be stemming from that same source. But that’s not a certainty, and it will be important for our federal health agencies to continue to track cases in near real time to determine if there is, in fact, another vector by which cyclosporiasis is spreading.
Unfortunately, every indication is that those same health agencies just aren’t all that interested in doing this the right way.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/14/rfk-jr-cut-funding-for-foodnet-making-it-harder-to-figure-out-why-youre-shitting-yourself-uncontrollably/
[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cyclospora-outbreak-cyclosporiasis-spread-states-cdc-rcna590836
[3]: https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-9-state-outbreak-cyclospora-illnesses-iceberg-lettuce-july-2026
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/trump-admin-aware-of-deaths-in-explosive-diarrhea-outbreak-delays-reporting/
[5]: https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-9-state-outbreak-cyclospora-illnesses-iceberg-lettuce-july-2026
[6]: https://www.cdc.gov/cyclosporiasis/outbreaks/07-26/index.html
[7]: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/rfk-jr-says-cyclosporiasis-outbreak-control-mexico-casts-doubt-link-ta-rcna588604
[8]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vKilWJNKo
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/31/rfk-jr-who-is-definitely-not-checked-out-of-his-job-to-host-a-cooking-show/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/rfk-jr-just-embarrassed-himself-publicly-on-cnn/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/05/budget-cuts-apathy-lead-to-trump-administration-being-slow-acknowledging-two-cyclosporiasis-deaths/

2026-08-06 22:44:24 CEST

Trump Admin Hijacked $21 Billion In Taxpayer Money Earmarked For Internet Access And Then Went Mute
I’ve [written a few times now][1] about how the Trump administration hijacked a $42.5 billion broadband investment fund included in the 2021 infrastructure bill, stripped away requirements that the resulting broadband be fairly deployed and affordable, and instead redirected billions of dollars to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in exchange for slower, more expensive satellite connectivity **they’d already planned to deploy without subsidies**.
Basically, this redirected tens of billions of dollars away from higher-capacity, faster, more reliable fiber access, and toward Low-Earth Orbit satellite services, which have a [long list of problems I’ve explored in detail][2]. The Trump administration then falsely claimed that they’d “saved” taxpayers roughly $21 billion (you can read my recent piece at [*The Verge*][3] for more detail on what that means for real people).
Here’s the thing. This $21 billion in “non-deployment funds” the Trump administration claims it “saved” is technically supposed to go to the states. Congress (aka, **the law**) specifically stated that the full $42.5 billion included in this Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment (BEAD) was supposed to be spent on internet access or something very closely adjacent (digital skills training, telehealth tools).
But after the Trump NTIA retooled the program last year (causing all sorts of new delays and problems) they basically just went mute on what happens next. They [refuse to meaningfully answer questions on where that money is going to go][4]:
> *“It’s anybody’s guess if nondeployment funds will ever be released. It’s now been 13 months since the NTIA changed the rules for nondeployment funds, and they are obviously in no hurry to see these funds ever get spent.”*
This hasn’t gotten a ton of attention in a U.S. press that finds infrastructure too boring to cover, but it still obviously matters. There were various clumsy attempts to hijack these “non-deployment funds” for other purposes (Sen. Joni Ernst proposed [using it reduce the federal deficit][5], others have wanted to throw it at AI data centers), but that would be technically illegal (for whatever that means anymore).
It seems likely that the Trump administration just hopes that people forget about the funding so it can be pocketed by crony capitalism and associates, but that hasn’t been easy. State leaders and even many Republicans have consistently [peppered the NTIA with letters][6] asking them what happens next to these funds, only to be met with more delays or silence.
It’s worth remembering that last election season, Republicans ([with Ezra Klein and the “abundance” crew’s help][7]) made a giant stink about how this program *was taking way too long to connect anybody*. For the whole 2024 election season, Republicans blasted the BEAD program’s bureaucracy and promised how once they were in power, they’d completely revamp it, speed everything up, and save taxpayer billions.
When that “revamp” arrived it involved creating all manner of costly new delays, stripping all the language out of the program ensuring funds were spent fairly and wisely, dumping a whole bunch of money into the laps of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and then running off with half of the program’s funds and refusing to tell anybody what happens next.
In the interim, delays, high costs (from pointless tariffs and wars), and bureaucracy have resulted in **even more** original BEAD subsidy bidders backing off of their plans for widespread fiber, resulting in bid defaults, even more delays, and **even more **taxpayer money being thrown at Bezos and Musk for satellite broadband that’s [too congested to handle the full load][8].
Great stuff. Very populist. Incredibly well thought out government efficiencies.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/08/trump-musk-lutnick-and-bezos-hijacked-infrastructure-bill-broadband-grant-money-causing-a-giant-mess/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/31/study-shows-musks-starlink-too-congested-to-tackle-u-s-broadband-woes-despite-billions-in-new-subsidies/
[3]: https://www.theverge.com/policy/953944/bead-broadband-funding-trump-musk-bezos
[4]: https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/07/23/nondeployment-funds-still-in-limbo/?mc_cid=4dfb728514&mc_eid=eb527a594e
[5]: https://www.benton.org/sites/default/files/JoniErnst.pdf
[6]: https://www.fischer.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/9c77f84c-3ede-4f73-bdb0-6154c7598016/12.16.25-ntia-letter.pdf?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/01/jon-stewart-and-ezra-klein-help-gop-paint-infrastructure-bill-broadband-grants-as-a-useless-boondoggle/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/13/musks-starlink-socks-customers-with-1500-high-demand-surcharge/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/trump-admin-hijacked-21-billion-in-taxpayer-money-earmarked-for-internet-access-and-then-went-mute/

2026-08-06 22:44:18 CEST

California Town Says Flock Cameras Misread License Plates 71% Of The Time
Flock Safety’s automatic license plate readers were [first sold as upmarket add-ons][1] for gated communities and HOA curtain-twitchers who wanted to keep tabs on what *everyone* was doing, whether they lived there or not.
Flock soon realized that selling to rich people wasn’t as profitable as selling to governments. Law enforcement agencies have always been surveillance tech early adopters — something that springs equally from being able to spend other people’s money and a desire to get out ahead of constitutional case law.
So, now Flock is pretty much everywhere. But instead of getting better due to constant refinement, it seems to be content [to rest on its ubiquity][2]. If you’re already everywhere, why try harder? After all, ending a contract with Flock doesn’t mean the company won’t [keep your cameras activated][3] so *other* law enforcement agencies [can access][4] plate/location information. And if federal agencies are using local agencies to [bypass restrictions][5] on plate reader access, well… that’s just an end user problem.
But if you buy license plate readers, you kind of expect them to *read license plates*. Well, that’s not happening in Roseville, California, [where Flock’s cameras are about as effective as pole-mounted Polaroids][6]:
> *Flock says that in optimal conditions, its cameras accurately read more than 96% of license plate characters. Hundreds of pages of records from the Roseville Police Department show a different picture. In 2023 and 2024, Flock sent 1,427 alerts to Roseville police, flagging vehicles as stolen or used in a felony after they passed one of the city’s Flock cameras. **An analysis by the police department found that in 71% of those alerts, Flock’s machine-learning software incorrectly read the license plates.***
That is objectively terrible. And because it is so terrible, Flock’s flack has decided to blame the end users.
> *A factor that contributed to the misread problems in Roseville was the “particularly unique deployment” that the city requested, a Flock spokeswoman said. Roseville said it has its cameras configured so that they capture only the backs of vehicles, a setup intended to avoid capturing personally identifiable information like faces. Roseville’s setup included older hardware and placement of cameras higher and further from vehicles than the company typically recommends, Flock added.*
Huh. Well, that might mean something if Flock had made any honest effort to make this “unique deployment” work better. But it doesn’t appear to have done that. Instead, it simply insists things are better now — a statement that’s not backed by any evidence Flock’s has on hand and/or is willing to share.
> *Flock said Roseville’s camera performance has significantly improved, which the police department disputed. *
According to emails obtained by Business Insider, it does appear that someone appears to be working on the ongoing issue, albeit at a leisurely pace. This is the email sent to Amanda Jones, Roseville PD’s real-time crime center supervisor by an unnamed “Flock Senior Product Manager.”
> *I 100% understand, and it pains me to no end that we are missing reads for you. I am grinding on this issue, and am writing code as we speak. I am improving systems at Flock internally that can automatically identify when we miss cars and then diagnose the issue so that we do not need to rely on customers to tell us.*
>
> *I think it may be helpful for you and I to have a conversation so that you can get a view under the covers of what we are working on to improve this?*
>
> *We have an all company summit during the 2nd half of this week, but if you would like to discuss later this month or next, please let me know and I can share my availability.*
While I understand that Flock’s customer base means product managers are stretched pretty thin, we’re not talking about malfunctioning doorbell cameras or warranty repairs. We’re talking about tech that is capable of depriving people of their freedom, if not their actual *lives*, when it’s wrong. That’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t be met with vague promises to talk about this long-known, ongoing problem at some point in the next several *weeks*. That Flock doesn’t treat this as a priority shows it [doesn’t care][7] about anything more than selling cameras and raking in service/access fees.
Fortunately for residents of Roseville, Flock being wrong hasn’t led to police stops or wrongful arrests. That’s because the PD forces officers to personally verify plates and cannot use a plate read alone to justify a traffic stop.
But most places using Flock cameras don’t do that. Fewer still place any limits on access to the company’s database of billions of plate/location photos, which means cops from all over the nation are using junk data generated by faulty cameras to initiate stops and pursue investigations.
And it’s not just the false positives. Part of the PD’s frustration was Flock’s inability to generate records when officers needed them most. In at least two cases, vehicles driven by criminal suspects managed to pass through the network of Flock cameras without generating a single usable plate photo. Meanwhile, the cameras were turning 2’s into 3’s, N’s into V’s, and apparently just guessing when the cameras failed to capture an entire plate, rather than simply discarding the incomplete read.
Again, this doesn’t appear to matter to Flock. It will oversell its capabilities and blame everyone but itself when things go wrong. It has already shown it’s unwilling to improve until [federal oversight][8] starts demanding answers. And this approach to testing shows it’s not serious about actually improving its products:
> *In 2021, the research firm IPVM independently tested Flock’s license plate readers, concluding that Flock misidentified the state in about one of 10 reads, and that the system regularly misclassified vehicles’ type and make. **IPVM said that Flock subsequently blocked it from purchasing its cameras for testing.***
What’s weird about this is that the city of Roseville says it’s going to keep throwing money at Flock, despite its extensive record of failure. This makes it feel like less of a tech company and [more like a cult][9]. The feeling seems to be that if the cameras ever generate even a single arrest, they’re worth paying for, even when they’re wrong most of the time. And that’s something that can’t be fixed simply by changing surveillance providers.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/07/26/newest-growth-market-license-plate-readers-is-those-assholes-running-local-homeowners-association/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/29/expansion-of-flock-camera-systems-is-leading-to-even-more-false-positives/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/04/because-flock-cant-be-trusted-cities-are-covering-cameras-with-garbage-bags/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/17/flock-safety-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-for-a-missing-person-it-was-an-abortion-investigation/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/20/cities-shut-down-flock-camera-networks-following-improper-access-by-federal-agencies/
[6]: https://www.businessinsider.com/flock-camera-misread-license-plate-reader-california-roseville-police-2026-7
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/07/to-the-surprise-of-no-one-cops-are-using-alpr-cameras-to-stalk-their-exes/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/28/ring-flock-safety-join-forces-to-expand-law-enforcement-surveillance-networks/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/flock-safety-claims-it-can-rid-the-us-of-crime-even-as-cities-rid-themselves-of-flock/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flock-cameras-misread-license-plates-71-of-the-time/

2026-08-06 22:44:13 CEST

Daily Deal: Soundfreaq Sound Spot II Bluetooth Speaker
The [Soundfreaq Sound Spot II][1] combines wireless audio performance, ambient lighting, and relaxing sound features in a compact design built for modern lifestyles. Featuring a Bamboo and White finish with eco-friendly materials, this Bluetooth speaker complements bedrooms, offices, living rooms, and personal spaces while delivering both style and functionality. Engineered with a custom-designed audio driver, Bass Boost DSP technology, and a passive radiator, Sound Spot II delivers balanced sound with vocal clarity and enhanced bass performance. Beyond music playback, Sound Spot II includes built-in nature sounds, ambient lighting, and sleep timer functionality designed to help create a more relaxing environment. With Bluetooth connectivity, rechargeable battery power, and splash-resistant construction, it offers convenient performance for home and daily use. It’s on sale for $80.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/soundfreaq-sound-spot-ii-bluetooth-speaker-white?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/daily-deal-soundfreaq-sound-spot-ii-bluetooth-speaker-2/

2026-08-06 22:44:06 CEST

Elon Musk’s Grokipedia Quietly Stopped Updating In April. Basically No One Noticed.
As perhaps a few Elon Musk fans may remember, he got really annoyed at Wikipedia last year and tasked his second-rate LLM, Grok, with recreating it as “Grokipedia.” Grokipedia, launched nearly a year ago, basically starts by forking Wikipedia and then having its AI “generate” more details and more stories. It’s… not very good.
And apparently, it hasn’t been updating. And it seems like almost no one noticed.
Over at Lawfare, they put out an article showing that Grokipedia [basically stopped accepting updates back in April][1].
> *At first, we wondered whether the AI was avoiding sensitive topics. To test that possibility, we submitted an uncomplicated factual update: SpaceX has recently launched its initial public offering (IPO). Grokipedia had not added this extensively sourced, indisputable fact to the SpaceX page. We observed that other users had suggested this edit as well; their requests were also “in review,” some since the day after the June 12 IPO. *
>
> *We then examined the most popular pages, reasoning that if anything moved through the queue, we would likely see it there. Because Grokipedia provides view counts on individual pages but offers no site-wide ranking leaderboard, we approximated one using the site’s own search-suggestion (typeahead) feature, which returns, for any queried word, the most-viewed pages whose titles contain it. For example, if you type “The ” into the search bar, the first two suggestions are “The Beatles” and “Alexander the Great,” both of which have over 4.7 million views. Using the 10,000 most common words in Grokipedia page titles (obtained from the 5.9 million pages listed in the site map) gave us over 300,000 pages. Like many websites, its individual pages have a steep popularity curve. High-traffic entries on topics such as Elon Musk, ChatGPT, Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, World War II, and Bitcoin draw millions of views, while millions of minor pages sit in a zero-visit long tail.*
>
> *But neither popular nor unpopular pages seemed to be updating. On ChatGPT’s entry, 12 edits submitted on April 24 were approved the same day, and every edit submitted afterward—May, June, and July—remains “in review.” The same pattern holds across topics and traffic levels; the largest political entries on the site (across both parties) and a second-division football club are both stalled, which is difficult to reconcile with a content- or topic-specific explanation.*
>
> *In our subsequent analysis of 34,519 pages with at least one suggested edit in our sample, containing a total of 225,496 recommended edits, we found no accepted or rejected corrections dated within the past three months.*
You’d think someone would have noticed sooner.
But, as the article notes, it sure looks like the actual human users of Grokipedia quickly dwindled as well:
> *Across the pages examined, submissions from human users continue at a reduced volume—averaging 216**per week post-April.*
Other tools that monitored activity on Grokipedia apparently died much earlier:
> *A public feed that once showed the editing process at *[*grokipedia.com/live*][2]*—a stream that the Tow Center had scraped to assemble its dataset—stopped functioning between mid-January and early March. A Wayback Machine capture from Jan. 12 shows the feed fully operational, with a running count of approved edits, while a capture from March 5 returns an error page.*
These are all signs of a project that’s basically flatlined. For all the hype Grokipedia received as the antidote to Wikipedia, it doesn’t seem to have gained any traction. And, the fact that it basically broke months ago seems to have been noticed by almost no one other than… the dozen or so people out there trying and failing to edit Grokipedia:
> *While more than half of all contributors suggested only a single edit, a tiny cohort of 13 power users accounts for 42.6 percent of all human edit requests (nearly 40,000 edits). The most prolific contributor submitted over 8,000 corrections across 4,000 pages.*
>
> *One self-described frequent contributor reported in mid-June that the review system had been stuck for more than 50 days. That places the onset in late April, consistent with our data. He *[*also wrote on X*][3]* that someone he identified as an xAI team member had acknowledged the complaint but could not provide a status update.*
>
> *For these power contributors, Grokipedia went from a platform with rapid review times to a black hole.*
The article notes that Elon hasn’t mentioned the site since February — barely four months after it launched in October. That silence has now stretched on for about six months and counting.
Even worse, Grokipedia’s logging system appears to have broken as well:
> *A mass rewrite of the encyclopedia seems to have happened on March 14. Because user suggestions are anchored to specific text selections (“Highlighted sections”), the rewrite appears to have broken the anchors. Grokipedia’s logging system retroactively reclassified previously accepted edits as rejected, attaching the error message, “Highlighted section not found.” However, in several cases that we reviewed, the textual changes appear to have been incorporated into the articles anyway. For example, the 10 launch-week edits to the entry for the actress *[*Prunella Scales*][4]* are recorded as approved in the Tow archive; nine of the edits now display as rejected on the live site, despite their contents appearing to have been incorporated into the article.*
>
> *The edit log, in other words, is not entirely stable or reliable. This is potentially confusing for users who made suggestions and might have seen their valid contribution accepted with a “rejected” message nonetheless. It is also not ideal from an auditing standpoint.*
It’s entirely possible that someone at xAI (or SpaceX or wherever the checks get cut these days) will flip the server back on and get things started again, but given how much the [media hyped up][5] Grokipedia when it launched as a potential “Wikipedia killer,” shouldn’t at least some of them acknowledge what a total failure it has been?
[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/grokipedia-stopped-reviewing-edits-in-april.-it-didn-t-tell-anyone
[2]: http://grokipedia.com/live
[3]: https://x.com/KllN349312/status/2073412609387172220?s=20
[4]: https://grokipedia.com/page/Prunella_Scales
[5]: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/wikipedia-killer-grokipedia-elon-musks-latest-project-triggers-outrage-1750514
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/elon-musks-grokipedia-quietly-stopped-updating-in-april-basically-no-one-noticed/

2026-08-06 22:44:00 CEST

Why Are Gay Bars Building Databases Of Their Patrons?
[Recent reports][1] have [raised alarm][2] about the use of PatronScan, an ID-checking and face-scanning system, at multiple LGBTQ+ bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. Much of the attention has focused on reports that the system photographs patrons as they enter venues and questions about whether those images are used for facial recognition.
A broader privacy concern also deserves scrutiny. For years, PatronScan has marketed itself not just as an ID-verification tool, but as a system that allows bars and clubs to identify patrons, keep records about them, and share information across venues. As one news article published in 2019 [documented][3], PatronScan built a network that allowed participating bars to flag patrons and share information about them with other establishments.
And in California, it’s not at all clear how PatronScan’s business model of scanning IDs and sharing the information from those scans with other bars comports with the law. California’s [ID privacy law][4], which was amended in 2018 to add ID “scans,” states that no businesses shall “retain or use” any information from a scanned ID card except for limited purposes such as to verify age, comply with a legal requirement, or prevent fraud.
Californians should be deeply concerned about businesses that collect information from government-issued IDs and use it to build databases about where people go, whom they associate with, and whether they should be allowed into other public gathering places. That concern is especially strong in LGBTQ+ spaces, which have long served as refuges for people to go *without* being tracked, monitored, or put on lists.
We reached out to Patronscan with questions regarding their practices and their views on California ID law. They referred us to their [published FAQ][5] question “Is Patronscan privacy compliant in California?” which claims that the use of Patronscan kiosks is legal in California. They also said “Patronscan does not do facial recognition in North America, or any kind of automated analysis of the ID or the live photo image.”
### **The California Legislature Has Investigated PatronScan’s Business Model **
In 2018, the California Legislature published bill analyses (on that year’s [AB 2769][6]) that went into detail about PatronScan’s business. Reviewing PatronScan’s own materials, the California Senate Judiciary Committee [found that the company had collected and retained information][7] on 561,087 customers in Sacramento alone during the first five months of 2018—a remarkable figure for a city whose population had only recently topped 500,000.
Lawmakers also found that at that time, PatronScan retained information for at least 90 days or longer in some cases, shared information among participating bars, and maintained bans that lasted an average of more than 19 years. A PatronScan “Public Safety Report” used 10,000 scans collected on a single day to report on “where customers live, how far they have traveled, and how many different venues the customers patronized.”
This was not simply checking IDs at the door. PatronScan was building a database.
An immigrants’ rights group, the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), [wrote about its concern][8] at the time with these growing ID databases, saying that “placing individuals on a database that labels them a “threat to public safety” has “significant immigration consequences that could lead to deportation, revoking of current status, or denial of future immigration relief.”
Today, PatronScan [states][9] that it retains personal information about all customers for 21 days, and about flagged customers for up to five years. This includes the customer’s name, date of birth, photograph, gender, and zip code. It also includes the dates and times that the customer entered particular bars. Such databases are a grave privacy threat. Personal data is routinely stolen by thieves, misused by a company’s employees, seized by government agencies, and diverted to new purposes by a company’s executives.
### **California Law Still Bans ID-Scan Databases, And Bars Should Follow That Law**
In 2018, California lawmakers closed what they viewed as a loophole. Existing law already prohibited businesses from retaining or using information obtained when they “swiped” a driver’s license, except for the narrow purposes of legal requirements (like a judicial warrant) or “preventing fraud, abuse, or material misrepresentation.”
After reviewing companies like PatronScan, the Legislature amended the law to make clear that the same restrictions that apply to businesses that “swipe” ID cards also apply when those IDs are “scanned.” PatronScan opposed that change, arguing it wanted to preserve the ability to share information among bars so participating venues could decide whether to admit patrons.
The bill became law anyway. Yet PatronScan continues to market and sell a system that apparently retains information from scanned IDs, and allows participating venues to flag patrons and share information across its network.
At a minimum, that raises serious questions about how those practices fit with California’s existing ID privacy law. Bar and nightlife venue owners who utilize PatronScan should think twice about its effects on their customers, and consider going back to standard, visual ID checks. These physical checks have been effective at keeping underage patrons out of 21-and-over venues for decades, and don’t present the serious privacy dangers of creating a private database of bar patrons.
For venues serving vulnerable communities like immigrants or the LGBTQ+ community, the stakes of using this technology are even higher. It’s disappointing and alarming to see some of California’s more well-known LGBTQ+ nightlife spots instead lining up as PatronScan’s early adopters. A venue cannot claim to be a safe space while feeding its patrons’ data to a third party database. These businesses should reject PatronScan, return to the standard ID checks that every other bar has been able to utilize, and prove to their customers that their privacy and security still matters.
*Originally published to the [EFF’s Deeplinks blog][10].*
[1]: https://www.advocate.com/news/san-francisco-gay-bars-privacy
[2]: https://sf.gazetteer.co/why-do-these-castro-gay-bars-have-tsa-style-face-scanners
[3]: https://onezero.medium.com/id-at-the-door-meet-the-security-company-building-an-international-database-of-banned-bar-patrons-7c6d4b236fc3
[4]: https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-1798-90-1/
[5]: https://patronscan.com/policies/
[6]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2769
[7]: https://www.eff.org/document/ca-senate-floor-analysis-ab-2769
[8]: https://www.eff.org/document/ca-assembly-floor-analysis-ca-2769
[9]: https://patronscan.com/policies/
[10]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/why-are-gay-bars-building-databases-their-patrons
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/why-are-gay-bars-building-databases-of-their-patrons/

2026-07-25 21:00:45 CEST

This Week In Techdirt History: July 19th – 25th
**This Week in 2016**
* [Cy Vance Still Arguing For Mandated Encryption Backdoors; Believes Third Party Doctrine Supports His Theory][1]
* [Sen. McCain Unhappy Apple Turned Down His Invitation To Be Encryption Hearing Punching Bag][2]
* [Cable Industry’s False Copyright Claims Are Killing Cable Box Reform Efforts][3]
* [Prenda (Mostly) Loses Again; Court Says ‘We Warned You To Stop Digging, But You Still Did’][4]
* [Paris Court Says Search Engines Don’t Need To Block Torrent Searches][5]
* [Kickass Torrents Gets The Megaupload Treatment: Site Seized, Owner Arrested And Charged With Criminal Infringement][6]
**This Week in 2011**
* [Who Do You Trust On Whether Or Not PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet? The Guys Who Built It… Or The MPAA?][7]
* [How The Monkeys & Copyright Debate Explains Why Congress Shouldn’t Rush To Approve PROTECT IP][8]
* [Feds Charge Aaron Swartz With Felony Hacking… For Downloading A Ton Of Academic Research][9]
* [You Know What’s Missing From The Aaron Swartz Indictment? Any Mention Of Copyright][10]
* [The Lack Of A Legal Or Moral Basis For The Aaron Swartz Indictment Is Quite Troubling][11]
* [Copyright Alliance Takes On The Aaron Swartz Case With A Post Full Of Bad Analogies][12]
**This Week in 2006**
* [No, Mobile Phone Antenna Booster Stickers Don’t Work][13]
* [And Here Come The YouTube Copyright Lawsuits][14]
* [Even Friendster Looks Good Next To Wal-Mart Social-Networking Site][15]
* [Finally, A Telco Gets Blamed For Its Own Data Leaks][16]
* [PC Guy Helps Explain Net Neutrality][17]
* [MPAA Betting On Its Next Silver Bullet][18]
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/18/cy-vance-still-arguing-mandated-encryption-backdoors-believes-third-party-doctrine-supports-his-theory/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/18/sen-mccain-unhappy-apple-turned-down-his-invitation-to-be-encryption-hearing-punching-bag/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/19/cable-industrys-false-copyright-claims-are-killing-cable-box-reform-efforts/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/20/prenda-mostly-loses-again-court-says-we-warned-you-to-stop-digging-you-still-did/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/20/paris-court-says-search-engines-dont-need-to-block-torrent-searches/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/21/kickass-torrents-gets-megaupload-treatment-site-seized-owner-arrested-charged-with-criminal-infringement/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/18/who-do-you-trust-whether-not-protect-ip-will-break-internet-guys-who-built-it-mpaa/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/18/how-monkeys-copyright-debate-explains-why-congress-shouldnt-rush-to-approve-protect-ip/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/19/feds-charge-aaron-swartz-with-felony-hacking-downloading-ton-academic-research/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/20/you-know-whats-missing-aaron-swartz-indictment-any-mention-copyright/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/20/lack-legal-moral-basis-aaron-swartz-indictment-is-quite-troubling/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/21/copyright-alliance-takes-aaron-swartz-case-with-post-full-bad-analogies/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/17/no-mobile-phone-antenna-booster-stickers-dont-work/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/17/and-here-come-the-youtube-copyright-lawsuits/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/18/even-friendster-looks-good-next-to-wal-mart-social-networking-site/
[16]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/19/finally-a-telco-gets-blamed-for-its-own-data-leaks/
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/20/pc-guy-helps-explain-net-neutrality/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/21/mpaa-betting-on-its-next-silver-bullet/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/25/this-week-in-techdirt-history-july-19th-25th-2/

2026-07-25 04:40:03 CEST

Trump Fires Court-Appointed US Attorney One Hour After Appointment, Immediately Gets Sued
Stop me [if you’ve heard this one][1]:
> *Federal judges in the Western District of Washington had unanimously appointed Roger Rogoff to be the Justice Department’s top official there, filling a vacancy that the president has never addressed. But the Trump administration has largely defied attempts by federal judges to fill vacancies, **leading to Mr. Rogoff’s swift dismissal, via email, after 54 minutes**.*
If this sounds familiar (and it should), it’s because Trump loves promoting people to US Attorney positions, but absolutely refuses to engage with the nomination process that’s required by law.
This has happened more than once, as the New York Times article notes. The last time we covered it here at Techdirt, it [took nearly five hours][2] for Trump to fire a US attorney appointed by the courts.
The firing of court-appointed US attorneys is going to be a thing going forward. The legally approved process for appointment of US attorneys is pretty simple and every president before Trump has somehow managed to respect it. If an administration wants to appoint a US attorney, it needs to run this pick past the Senate for a thumbs up/down. If it doesn’t, the person can only hold that office for 120 days. If that doesn’t happen, the courts get to put someone in that position.
Trump has blown off the confirmation process multiple times and courts have responded by engaging with their legal duty to elevate someone to that position. When that happens, the Trump administration lurches into semi-consciousness and “fires” the actually *legally* appointed US attorney.
The thing is that it doesn’t matter how *fast* the administration fires prosecutors appointed by federal judges. Until Trump actually shepherds some prosecutor picks through the confirmation process, this is just going to keep happening every four months or so.
The US attorney dumped by Trump in less than an hour is utilizing the court system the administration chooses to ignore 90% of the time. If Trump wants to ignore the legal process for prosecutor appointments, the administration [should be on the hook for wrongful termination][3].
> *[In his lawsuit filed Tuesday][4], Rogoff argued that his termination was unlawful because the president lacks the authority to remove judicially appointed judges. *
>
> *“By purporting to fire Mr. Rogoff — and apparently committing to firing anyone else a district court appoints without ‘the support of POTUS’ — the President has attempted to negate Congress’s exercise of its constitutionally enumerated power,” the suit alleges.*
>
> *Rogoff argued his firing was an unconstitutional separation of powers, noting Congress set up a mechanism to appoint U.S. attorneys until the president nominates — and the Senate confirms — a U.S. attorney. He also alleged that he was denied due process. *
While it’s impossible to tell how this will all play out — especially when our Supreme Court is at least 50% MAGA-cooked — it seems like everything involved here has been established for years and never ignored so completely as it has been since Trump began his second term.
While the administration appears to believe that every firing resets the clock, I don’t think courts should feel obligated to humor this pretense. Instead, courts should simply reinstate their picks if the administration doesn’t have anyone lined up for confirmation. Instead of allowing Trump to pick whoever he wants and fire whoever he doesn’t the moment a court appoints them, courts dealing with this bullshit should appoint the same person over and over again or, at the very least, refuse to recognize the position of US Attorney until one has been properly and legally confirmed.
We’ll see where this lawsuit goes. But even if it ends up the victim of executive privilege, courts still retain the power to enforce the laws this administration willfully ignored.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/us/trump-fires-prosecutor-roger-rogoff.html
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/20/trump-fires-court-appointed-us-attorney-hours-after-it-replaces-his-illegally-appointed-former-campaign-lawyer/
[3]: https://www.ms.now/news/u-s-attorney-fired-by-trump-less-than-an-hour-after-getting-the-job-files-lawsuit
[4]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.366075/gov.uscourts.wawd.366075.1.0.pdf
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/trump-fires-court-appointed-us-attorney-one-hour-after-appointment-immediately-gets-sued/

2026-07-25 00:15:08 CEST

DOJ Withdraws NY Times Subpoenas After Judge Notices It Never Bothered To Follow The Rules For Subpoenaing Reporters
Just last week we had the story of the Trump DOJ issuing [very questionable subpoenas of NY Times journalists][1] while trying to track down who leaked information to those reporters regarding the potentially catastrophic security flaws of the “gift” 747 plane he received from Qatar. As we noted in that original post, this appeared to be a wholly abusive use of the government’s subpoena powers, and well outside the norm.
On Thursday, [the DOJ agreed to withdraw those subpoenas][2], but only after a long court hearing in which the DOJ thoroughly embarrassed itself in front of the judge, Arun Subramanian, who noted many, many problems with the subpoenas, which the DOJ tried to tiptoe around, calling them “inadvertent errors.” Most of the media coverage of this is pretty weak, but Matthew Russell Lee of the Inner City Press did a wonderful [liveposting of the hearing][3] that suggests just how badly the DOJ fucked this up.
It started out with the DOJ saying they *weren’t* going to withdraw the subpoenas, and claiming that they believed the subpoenas were “properly” issued. But the court quickly pointed out that there is [precedent][4] in the Second Circuit regarding when and how you can subpoena journalists, and the DOJ basically ignored all of that. The DOJ’s Sean Buckley argued that following those rules would amount to conceding the rules applied — something the DOJ apparently didn’t want to admit, leading the judge to say that following the rules wouldn’t be seen as any such admission.
> Buckley: If we withdraw it might imply we accept the Gonzalez test.Judge: You're going to go to the Supreme Court?Buckley: It's possible. Judge: I will not understand any withdraw as accepting the Gonzalez test. I'm trying to figure out a practical way here
>
> — [Inner City Press (@innercitypress.bsky.social)][5] [2026-07-23T18:19:30.768Z][6]
Judge Subramanian kept pressing Buckley on why the DOJ rushed to issue these incredibly broad subpoenas when there appeared to be much more straightforward ways to obtain the information they were seeking. Indeed, another part of what was discussed is that the DOJ’s subpoenas were so broad that they [included phone records of reporters’ relatives][7] who had nothing whatsoever to do with the reporting:
> *A Justice Department lawyer, Sean Buckley, cast the government’s missteps as inadvertent errors and said: “No one was trying to pull a fast one.” Buckley apologized for other subpoenas that sought records for phone numbers belonging to one reporter’s mother and two of the journalists’ spouses.*
>
> *“That was an error, judge, which we own,” Buckley said. “It was a consequence of trying to move quickly.”*
>
> *“These things are starting to pile up,” Subramanian said, becoming increasingly testy.*
The judge also explored whether or not the DOJ misled the judge who signed off on the subpoenas, by not letting them know that the subpoenas were for information associated with reporting. He even noted that the Assistant US Attorney who got the subpoenas, Kevin Sullivan, was in the room, but not at the table, asking him to come out of the galley and join the DOJ table (this is not something that usually happens).
> Buckley: We would be prepared to immunize these reporters – our focus is on the leakers.Judge: Is Mr. Sullivan here?Buckley: Yes. In the galleryJudge: Why? He is on all the pleadings. Come up- we have extra chairs here. Good afternoon.Sullivan: Good afternoon
>
> — [Inner City Press (@innercitypress.bsky.social)][8] [2026-07-23T18:38:00.885Z][9]
Following that was an incredible exchange wherein Judge Subramanian asked Sullivan about whether he told the original subpoena-issuing judge that the subpoenas were for reporters, leading Sullivan to say it “was an oversight” and that *later on* they “did legal research.”
> Judge: You didn't tell the judge that the subpoena was about reporters, about the New York Times?Sullivan: We did not. It was an oversight. Later we did legal research.Judge: Wouldn't it have been relevant to know there had been public reporting? A: Yes
>
> — [Inner City Press (@innercitypress.bsky.social)][10] [2026-07-23T18:40:38.738Z][11]
Around that point, a clearly fed up Subramanian said that if this were a normal case, this would be the point where he would issue an order to show cause why the DOJ shouldn’t face sanctions for abusing the subpoena process. There was some more back and forth scolding, including Subramanian pointing out that the “errors” for the DOJ seemed to be “piling up” and asking the DOJ if he should expect to see more mistakes like this moving forward.
Around this point, the DOJ regrouped and changed their stance from earlier in the hearing, saying they were now willing to drop the subpoenas. After the hearing was over, the ever petulant Trump Justice Department [quickly whined to the media][12] how unfair it was that federal judges expected them to actually follow the rules and stuff:
> *After the hearing, the Justice Department lashed out at Subramanian in a statement, saying he “threatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation.”*
>
> *“The grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation. This judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense — blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation,” the statement said.*
>
> *“Make no mistake,” it added, “this investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime.”*
Once again, we have an overly aggressive, understaffed, and generally incompetent DOJ that seems not to realize that there are significant and important Constitutional limits on what it can do. And when a judge calls them out on it, the fact that their immediate response is to start whining about it like they were the victims here suggests a good reason that the entire DOJ will need a massive overhaul post-Trump.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/13/trump-admin-supoenas-nyt-reporters-because-they-dared-to-criticize-his-qatari-graft-plane/
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/23/media/new-york-times-subpoenas-trump-doj-prosecutors
[3]: https://bsky.app/profile/innercitypress.bsky.social/post/3mrdjccggds2u
[4]: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/194/29/505063/
[5]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks?ref_src=embed
[6]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks/post/3mrdha3at6s2u?ref_src=embed
[7]: https://apnews.com/article/usmediatimesair-force-one-42429e4d4da8accc42b6c3ddf3f4fed5
[8]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks?ref_src=embed
[9]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks/post/3mrdib5wvt22u?ref_src=embed
[10]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks?ref_src=embed
[11]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q4hqo65k7obj5saekrspycks/post/3mrdifui75c2u?ref_src=embed
[12]: https://apnews.com/article/usmediatimesair-force-one-42429e4d4da8accc42b6c3ddf3f4fed5
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/doj-withdraws-ny-times-subpoenas-after-judge-notices-it-never-bothered-to-follow-the-rules-for-subpoenaing-reporters/

2026-07-24 22:09:02 CEST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Live At TrustCon 2026
**[Ctrl-Alt-Speech][1] is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and [Everything in Moderation][2]‘s Ben Whitelaw. **
**Subscribe now on [Apple Podcasts][3], [Overcast][4], [Spotify][5], [Pocket Casts][6], [YouTube][7], or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to [the RSS feed][8].** **To get extended episodes with additional coverage, [support us on Patreon][9].**
Our third annual Live at TrustCon recording of Ctrl-Alt-Speech! Ben was back this year! Mike and Ben were joined live on stage with Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and Zoe Darme, Director for Trust, Knowledge and Information Products at Google. They cover:
* [Security incident disclosure — July 2026][10] (Hugging Face)
* [OpenAI and Hugging Face partner to address security incident during model evaluation][11] (OpenAI)
* [An OpenAI test model escaped and broke into a real company’s servers][12] (CNN)
* [France Joins a Global Move Toward Restricting Social Media for Children][13] (NY Times)
* [xAI sues user for exploiting AI tool to sexualise minors][14] (Al Jazeera)
Special thanks to the Trust & Safety Professionals Association (TSPA) and all the work they do each year in putting on TrustCon, and for allowing us to host the live podcast as the closing session again this year.
[1]: https://ctrlaltspeech.com/
[2]: https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/
[3]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ctrl-alt-speech/id1734530193
[4]: https://overcast.fm/itunes1734530193
[5]: https://open.spotify.com/show/1N3tvLxUTCR7oTdUgUCQvc
[6]: https://pca.st/zulnarbw
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcky6_VTbejGkZ7aHqqc3ZjufeEw2AS7Z
[8]: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2315966.rss
[9]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[10]: https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026
[11]: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/
[12]: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/22/tech/openai-hugging-face-ai-cybersecurity
[13]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/world/europe/france-social-media-ban.html
[14]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/7/15/xai-sues-user-for-exploiting-ai-tool-to-sexualise-minors
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/ctrl-alt-speech-live-at-trustcon-2026/

2026-07-24 20:10:55 CEST

Election Commission Says Musk Likely Broke The Law By Paying Voters. Will Anyone Do Anything About It?
Will Elon Musk actually face legal consequences for illegally paying voters in an attempt to interfere in an election? We’re at least one step closer to finding out.
Back during the 2024 Presidential election, he got away with [offering $1 million to a “random” (not actually random) voter][1] who would sign his petition in an effort to get out the vote for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
He then tried to [run back that strategy][2] a few months later during a special election for judges in Wisconsin. It [didn’t work out so well][3] for him. It flopped so badly that Musk said he would [no longer get so invested][4] in elections any more. Who knows if he’ll keep that promise. Probably not.
And now the Wisconsin Elections Commission has decided that the whole “we’ll pay you to sign this petition” nonsense [likely violates the law][5].
> *The motion approved by the elections commission said it found probable cause that Musk broke Wisconsin law by making a social media post offering $1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election “in order to induce them to vote in that election.”*
>
> *[….]*
>
> *Three Wisconsin voters received checks from Musk, including two who got them in person at the Green Bay rally. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.*
And, before you rush out to claim that it was clearly a partisan/biased decision, turns out it really wasn’t. The commission is equally split between Republicans and Democrats:
> *The Wisconsin Elections Commission, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session on Thursday to refer the complaints to the district attorney, the commission’s spokesperson, Emilee Miklas, said.*
>
> *Brown County District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.*
Of course, it is an open question as to whether or not Lasee will actually do anything about this. Some groups are [pushing him to act][6] on the referral. And they called out that Lasee had put a stop to *other *“get out the vote” campaigns, warning them that *their* actions (offering food, water, and rides to the polls) could violate election bribery laws. Here’s Kristin Lyerly from the Committee to Protect Healthcare:
> *“The commission did their job. Now it’s time for District Attorney Lasee to do his,” she added. “This isn’t about political outcomes. It’s about whether the law applies to everyone or just everyone except *[*the richest man in the world*][7]*.”*
>
> *Others argued the law should be applied fairly, pointing to an *[*April 2024 incident where Lasee warned local get out the vote organizers*][8]* that an event they planned risked violating state election bribery law. *
>
> *The event offered food, water and rides to the polls — as well as cash prizes for social media influencers who got the most people out to vote. The groups *[*canceled the effort*][9]* after receiving a letter from Lasee questioning its legality.*
>
> *“When the district attorney’s office believed local organizations may have crossed a legal line, it acted quickly,” said community organizer Christina Thor. “Our community deserves to see that same standard applied today. The same urgency, the same scrutiny, and the same commitment to applying that law fairly.”*
So, here we have a very clear opportunity to see whether the law is applied equally to Musk, or whether yet another law enforcement official decides that there can be no consequences for rampant law-breaking.
Should this move forward, I guarantee you that Musk and his hordes of cult-like fans will insist that this prosecution is political. But, again, that seems like bullshit. At some point, those who break the law with impunity have to be held accountable for their actions.
One of the most frustrating things about the last decade has been watching the rich and powerful face zero consequences for doing many, many terrible things — a pattern that breeds exactly the kind of toxic cynicism that lets everyone else assume that the rules don’t apply to themselves either. This is a chance to take a stand and prove that wrong. Those actions should have consequences, and screaming “political prosecution” when it’s clearly not should never be a literal get out of jail free card.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/21/the-1m-question-is-elon-musks-petition-drive-actually-legal/
[2]: https://www.votebeat.org/wisconsin/2025/03/31/elon-musk-rally-green-bay-one-million-dollars-wisconsin-supreme-court-brad-schimel/
[3]: https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-elon-musk-81f71cdda271827ae281a77072a26bad
[4]: https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/musks-plan-to-pull-back-from-politics-follows-flop-in-wisconsin-court-election/
[5]: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/elon-musk-wisconsin-supreme-court-1-million-checks
[6]: https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-lawmakers-activists-brown-county-da-elon-musk-election-case
[7]: https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/
[8]: https://www.wpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IMG_20260717_132637.jpg
[9]: https://fox11online.com/news/election/brown-county-da-deems-get-out-the-vote-effort-illegal-casa-alba-melanie-we-all-rise-comsa-david-lasee
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/election-commission-says-musk-likely-broke-the-law-by-paying-voters-will-anyone-do-anything-about-it/

2026-07-24 20:05:39 CEST

Daily Deal: The Complete Raspberry Pi And Alexa A-Z Bundle
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*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-complete-raspberry-pi-alexa-a-z-bundle?utm_source=techdirt.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=the-complete-raspberry-pi-alexa-a-z-bundle_052919&utm_term=scsf-328091&utm_content=a0x1P000004HLXu&scsonar=1
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/daily-deal-the-complete-raspberry-pi-and-alexa-a-z-bundle-9/

2026-07-24 18:26:51 CEST

Administration Accelerating Immigration Hearings To Ensure Migrants Miss New Court Dates
No punishment is too vindictive. No cruelty is too small. The administration that is openly seeking to create a white Christian nationalist autocracy will do whatever it can to expel as many non-white people from this nation as possible.
Trump and his cabinet members constantly claim the country has been overrun by dangerous foreign migrants, many of them from (direct quote right here) “[shithole countries][1].” They blame Biden for this completely imaginary “crisis” and preach the same message to the faithful over and over again: “worst of the worst.”
But it’s not that and it’s *never* been that. If the administration was simply trying to eject dangerous criminals, ICE wouldn’t be [sending officers][2] to immigration courts to [pounce on migrants][3] who are following the rules for staying in this country. ICE wouldn’t have [set up a fake college][4] to snare foreigners following the visa rules by continuing their education. And the government wouldn’t be telling its lawyers to dismiss ongoing removal proceedings solely for the purpose of making migrants attending scheduled probation check-ins immediately arrestable.
It’s only getting nastier and uglier. The Trump administration is now moving up immigration hearing dates for the sole purpose of generating more unearned “wins” that will, in turn, generate more deportations. Here’s [Gwynne Hogan with the brutally nasty details for The City Reporter][5]:
> *The mass immigration hearings picked up in New York City in early June, [The City Reporter][6] reported at the time. They were dubbed [mega masters][7] because a single judge could be assigned a docket of more than 100 cases a day, about double a regular master calendar docket before.*
>
> *In addition to the large number of cases, many of these hearings were scheduled just weeks in advance and replaced hearings people might have had on the books months or years away.*
>
> *The City Reporter observed one such mega master hearing where, on a docket of 121 cases, 39 people and their family members were ordered removed for failing to show up to court. In some instances, family members’ cases were linked.*
As this report notes, for years most hearing dates were generally scheduled 180 days out from the initial hearing. But in the past few months — along with the creation of these so-called “mega masters” — the lead time has dropped precipitously. In May, the average was 98 days. By June, it was ***42*** ***days***.
This is deliberate. Migrants engaged in the legal process would have no reason to believe their cases would be accelerated. After all, the mass deportation surges the Trump administration has generated tens of thousands of new cases, which would generally result in additional delays, rather than sudden accelerations.
And while the government is required to notify migrants of schedule changes, it’s not as though it’s a push notification via the normally accepted form of human connection these days. It’s a letter sent by snail mail. And it’s not as though *this* government is going to perform any due diligence to make sure the notification is seen by the intended recipient.
What’s happening here is the administration flooding the docket and ambushing migrants who fail to check their hearing status daily and who would have no reason to do so when they hadn’t seen any changes to hearing dates for several months.
The plan is as ugly as it is shitty: accelerate thousands of hearing dates and send federal officers out to scoop up migrants who are now on the wrong end of *in absentia* rulings handed down by judges who are deliberately overloaded to prevent them from fully engaging with these cases.
This is all in service to the impossible deportation goals set by the administration. You can’t get [2-3,000 arrests per day][8] without cheating. Here’s how this has been playing out over the past couple of months.
> *In June, 4,447 people were ordered removed by immigration judges in the [New York City] “in absentia,” meaning they’d missed their hearings, the report found. That was more than double the number in May when 2,189 were ordered removed in absentia. *
>
> *The analysis found the surge echoed a rise in absentia removal orders across the country. There were 53,808 such orders nationally in June, a 55% jump from a month earlier. *
The real human cost is as incalculable as it is heartbreaking:
> *On Friday morning, several dozen people managed to make it to a courtroom inside 26 Federal Plaza for their mega master hearing where Immigration Judge Thanos Kanellakos appeared virtually from a courtroom in Maryland, overseeing a docket of 90 cases.*
>
> *Most of the people who made it to court had traveled hundreds of miles from Tennessee, Georgia, North Dakota and Illinois to attend.*
>
> *[…]*
>
> *Several people at court told The City Reporter they’d had a court date scheduled months or even years away when they happened to double-check the online portal recently and learned they had a new hearing scheduled a few days away.*
There is no legitimate reason for the government to be doing this. There is only the constant desire to hurt human beings this administration considers to be less than human. That’s why it’s trying to eradicate temporary protected status for [all but the whitest migrants][9]. And that’s why it’s engaging in barely disguised entrapment to keep its flying rail cars and prison camps loaded with its preferred scapegoats.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/02/trumps-anti-migrant-surge-is-now-a-mudslide-thats-wiping-out-whats-left-of-his-doj/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/01/doj-admits-ice-has-engaged-in-illegal-courthouse-arrests-for-most-of-the-past-year/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/29/ice-is-or-isnt-cutting-back-on-courthouse-arrests-depending-on-who-you-ask/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/02/14/ice-set-up-fake-college-to-bust-immigrants-trying-to-legally-stay-country-while-they-earned-degrees/
[5]: https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/07/21/deportation-removal-immigration-orders-mega-master-trump/
[6]: https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/06/02/trump-mega-master-deportation-proceedings-immigration-court/
[7]: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/26/nx-s1-5830474/trump-immigration-courts-mega-masters
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/16/ice-officers-admit-to-arrest-quotas-during-court-testimony/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/16/all-but-3-of-the-4499-refugees-admitted-to-the-us-under-trump-are-white-south-africans/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/administration-accelerating-immigration-hearings-to-ensure-migrants-miss-new-court-dates/

2026-07-24 14:23:49 CEST

Brendan Carr Lobs More Empty Threats At ABC For Not Airing Trump’s Election Fraud Lies
Earlier this year FCC boss Brendan Carr [launched a series of fake investigations into ABC][1] because the network (1) hosted Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico on *The View*, (2) aired comedians who made fun of the president and his wife, and (3) occasionally engaged in journalism critical of Trump corruption.
The details of these investigations really don’t matter at this point. We’ve discussed how they’re [legally incoherent][2], clearly [violate the First Amendment][3], and involve Carr [actively manufacturing false claims][4] that ABC violated FCC rules it was long-exempt from. At other points it just involves Carr being incoherently racist on Trump’s behalf; such as claims that ABC [didn’t eliminate its “DEI” requirements quickly enough][5].
Carr’s now dumping additional empty threats into the mix, claiming that his ongoing review of ABC’s local broadcast licenses will [take into consideration the network’s refusal to air Trump’s recent prime time speech][6], which mostly just involved Trump spewing more false election fraud conspiracy theories surrounding his 2020 loss.
ABC and NBC wisely refused to air the speech live, knowing that helping to spread distrust in election integrity in real time would be *the opposite of useful journalism*. That made Trump mad, so he’s clearly urged Brendan Carr to [levy some additional empty threats against ABC][7]:
> *“I think when you have the President of the United States standing inside the White House delivering an important speech, I think that’s something that broadcasters should be carrying. And so, obviously, this is an issue,” Carr told reporters Wednesday. “There have been lots of concerns raised, including by members of Congress, about whether broadcasters and their decisions there comply with the public interest.”*
Carr is somewhat vague here because he knows this is a bunch of bullshit.
Obviously it’s ABC’s First Amendment right to determine what it broadcasts and when. Carr has absolutely zero legal role in determining the scheduling lineup of a private company. Carr’s once again pretending that networks that refuse to pander to our mad idiot king will be subjected to FCC review of their public interest obligations affixed to ownership of public airwaves.
As we’ve mentioned countless times already, Carr *doesn’t want any of this to actually head to court* because he knows it’s an absolute loser on First Amendment grounds. The real goal remains to threaten U.S. media companies with costly and annoying legal headaches if they challenge Republicans or the unpopular president. It’s typical lazy autocrat stuff by weak men who are afraid of *words*.
When it comes to ABC, that’s still been embarrassingly effective. The company agreed to pay Trump [a $16 million bribe in 2024][8] to settle a baseless lawsuit the company easily could have won. And more recently, ABC shows like *The View* have [shied away from hosting any political candidates at all][9] for risk of upsetting Trump.
Brendan Carr has [openly stated in interviews][10] he fancies himself a tough, pit bull enforcer; but as Trump’s health and political power wane, the threats will hold less and less weight. As a result you’ve already seen ABC execs start to show a backbone in their fight with Carr, openly pointing out how he colluded with local right wing broadcast affiliates to [manufacture evidence suggesting ABC broke FCC rules][11] (something I’m sure will play great in court).
Carr’s threats will become weaker and weaker until he’s ultimately booted from office by subsequent administrations, at which point he’ll fail upward to some mid-six figure job at a telecom or media think tank, where he’ll spend the rest of his life helping corporate America dismantle whatever’s left of competition, labor, and consumer protection standards.
One of the ironic things, for Carr, is that his authoritarian censorship and saber rattling often draws press and public attention away from [all the other terrible things he’s doing][12], whether it’s destroying media consolidation limits, making life easier on robocallers, dismantling broadband consumer protection standards, or making it easier for giant shitty companies to run amok.
You’d like to think Carr ultimately faces some sort of meaningful accountability for being one of the most censorial, petty, captured, and authoritarian regulators in U.S. history, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/abcs-the-view-wimps-out-shies-away-from-politics-after-trump-threats/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/10/brendan-carr-launches-fake-investigation-of-abcs-the-view-because-they-havent-adequately-coddled-trumpism/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/17/a-first-amendment-legend-eviscerates-brendan-carr-with-substance-and-style/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/abc-shows-a-backbone-in-fcc-fight-shows-fcc-manufactured-a-controversy-surrounding-james-talarico/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/01/brendan-carr-launches-his-bogus-fcc-review-of-abc-broadcast-licenses-and-its-just-pathetic-and-stupid/
[6]: https://deadline.com/2026/07/fcc-trump-speech-abc-broadcast-licenses-1237000457/
[7]: https://deadline.com/2026/07/fcc-trump-speech-abc-broadcast-licenses-1237000457/
[8]: https://apnews.com/article/abc-trump-lawsuit-defamation-stephanopoulos-04aea8663310af39ae2a85f4c1a56d68
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/abcs-the-view-wimps-out-shies-away-from-politics-after-trump-threats/
[10]: https://www.ft.com/content/d62d3361-a337-4e2c-ab6b-afb791ba566f?syn-25a6b1a6=1
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/abc-shows-a-backbone-in-fcc-fight-shows-fcc-manufactured-a-controversy-surrounding-james-talarico/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/17/big-telecom-robocallers-love-brendan-carrs-plan-to-lobotomize-the-fcc/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/24/brendan-carr-lobs-more-empty-threats-at-abc-for-not-airing-trumps-election-fraud-lies/

2026-07-24 05:06:26 CEST

Caleb Williams, George Gervin, An ‘Iceman’ Trademark And Insulated Boots…Oh My?
If you’re not a particular kind of sports fan, a certain trademark dispute may have escaped your attention. The Chicago Bears quarterback is Caleb Williams and he’s pretty great. He also has acquired a nickname: “Iceman.” This nickname has become so associated with him that it is even referenced on Williams’ appearance on the cover of this years *Madden* video game.
George Gervin is an NBA legend and he was pretty great. A Hall of Famer who played in the 70s and 80s, Gervin’s on the court demeanor was one of calm and focus. As such, he acquired a nickname: “Iceman.” The nickname became so associated with Gervin that it resulted in then-iconic posters featuring it, such as this one.
And, rounding out our participant list for this particular story, is LaCrosse Footwear. They make boots. I have no idea if they’re pretty great or not. More on them in a moment.
Okay, so here’s the timeline of what happened. After being nicknamed “Iceman,” Williams decided to apply for several trademarks for the term, including both stylized logos and a basic word mark for the term itself. This appears to have pissed off Gervin who never attempted to trademark the term himself. After learning the Williams applied for the mark, Gervin then applied for the same mark afterwards, arguing that because he’d been using it all this time, it was his first.
Williams’ application has been initially rejected by the USPTO, but not due to anything to do with Gervin. Gervin’s application has *also* been rejected by the USPTO, but not due to anything to do with Williams. Instead, it’s LaCrosse Footwear [and their line of insulated boots][1] which are branded, you guessed it, “Iceman.”
> *LaCrosse, an Oregon-based footwear company, owns the trademark “Iceman” for one of its boots and boot liners. Williams had applied for trademarks in multiple categories, including clothing, and that allowed the USPTO to offer the broad refusal of his application.*
>
> *“These marks are identical in appearance, sound and meaning,” the USPTO wrote in its refusal letter. “… Additionally, because they are identical, these marks are likely to engender the same connotation and overall commercial impression when considered in connection with applicant’s and registrant’s respective goods and/or services.”*
>
> *The USPTO on Friday also gave an initial refusal to Gervin’s attempt to trademark “Iceman 44” due to the LaCrosse line.*
Now, this may sound absurd, and it sort of is, but these initial rejections are also very common. Well more than half of trademark applications are initially rejected based on the USPTO finding literally anything similar so that they can broadly reject the application. It’s a sort of weeding out process that allows for the applicant to then appeal the decision and argue against any likelihood of confusion. I fully expect that to happen here, because nobody is going to somehow mistake a clothing line for an NFL star, or an NBA legend, with a line of insulated sporting boots.
Which sets up the real question of who gets to be “Iceman,” Williams or Gervin? Josh Gerben chimes in on the ESPN article.
> *“The registration that they’re citing here is for obviously a very limited product line. Literally insulated boots,” Gerben said. “Look, it might be harder for him to get Iceman registered for a brand of clothing items because of that, but there’s other things in his application that he could possibly still wind up with a registration here.”*
>
> *The USPTO examiner, though, warned in the refusal to Gervin that if both he and Williams appeal and win, Gervin’s application would likely still be potentially denied because Williams applied first. That could set up a trademark battle between the two athletes, Gerben said.*
Indeed. Because the American system is a first-to-use instead of a first-to-file trademark system, Gervin would then need to oppose Williams’ mark, or sue him, in order to argue in court that he has a valid claim to the mark based on first use. But that isn’t all. He’d also have to demonstrate that he’s been continuously using the mark in commerce as well. I poked around a bit and can’t really find any explicit uses of the mark by Gervin since the 90s and it appears that at least one of his applications indicated that [he wasn’t currently using it in commerce][2] for some of the categories for which Williams applied.
> *In this case, Gervin’s use of the trademark ‘Iceman’ appears to be limited to a few videos on his website. His applications even admit that he has **no active use** of the ‘Iceman’ brand for clothing.*
>
> *This is not the type of active, ongoing commercial use that is likely sufficient to defeat a prior-filed trademark application (such as Caleb Williams’s) on a claim of priority based on longstanding use of the trademark. Of course, Gervin may have other evidence that was not put into the trademark application, but at the moment, it appears Williams may have room to push back on the claims being made by Gervin. *
Now, another option here would be for everyone to just calm the hell down and let a nickname be a nickname, sans any need to trademark the term. Gervin has demonstrated pretty well that a trademark wasn’t needed for his nickname to be associated with him, nor to be used (at least a ways back) in commerce. There’s no reason that they can’t both be “Iceman” in other words.
But if it’s a fight we’re going to get, I’m with Gerben in thinking that Williams is in the strongest position. And I’m damned sure that a boot maker probably can’t argue any real likelihood of confusion.
[1]: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49176534/caleb-williams-attempt-trademark-iceman-initially-refused
[2]: https://www.gerbenlaw.com/blog/who-owns-iceman-george-gervin-challenges-caleb-williams-in-trademark-showdown/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/23/caleb-williams-george-gervin-an-iceman-trademark-and-insulated-boots-oh-my/

2026-07-23 20:14:55 CEST

Daily Deal: The Modern No-Code Development Bundle
The [Modern No-Code Creator Bundle][1] is an extensive online curriculum specifically developed to enable individuals to construct professional websites, applications & automated workflows without the necessity of writing any code. It has five courses, covering leading no-code platforms and tools like ChatGPT, Mendix, and Tabnine. It is ideally suited for novices and non-technical professionals, empowering users to successfully launch digital products independently of developer assistance. It’s on sale for $20.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: http://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-modern-no-code-development-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/23/daily-deal-the-modern-no-code-development-bundle-5/

2026-07-23 18:35:57 CEST

ICE Illegally Scooped Up Medicaid Data, Then Shared It With Palantir
The Trump administration’s [continual trend][1] towards maximum awfulness means that every report seems to be “I’ve got bad news and I’ve got *worse* news.” What was already bad has become even worse now that more of the administration’s actions have been exposed during court proceedings.
Last July, the Trump administration [unilaterally decided ICE should have access][2] to Medicaid data for the sole purpose of locating migrants to arrest and deport. That much was made clear by the administration itself, which said the data would give ICE officials better tools to discover “the location of aliens.” An agreement was reached with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service by the DHS because of course that happened. The administration had already purged plenty of non-loyalists, which meant those remaining wouldn’t put up much of fight.
There was no legal basis for this demand, which is why the headline says “illegally.” If this was a legal request, we wouldn’t be seeing lawsuits challenging the sharing of this sensitive medical data because the law would already be settled. Specifically, ICE wanted access to Medicaid data that exposed “home addresses and *ethnicities*.” Not exactly subtle, but nothing ever is with this [grotesque shotgun][3] of an administration.
But this sharing was challenged in court, and that converts that bad news to worse news. Not only did ICE have access to information it wasn’t legally entitled to have, [but its private contractors did too][4], as NPR reports:
> *After Medicaid officials improperly shared data about millions of people in January with immigration officials, ICE then shared that data with the [data analytics firm Palantir][5], according to new court filings. [Palantir operates an app called ELITE][6] that is used by ICE agents to show the addresses of noncitizens who may be subject to deportation.*
>
> *That revelation was made public in a motion filed Thursday by more than 20 Democratic attorneys general [who sued the Trump administration][7] last year over its data-sharing agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and ICE.*
[Palantir’s thirst for data][8] is constant. And it will take anything its government customers choose to give it, including information that has been obtained illegally.
Palantir issued a couple of statements in response to this reporting based on courtroom revelations in ongoing lawsuits.
First, it said that the data in question had been “purged.” That’s great if true, but this seems like something that needs verification before trust because who knows where else this data set ended up before court orders blocked the government from using this data. If you think only ICE was peeking into this illicitly obtained data, you’re awarding the government the good faith it not only hasn’t earned, but has spent pretty much every minute since Trump’s election actively destroying.
ICE’s surveillance tech contractor also said this:
> *Palantir provided the following statement to NPR: “Our customers control their own data and manage access to that data. When Palantir employees are granted access to a customer’s dataset, it is solely to help integrate and analyze that data — which is what our software does — not to store it or use it for our own purposes. Palantir can confirm that the dataset in question was purged pursuant to government instructio*n.”
Well… I’d like to believe this much in the same way I’d like to believe a system of checks and balances is capable of constraining a rogue regime, much less its private contractors who are not subject to these particular restraints.
I believe Palantir to the extent that its employees aren’t just surfing waves of incoming data for their own personal reasons, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that a belated “purge” has actually scrubbed the data and removed any ancillary… well, let’s call them “infections.” Without turning over evidence of this purge to the courts, it’s easy to say it’s all been handled, even if the only thing that happened what Palantir deleting the source CSVs (or whatever) from its system, which isn’t the same thing as stripping it from Palantir’s databases.
Another reason for high levels of skepticism is this: ICE somehow couldn’t stop itself from passing this illegally obtained data to Palantir despite (apparently) trying to comply with a court order.
> *In a court filing last week, the Justice Department said that CMS again inadvertently reshared with ICE the dataset with millions of names that CMS had first improperly shared with ICE in January. The government said the error occurred during an effort to share data from states not involved in the lawsuit.*
You see the problem, right? Because not *every* state sued over this illegal data collection, ICE continues to collect data that should — at this point — be considered off-limits. The only reason it doesn’t is because some states (you know the ones) have decided they’ll do whatever it takes to ensure the administration gets to keep being openly racist.
Consequently, the data sets aren’t being sorted between racist/non-racist (or whatever the SORT term is), which means ICE continues to retain data it’s been ordered to delete and Palantir keeps getting handed data the government isn’t allowed to collect, much less distribute.
Then there’s the ultimate problem. No matter what’s happening here in the lower courts, the administration will continue to push for a resolution from the US Supreme Court. And the odds are about 6-3 that SCOTUS will say the government can do whatever it wants with whatever data it collects, ignoring years of precedent and administrative firewalls that are meant to protect US citizens (and residents) from being abused and surveilled by their government.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/09/irs-ice-immigrant-data-sharing-agreement-betrays-data-privacy-and-taxpayers-trust/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/24/trump-sends-medicaid-data-to-ice-turning-this-service-into-another-weapon-for-his-racist-ice-goon-squads/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/25/ices-military-style-raid-of-a-los-angeles-flea-market-netted-only-two-arrests/
[4]: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/nx-s1-5898504/ice-medicaid-palantir-data
[5]: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5372776/palantir-tech-contracts-trump
[6]: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5717031/ice-dhs-immigrants-surveillance-confrontation-deportation-mobile-fortify
[7]: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5453885/medicaid-data-immigration-dhs-lawsuit
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/11/how-palantir-is-mapping-everyones-data-for-the-government/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/23/ice-illegally-scooped-up-medicaid-data-then-shared-it-with-palantir/

2026-07-23 14:28:50 CEST

Dem Texas AG Candidate Vows To Investigate Musk’s Starlink Grant Grift
Last month I wrote a [feature for *The Verge*][1] exploring how Republicans had hijacked the Biden-era infrastructure bill to redirect billions of dollars away from next-generation fiber, and instead funnel it into the pockets of billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — in exchange for congested, expensive, satellite broadband service **they’d already planned to deploy**.
The piece explored in detail how some communities, like several low-income areas of Louisiana, were all set to receive next-generation affordable fiber, before Republicans hijacked the program, redirected those funds to their top donors, then proudly declared “mission accomplished.”
While Republicans like NTIA boss Arielle Roth have tried to claim this hijacking has been a net improvement, the adjustments not only showered billionaire Trump allies with unneeded subsidies, it eliminated all the provisions in the program *ensuring the resulting broadband was affordable or deployed equitably*. Affordable fiber evenly deployed to everyone was, the public was informed, “[woke][2].”
I’m going to be writing about the impact and reverberations for years.
Dems have, as per brand tradition, mostly flubbed the opportunity to highlight and message around this obvious corruption. There were [a few good questions flung at Roth][3] during a recent House telecom hearing (Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana did a particularly good job pressing Roth), but by and large Dems haven’t capitalized on the opportunity to shame Republicans for their grift parade.
Enter aspiring Democratic Texas AG hopeful (and Dallas state senator) Nathan Johnson, who says he wants [to take a closer look at Musk’s grants as part of his anti-corruption platform][4]:
> *“I am not declaring that corruption was at work in this instance. I am saying that it sure looks like it,” Johnson said in an interview. “Public confidence in the bidding process has been undermined.”*
>
> *His plan comes after Starlink received 99% of the state grants in a government program designed to improve rural broadband access. Johnson said the company received an estimated $110 million.*
It’s not clear how far he’ll get, since the roots of the corruption extend federally to Howard Lutnick, Arielle Roth, and the NTIA. But state broadband offices also had to sign off on the grift and were tasked with doling out grant awards, so we’ll see what paper trails disclose.
Keep in mind: the money Musk and Bezos have received from this $42.5 billion grant program pales to what they could ultimately receive. As unnecessary wars, tariffs, inflation, and additional economic chaos unfolds, a lot of providers and states that **planned** to deploy multi-gigabit affordable fiber are expected to balk and default on their bids, opening the doors for billions more for Musk and Bezos to fill the gaps with “good enough” satellite service.
It’s worth noting that after redirecting billions to satellite, Republicans proclaimed that they’d “saved” $21 billion or so. There’s now an ongoing battle over what happens to these “[non-deployment funds][5]” Congress specifically earmarked for broadband access. There are some [clear hints][6] that Trump and friends are eager to pocket it for themselves if they think they can get away with it. Great stuff. Very populist.
As I’ve [noted previously][7], while low-Earth orbit services like Starlink are great for folks completely off the grid (who can afford it), congestion and physics make it ill-suited to meaningfully address the lack of internet-access at scale in denser urban, suburban, or even some rural environments. It’s generally designed to be a niche gap-filling option you use after pushing fiber, cellular, and fixed wireless everywhere; Republicans are treating it like a magic bullet *simply because Musk is involved*.
As a flood of government-subsidized users jump on the Starlink network, existing congestion problems (see this [recent study out of Penn State][8]) are going to get worse, resulting in all sorts of annoying network management approaches (throttling of 4K video) you don’t see on higher-capacity fiber. The company has also been [charging users fees of up to $1500 in high-capacity areas][9].
The problems with this approach will become more and more apparent to taxpayers over the next few years, at which point all the folks responsible will have moved on to other opportunistic grifts. It might be nice if Democrats aspiring for higher office kept corruption in the spotlight and remained laser-focused on accountability. It’s not like there’s a shortage of very clear targets of opportunity.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/policy/953944/bead-broadband-funding-trump-musk-bezos?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjFMWTg0N2VYdmwiLCJwIjoiL3BvbGljeS85NTM5NDQvYmVhZC1icm9hZGJhbmQtZnVuZGluZy10cnVtcC1tdXNrLWJlem9zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzg0NDcyNjYwLCJpYXQiOjE3ODQwNDA2NjB9.WWtlKeeoqLXbKt8KZPTSGF6v31Lc9bkZJpRhkJ6Rkmw&utm_medium=gift-link
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/27/the-trump-admin-thinks-affordable-fiber-broadband-is-woke/
[3]: https://youtu.be/EpK5uA2B_Sk?si=fIAjf6Qj7_Y0STL0
[4]: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/article/democratic-ag-candidate-targets-musk-grants-22339631.php
[5]: https://rollcall.com/2026/06/30/billions-in-rural-broadband-funds-still-on-hold/
[6]: https://statescoop.com/ntia-delays-guidance-bead-nondeployment-funds/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/30/donald-trump-and-joe-rogan-think-elon-musks-starlink-is-akin-to-magic-pixie-dust/
[8]: https://thexlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Starlink_Analysis_Working_Paper_v0.2.pdf
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/13/musks-starlink-socks-customers-with-1500-high-demand-surcharge/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/23/dem-texas-ag-candidate-vows-to-investigate-musks-starlink-grant-grift/

2026-07-23 00:00:12 CEST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech Spotlight: PwC’s Dan Hays On The Future Of Trust & Safety
**[Ctrl-Alt-Speech][1] is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and [Everything in Moderation][2]‘s Ben Whitelaw. **
**Subscribe now on [Apple Podcasts][3], [Overcast][4], [Spotify][5], [Pocket Casts][6], [YouTube][7], or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to [the RSS feed][8].** **To get extended episodes with additional coverage, [support us on Patreon][9].**
In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw speaks to PwC’s Dan Hays at TrustCon about the firm’s recently published [Trust & Safety Outlook report][10].
They discuss:
* How AI is simultaneously creating new risks and reshaping the tools used to address them;
* What the rise of autonomous agents means for governance, accountability and the future of the internet; and
* How platforms should respond to an increasingly fragmented regulatory landscape.
The conversation also explores how Trust & Safety is becoming a more strategic function inside companies, how automation could change the role of practitioners and vendors, and which emerging risks remain most underestimated.
This episode is brought to you in conjunction with our sponsor, PwC. [Download the report today.][11]
[1]: https://ctrlaltspeech.com/
[2]: https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/
[3]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ctrl-alt-speech/id1734530193
[4]: https://overcast.fm/itunes1734530193
[5]: https://open.spotify.com/show/1N3tvLxUTCR7oTdUgUCQvc
[6]: https://pca.st/zulnarbw
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcky6_VTbejGkZ7aHqqc3ZjufeEw2AS7Z
[8]: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2315966.rss
[9]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[10]: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/tmt/library/trust-and-safety-outlook.html
[11]: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/tmt/library/trust-and-safety-outlook.html
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/22/ctrl-alt-speech-spotlight-pwcs-dan-hays-on-the-future-of-trust-safety/

2026-07-22 22:23:47 CEST

Careful What You Sue For: Trump’s BBC Case Just Forced His Financial Records Into Discovery
We’ve written in the past that people online often get *way* too excited about theoretical pending “discovery” in frivolous lawsuits filed by bad actors. Because while there are certainly a few cases where (1) a frivolous case even reaches discovery and (2) some elements of that discovery are revealed to the public, in the vast majority of cases, that doesn’t happen. The legal strategy for most defendants is to get a case thrown out before it reaches discovery because discovery is incredibly expensive. And, even then, most often what is handed over in discovery never goes public.
But… hey, sometimes, “can’t wait for discovery” turns out to be an accurate sentiment.
Last year we noted that Donald Trump had [filed an obviously frivolous lawsuit against the BBC][1], asking for $10 billion. At issue was an edit in the documentary he didn’t like which might be considered mildly misleading (though Donald Trump repeatedly falsely claimed that the BBC used AI to fabricate quotes, the reality was they edited two separate parts of the same speech to sound like they were said together, when they were really many minutes apart). That’s not defamation, though.
Either way, the case has not been going well for Trump. Because he argued that this documentary (which was only shown once in the UK and not in the US) harmed Trump’s business interests in Florida (where he sued), the BBC asked for Trump’s financial records as part of their discovery requests. Given that Donald Trump [made more money last year][2] (around $2 billion) than ever before, even as he remains the President of the United States, it seems like a reasonable request.
Trump and his (not very bright) lawyers tried to wriggle out of this by dropping some of the initial claims that were about how much harm the documentary did to his business, saying instead that it just harmed his reputation. The BBC said it still needed his financial records anyway. And now, [Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett has agreed][3], noting in court that the financial records would be relevant to the claims of reputational harm as well.
> *“All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,” Lett said at the conclusion of a three-hour hearing.*
Of course, Trump’s lawyers can (and almost certainly will) ask the Article III Judge (Roy Altman, who is a Trump appointee) to overrule the magistrate, but it might not work. After all, earlier in the case, Trump’s lawyers had sought to remove Lett from the case, claiming that she was biased against him, because before she became a Magistrate Judge, she had represented a client in a case against Trump. Judge Altman rejected that claim back in May, siding with his colleague, Magistrate Judge Lett:
> *The Plaintiff asks us to withdraw our referral of discovery matters from Magistrate Judge Lett and reassign them to a different Magistrate Judge. … He advances two arguments in support of this request: First, he cites our unrelated referral of discovery matters in Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust et al. v. Capital One…. Second, he argues that “Magistrate Judge Lett had appeared as counsel of record on behalf of a party directly adverse to President Trump in active federal litigation: Trump v. Clinton… The Plaintiff’s first argument is unavailing. “Effective April 19, 2026,” Magistrate Judge Hernandez replaced Magistrate Judge Lett as our “paired” Magistrate Judge for Miami-based cases…. We reassigned discovery in Capital One the next day based on case workload and the parties’ compressed discovery period…. Nothing about that decision mandates a withdrawal of the referral in the different circumstances of this case. The Plaintiff next argues that Magistrate Judge Lett previously
> “represent[ed] [a] defendant directly adverse to President Trump.” … Despite his claim to the contrary, the Plaintiff effectively seeks Magistrate Judge Lett’s recusal. … But 28 U.S.C. § 455 is clear that: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Accordingly, we’ll leave any decision regarding Magistrate Judge Lett’s recusal to her sound judgment. Signed by Judge Roy K. Altman on 5/19/2026.*
So, at this point, Judge Altman seems willing to trust Magistrate Judge Lett’s judgment on the recusal question — and that deference may well carry over to the financial-records dispute too.
Of course, even if discovery does move forward, Trump could still file for a protective order to keep most of the records secret, outside of whatever has to be used in court. Alternatively, he could try to dismiss the case to get out of having to provide discovery.
Either way, this was a stupid, vexatious, obvious SLAPP suit designed to punish the BBC and waste its time and money. So it’s quite nice to see that backfiring on the censorial bully that is the President of the United States.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/18/trump-files-10-billion-defamation-suit-over-bbc-doc-that-never-aired-here-using-vpn-stats-as-evidence/
[2]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-2b-income-in-2025-raises-fresh-questions-about-profiting-off-presidency
[3]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/21/trum-bbc-lawsuit-finances?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/22/careful-what-you-sue-for-trumps-bbc-case-just-forced-his-financial-records-into-discovery/

2026-07-21 20:04:23 CEST

Florida Fires Expose Violations Of Over 100 Court Orders By ICE, DOJ
The Trump administration continues to pretend migrants don’t have due process rights. It does this despite racking up nearly [10,000 rulings to the contrary][1] — losing in roughly 90% of the petitions brought by ICE detainees.
While the Fifth Circuit [continues to play coy][2] about the 14th Amendment’s existence, the rest of nation’s courts have resoundingly made it clear that detainees are owed a bond hearing, rather than simply be expected to ride out an indefinite detention with zero options until the administration finds some random country to dump them in.
With ICE and a compliant DOJ doing everything they can to prevent detainees from filing *habeus corpus* motions — using methods ranging from shuffling detainees from state to state to deny them standing to multiple purges of DOJ attorneys who aren’t sufficiently loyal to Trump — lots of judges aren’t actually seeing the entirety of the administration’s illegal actions. The administration is “flooding the zone” to create a “fog of war” in a way that’s as inelegant and brutish as my mixed metaphor.
But the administration can’t stop acts of God from exposing what ICE and the DOJ would have preferred remained hidden. Brush fires in Miami-Dade County forced the evacuation of an ICE detention facility. And that let a judge handling cases in that jurisdiction [see clearly exactly how many times the administration had flouted direct court orders][3].
> *[The fires] opened a can of worms in federal court after a federal judge was notified that 47 of those detainees were shipped outside the Southern District of Florida in direct violation of court orders. When Miami-based Judge Michael Moore was alerted to the 47 violations, he ordered a deeper look into how often ICE had violated similar court orders in recent months.*
>
> *The answer alarmed him, and prompted him to respond with force in a hearing on Thursday morning.*
>
> ***Attorneys at the Department of Justice alerted Moore that an estimated 116 detainees have recently been removed from South Florida in direct violation of court orders, a significant increase from the original 47 number.** Some of those violations were never reported to the court until Moore started asking.*
While Judge Moore understood the fires might mean moving detained migrants to other locations, the government was supposed to inform the court if it attempted to move people with pending petitions out of the court’s jurisdiction. This never happened. And it was happening even before wildfires created this crisis. According to the judge, the DOJ and ICE had done this previously, including one case where the judge wasn’t informed of a relocation until the date of the hearing, which was *weeks* after the court had told the government to bring this migrant to a bond hearing.
Moore’s takedown of the administration occurred before a packed house of observers, including dozens of interns and federal court clerks. And Moore lit them up:
> *“I don’t want you to hide behind the brushfire, because there are cases that didn’t have to do with the brushfire,” Moore told ICE and DOJ attorneys. “There have been a number of transfers over the previous months that had nothing to do with the brushfires.”*
>
> *He noted that some detainees not only had been moved to other states, but some have been “removed from the United States” in direct violation of court orders.*
The law is settled (at least for the moment) in this circuit. The Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court [ruled two months ago][4] that the government had to provide bond hearings to *all* detained migrants — something that has always been the case prior to this administration’s refusal to respect the Constitution.
This is how the administration wants to play it, which meant the judge had minimal patience for the DOJ lawyer caught up in the middle of this mess.
> > *Matthew Feely, the DOJ attorney on the case, apologized for the court order violations and said the Southern District of Florida’s office has been overwhelmed with habeus corpus petitions, **stemming from the Department of Homeland Security’s stance that it does not have to offer bond hearing to immigrant detainees**. *
> >
> > *[…]*
> >
> > *In 2022, there were only 23 habeus corpus petitions filed in the district, he said. In 2023 there were 31. **But between June of 2025 and July 10, 2026, there were about 1,800 petitions filed.***
> >
> > *At the same time, Feely said the amount of attorneys handling civil cases in the Southern District of Florida has plummeted by 40% since last year.*
> >
> > *“We’re struggling here, your honor,” said Feely, while adding that the DOJ is trying to hire to fill the vacant positions.*
> >
> > *“I’m sympathetic, but **it looks like a crisis of your own making**,” responded Moore, who was appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. “**If you didn’t advance these legal theories you would not be getting sued**.”*
>
> There it is. This administration does not follow court precedent. It does not respect the Constitution. It makes up its own rules that are completely unsupported by case law. Then it fires everyone who won’t assist the administration with its dirty work. 1,800 petitions in a single federal district, being handled by a DOJ office that has seen 40% of its workforce resign or get fired for refusing to play by Trump’s rules. And as court orders continue to pile up, the administration still refuses to comply with them.
>
> It’s an unmitigated good that this played out in the open. The problem that hasn’t been addressed is how you rein in a rogue regime that deliberately ignores a co-equal branch of the government. Courts need to start considering their options, [including this one][5]:
>
> > *In cases where federal marshals fail to act to enforce court orders (or contempt of court findings), courts can turn to state and local law enforcement agencies.*
> >
> > ***Federal judges have the authority to deputize state law enforcement officers to carry out federal court orders, particularly in cases of contempt or defiance by federal officials*.** *State attorneys general, governors, and local sheriffs can be called upon to enforce judicial rulings.*
>
> The usual stuff isn’t working. Extreme measures are needed. The question is whether anyone in the court system — or in state law enforcement — has the will to get this done.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/21/10000-court-decisions-cant-be-wrong-even-if-trump-thinks-otherwise/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/15/fifth-circuit-looks-like-its-ready-to-roll-back-its-decision-recognizing-due-process-rights-for-migrants/
[3]: https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2026-07-16/miami-dades-brushfires-helped-reveal-that-ice-violated-over-100-court-orders-in-south-florida
[4]: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202514065.pdf
[5]: https://azpha.org/2025/02/25/legal-remedies-when-the-trump-administration-ignores-federal-court-orders/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/21/florida-fires-expose-violations-of-over-100-court-orders-by-ice-doj/

2026-07-21 14:28:53 CEST

Paramount Forced To Delay Warner Bros Merger After California Antitrust Lawsuit
Paramount has been forced to pause consummation of its controversial $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers after a state antitrust lawsuit resulted in the courts granting a 14-day restraining order. There’s a not insubstantial chance that the pause could prove fatal for the deal.
California and eleven other states last week [filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the merger][1], pointing out that the consolidation would undermine market competition, and result in layoffs, higher consumer prices, and product quality hits as the merged company attempts to pay down a massive debt load. As we’ve previously mentioned, *every deal involving Warner Brothers* has resulted in such an outcome.
Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted a 14-day restraining order after hearing arguments from both sides last Friday. The delay has the potential to be doubled as the courts debate the merits of the state antitrust case. Such delays can sometimes prove fatal for transactions of this size, resulting in mergers being scrapped before antitrust litigation can fully debate the deal merits.
“Plaintiff States’ showing at least demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive relief,” the [judge wrote][2]. “Paramount and Warner Bros. will continue to operate as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they wait for the Court to adjudicate this case. The balance of equities, combined with the public’s vital interest in antitrust enforcement, therefore tips sharply in favor of the requested injunctive relief.”
Paramount had previously indicated that the company wouldn’t be harmed by delays until at least the end of September, at which point things could get complicated for Paramount’s merger, and Larry Ellison’s broader media domination ambitions.
Ellison and Oracle [are aggressively over-leveraged on AI][3], and should an AI bubble pop trigger economic reverberations during the antitrust debate, Ellison’s ability to manage the deal debt load and financing could prove less tenable. Especially given that as of September 30, Paramount has promised shareholders a “ticking fee” compensation amounting to about $7 million per day if the deal isn’t closed.
As the antitrust lawsuit loomed, Paramount executives seemed increasingly desperate to rush the deal to completion, at one point (falsely) [threatening to leave California][4], and at another point (falsely) claiming that opponents of the deal were [engaged in antisemitism][5].
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/14/a-dozen-states-sue-to-block-paramounts-shitty-unpopular-merger/
[2]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28499495-govuscourtsdcd285702600/
[3]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-beats-fourth-quarter-revenue-estimates-2026-06-10/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/14/paramount-falsely-threatens-to-leave-california-after-state-challenges-merger/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/05/top-paramount-lawyer-claims-opposition-to-warner-brothers-merger-is-antisemitic/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/21/paramount-forced-to-delay-warner-bros-merger-after-california-antitrust-lawsuit/

2026-07-21 05:07:29 CEST

USPTO Denies MLB’s Insane Attempt To Trademark ‘Play Ball’
There is no shortage of examples of Major League Baseball attempting to wield overly broad trademarks its obtained to bully others, nor examples of MLB attempting to stretch its trademark rights much further than they go. MLB opposed a trademark for a Brooklyn [burger joint][1] on behalf of the Dodgers, a team that hadn’t played in Brooklyn for over five decades at that point. The league, at one point, tried to bully a local [Little League][2] for using the names of MLB teams, but not their logos, which is something that roughly every Little League team everywhere does. It attempted to trademark the names of [three cities][3] in which MLB teams play. And, my personal favorite and most appropriate for this post, the league [opposed][4] a finance company’s trademark application because it claimed two of its separate teams both owned the rights to the letter “W”.
The real lesson in all of this is that the League can’t be trusted with anything other than very narrow trademarks. Anything more broad than that causes them to act the fool. And perhaps this is a lesson the USPTO has actually learned, given that it recently denied MLB’s attempt [to trademark the phrase “Play Ball”][5].
> *The United States Patent and Trademark Office denied MLB’s application to trademark “Play Ball” for clothing, the USPTO wrote in a final action filing on Friday.*
>
> *“In this case, the applied-for mark is a commonplace term, message, or expression widely used by a variety of sources that merely conveys an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized concept or sentiment,” the USPTO wrote in its denial.*
>
> *The USPTO also wrote phrases “that merely convey an informational message are not registerable.”*
Those are things that MLB’s well-dressed lawyers absolutely know, of course. But they attempted to bank on a complacent trademark office to try to sneak one past the goalie anyway, to mix metaphors. And if the league had gotten the mark, you can be one hundred percent certain it would have gone on yet another bullying campaign targeting apparel makers, other sports leagues, and who knows who else.
In fact, the most surprising part of all of this is that it appears to have taken 4 years for the USPTO to reach this decision. Josh Gerben breaks it all down like this.
> *Gerben said the rejection and public domain nature of phrases could depend on the class. Other companies have trademarked “Play Ball,” including a food company for bubble gum, a minerals company for surfacing playgrounds and “The Play Ball” for the gala fundraiser for the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.*
>
> *“In this case they are saying that the phrase has become so ubiquitous and it has this underlying meaning,” Gerben said. “For a clothing brand, the government doesn’t think it’s unique enough to be registered.”*
Somehow, some way, we have to get past this practice of looking at trademarks as some kind of retroactive profit center, where a business gobbles them up and then corners a market that was already in existence. That’s all that this sort of attempt to lock up language is. The term “play ball” *can *be associated with Major League Baseball, certainly. It can also be associated with other sporting activities, or business negotiations, or any other number of things. That’s because it has become a generic phrase, no longer an identifier of the source of a good or service.
Again, MLB’s lawyers knew all of this before applying for the mark. They just didn’t care.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2010/11/05/major-league-baseball-claims-dodgers-still-own-trademark-on-brooklyn-logo-despite-leaving-town-53-years-ago/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2008/05/30/stephen-colbert-takes-on-mlbs-attempt-to-bully-little-leaguers-with-trademarks/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/30/mlb-tries-to-trademark-3-city-names-runs-away-after-law-profs-school-them/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2015/02/20/mlb-claims-that-finance-companys-w-logo-violates-2-mlb-teams-trademarks/
[5]: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/49226319/mlb-denied-bid-trademark-phrase-play-ball
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/20/uspto-denies-mlbs-insane-attempt-to-trademark-play-ball/

2026-07-16 22:16:44 CEST

Cops Continue To Prove They Can’t Be Trusted With Surveillance Tech
This is probably nothing more than another data point in a deluge, but it’s worth pointing out because it’s instructive.
Cops are using a whole lot of surveillance tech these days. [Flock Safety][1] has been [especially aggressive][2] in pursuing the law enforcement market, offering cops access to a nationwide network of cameras, including many owned and operated by private citizens.
Flock — and its law enforcement partners — have generated [a lot of negative press][3] over the last couple of years. Some of this is due to cops abusing their access and/or performing searches for federal agencies that aren’t allowed to directly access Flock’s database. Some of this is due to Flock itself, which has seen the negative press and largely chosen to ignore it.
But now Flock has real problems. Federal legislators [are demanding answers][4] to uncomfortable questions. And dozens of cities are [attempting to rid themselves][5] of Flock cameras following public outcry and/or evidence of abuse by those with access.
In San Francisco, it’s a blend of both. And the answers/excuses made by Flock and the SFPD make it clear law enforcement agencies [cannot be trusted with the tech they now have easy access to][6].
> *“During a routine compliance audit in May, SFPD officials found that the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) had queried SFPD’s Flock network on behalf of federal and out-of-state agencies. There were 299 improper inquiries over approximately one year, which accounts for 0.005% of inquiries over that period,” the release states.*
Each of these searches performed on behalf of federal agencies broke state law. To its credit, the SFPD pulled the plug on access following the results of this audit. And while that’s the sort of response we’d like to see from more law enforcement agencies, the statements issued by those involved (SFPD, Flock) make it clear the only way to prevent abuse is to never allow cops to have access to this tech in the first place.
Here’s what Flock Safety had to say about the audit results:
> *A [Flock spokesperson in February][7] said the company had disabled its national lookup feature for all California agencies and is confident its privacy protections comply with state law, local policy and community expectations.*
>
> *[…]*
>
> *In response to the San Francisco audit, Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel told KTVU that the searches were not a result of a software malfunction, platform issue, unauthorized access, or any failure of the Flock system.*
Without more information, it’s impossible to tell whether the first statement issued by Flock (in response to a lawsuit) is true. It could be that feds asked the SFPD to perform *local* searches, which would lend credence to Flock’s initial statement. The fact that 299 potentially illegal searches took place over the last year doesn’t generate a whole lot of confidence in either the supply or demand side of the Flock equation.
The second statement makes things a bit more clear: this wasn’t SFPD officers going outside of any limitations imposed by Flock or the department itself. Instead, they broke the law by running searches they most likely *knew* violated state regulations. In other words, this wasn’t Flock enabling lawlessness. This was cops working within the system to violate the law.
The implication gets even stronger now that the SFPD has issued its own statement. This appears to have been officers breaking the law, rather than the law being (accidentally or otherwise) bypassed because the software wasn’t configured correctly.
> *The San Francisco Police Department identified the activity through a routine audit of its own Flock network and took immediate action, Lewbel noted. *
>
> *He added that no out-of-state or federal agencies had direct access to SFPD’s Flock system or any California Flock system. *
The first sentence means something. The second sentence, however, is meaningless. The limitations placed on access by Flock and SFPD policies were circumvented to perform *exactly* the sort of searches they were meant to prevent. This audit could have come back completely clean if SFPD officers hadn’t decided to break the rules.
And even if 299 illegal searches are only “0.005%” of the total number of searches, that doesn’t mean the other 99.995% of searches were justified. Most people assume ALPR databases are only accessed when a license plate generates a hit due to prior placement on a watch list. [That’s an false impression][8] that’s been perpetrated for years by law enforcement, which constantly claims these are used to track down car thieves, kidnappers, bank robbers, and other dangerous criminals.
But when audits are only looking for searches that route around parameters, they don’t see all the searches being made by cops who are bored or are [tracking their exes][9] or trying to hunt down women who are doing nothing more than seeking to [terminate unwanted pregnancies][10]. The “0.005% of searches” assertion is likely misleading as well. Plaintiffs suing the state over its ALPR use alleged more than 1.6 *million* illegal searches during the same time period across the state. Not only that, but the number of total searches is likely inflated by those triggered by the system itself, which involve minimal interaction by officers utilizing the ALPR network.
On one hand, if we decide Flock is actually telling the truth this time, the blame lies with the officers who choose to break the rules and the law. On the other hand, if Flock’s representation of the facts is inaccurate, it only means cops who knew what the law was chose to break it simply because they easily *could*. Neither of these scenarios add up to the SFPD being trustworthy. And splitting the difference just means we can’t trust the SFPD’s camera provider either.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/23/rings-super-bowl-ad-generates-so-much-backlash-it-has-ended-its-partnership-with-flock-safety/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/26/license-plate-reader-company-continues-expansion-into-private-neighborhoods-with-help-some-useful-cops/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/13/cops-criticize-flock-safety-after-its-caught-handing-out-access-to-federal-agencies/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/28/ring-flock-safety-join-forces-to-expand-law-enforcement-surveillance-networks/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/04/because-flock-cant-be-trusted-cities-are-covering-cameras-with-garbage-bags/
[6]: https://www.ktvu.com/news/sfpd-audit-shows-flock-cameras-accessed-behalf-federal-out-of-state-agencies
[7]: https://www.ktvu.com/news/alameda-county-flock-camera-debtate
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/12/how-cops-are-using-flock-safetys-alpr-network-to-surveil-protesters-and-activists/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/07/to-the-surprise-of-no-one-cops-are-using-alpr-cameras-to-stalk-their-exes/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/17/flock-safety-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-for-a-missing-person-it-was-an-abortion-investigation/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/16/cops-continue-to-prove-they-cant-be-trusted-with-surveillance-tech/

2026-07-16 20:04:24 CEST

Daily Deal: The 2026 Microsoft Azure Architect & Administrator Exam Prep Bundle
The [2026 Microsoft Azure Architect & Administrator Exam Prep Bundle][1] has 9 courses covering a wide range of Azure skills designed to help you pass your certification exams. Courses also include hands-on sections to help you put into practice what the lessons have covered. It’s on sale for $40.
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[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-2022-microsoft-azure-architect-administrator-exam-certification-prep-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/16/daily-deal-the-2026-microsoft-azure-architect-administrator-exam-prep-bundle/

2026-07-16 18:37:31 CEST

Florida’s Stop WOKE Act Shut Down (Again) By Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court
Florida Republicans’ bigoted little piece of speech policing — the former “Stop WOKE Act” — has already been terminated multiple times by federal courts. Two lawsuits with two sets of plaintiffs have generated the same results: a ruling declaring the law unconstitutional and an injunction blocking the state from enforcing it.
The law aims to directly regulate speech in classrooms, allowing the government to punish teachers and administrators from engaging in any speech the Florida GOP doesn’t agree with. In practice, this means eliminating discussions about racism, equitable treatment, or anything related to LGBTQ+ issues.
The two lawsuits have generated some pretty stark paragraphs from presiding judges. Both take their cues from pop culture. Noting the cognitive dissonance of state lawmaking, [the court said this in 2022][1]:
> *In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. See Stranger Things (Netflix 2022). Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely. *
[The same court said this][2] when the second lawsuit against the Stop WOKE law crossed its desk:
> *“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of “freedom.” To confront certain viewpoints that offend the powers that be, the State of Florida passed the so-called “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act in 2022—redubbed (in line with the State’s doublespeak) the “Individual Freedom Act.” The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints. Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy “academic freedom” so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves. This is positively dystopian.*
The state appealed both decisions. The Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court [upheld the injunction][3] in March 2023. The state continued to assault the court with motions to undo this injunction, prompting the Eleventh Circuit to issue this additional order:
> *The Clerk is DIRECTED to treat any motion for reconsideration of this order as a non-emergency matter.*
Forced to wait its turn, Ron DeSantis and his MAGA buddies have had to wait more than three years just to find out they *still* won’t be able to enforce this blatantly unconstitutional law. The state’s lawyers will read the whole thing looking for ways to argue this differently if (or when) the US Supreme Court decides to hear their appeal.
But anyone wanting to know how this turns out for Florida’s public service bigots won’t have to dip too far into the 85-page ruling. By the middle of the fourth page, you’ll know what you need to know. From the [decision][4] [PDF]:
> *When several groups of professors challenged Florida’s new restrictions, the State cast about for an existing case or doctrine that could support its speech ban in the university setting. Finding none, it tried to marry public-employee speech cases with government speech doctrine, resulting in a new rule: if the government pays a professor’s salary, it has total control over her classroom speech.*
>
> *That is not a blessed union.** Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry**—classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth. This new rule also runs headlong into the Supreme Court’s repeated, if imprecise, endorsements of academic freedom. **If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.***
The injunction stays in place, presumably forever. While there are certainly some members of the Supreme Court who would love to tie their precedent and ethics into knots just to block speech they *personally* don’t like, this doesn’t appear to be the case they’d choose since it would likely generate precedent that might work against the bigots in the Supreme Court when they go to bat for bigots in the White House.
The appeals court has already blocked the other part of the law — the clauses attempting to regulate speech in private workplaces by forbidding mandatory meetings that promoted views the GOP doesn’t agree with. The last ditch attempt to claim the government can regulate speech in college classrooms doesn’t fare any better, even if it’s not quite as clear cut in terms of constitutional violations as telling private companies what they can and can’t say.
Claiming that all speech by government employees is “government speech” is a non-starter. The state couldn’t find precedent to support its novel take on the First Amendment. And the few odds and ends it threw at the judicial wall in hopes of seeing something stick failed as well.
> *More credibly, the State explains that it also seeks to protect its “most cherished ideals.” But that justification fails, too. Though the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint, puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of them.*
The court spends 50 pages dismantling each and every one of the state’s arguments, citation by citation. There can be no doubt the law is unconstitutional, not that it matters to the state, which has already announced it will be appealing the ruling. But this is censorship that can’t even be bothered to pretend it’s anything but the very thing it claims it is opposed to. “Individual Freedom Act” (as it was renamed), my ass.
> *Florida seeks to strip public university professors—and by extension their students—of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles. The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe even change your mind.*
There’s a dissent that runs nearly as long as the opinion. Written by Judge Barbara Lagoa (someone with [a history of anti-trans rulings][5]), it’s 30+ pages of wasted time. To paraphrase: none of these plaintiffs should have been granted standing, much less relief and also: [bunch of Justice Alito quotes].
Doesn’t really matter, since it’s the dissent but I guarantee if anyone’s going to start polling for an *en banc* rehearing, it’s going by Judge Lagoa.
Suck it, DeSantis. Until that happens (if it ever will), your stupid hateful law is as dead as the eyes of your sycophants.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/19/wannabe-censor-ron-desantis-is-now-0-for-2-with-his-censorship-bills-court-throws-out-his-stop-woke-act-as-unconstitutional/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/21/federal-court-blocks-floridas-stop-woke-act-calls-it-positively-dystopian/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/21/appeals-court-says-nope-to-florida-governors-stop-woke-law-denies-request-to-lift-injunction-against-it/
[4]: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/28443041/stop-woke-rd-2.pdf
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Lagoa#Federal_judicial_service
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/16/floridas-stop-woke-act-shut-down-again-by-eleventh-circuit-appeals-court/

2026-07-16 00:02:10 CEST

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*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
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https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/15/daily-deal-opusonix-pro-subscription-4/

2026-07-11 21:00:11 CEST

This Week In Techdirt History: July 5th – 11th
**This Week in 2016**
* [‘Most Transparent’ President Signs Into Law FOIA Reform Bill That Won’t Affect His Administration][1]
* [Documentary About Freeing Happy Birthday From Copyfraud Comes Out The Day After Happy Birthday Officially Declared Public Domain][2]
* [Why The Latest Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng May Have A Much Bigger Impact On Copyright & Fair Use][3]
* [Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws][4]
* [FBI Vacuums Up Local Law Enforcement Documents To Block Open Records Requests About Orlando Shooting][5]
* [Facebook Experiments With End To End Encryption In Messenger][6]
**This Week in 2011**
* [Smear Campaign Ramps Up Against Those Who Believe Free Speech Is More Important Than Hollywood’s Obsolete Business Model][7]
* [Homeland Security Working Hard To Make Sure No One Wants To Use .com Or .net Domains][8]
* [Video Gamers Realizing Streaming Criminalization Bill Might Make A Lot Of Them Into Criminals][9]
* [Senator Jerry Moran Removes Himself As A PROTECT IP Co-Sponsor][10]
* [RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000][11]
* [Did The Entertainment Industry Backdoor In Forcing ISPs To Kick People Offline, While Claiming It Did Not?][12]
**This Week in 2006**
* [Throwing Away Privacy In The Blink Of An Eye][13]
* [New Casino Business Model: Any Time Someone Wins, Blame The Software][14]
* [Australia Wants To Regulate YouTube As Well][15]
* [Attention English Teachers: Google Is Officially A Verb][16]
* [Will The MPAA Now Lobby For A Ban On The Print Screen Button?][17]
* [Is The Navy Trying To Patent The Firewall?][18]
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/05/most-transparent-president-signs-into-law-foia-reform-bill-that-wont-affect-his-administration/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/05/documentary-about-freeing-happy-birthday-copyfraud-comes-out-day-after-happy-birthday-officially-declared-public-domain/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/06/why-latest-supreme-court-ruling-kirtsaeng-may-have-much-bigger-impact-copyright-fair-use/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/07/appeals-court-says-that-sharing-passwords-can-violate-criminal-anti-hacking-laws/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/07/fbi-vacuums-up-local-law-enforcement-documents-to-block-open-records-requests-about-orlando-shooting/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/08/facebook-experiments-with-end-to-end-encryption-messenger/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/05/smear-campaign-ramps-up-against-those-who-believe-free-speech-is-more-important-than-hollywoods-obsolete-business-model/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/05/homeland-security-working-hard-to-make-sure-no-one-wants-to-use-com-net-domains/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/05/video-gamers-realizing-streaming-criminalization-bill-might-make-lot-them-into-criminals/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/06/senator-jerry-moran-removes-himself-as-protect-ip-co-sponsor/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/07/riaa-accounting-how-to-sell-1-million-albums-still-owe-500000/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/07/08/did-entertainment-industry-backdoor-forcing-isps-to-kick-people-offline-while-claiming-it-did-not/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/05/throwing-away-privacy-in-the-blink-of-an-eye/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/05/new-casino-business-model-any-time-someone-wins-blame-the-software/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/05/australia-wants-to-regulate-youtube-as-well/
[16]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/05/attention-english-teachers-google-is-officially-a-verb/
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/07/will-the-mpaa-now-lobby-for-a-ban-on-the-print-screen-button/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/07/07/is-the-navy-trying-to-patent-the-firewall/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/11/this-week-in-techdirt-history-july-5th-11th/

2026-07-10 22:19:26 CEST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Sell Me Lies, Sell Me Sweet Meta Lies
**[Ctrl-Alt-Speech][1] is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and [Everything in Moderation][2]‘s Ben Whitelaw. **
**Subscribe now on [Apple Podcasts][3], [Overcast][4], [Spotify][5], [Pocket Casts][6], [YouTube][7], or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to [the RSS feed][8].** **To get extended episodes with additional coverage, [support us on Patreon][9].**
In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:
* [‘It’s not like we knowingly have bad ads’: Meta on ad fraud, teen safety, and why AI will not replace agencies][10] (The Media Leader)
* [Instagram running ads promoting child sexual abuse material in India][11] (BBC)
* [Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos in AI Images—Unless You Opt Out][12] (Wired)
* [At 17, She Sued Meta and Google, and Won. Now She’s Ready to Tell Her Story][13] (Bloomberg)
And in the extended episode for [Patreon supporters][14], they cover:
* [Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China’s top AI models, sources say][15] (Reuters)
* [Fable 5 Is Back After Anthropic Irons Out Security Concerns With US Government][16] (PC Mag)
* [AI Giants Are Handing Out Tons of Free Computing Power to Grab Startup Share][17] (WSJ)
* [Introducing Tokens to the Future: Token Grants to AI Builders][18] (LinkedIn)
* [OpenAI proposes handing Trump administration 5% stake][19] (Financial Times)
Our fun links this week are [Roost][20], the “slow-cial” messaging app, and [PlotLines][21] for visualizing classic novels on a map.
If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can[ get the extended episode on Patreon][22].
[1]: https://ctrlaltspeech.com/
[2]: https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/
[3]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ctrl-alt-speech/id1734530193
[4]: https://overcast.fm/itunes1734530193
[5]: https://open.spotify.com/show/1N3tvLxUTCR7oTdUgUCQvc
[6]: https://pca.st/zulnarbw
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcky6_VTbejGkZ7aHqqc3ZjufeEw2AS7Z
[8]: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2315966.rss
[9]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[10]: https://uk.themedialeader.com/its-not-like-we-knowingly-have-bad-ads-meta-on-court-cases-teen-safety-smart-glass-security-and-why-ai-will-not-replace-agencies/
[11]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgm4e0316zo
[12]: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-now-lets-anyone-use-your-instagram-photos-in-ai-images-unless-you-opt-out/
[13]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-03/google-and-meta-lost-a-landmark-trial-to-kaley-but-kept-her-as-a-user
[14]: https://www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeech
[15]: https://www.reuters.com/world/beijing-is-looking-curbing-overseas-access-chinas-top-ai-models-sources-say-2026-07-07/
[16]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/fable-5-is-back-after-anthropic-irons-out-security-concerns-with-us-government
[17]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-giants-are-handing-out-tons-of-free-computing-power-to-grab-startup-share-c00a5c5c
[18]: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-tokens-future-token-grants-ai-builders-reid-hoffman-bx9zc/
[19]: https://www.ft.com/content/7c803eab-8e80-4431-9a87-e943bf00e00b?syn-25a6b1a6=1
[20]: https://roostsocial.app/
[21]: https://peter-guillam123.github.io/plotlines/
[22]: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2176497?view=condensed
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/10/ctrl-alt-speech-sell-me-lies-sell-me-sweet-meta-lies/

2026-07-09 20:09:03 CEST

The Party That Screams About The Evils Of Socialism Wants To Nationalize AI Companies
It’s hard to believe that the same people who spent the Biden years screaming that Democrats were “socialists” out to destroy free market capitalism are now cheerfully handing the federal government ownership stakes in private companies.
And yet here we are.
Just as Trumpists have decided that their go-to strategy for trying to rile up their base for the midterms is [to accuse][1] every left-leaning Democrat of being a “communist” like it’s 1950, those very same Trumpists are taking on a genuinely terrible socialist idea: nationalizing industries.
We’ve already talked about how hypocritical Trump has been in attacking the left as being “socialist” while simultaneously giving his own government stakes in both [US Steel][2] and [Intel][3], and now he’s talking about [taking ownership of the various big AI companies][4] as well.
> *US President Donald Trump is planning to meet the bosses of some of the country’s most notable artificial intelligence (AI) companies to discuss the government taking a financial stake in their future.*
> *Speaking on Air Force One, Trump said the goal of the US government investing in AI companies was to “create almost a partnership with the American public”.*
And later reporting has suggested that OpenAI is discussing [coughing up 5% to appease Trump][5]:
> *OpenAI has proposed handing the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company, the Financial Times reported Thursday, as the artificial intelligence startup seeks to defuse mounting political pressure in Washington.*
> *A 5% holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion, after the AI lab closed *[*a record-breaking funding round*][6]* in March at a post-money valuation of $852 billion.*
It’s fun to watch the media frame this as “giving the public access to a dividend from the AI companies” rather than “Donald Trump demanding a cut to avoid attacking these companies.” Just look at [the NY Times’ framing][7]:
> *In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would soon host a meeting with the top “12 or 15 executives” in the A.I. industry to discuss the idea of companies’ “giving back something to the public.” He added, ****“If we do that, the public will become very rich.”***
> *The comments built on Mr. Trump’s remarks on Friday when he was first asked about the U.S. government’s acquiring stakes in A.I. companies. He said then that he wanted to meet with the companies to discuss providing the United States with stakes in their business, which “could be given to the American public.”*
Yeah, sure, the *public* will become very rich, says the man who has used his position as president to [inside trade his way to insane wealth][8]. And how, exactly, will “the public” get back this money? And how will the government ensure that if the currently quite-inflated AI market drops that “the public” isn’t left holding the bag?
And, sure, there are some *potentially interesting* questions regarding how more people could benefit from the *potential* wealth that AI companies *might* generate. But it’s all highly speculative and still massively unlikely. But if there actually is evidence and an idea for *actual* redistribution of wealth because of AI company dominance, that would involve a way more nuanced, complex, and thoughtful discussion than Donald Trump saying “gimme 5%.”
But, really, what gets me most about all of this is, as I keep pointing out, how many of the AI VC bros during the Biden era, [went absolutely apeshit][9] over the Biden admin’s very weak policies on AI, which were basic guidelines and voluntary agreements that had no whiff of nationalizing the industry. But, with Trump talking about literally demanding cuts of these companies… you don’t see any complaining.
Instead, they’re out there whining about how some left-leaning politicians in NY are winning elections and how that’s the coming rise of “socialism.” Literally a couple months ago [Marc Andreessen was on Joe Rogan][10] talking about how these dumb young progressive kids support “socialism” even though “it never works.” Meanwhile, Andreessen was just appointed by Trump to some [government policy board][11]. As Trump literally nationalizes parts of the AI industry that Andreessen insisted the prior administration was going to destroy through its woke anti-capitalist policies.
Keep all this in mind the next time you hear Silicon Valley VC bros going around pointing at Democrats and screaming about the “creeping threat of socialist ideology.” If they’re not pointing out that Trump demanding equity from every AI company is way worse than anything that any Democrat has done or even proposed, just know that they’re totally fine with “socialism” where they’re the ones in power.
[1]: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2026/0707/trump-democrats-communists-socialists?icid=rss
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/25/corporate-deal-making-made-easy-just-give-donald-trump-personal-power-to-approve-all-strategic-decisions/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/26/with-intel-trump-continues-his-race-to-violate-every-clause-in-the-constitution-by-now-arriving-at-the-takings-clause/
[4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98r8r7dz5no
[5]: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/openai-proposes-us-government-own-5percent-stake-to-address-political-blowback.html
[6]: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/31/openai-funding-round-ipo.html
[7]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/technology/president-trump-americans-sharing-ai-wealth.html
[8]: https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-discloses-21000-securities-trades-year-office/story?id=134427666
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/29/vc-bros-claimed-they-backed-trump-to-protect-ai-trump-is-shutting-down-ai-it-was-always-about-access-power/
[10]: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DY7bqnrvF4q/
[11]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-29/trump-convert-marc-andreessen-gets-spot-on-pentagon-policy-board
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/09/the-party-that-screams-about-the-evils-of-socialism-wants-to-nationalize-ai-companies/

2026-07-09 14:35:46 CEST

MuskCorp Tries To Bribe Memphis With Cheaper Starlink So They’ll Ignore xAI Data Center Pollution
Civil rights groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) have noted how Elon Musk’s Colossus xAI data centers in Memphis [disproportionately pollute the air in minority neighborhoods][1]. A [joint lawsuit][2] by SELC, Earthjustice, and the NAACP filed last April argued that Musk and friends didn’t bother to get the necessary permits to run the 57 gas turbines powering the system.
As is so often the case, Musk’s “innovation” is quite often just a combination of media manipulation, opportunism, crony capitalism, and openly ignoring public safety. The more you look, the more of a theme it becomes across Musk’s [entire post-IPO delusionverse][3].
Anyway, the [lawsuit points out][4] that his Memphis-area data centers are violating the Clean Air Act, funneling all manner of pollutants into minority neighborhoods that already see a disproportionately high number of pollution-caused childhood illnesses:
> *“xAI’s power plant in Southaven has the potential to emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) each year. The staggering emissions numbers likely make the facility the largest industrial source of NOx in the greater Memphis area, an area already failing to meet national smog standards. The illegal turbines also have the potential to release up to 180 tons of fine particulate matter, 500 tons of carbon monoxide, and 19 tons of formaldehyde—a toxic, cancer-causing chemical—each year.”*
Musk also promised to build a next-gen water filtration system so that the xAI data center doesn’t imperil the local water supply, but he simply decided to [apparently not do that][5]. Instead, Musk ran crying to the Trump administration, whose DOJ is trying to have the pollution [case-dismissed on national security grounds][6], because the administration sometimes uses Musk’s shoddy fifth-place AI services.
Hoping to quell growing anger in Memphis at the fact he’s openly violating environmental law, Musk is leaning on his other company, Starlink, to try and calm down locals. Starlink announced last week they’d be [offering Memphis-area locals half-off the typically expensive Starlink monthly rate][7] for an unspecified amount of time:
> *“The unique capabilities of the Colossus datacenters could not be accomplished without the partnership and support from the local Memphis community.” SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink engineering, Michael Nicolls, wrote on X on Tuesday.*
>
> *“Happy to bring affordable and great @SpaceX @Starlink connectivity to our neighbors,” Nicolls added.*
I’m sure a temporary (these sorts of discounted rates never last) internet access discount will definitely help the kids with formaldehyde-driven asthma. There are a few other layers of irony: one being that data has repeatedly shown that Starlink is [routinely too congested to be of help in more densely populated areas][8] like Memphis. Hidden “[congestion][9]” fees also ensure the service isn’t **really** affordable.
Meanwhile, you have guys like Mark Andreessen pretending to be confused why civil rights groups like the NAACP wouldn’t be big fans of discriminatory environmental pollution. As with all (bipartisan) opposition to AI data centers, the very legitimate complaints going on outside of Memphis are being portrayed as unreasonable attacks on innovation by radicals:
These people are, in case you’ve not been paying attention, just foundationally *not good human beings*, who simply love to engage in *phony surprise* at the width and breadth of the public backlash to AI.
[1]: https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-to-power-its-data-center/
[2]: https://www.selc.org/press-release/civil-rights-group-sues-xai-for-illegal-pollution-from-data-center-power-plant/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/16/the-spacex-ipo-sends-elon-musk-and-trumps-starlink-cronyism-into-the-thermosphere/
[4]: https://www.selc.org/press-release/civil-rights-group-sues-xai-for-illegal-pollution-from-data-center-power-plant/
[5]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/05/xai-water-reuse-project-musk-ai-spacex-ipo-environmental-project-ee-00896170
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/18/trump-doj-trying-to-protect-musk-from-lawsuit-over-memphis-ai-data-center-pollution/
[7]: https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-half-price-starlink-memphis-residents-2026-6
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/31/study-shows-musks-starlink-too-congested-to-tackle-u-s-broadband-woes-despite-billions-in-new-subsidies/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/01/elon-musks-starlink-adds-750-congestion-charge/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/09/muskcorp-tries-to-bribe-memphis-with-cheaper-starlink-so-theyll-ignore-xai-data-center-pollution/

2026-07-09 00:31:43 CEST

An Indian Billionaire Was Targeted By Trump. Then He Poured Money Into A Startup Secretly Backed by Donald Trump Jr.
*This story was [originally published][1] by ProPublica.* *Republished under a [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0][2]* *license.*
In late November in Jamnagar, India, the scions of two of the most powerful families in the world stood face-to-face. On one side was 30-year-old Anant Ambani, son of one of the richest men in Asia. On the other was Donald Trump Jr. For months, the Trump administration had been on the offensive against the sprawling Ambani energy empire, placing it at the center of an escalating tariff campaign against India. But after Trump Jr. touched down, the two men toured the Ambanis’ private zoo, and at night they performed a Gujarati folk dance, grinning as they moved together to the music.
Four months later, an obscure Texas startup called America First Refining announced that it had received a nine-figure investment from the Ambanis’ company. The deal puzzled numerous energy investors familiar with the project, which aims to build the first major new oil refinery in the U.S. in about 50 years. The company is run by a serial entrepreneur with a history of bankruptcy and lawsuits alleging fraud. After more than a decade of failed attempts to raise money, blown deadlines and rebrands, it had been floundering.
America First Refining’s unexpected breakthrough came after it forged a previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr., who secretly acquired a stake in the startup, according to records and seven people familiar with the company. The new details reveal the role the president’s son has played in a theme of Trump’s second term: overseas investors with interests before the administration putting money into the Trump family’s business interests.
> [
> View this post on Instagram
> ][3]
>
> [A post shared by Shubham. (@shubham.daveeee)][4]
Over the past year and a half, Trump Jr. has amassed a fortune from stakes in companies ranging from crypto startups to a drone business to a firearms retailer. Some firms tied to the president’s son have received contracts or [other support][5] from the federal government, part of what critics describe as a run of Trump family self-dealing. In December, Forbes estimated that Trump Jr.’s net worth had rocketed from roughly $50 million to [$300 million][6] since the election. But the Forbes figures were based on the investments that have been publicly disclosed. The America First Refining episode suggests there is much about the family business that remains secret.
The size of Trump Jr.’s stake in America First Refining and what he paid for it remain unclear. Top executives at the startup have also said that they speak regularly with Trump Jr., according to a person close to the company. And after the Ambani investment was announced, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer took credit on social media for playing a part in the deal.
America First Refining has flexed its Trump Jr. connections during pitch meetings with foreign officials. Early last year, Trump Jr. joined the company’s leadership for a meeting in South Florida with potential investors from Saudi Arabia, according to two people familiar with the matter. Another foreign government official pitched on the project told ProPublica that the company’s team emphasized they had backing from the Trump family and suggested that an investment would help with White House access.
The Ambanis’ investment coincided with the family’s securing major U.S. policy wins that their company, Reliance Industries, had been lobbying for. “Reliance Goes From Trump Foe to Friend With Refinery Pledge,” ran the [Bloomberg headline][7] after the deal was announced. Reliance’s intent with the deal was to “smooth out” tensions between the U.S. and India, the outlet reported.
A Trump Jr. spokesperson said that Trump Jr. “has no operational involvement in AFR and is simply a passive minority investor in an American company that aligns with his worldview.”
“The entire premise of this story relating to Don is false,” the spokesperson said, adding, “Don does not interface with the Federal Government on behalf of any company that he invests in or advises.” ProPublica did not find evidence Trump Jr. was aware of refinery executives’ suggesting that an investment would help with White House access.
In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for America First Refining said, “The claims in this story are false,” but declined to specify what they were referring to. The company’s CEO previously denied wrongdoing in the lawsuits against him reviewed by ProPublica, and the suits were either settled or dropped.
The Ambani family had long been cultivating its relationship with the Trumps. Reliance paid $10 million to the Trump Organization in 2024 as a “development fee” for a project in Mumbai, according to the president’s [financial disclosure][8]. (Despite the payment, Reliance has not yet announced a Trump project. Reliance told ProPublica that “the real estate project is real” and “remains under development.”) Ivanka Trump attended Anant Ambani’s wedding party in India that year, where guests were treated to a Rihanna concert. Anant’s father, Mukesh — who is worth an estimated $90 billion and lives in a [27-story home][9] — came to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s second inauguration, posing with the president at a private reception.
But by the summer of 2025, the family was under attack from the White House. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Reliance had [reportedly made billions][10] in profits by purchasing vast quantities of Russian oil at a discount. In August, as Trump grew frustrated with his administration’s struggles to bring the war to an end, the president doubled his tariffs on India to 50%. The move was explicitly designed to force companies like Reliance to stop buying Russian oil. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly assailed “India’s politically connected energy titans” for “funding Putin’s war machine,” widely read as a reference to the Ambanis.
Amid this tension, Trump Jr. visited Anant Ambani on his November trip to India. At the end of the trip, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer commented at a business conference in Miami: “I had a nice closing this morning with Don Trump Jr., who’s flying back from India today.” (The following week, the Texas startup — then called Element Fuels — filed paperwork to create America First Refining LLC. In an email, the attorney, John Willding, told ProPublica that there was “no transaction in India or with an Indian company that I was ever involved with.”)
Anant Ambani, who helps run Reliance’s energy business, personally worked on the Texas refinery deal for months before it was announced, a [major Indian newspaper][11] later reported.
> [
> View this post on Instagram
> ][12]
>
> [A post shared by The Times of India (@timesofindia)][13]
As the Ambanis quietly finalized their deal with America First Refining, U.S.-Indian relations appeared to warm. In February, the Trump administration struck a trade deal with India, dramatically lowering tariffs, and also [reportedly][14] gave Reliance a license to buy Venezuelan oil. When the Iran war broke out and rocked global energy markets, the U.S. gave India a sanctions waiver to buy Russian crude. (The waiver was later expanded to all countries.)
In response to ProPublica’s questions, the White House said that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Reliance did not answer ProPublica’s questions about Trump Jr.’s and Anant Ambani’s roles in the investment deal, but said [in a statement][15] that the company did not receive “any unique or preferential treatment” from the U.S. government.
“There is no connection between Reliance’s investment in AFR and any unique measures associated with general U.S. trade, tariff, sanctions or licensing outcomes,” Reliance said. “The investment was evaluated and approved on its commercial merits, strategic fit and long-term value creation potential.”
In March, President Trump personally announced Reliance’s deal with the Texas startup [on Truth Social][16], thanking the Ambani company for its “tremendous Investment.”
After the announcement, Willding, the Trump Jr. lawyer, shared the news on LinkedIn: “Just so proud to have been part of this one.”
Willding rowed back his claim in an email to ProPublica. “I have never worked for or advised AFR and had zero involvement in their deal with Reliance Energy,” he said. “I simply saw the press release and was excited for them.” America First Refining’s spokesperson called Willding’s comment “moronic and false.”
In June 2025, Willding registered a new entity in Wyoming called TX Fuels, LLC, listing the company’s address as Trump Jr.’s mansion in Jupiter, Florida. In his email, Willding said his “only involvement in AFR was handling the legal paperwork” for the Trump Jr. LLC’s investment in the startup.
Trump Jr. first hired Willding in May 2021, according to* *interviews the lawyer has given. A corporate deal lawyer in Dallas, Willding has referred to himself as “outside business counsel to the Trump family” and has said he talks to Trump Jr. or Eric Trump almost daily. A former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama voter who fell hard for MAGA, the attorney has [installed a portrait][17] of President Trump over the mantel in his living room.
Willding’s practice has boomed during the second Trump administration, bringing the lawyer to Argentina, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. “Everybody in the world wants to do business with the United States right now,” Willding said at a conference in June 2025. “Every company wants to do business with the Trump family.”
There are other fingerprints of the Trump world on the refinery deal.
Howard Lutnick’s firm Cantor Fitzgerald — which [his sons took over][18] when Lutnick became Trump’s commerce secretary — is working as the financial adviser to America First Refining, including on the Ambani investment deal, Cantor Fitzgerald announced. (Cantor Fitzgerald declined to comment.)
And the Trump administration played a direct role helping America First Refining find potential foreign investors, according to public comments from the company’s CEO, John Calce. “We have received support from the White House,” he told a [local news outlet][19]. The National Energy Dominance Council, led by the interior and energy secretaries, has “helped us with, candidly, introducing us and helping us meet some of these people overseas,” Calce said on an industry podcast.
America First Refining has recently explored going public, according to three people close to the company. That could allow its current investors to start cashing out even if the refinery never gets built — a milestone many energy industry insiders still view as a long shot. Reliance made its investment in the startup at a valuation of at least $1 billion, according to America First Refining’s announcement.
Building a refinery at the Port of Brownsville on the Gulf Coast has been Calce’s mission for a decade. A former Yale offensive lineman, he started his career as a high school football coach after an unsuccessful attempt to make the NFL and now describes himself as a “lifelong entrepreneur.”
The project has been serially delayed, out of money, rebranded and trailed by angry former business partners. At one point, Calce’s companies were being sued simultaneously by eight other firms. In 2022, during bankruptcy proceedings for an earlier iteration of the project, the trustee appointed to impartially oversee the case sued Calce too. The trustee alleged that Calce and other insiders had improperly siphoned away cash and other assets. (Calce denied wrongdoing. The case was ultimately settled.)
During the Biden administration, as the company sought financial support from the Department of Energy, it pitched itself as a climate-friendly green project that would also help “people of underrepresented social demographics” in Brownsville, according to records from that period. The company failed to get enough money from outside investors, and the planned construction was delayed.
By the company’s own estimate, building the refinery will take years and cost $3 billion to $4 billion. Even if it’s built, profitability could be hard to achieve. Many energy investors told ProPublica there’s a reason the U.S. hasn’t seen a major new refinery in decades. “Refineries cost a lot of money and essentially make pennies on the dollar,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist in Houston. “Wall Street is not going to finance a new refinery.”
Even after the start of the second Trump administration, the company was in jeopardy, according to interviews and documents. It laid off workers last year, and, by late 2025, with delays continuing to plague the refinery, officials at the Port of Brownsville believed the project looked to be dead, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.
That has not stopped Calce and his team from making grandiose claims to the public. Earlier this year,* *a [website went live][20] for another Calce company called Brownsville Energy Storage Terminals. It claims to have a far-flung network of oil storage terminals in places like the Netherlands and Singapore, more than 850 employees and a C-suite of experienced energy executives. But ProPublica could find no evidence that the executives are real people or that the storage terminals actually exist. The phone numbers on the website are also currently listed online as the contacts for a Houston baklava caterer, a Dallas-area taxi service and an OB-GYN office. The numbers are dead.
America First Refining’s political ties, though, may have boosted its standing with Texas state regulators. In February, shortly before the Ambani investment became public, the company sought an extension on its permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Inside the state agency, emails obtained by ProPublica show, officials scrambled to approve the request.
“Need to get this one logged and processed asap,” wrote one official.
“You are going to have to do this one. I will explain why in person in a few,” wrote another. “You can guess if you check out the name.”
America First Refining got its approval the next day. A spokesperson for the Texas agency did not address questions about the emails. “This request was processed quickly due to the quality of information provided,” the spokesperson said.
[1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-ambani-reliance-industries-america-first-refining-texas
[2]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
[3]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRUY39XiM-w/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
[4]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRUY39XiM-w/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
[5]: https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-vulcan-deal-white-house
[6]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2025/12/08/how-donald-trump-jrs-fortune-jumped-six-fold-in-a-year/
[7]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-goes-from-trump-foe-to-friend-with-oil-refinery-pledge
[8]: https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-familys-new-business-partner-is-indias-richest-man-6846bcfe
[9]: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/06/ambani-residence-photos-inside-architecture
[10]: https://www.ft.com/content/c683356e-647e-45ec-8623-97e86d37e4b2?syn-25a6b1a6=1
[11]: https://www.bhaskar.com/
[12]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRWnhRpEnbN/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
[13]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRWnhRpEnbN/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
[14]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-13/reliance-gets-us-general-license-to-buy-venezuela-crude-directly
[15]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28215016-statement-from-reliance-industries-june-2026/
[16]: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116206958726200848
[17]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnwillding_we-added-more-history-to-swiss-avenue-this-activity-7284946962888507394-_Sbt/
[18]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/us/politics/howard-lutnick-family-ai.html
[19]: https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/brownsville-oil-refinery-announces-new-funding-partner-anticipates-april-groundbreaking/
[20]: https://www.brownsvilleenergyterminals.com/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/an-indian-billionaire-was-targeted-by-trump-then-he-poured-money-into-a-startup-secretly-backed-by-donald-trump-jr/

2026-07-08 20:21:02 CEST

Mexico Passed Speech Laws To Protect The Powerless. The Powerful Used Them To Silence Critics.
For over a decade, a particular argument keeps resurfacing from well-meaning progressives: the rise of authoritarianism around the globe is a good reason to pass laws suppressing speech. The idea is that somehow, magically, without free speech, authoritarians and fascists would never come to power in the first place. This is historically illiterate. It’s also stupid. As [we’ve argued for many, many years][1], speech suppressing laws are *always* eventually used by the powerful to suppress the speech of their critics.
The latest example comes from Mexico, where the current leadership has played up “press freedoms,” but at the same time, powerful politicians are using laws ostensibly passed to protect the marginalized… [to imprison journalists instead][2]. The New York Times piece makes the pattern concrete in a way that should be eye-opening to many.
Take, for example, the situation with politician Mara Chama Villa. She used a law that was passed to stop “gender-based political violence.” That sounds good, right? Most good folks would agree that “gender-based political violence” is bad. But in this case, Chama Villa claimed that a satirical radio skit mocking her for being a nepobaby candidate violated the law:
> *It started with a one-minute audio cartoon. Three siblings asked their influential father to buy them candidacies for the upcoming 2024 elections, squabbling over who got to run for which party.*
>
> *The satirical spot broadcast on Radio Teocelo, the local community-run radio station that also produced the ad, did not mention names, actual political parties or locations.*
>
> *But Mara Chama Villa, who was running to represent the area in Congress with Mexico’s Ecologist Green Party — and whose father had been the mayor of Teocelo, a coffee-producing town in the state of Veracruz, the deadliest for journalists — felt targeted. She filed a complaint against Radio Teocelo and reporters from other outlets who had previously covered her failed attempt in 2021 to succeed her father as mayor.*
>
> *Their coverage, she argued in legal filings reviewed by The New York Times, minimized her career and hurt her chances to win the election.*
>
> *In April 2025, a federal court found five reporters guilty of gender-based political violence because they had “minimized” Ms. Chama Villa “by subordinating her to a male figure with political power,” the court said in its ruling.*
The impact of being found guilty — again, for making a satirical radio spot that would be common all over the globe — was pretty massive:
> *The penalties were sweeping: fines exceeding a month’s salary, mandatory public apologies, the deletion of the radio spot and all denounced articles and placement on a *[*national registry*][3]* of gender-violence offenders.*
Oh, and some more chilling effects, just for fun. If you criticized the ruling? Well, you got added to a follow-on legal process:
> *When journalists, analysts and organizations across Mexico criticized the outcome, the dispute ballooned into a nationwide case targeting about 70 people.*
This is, quite obviously, the opposite of freedom of the press or freedom of speech. And I’d argue it does not do anything positive towards stopping “gender-based political violence.” It’s just become a tool for a powerful political family to punish journalists who produced a bit of satire.
And this isn’t a one-off, as the Times highlights other cases using the same law to target activists as well:
> *Earlier this year, a court sanctioned Miguel Alfonso Meza, an anti-corruption activist, for gender-based political violence against Silvia Delgado, a lawyer who represented the notorious drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, best known as *[*El Chapo*][4]*. Mr. Meza had called her a “narco lawyer” when questioning her candidacy for a criminal judgeship in Mexico’s *[*first-ever judicial election*][5]*.*
>
> *When the court later *[*partly revoked*][6]* the penalties on Mr. Meza, Ms. Delgado said that she would appeal that ruling. Her goal, she added in an interview, was “not to silence anyone, but to fight for dignity.”*
>
> *“By describing my candidacy as highly dangerous and comparing me to other candidates investigated for drug trafficking,” she said, “he unleashed excessive attacks against me.”*
The article also describes a crime reporter who was accused of “terrorism” because his reporting on local drug cartels “caused public panic” leading him to being dragged from his car and arrested (he thought he was being kidnapped). He now admits that he’s stopped chasing stories he used to chase.
The chilling effects in such a system are unavoidable.
Mexican politicians can defend these laws all they like. No one supports gender-based political violence or terrorism — and that’s exactly what makes the laws so useful to the people abusing them. A law nobody can be seen opposing is a law nobody can stop. And so a community radio station gets fined a month’s salary over a one-minute cartoon, an anti-corruption activist gets sanctioned for calling El Chapo’s lawyer a “narco lawyer,” and a crime reporter stops chasing the stories that made him a crime reporter.
This is how it always goes. Every time you hand the state a tool to punish “bad” speech, the people who end up wielding it are whoever holds power — and they get to decide what counts as “bad.”
If that still sounds like a worthwhile trade — speech restrictions now to keep the fascists out later — consider that we ran this exact experiment a century ago. Weimar Germany had hate speech laws. [Prosecutors used them against Nazis][7], including Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer, who was convicted and jailed more than once for incitement against Jews. The laws did not stop the Nazis. Indeed, the Nazis used these prosecutions as yet more “evidence” that they were being prosecuted for their beliefs. Then, the Nazis took power, inherited those very tools, and turned them on everyone else. Streicher walked out of the courtroom a martyr and into the Reichstag. The speech laws meant to stop authoritarians became the authoritarians’ speech laws.
So here’s the only test that matters before you back a law like this: imagine the politician you distrust the most holding the pen. Because eventually, they will. And anyone who answers “with this law on the books, they’ll never get into power” is indulging in childishly naive wishful thinking — the same wish that has been losing to authoritarians for as long as there have been authoritarians.
You don’t keep bad people from power by handing the office a weapon and hoping good people get there first. You keep them out with stronger elections, stronger institutions, and an educated public that can see through them.
Not by deciding which speech to outlaw — and then praying you’re always the one holding the pen.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2015/10/28/hate-speech-laws-are-just-another-way-governments-to-punish-people-they-dont-like/
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/world/americas/mexico-politicians-silence-journalists.html
[3]: https://ine.mx/actores-politicos/registro-nacional-de-personas-sancionadas/
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/nyregion/el-chapo-sentencing.html
[5]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/world/americas/mexico-courts-election-results.html
[6]: https://www.youtube.com/live/KGETigyi2cs?si=gh3RKhJUzaP7aehO&t=2714
[7]: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/02/far-right-not-favour-free-speech-need-champion-free-speech-risk-far-right-controlling-conversation/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pug
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/mexico-passed-speech-laws-to-protect-the-powerless-the-powerful-used-them-to-silence-critics/

2026-07-08 20:14:50 CEST

Daily Deal: The Premium Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Super Bundle
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*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/the-premium-machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-super-bundle?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/daily-deal-the-premium-machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-super-bundle/

2026-07-08 14:34:03 CEST

ABC’s The View Wimps Out, Shies Away From Politics After Trump Threats
Back in February, Trump FCC Boss Brendan Carr [launched a fake “investigation” of ABC][1] because the network’s comedians and daytime talk show hosts *hadn’t adequately kissed Republican ass*.
Five months later and ABC’s *The View* is wimping out when it comes to hosting politicians at all, [for fear it will upset the country’s mad idiot king][2]:
> *“Since then, the ABC talk show hasn’t featured a single political candidate running in a competitive midterm race, according to a Semafor analysis.”*
Earlier in the year, Republicans were upset that *The View* hosted Texas Democratic hopeful James Talarico. That triggered an entire fake “investigation” and a threatened revocation of ABC’s broadcast licenses by Carr, who **falsely** claimed that the daytime talk show had violated the FCC’s dated and irrelevant “equal time” rule requiring that TV stations give equal time to political candidates from both parties.
It apparently didn’t matter that Carr’s threats were empty, that any legal case would be laughed out of court on First Amendment grounds, that Carr [actively avoids enforcing such laws for right wing radio][3], that evidence emerged Carr had actively [concocted an entire conspiracy to make ABC look guilty][4], or that The View *had clearly been exempt from the FCC’s “equal time” rules since 2002*.
The threat of annoying costly legal headaches were still apparently enough to scare ABC (and likely other outlets) away from hosting politicians who would be critical of Trump.
It’s a shame that ABC, which had previously [started to show some a signs of life][5] in its battle with the thin-skinned U.S. president, suddenly doesn’t really want to talk about why *The View* rejected requests to host NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, or the democratic socialist candidates he supported for Congress, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez:
> *“A spokesperson declined to provide Semafor with a comment about how the show was reacting to the inquiry but has previously said the show is a “bona fide news program” and therefore isn’t subject to the equal time rule.”*
Carr, you’ll recall, also [threatened San Francisco area AM radio station KCBS][6] [late last year][7] simply for reporting on local ICE activity, resulting in the station demoting one anchor and softening its political coverage overall. Carr also tried (and failed) to [censor and fire][8] comedian Jimmy Kimmel after the late night host made a joke about deceased right wing propagandist and racist Charlie Kirk.
That said, avoiding politics entirely for fear of losing money is fairly common across corporate media (including outlets like Semafor), resulting in no shortage of pseudo-journalism that pulls its punches, particularly when it comes to being honest about the continued Republican descent into bigotry and fascism.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/10/brendan-carr-launches-fake-investigation-of-abcs-the-view-because-they-havent-adequately-coddled-trumpism/
[2]: https://www.semafor.com/article/07/05/2026/the-view-throttles-back-political-candidate-bookings-following-fcc-inquiry
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/04/brendan-carr-cant-explain-why-equal-time-rule-doesnt-apply-to-right-wing-radio/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/abc-shows-a-backbone-in-fcc-fight-shows-fcc-manufactured-a-controversy-surrounding-james-talarico/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/abc-shows-a-backbone-in-fcc-fight-shows-fcc-manufactured-a-controversy-surrounding-james-talarico/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/23/fcc-boss-brendan-carr-bullied-bay-area-am-radio-station-for-telling-locals-the-truth/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/23/fcc-boss-brendan-carr-bullied-bay-area-am-radio-station-for-telling-locals-the-truth/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/17/brendan-carr-cooking-up-new-sham-investigation-of-jimmy-kimmel/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/08/abcs-the-view-wimps-out-shies-away-from-politics-after-trump-threats/

2026-07-07 22:03:10 CEST

ICE Rebuts Nazi Allegations By Going Full Gestapo To Hunt Down Critics
Oh boy do the Nazi-esque dudes running rampant in our country hate being called Nazis. [They love the Nazi chic][1] and [the Nazi talk][2] about securing the nation for white, blue-eyed males, but they hate being compared to the thing(s) they resemble most, even when they’re promoting people [for *actively generating these comparisons*][3]*.*
Like any bully, Trump officials and foot soldiers have the thinnest of skin. [Trump’s (literal!)][4] [but [also figuratively][5]!] skin is so thin he should probably[ be submerged in liquid][6] until actually needed to [rally the troops][7]… or [nap through a meeting][8].
An abusive administration that clearly wants to split the difference between autocracy and fascism somehow finds itself so pervious (is that a word aka the opposite of “impervious”?) to random criticism from random Americans, it can’t help but blow federal money and resources on silencing the few one-offs who have managed to rile low-level managers.
Beset by Nazi accusations, the administration (as expressed by its foot soldiers)[ decided the best response was to… behave like Nazis][9]. (h/t [Adam Steinbaugh][10])
> *After two federal law enforcement agents [tracked down a Syracuse woman][11] last Tuesday to warn her about a social media post, they went to Rochester to find David Streever.*
>
> *A picture showed up on his phone from the door camera. Two people stood among the childrens’ toys on his porch. A woman, wearing an ordinary windbreaker and slip-on sneakers, held a bunch of papers*.
>
> *Streever was not there. He was with his seven-year-old daughter at Moominworld in Finland – an amusement park in the happiest country in the world.*
>
> *The two federal agents told Streever’s wife they had come Tuesday afternoon to deliver a warning letter about an email Streever had sent in January to [Todd Lyons, ][12]then the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.*
That is insanely disturbing, even if you blow past the the first sentence, which makes it clear this isn’t the *first* time federal agents have hunted down people who have done nothing more than engage in absolutely protected speech.
David Streever sent then-ICE Director Todd Lyons an angry email shortly after federal officers murdered Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti — the second ICE protester the government had killed in during its politically motivated “surge” targeting the state. Here’s what it said, according to its author:
> *“You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.*
>
> *“The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness.*
>
> *“You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”*
Todd Lyons [left before Trump could turn on him][13], but signing his name to a memo that told ICE officers to ignore the law and the Constitution when performing arrests or entering houses made it clear he’d eventually be forced out, even if everything he did was exactly what Trump wanted him to do.
But that’s not the end of harassment experienced by Streever as the result of his completely innocuous email. Not only did federal officers visit his house, but they tried to accost him upon his return to the US, somehow managing to locate him in the hotel room where he was (briefly) staying with his daughter.
> *On Thursday, Streever and daughter Helen flew back to New York’s JFK Airport, sailed through the customs checkpoint and took a shuttle to a hotel, where they immediately crashed with jet lag.*
>
> *At 9:55 p.m., the front desk rang his hotel room. A special agent named Trevor Pitts had come looking for him, the staff said. The hotel staff did not tell the agent that Streever and his daughter were upstairs, Streever said. The agent left his card.*
Streever’s wife also received this completely bogus “Warning Notice” from (allegedly) ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. ([via Adam Steinbaugh][14])
Note the handwritten “David Streever” on a form that looks like someone just whipped it up at the last minute before heading out to get their government thug on. Note also that no other information was filled in by the “special agent” delivering the threat to prosecute Streever for “[violating] Title 18 of the US Code” with his email to Todd Lyons.
Further down in the completely bogus “WARNING NOTICE,” the people who wrote it claim Streever’s letter was a potentially prosecutable threat against a federal official. It also refers to Title 19 as justifying the OPR’s involvement in this, which Title 19 definitely does not authorize. Title 19 refers only to “Telecommunications Trade” in terms of actual trade (tariffs, trade agreements, taxes, etc.). It doesn’t have anything to say about authorizing investigations of communications ICE might want to pretend are threatening.
On top of that, the OPR has nothing whatsoever to do with *external* investigations and prosecutions. [Its own web page makes that very clear][15]:
> ***The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) upholds the agency’s professional standards** through a multi-disciplinary approach of security, inspections and investigations to promote organizational health, integrity, and accountability across the agency. **OPR promotes organizational integrity by vigilantly managing ICE’s security programs, conducting independent reviews of ICE programs and operations, and impartially investigating allegations of employee and contractor misconduct.***
>
> *To promote integrity, mitigate risk and uphold the agency’s professional standards, **the OPR-led Integrity Coordination Center receives and assesses information it receives and refers any allegations of employee misconduct to appropriate offices for investigation**, if necessary. **This process ensures that allegations of criminal or administrative misconduct against ICE personnel are properly assessed and thoroughly investigated.***
In other words, this faux-form letter/threat is *exactly* the sort of thing that should be referred to the OPR office for investigation. Given its purview, there’s no way in hell this letter was actually written by someone in ICE’s OPR. That’s why it’s missing a signature or any other identifying information. Because if someone inside the OPR did decide to write this bogus letter on behalf of DHS personnel looking to get their Gestapo on, they’d be aiding and abetting the stuff the OPR is there to deter.
And that would all be awful enough if it was a one-off. But it isn’t. This was [reported by the same news source only four days earlier][16].
> *Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents issued a warning to a Syracuse woman Tuesday to remove a social media account they said threatens federal agents.*
>
> *PaigeLynne Gonyea said she believes they are referring to [a January post ][17]where she [named the ICE agent][18] who shot protester Renee Good.*
>
> *[…]*
>
> ***The agents handed Gonyea a form letter that says they were investigating threats made against ICE personnel**. The form says the agents had identified an Instagram account they believe breaks federal law. They asked her to remove and discontinue the behavior, according to the unsigned document she shared on Instagram.*
Odds are it’s the same bullshit legal threat David Streever’s wife received. Other details in the reporting suggests it contained the same boilerplate about illegal “threats” against “government officials.” More likely than not, this form was unsigned by those delivering it and also missing the signature of the “special agent” from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. It looks like nothing more than it is: government agents with guns and official paperwork intimidating US citizens for daring to criticize federal officials (in the case of Streever) or simply reposting facts that were already in the public domain (Gonyea’s case).
This reporting also includes disturbing photos of federal officers looming over the election worker as they tried to get her to recant. And we’ll see what happens here, now that one of the New Gestapo has been identified by journalists:
> *David Brody, one of the two agents, said he could not answer questions from a reporter.*
This administration is so stupidly evil that its immediate response to being called Nazis is to *literally act like Nazis*. Its only defense might be that this pair of vindictive responses seems a bit more KGB than Gestapo, given the reliance on internal tech, rather than a network of informants (that’s Charlie Kirk cancel culture, yo). Either way, it’s fucking horrifying.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/14/border-patrol-commander-locks-down-another-injunction-after-admitting-to-lying-about-being-attacked/
[2]: https://newrepublic.com/article/199094/dhs-neo-nazi-memes-no-surprise
[3]: https://www.ms.now/opinion/dhs-white-supremacist-posts-labor-department-social-media-peyton-rollins
[4]: https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-vascular-testing-leg-swelling-white-house/story?id=123839307
[5]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-launches-insane-truth-social-posting-spree-after-blowing-up-peace-deal/
[6]: https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/hIkVUEF2_bx_hP3gagcg9w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/digital_spy_281/fd08d4d3228dd870b2ffeac519e8b41f
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/live/UUnxMmwLXqk?si=shjvevGuqPlKlExZ&t=6303
[8]: https://theonion.com/trump-appears-to-doze-during-stroke/
[9]: https://www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06/another-ice-threat-visit-how-did-agents-track-down-this-critic-on-his-vacation.html
[10]: https://bsky.app/profile/adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social/post/3mpdyb4udqc2y
[11]: https://archive.ph/o/PX8KO/https://www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06/federal-agents-track-down-syracuse-woman-demand-she-remove-instagram-post-about-ice.html
[12]: https://archive.ph/o/PX8KO/https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2026/04/ice-acting-director-todd-lyons-is-resigning-dhs-says.html
[13]: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/management/2026/04/ice-acting-director-todd-lyons-will-resign-at-end-of-may-dhs-says/
[14]: https://bsky.app/profile/adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social/post/3mpdz6n4cuk2d
[15]: https://www.ice.gov/opr
[16]: https://www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06/federal-agents-track-down-syracuse-woman-demand-she-remove-instagram-post-about-ice.html
[17]: https://archive.ph/o/IEcZ8/https://www.instagram.com/p/DTQ1FYDkyua/
[18]: https://archive.ph/o/IEcZ8/https://www.startribune.com/ice-agent-who-fatally-shot-woman-in-minneapolis-is-identified/601560214
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/07/ice-rebuts-nazi-allegations-by-going-full-gestapo-to-hunt-down-critics/

2026-07-07 19:59:08 CEST

The Courts’ Solution To Overpriced Court Records: Make Them More Expensive
For many, many years on Techdirt [we’ve bemoaned][1] the fact that federal court documents are not available for free as they should be. Instead, we have PACER, a bloated, expensive, difficult to use system that charges you for every “page” it loads up for you (including search results). The whole thing is a sham. Indeed, the law that allowed PACER to be established was based on the idea that, like photocopies, it cost money to “print” every page of every document. It also said that the fees PACER collected could only be used for… PACER. Instead, the fees far outpaced the actual costs, and the federal judiciary started using them for all sorts of other expenses. Courts have even told their own bosses at the judiciary that [they’re overcharging][2] beyond what the law allows.
And, really, it’s not even about the overcharging, though that is problematic. It’s about the freaking principle. Court documents are public documents and there is zero reason — when hosting a PDF costs essentially nothing and a server is not a photocopier — that they are not freely and immediately available to everyone.
The judiciary has claimed, for years, that making PACER free would be way too costly, which was totally undermined by a Congressional Budget Office analysis that said it would… [effectively be free][3] (PACER’s payment and user system is costly, ditching it and just making docs available would save money).
This week we were going to run a repost of an EFF blog post supporting [a bill that would make PACER free][4], also known as the Open Courts Act. Of course, similar bills come up almost every year… and… [go nowhere][5]. Because Congress does not care. They don’t believe they’re serving the public, so why should they make sure that the public has access to court documents?
Instead… the judiciary has spit in the face of the public and announced it’s actually [jacking up the fees][6]:
> *The U.S. federal judiciary on Friday said it will temporarily hike fees to download documents from its online court records system known as PACER in order to accelerate the development of a new, more secure case management and public access system.*
>
> *The executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the U.S., the judiciary’s top policymaking body, agreed ‌to increase the cost of downloading a court filing to 12 cents per page, up from the current 10 cents, for a five-year period starting January 1.*
Let me let you in on a secret that isn’t much of a secret. There’s basically no chance — absent Congress doing what it should and making PACER free — that the judiciary will ever allow the price to go back down from 12 cents a page. Hell, I still remember reporting when the Judicial Conference hiked the price [from 8 cents a page to 10 cents][7]. As we noted at the time, this was already an illegal overcharge. Hiking the price to 12 cents per page is an even bigger violation of the law.
There is zero basis for charging 8 cents or 10 cents or 12 cents or any cents a page for a freaking PDF. It may have been more expensive to host PDFs when PACER started, but it’s not now.
The Judicial Conference is simply blowing smoke when they claim this increase is necessary to make PACER secure.
> *“Unfortunately, without a modest increase in ⁠fees, we will not be able to collect enough money to cover the costs of delivering the case management system that the federal courts must have to continue to operate securely,” Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in a statement.*
Or — and this is the part the Judicial Conference doesn’t want to say out loud — if you made the documents publicly available without a login, you wouldn’t have any user data to secure in the first place. The security problem is a direct consequence of the fee system. Eliminate the fee system, eliminate the problem.
As always, the Judiciary pretends to then throw a bone to those who use PACER by saying they’ll up the “free” allocation:
> *To soften the blow, the judiciary said it would waive fees for users who spend $40 or less per quarter, an increase from the current $30 waiver. It said that will ensure that the vast majority of individual users, as opposed to law firms and other heavy PACER users, can avoid paying anything.*
How magnanimous: a few extra free documents before the meter starts running — on records that, by every reasonable principle of democratic accountability, belong to the public.
The federal judiciary is now demanding more money for PDF downloads to fix a security problem that is mostly caused because… they’re charging the public money for PDF downloads. There’s a simpler solution and it is: make these public documents public for free.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/tag/pacer/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/10/12/us-federal-courts-agree-to-refund-fees-they-overcharged-people-for-access-to-pacer/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/13/free-pacer-would-pretty-much-be-free-says-cbo-undercutting-federal-judiciarys-ridiculous-2-billion-estimate/
[4]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/court-records-should-be-free
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/27/free-pacer-access-heads-to-the-back-burner-again-as-legislators-pull-it-from-2023-budget-bill/
[6]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judiciary-hike-pacer-fees-fund-accelerated-system-upgrade-2026-06-26/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/09/16/federal-courts-making-it-more-expensive-to-access-records-even-as-theyre-swimming-cash/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/07/the-courts-solution-to-overpriced-court-records-make-them-more-expensive/

2026-07-07 18:30:43 CEST

Trump’s Reflecting Pool Failures To Be Taken Out On US Olympic Canoeist David Hearn
Yet another way Trump was going to make America great again was by giving one of his pool boys a no-bid contract to make the Lincoln Reflecting Pool even greater than it always had been. Rather than allow it to remain — at the very least — serviceable, Trump insisted the bottom needed to be “painted” a completely made up shade of “American flag blue” and then refilled to better reflect Trump’s glory upon himself.
What followed this combination of no-bid contracts and Trumpian hubris was completely expected. The redo underperformed while going over budget. And the water piped back into the pool was exactly the color one would expect given the circumstances. It sure as shit wasn’t “American flag blue.” Instead, it was stagnant-hot-water green, thanks to a surplus of algae that drowned out the blue paint/sealant/liner applied to the bottom of the pool.
Having been sufficiently embarrassed by his own actions, Trump decided to blame everyone else. If he had left it at blame, we probably wouldn’t even be writing about it. But he took it further, claiming everything from the peeling liner to [the presence of algae *itself*][1] were the actions of vandals and anti-Trump agitators.
Nobody honestly believes these claims, not even the guy making them. But plenty of people who have hitched their wagon to this childish bully are not only expected to give these wild theories credence, but expand and expound upon them from their federal offices. That’s why Interior Secretary Doug Burgum [is debasing himself during interviews][2]:
> *Speaking to Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Burgum said, “We’ve got all the photographs we can see” to prove that vandals cut portions of the pool bottom.*
Not stupid enough? Try this:
> *“If people are defaming our monuments, they should face the consequences of that,” Burgum said.*
Your monument looks like shit and was fucked up by a dipshit who shouldn’t be trusted to fill his own bathtub. That’s “defaming” a monument. It’s not like “defaming” was so close to the correct term that Burgum just accidentally hot-swapped some English while being casually questioned by a member of the press. That’s just the sort of sloppiness that’s to be expected from people who don’t really believe what they’re saying, nor care what anyone thinks about their bogus assertions.
As I said earlier, Trump being mad about not being able to make a pool better despite knowing the best pool guys isn’t news. That’s just Trump being Trump. What makes it *news* is when the administration [threatens journalists for reporting][3] on the pool revamp failure. What makes it *fascism* is when the administration [starts *arresting* people][4] because Trump refuses to admit some errors might have been made during his command performance of Make America But Especially This Pool American Flag Blue Again (For The First Time) With No Bid Contracts.
In the space of a single, distended paragraph, Trump inflated the size of the “slit” in the pool liner from 150 feet to 350 feet. In the [length of a single press conference][5], the DOJ claimed 14 reports of vandalism had resulted in five arrests.
Arresting five randos for imaginary crimes won’t satisfy Trump’s desire to see his feverish federal crimes dreams made a reality. [The administration now has a scapegoat just famous enough][6] to redirect a bit of the spotlight away from its outlandish claims and childish behavior.
> *U.S. Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn was indicted Thursday on a single count of destruction of property after he was accused of causing more than $1,000 worth of damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.*
>
> *Hearn was indicted on the felony charge in D.C. Superior Court.*
>
> *Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said National Park Service employees saw Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands on June 19.*
Whoa smol if true! Here’s what gets you a felony charge if you’re being prosecuted by a Trump puppet who absolutely has to buy into Trump’s pool vandals conspiracy theory:
> *Pirro alleged that Hearn damaged about 2 square feet of the sealant from the bottom of the pool.*
TWO. SQUARE. FEET.
The [total square footage][7] of the reflecting pool is ~339,000 square feet. If you choose to believe this allegation, this means Davey Hearn “damaged” *0.00059%* of the reflecting pool’s underbelly. You also have to believe Hearn was “forcefully and violently” yanking at this 0.00059%, rather than simply doing what she said he was doing, which was pulling up a floating chunk of separated liner to get a better look at it.
Stupider still:
> *“A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop, to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said at a news conference Thursday. “Hearn reacted by shouting at the parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the Reflecting Pool, and why did she even care, since it wasn’t her pool.”*
OH MY GOD. The Lincoln Reflecting Pool is *our* pool. While the Interior Department may oversee it, it belongs to the public. And it seems a lot of Americans care more about this botched makeover than Mr. America himself — someone so narcissistic he demanded it be redone to his specifications. And when those specifications went man-tits up, he decided to pretend vandalism, rather than no-bid contracts handed out to his pool buddies, was to blame for the algae bloom and the refusal of the lining to remain attached to the bottom of the pool.
The Department of the Interior continues to insist the lining was vandalized shortly after the project was completed and refilled. So do Trump and Jeanine Pirro, who will say anything Trump tells her to say. But it’s impossible to believe large-scale vandalism occurred without anyone gathering any supporting evidence, like video recordings or multiple sworn statements by witnesses. This was yet another one of Trump’s self-glorification projects, so of course it was going to be a target. But without more than Trump and his sycophants simply saying something happened, there’s no reason to believe what has been alleged has actually happened.
And in the case of Hearns, someone yanking on a small bit of dislodged lining isn’t anything anyone would seriously consider to be felonious vandalism. I mean, at least not normally. But nothing is normal anymore. This is a government that will destroy citizens’ lives, rather than take any responsibility for its failures.
[1]: https://www.factcheck.org/2026/06/trumps-unsupported-claims-about-reflection-pool-vandalism/
[2]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/05/burgum-vandals-reflecting-pool-00987197
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/24/trump-threatens-abc-for-doing-journalism-about-his-reflection-pool-screw-up/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/23/trump-starts-arresting-people-because-his-reflecting-pool-makeover-is-just-algae-and-peeling-paint/
[5]: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5934651-arrests-vandalism-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool/
[6]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-olympian-david-hearn-charged-reflecting-pool-vandalism-rcna352788
[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Memorial_Reflecting_Pool
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/07/trumps-reflecting-pool-failures-to-be-taken-out-on-us-olympic-canoeist-david-hearn/

2026-07-07 05:04:21 CEST

Yet Another Study Finds No Causal Link Between Tylenol & Autism
As you will recall, the combination of RFK Jr.’s announcement that he’d find a [root cause][1] for all this autism going around combined with Donald Trump’s idiotic claim that there *must* be some external [environmental cause][2] of all this autism going around resulted in both of these clowns telling America that pregnant women [taking Tylenol][3] is causing all this autism going around. Never mind how dehumanizing this all is towards the many, many human beings who are on the autism spectrum, nor the [other causes][4] RFK Jr. has [magically found][5] for autism.
There is no scientific reason to believe that any causal link between autism and prenatal use of Tylenol exists. But that hasn’t stopped people with far too much faith in this particular government from [refusing][6] to take Tylenol. It also hasn’t stopped from governmental bootlickers making asses of themselves [with lawsuits][7] against Kenvue, makers of Tylenol. Not long after this bullshit announcement, even RFK Jr. acknowledged that there is no proven causal link to be had here.
But if that isn’t good enough for you, quality scientific studies continue to be performed and demonstrate that no [link between Tylenol and autism can be found][8].
> *Another large study has found no link between autism and Tylenol use during pregnancy, refuting claims by President Trump and [anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr][9]. In [the new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine][10], researchers analyzed electronic health records from 2001 to 2023 for more than 700,000 pairs of mothers and children in Hong Kong. Of those pairs, about 43 percent of children had exposure to acetaminophen in utero.*
>
> *The researchers saw no link between prenatal acetaminophen use and either condition. It didn’t matter what dosage of acetaminophen was taken, when it was taken during the pregnancy (which trimester), how often it was taken, or how old the mother was at the time. There was simply no link between acetaminophen and autism or ADHD.*
Now, as has been the case with some previous studies, and what RFK Jr. and his cronies point to when they make this dumb claim, you *do* get some correlative linking if you drop the sibling-matched design and instead just correlate between prenatal Tylenol exposure and a diagnoses of autism. The problem is that if you perform what is called a “negative control” analysis, that link disappears again.
> *Interestingly, there was a link when the researchers dropped the sibling-matched design and instead compared acetaminophen-exposed with unexposed children, which is a finding that has come up in other studies. But when the researchers performed a “negative control” analysis and compared children whose mothers had taken acetaminophen before ever getting pregnant or after they had given birth compared to mothers who didn’t use the painkiller, they also saw an association—one that is “biologically implausible.”*
The idea behind a negative control analysis is to analyze a cohort of conditions that should* not *produce the experimental result, an autism diagnosis in this case. When it does anyway, you know that the previously perceived link isn’t really there. In this case, instances in which a mother took Tylenol before or after pregnancy and had a child that was diagnosed with autism shows that what could have been thought to be a link between the two is actually more likely exposing family, genetic, or environmental factors that are resulting in both a child with autism *and* a trigger for the mother, or future mother, to be taking Tylenol.
This is what we mean when we say there is correlation, but not causation. It is still a useful clue, in other words, but not in the way that Trump and Kennedy would have you believe. It indicates that the mothers who have taken Tylenol are experiencing something that is a trigger for doing so *and* may indicate some associated reason for producing a child with autism.
In other words, just because the paint is peeling off your walls and there is a blaring sound going off in your ears doesn’t mean that the blaring sound caused the paint to peel. Your house is on fire, causing both paint to peel and the smoke alarms to go off.
Which, frankly, happens to be a wonderful analogy for what it’s like to have RFK Jr. in charge of public health.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/14/rfk-jr-commits-to-knowing-the-cause-of-autism-by-september-of-this-year/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/28/dr-donald-trump-declares-that-autism-doesnt-occur-naturally/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/23/trump-admin-tells-expecting-mothers-to-avoid-tylenol-due-to-unproven-link-to-autism/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/21/clown-show-cdc-website-changed-to-suggest-vaccines-may-indeed-cause-autism/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/rfk-jr-discovers-second-cause-of-autism-foreskin-deficiency/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/09/real-consequences-trumps-bullshit-claim-about-tylenol-is-seeing-real-world-results/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/20/ken-paxtons-tylenol-lawsuit-is-off-to-a-terrible-start/
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/07/trump-and-rfk-jr-still-wrong-about-tylenol-and-autism-another-study-finds/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/09/anti-vaccine-groups-melt-down-over-reports-rfk-jr-to-link-autism-to-tylenol/
[10]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2850975?guestAccessKey=41c1ba2f-5a8b-4b37-a8b9-10f0073bb1d8&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=062926
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/06/yet-another-study-finds-no-causal-link-between-tylenol-autism/

2026-07-06 19:51:34 CEST

Daily Deal: Soundfreaq Sound Spot II Bluetooth Speaker
The [Soundfreaq Sound Spot II][1] combines wireless audio performance, ambient lighting, and relaxing sound features in a compact design built for modern lifestyles. Featuring a Bamboo and White finish with eco-friendly materials, this Bluetooth speaker complements bedrooms, offices, living rooms, and personal spaces while delivering both style and functionality. Engineered with a custom-designed audio driver, Bass Boost DSP technology, and a passive radiator, Sound Spot II delivers balanced sound with vocal clarity and enhanced bass performance. Beyond music playback, Sound Spot II includes built-in nature sounds, ambient lighting, and sleep timer functionality designed to help create a more relaxing environment. With Bluetooth connectivity, rechargeable battery power, and splash-resistant construction, it offers convenient performance for home and daily use. It’s on sale for $50.
*Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.*
[1]: https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/soundfreaq-sound-spot-ii-bluetooth-speaker-white?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/06/daily-deal-soundfreaq-sound-spot-ii-bluetooth-speaker/

2026-07-06 18:33:27 CEST

DOJ Using Gang, Terrorist Prosecutors To Ensure People Opposed To Trump Are Treated Like Gang Members, Terrorists
The authoritarianism has been out in the open pretty much since day one with this presidency. Things that leak out around the edges — unaccompanied by official statements, announcements, or randomly-capitalized Truth Social posts — would embarrass any normal administration. But with this administration, new information about new awfulness rarely manages to provoke even a shrug from government officials.
And in this case, why would the administration care that the public now knows who’s been put in charge of carrying out Trump’s plans to see his political opponents and public critics jailed? After all, Trump went on full main with this blast last September with a [National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7)][1], informing Americans that lots of them were now going to be [treated as enemies of the state][2]:
> *His latest “[countering domestic terrorism and organized political violence][3]” memorandum is basically him screaming “EVERYONE WHO DOESN’T LIKE ME IS A TERRORIST!” in official government letterhead.*
>
> *[…]*
>
> *Supporting immigration reform? Terrorist. LGBTQ+ rights? Terrorist. Criticizing his failures? Terrorist! Calling out his authoritarianism? All terrorism, apparently.*
The intent was never in question. What mattered was whether or not the administration could make this a reality. And it did. The Trump DOJ (let’s not pretend it has any independence) [managed to secure terrorism convictions][4] against people involved in an anti-ICE protest in Texas. One suspect was charged with providing material support simply because he drove boxes full of “leftwing magazines” from one place to another.
Thanks to Trump unilaterally declaring most forms of opposition to his particular government to be terrorism, the person who transported the anti-fascist, left-leaning magazines in his car has now been [sentenced to thirty years in prison][5], thanks to terrorism sentencing enhancements.
These are charges that have stuck. Most haven’t. And apparently the administration feels it might have the wrong people handling the politically motivated prosecutions of Trump’s opponents. Plenty of turnover has already happened as Trump DOJ appointees find out it’s [pretty much impossible][6] to push Trump’s authoritarian desires past grand juries and the criminal courts beyond. [High-profile failures][7] in high-profile prosecutions mean Trump constantly has to find someone else willing to throw themselves under the bus, along with whatever integrity or career plans they might have on them.
But Trump also wants the little people punished, even if all he knows about them is that they’re opposed to his practices and policies. [Talking Points Memo is naming names][8], being the first to discover who’s now leading the charge to create a whole new class of political prisoners.
> *The Department of Justice has tapped two prosecutors with expertise in organized crime and terrorism prosecutions to implement a White House directive to crack down on its political opponents, a department spokesperson confirmed to TPM.*
>
> *[…]*
>
> *Brian W. Lynch, a Violent Crime and Racketeering Section prosecutor since 2020 with experience on the Guantanamo prosecution team, and Jason Kellhofer, a longtime counterterrorism prosecutor in Raleigh, North Carolina, are running the initiative as co-directors. They’re likely to bring extensive experience with tools used to take down sophisticated and violent criminal organizations, as well as to nip terrorist plots in the bud: real-time interception of communications, aggressive use of conspiracy statutes, confidential informants. They’re now running a task force whose purpose is to implement [NSPM-7, which directed law enforcement to treat beliefs like “anti-Americanism, anti-Capitalism, and anti-Christianity”][9] as warning signs for political violence.*
The administration’s willingness to confirm TPM’s information makes it clear it doesn’t care what anyone thinks about its actions or shifting of priorities. Not only does this show that the administration cares more about locking up protesters than going after actually dangerous criminals and terrorists, it also thinks moving these people into these positions will somehow make its bogus prosecutions sustainable. To date — with the notable exception of the terrorist charges discussed earlier — almost every effort to convert arrests of protesters to felony convictions has failed.
“Just following orders,” as they say. Except that’s not what the DOJ is supposed to be doing. But because it’s decided it serves a king, rather than a country, the failures it has repeatedly experienced were always to be expected.
> *[Trump has] personally directed prosecutors to charge his critics; the DOJ helped deliver a settlement in which the IRS [agreed][10] to never audit Trump for any past tax returns. Prosecutors have [pursued hundreds][11] of cases against anti-Trump protesters across the country that they were then [forced][12] to drop after the evidence failed to sustain the charges in court. *
Of additional interest is the fact that one of the prosecutors elevated to handle Trump’s personal revenge plans (Brian Lynch) spent years contributing to MAGA-adjacent site American Thinker, including engaging in [some COVID denialism][13] and claiming the “media” would “stop at nothing” to prevent Trump from being re-elected in 2020. One assumes he will bring this same enthusiasm to his new position, which will allow him to go after Trump critics — a cross-section of America that will likely include members of the press at some point.
These acts endanger the country and democracy itself. And they’re being done by people who have (falsely) claimed for nearly a decade now that loving Trump is the equivalent of loving this country.
[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/26/trump-declares-everyone-who-doesnt-kiss-his-ass-is-a-terrorist/
[3]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/
[4]: https://techdirt.com/2026/03/17/doj-prosecutors-somehow-manage-to-secure-terrorism-convictions-against-anti-ice-protesters/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/24/he-moved-a-box-of-leftist-zines-magas-favorite-judge-just-gave-him-30-years/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/16/welcome-to-the-resistance-grand-juries/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/13/trumps-loyalist-prosecutors-continue-to-get-kicked-off-cases-because-theyre-not-legally-appointed/
[8]: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/exclusive-doj-taps-gang-terrorism-prosecutors-to-crack-down-on-political-groups
[9]: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-trump-admins-mostly-unnoticed-move-to-crack-down-on-the-opposition
[10]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/u-s-government-agrees-to-drop-tax-claims-against-trump-in-broadening-of-irs-lawsuit-settlement
[11]: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chicago-protestors-reel-after-fending-off-federal-charges
[12]: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-admin-retreats-from-domestic-terrorist-cases-against-chicago-protestors
[13]: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/fake_news_media_manipulate_coronavirus_death_toll.html
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/06/doj-using-gang-terrorist-prosecutors-to-ensure-people-opposed-to-trump-are-treated-like-gang-members-terrorists/

2026-07-04 21:00:26 CEST

This Week In Techdirt History: June 28th – July 4th
**This Week in 2016**
* [Copyright Office Pushing Dangerous And Ridiculous Plan To Strip Websites Of DMCA Safe Harbors][1]
* [Judge Calls Out Malibu Media For Its Attempt To Cut And Run When Faced With Challenge To Its Infringement Claims][2]
* [Hillary Clinton’s Tech Policy Plan Includes Some Empty Broadband Promises And A Continued War On Encryption][3]
* [Malibu Media Sues Its Former Lawyer Over Missing Funds, Breach Of Bar Rules][4]
* [Michael Bloomberg Comes Down On The Wrong Side Of The Crypto Wars: Supports Backdooring Encryption][5]
* [Ford Dealership Swipes Game Image For Ad, Thinks It’s Kosher Because It Came From A DMCA Compliant Site][6]
**This Week in 2011**
* [Supreme Court Says Anti-Violent Video Game Law Violates The First Amendment][7]
* [Righthaven Charged With Racketeering In Somewhat Epic Filing][8]
* [Petition To South Carolina Supreme Court Charges Righthaven With Unauthorized Practice Of Law][9]
* [Want To Give Righthaven’s Backers A Taste Of Their Own Medicine?][10]
* [California Politician Who Wrote Unconstitutional Anti-Video Game Law Plans To Try Again With New Law][11]
* [Righthaven: Blame Our Clueless Lawyer, But Don’t Sanction Us, For Failing To Name Stephens Media As An Interested Party][12]
**This Week in 2006**
* [Nathan Myhrvold’s Bait And Switch Plan On Patent Hoarding][13]
* [Why Is The Canadian Government Paying The Copyright Lobby?][14]
* [Sony BMG Rootkit Virus Writers Arrested][15]
* [RIAA’s Latest Legal Strategy: Sue Globally; Promote Locally][16]
* [Freeloaders Are Not The Issue][17]
* [Grokster’s Impact On File Sharing? Uh… Not Much][18]
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/27/copyright-office-pushing-dangerous-ridiculous-plan-to-strip-websites-dmca-safe-harbors/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/27/judge-calls-out-malibu-media-attempt-to-cut-run-when-faced-with-challenge-to-infringement-claims/
[3]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/28/hillary-clintons-tech-policy-plan-includes-some-empty-broadband-promises-continued-war-encryption/
[4]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/29/malibu-media-sues-former-lawyer-over-missing-funds-breach-bar-rules/
[5]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/01/michael-bloomberg-comes-down-wrong-side-crypto-wars-supports-backdooring-encryption/
[6]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/07/01/ford-dealership-swipes-game-image-ad-thinks-kosher-because-it-came-dmca-compliant-site/
[7]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/27/supreme-court-says-anti-violent-video-game-law-violates-first-amendment/
[8]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/27/righthaven-charged-with-racketeering-somewhat-epic-filing/
[9]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/28/petition-to-south-carolina-supreme-court-charges-righthaven-with-unauthorized-practice-law/
[10]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/28/want-to-give-righthavens-backers-taste-their-own-medicine/
[11]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/29/california-politician-who-wrote-unconstitutional-anti-video-game-law-plans-to-try-again-with-new-law/
[12]: https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/30/righthaven-blame-our-clueless-lawyer-dont-sanction-us-failing-to-name-stephens-media-as-interested-party/
[13]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/26/nathan-myhrvolds-bait-and-switch-plan-on-patent-hoarding/
[14]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/26/why-is-the-canadian-government-paying-the-copyright-lobby/
[15]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/27/sony-bmg-rootkit-virus-writers-arrested/
[16]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/28/riaas-latest-legal-strategy-sue-globally-promote-locally/
[17]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/29/freeloaders-are-not-the-issue/
[18]: https://www.techdirt.com/2006/06/30/groksters-impact-on-file-sharing-uh-not-much/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/04/this-week-in-techdirt-history-june-28th-july-4th/

2026-07-01 00:28:37 CEST

Alito Made ‘History and Tradition’ His Signature Weapon. Too Bad He Doesn’t Seem To Know Any History.
Call me crazy, but I tend to think when Supreme Court Justices make a big sweeping statement in one case, they should actually follow it through with other cases. You may recall, for example, that [in the Dobbs case][1], where the right to an abortion was overturned, Justice Samuel Alito took the ‘history and tradition’ test and made it the centerpiece of modern conservative jurisprudence — using it to wipe out a 50-year-old precedent. Specifically, his reason for overturning Roe v. Wade was that he, a very weak amateur historian, could find no support for such a right in the history at the time the 14th Amendment was passed.
That very bad amateur historian shtick was on display again this week in the (otherwise good) decision in [Watson v. the Republican National Committee][2], regarding whether or not the federal government could invalidate mail-in ballots received after election day. The majority, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and joined by Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, pointed out that (duh!) while the federal government sets the date of the presidential election, the states get to determine how those elections are run, including how the ballots are counted, including absentee ballots.
Barrett goes through the history of how absentee and “mail-in” ballots have been used since the Civil War, and for over a century many states have allowed them to be counted, so long as they were post-marked by election day. And democracy has survived without any indication of any problem with those mail-in ballots arriving after election day.
But, to Justice Alito, this is the end of democracy. In a typically overwrought dissent, he claims that this move (which again, many states started doing over a century ago), upsets the entire concept of an election.
> *The acceptance of these late-arriving ballots effectively postpones the date on which the electorate’s choice is made, and federal law precludes that postponement.*
But as Barrett notes in the majority opinion, federal law sets the date of the election, not the date of the vote counting, or the date results get announced. Those are different things, and Alito pretending they’re the same is bizarre for someone who seems to think history should be his guide in legal issues. The majority points out:
> *The Constitution requires the “Day on which [the electors] shall give their Votes” to be “the same throughout the United States.” Art. II, §1, cl. 4. But it says nothing about the day for receipt, and, of course, 18th-century modes of transmission did not offer same-day delivery. The Constitution therefore envisions a system in which receipt is necessarily divorced from voting, and it sets the crucial, uniform day as the day of voting, leaving receipt to happen down the line. The federal election-day statutes follow the same pattern: They set when the people “shall give their Votes,” ibid., but leave open when those votes must be received.*
And here, Alito’s complete ignorance of the history of American elections shines through. All we need to do is go back to *the very first presidential election* of George Washington, in which election day was set as February 4th, 1789, but Congress waited until April 6th of that year to fully gather and actually count and certify those votes — over a month past the originally planned March 4 inauguration date. The votes were all technically “submitted” — you could loosely say “mailed in” by election day — but it took two months to actually count them (and then over a week for anyone to tell George Washington he’d been elected).
So, I’m sorry, but Alito can spare me with the idea that counting ballots that arrive after election day somehow “postpones the day on which the electorate’s choice is made.” That’s just utter bullshit and wholly inconsistent with the history of this country and the way elections work. The actual election day can be a single day, but the votes can be counted way later, and the results announced even later. Saying that it violates the historical concept of “election day” to allow mail-in ballots that are post-marked by election day makes zero sense at all.
And it’s not like the Washington situation was a one-off of a young country trying to sort out its presidential election system. Four elections later, in the infamous 1800 presidential battle between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the US had to wait until months later when the matter went to the House to resolve (perhaps Alito should rewatch the musical Hamilton, which dramatizes this moment).
Or the elections of John Quincy Adams, which was also sent to the House to decide long after election day. Or the infamous Hayes-Tilden fight in 1876, where many of the votes were disputed and it took a specific (and possibly corrupt) “Electoral Commission” to sort things out and give the election to Hayes just days before the inauguration was set to take place.
No matter how you look at it: the US has a long “history and tradition” of voting on election day, and then (sometimes) taking a great long while to sort out who actually won, including waiting to count all the ballots. Mail-in ballots that are post-marked by election day and counted later are perfectly within that tradition, no matter what Alito has to say.
Alito’s entire jurisprudential brand is built on the idea that history and tradition should constrain what courts can do. He made that the centerpiece of Dobbs. But when that same history turns around and bites him — when it turns out the United States has a long, consistent tradition of counting ballots well after election day — suddenly history doesn’t matter anymore. What matters, apparently, is whether the outcome suits the narrative. That’s Alito retrofitting a legal standard to reach an outcome he desires. It should be seen as an embarrassment for a Supreme Court Justice to do so, but as we’ve all learned, Alito has zero shame in cooking up pretenses to reach his desired outcome.
[1]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
[2]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1260_g3cn.pdf
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/30/alito-made-history-and-tradition-his-signature-weapon-too-bad-he-doesnt-seem-to-know-any-history/

2026-06-17 00:35:32 CEST

Fox News Viewership Increases Belief In False Conspiracy Theories About Immigration
*This article is republished from [The Conversation][1] under a Creative Commons license. Read the [original article][2].*
During [a Washington Nationals baseball game][3] on May 17, 2026, three people [unfurled a large banner][4] from the upper deck of Nationals Park displaying a link to a white nationalist website.
The website, warning of the replacement of whites by people of color, called for [the deportation of 100 million people][5] from the United States.
The disturbing incident reflects the broader [ascendance of the “great replacement theory][6],” the xenophobic conspiracy theory asserting that shadowy elites are embracing permissive immigration policies to replace native-born white Americans with immigrants of color.
[Prominent Republicans][7], including [President Donald Trump][8], [Speaker of the House Mike Johnson][9] and [conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson][10], have echoed ideas associated with the great replacement theory. And [conservative media outlets][11], such as [Fox News][12], have disseminated them to millions of viewers.
But are the xenophobic ideas recently expressed at Nationals Park limited to a small number of extremists, or are they also endorsed by the broader public? If the latter, how do political and media elites contribute to their spread?
To answer these questions, our team has conducted several [nationally representative surveys][13] that ask Americans about their support for key tenets of the great replacement theory.
## New immigrants as a threat
We consistently found that [a substantial minority of Americans][14] agree with the sentiment that new immigrants threaten the political, cultural and economic power of white Americans. In our latest poll of 1,000 Americans fielded in March 2026, 36% agreed with the statement: “Native-born Americans are losing their economic, political, and cultural influence in this country because of the growing population of immigrants.”
A notable number of Americans – 26% – also believed political elites are trying to “replace” the existing white population, agreeing with the statement: “There are people who secretly work to make sure immigrants will eventually replace real Americans.”
Support for these beliefs is concentrated most heavily among white Americans, Republicans, conservatives and self-identifying members of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Indeed, more than 3 in 4 members of the MAGA movement and close to 6 in 10 Republicans agreed with the statement: “Immigrants invade and colonize the United States.”
But what explains this spread of the great replacement theory?
In [our newly published, peer-reviewed study][15], we used nationally representative panel survey data that [tracked over 500 white Americans over time][16] to attempt to answer this question.
We found that white Americans who identified as Republican, who are conservatives and who have [negative views of people from other racial backgrounds][17] are all more likely to express support for key tenets of the great replacement theory. Moreover, we uncovered clear evidence that white Americans who watch Fox News are also more likely to agree with the conspiracy theory.
Given the popularity of Fox News, we believe this latter point deserved further investigation. As detailed in our paper, while 39% of all white Americans agree that immigrants invade and colonize the U.S., 61% of white Americans who watch Fox News agree with this view. Even when taking into account partisan identification, ideology, racial attitudes and demographic characteristics, Fox News viewership remains significantly associated with more support for the great replacement theory.
Additionally, because we tracked white Americans over time, we could observe changes in their support for the conspiracy theory in response to variations in their viewership of Fox News. Simply put, the more Fox News programming that a white American watches, the more likely they are to adopt the conspiracy theory.
## Links to political violence
Our research builds on decades of work showing that public opinion is strongly influenced by media consumption. Recent scholarship, in particular, highlights the influence of Fox News on public opinion. It shows how exposure to Fox News leads Americans to express more conservative attitudes about the [COVID-19 pandemic][18], [immigration policies][19] and [criminal justice issues][20].
Given [the attention that Fox News hosts][21], elected officials and pundits dedicate to the great replacement theory, our results suggest that this coverage has indeed influenced the views of white Americans. The great replacement theory is no longer purely on the fringes of society.
In our view, this is troubling, not only because the conspiracy theory treats immigration as an existential issue — where the stakes are framed as the very preservation of one’s self and country — but also because the theory is also linked to [numerous instances of political violence][22] directed at people of color and religious minorities.
As America approaches its 250th birthday, the nation will no doubt continue to grapple with the topic of immigration, race and what it means to be an American.
While there’s plenty of room for disagreement over immigration policy, conspiracy theories make it much harder to find common ground or craft political compromises. What we’ve found is that when prominent media embrace conspiracy theorizing, increased public endorsement of conspiracies will follow.
*[Adam Eichen][23] is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at [UMass Amherst][24]; [Jesse Rhodes][25] is Associate Professor of Political Science at [UMass Amherst][26], and [Tatishe Nteta][27] is Provost Professor of Political Science at [UMass Amherst][28]*
[1]: https://theconversation.com/
[2]: https://theconversation.com/how-fox-news-viewership-increases-belief-in-the-anti-immigrant-great-replacement-theory-283950
[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7287471/2026/05/17/nationals-white-nationalist-sign-ban/
[4]: https://www.mlb.com/news/nationals-investigating-individuals-banner
[5]: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7287471/2026/05/17/nationals-white-nationalist-sign-ban/
[6]: https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory-a-scholar-of-race-relations-explains-224835
[7]: https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/trump-pushed-replacement-theory-during-debate-mainstream-media-fact-checks-sanitized
[8]: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/g-s1-22583/trump-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory
[9]: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/trump-mike-johnson-promote-great-222624801.html
[10]: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/25/1171800317/how-tucker-carlsons-extremist-narratives-shaped-fox-news-and-conservative-politi
[11]: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/25/1171800317/how-tucker-carlsons-extremist-narratives-shaped-fox-news-and-conservative-politi
[12]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/us/replacement-theory-shooting-tucker-carlson.html
[13]: https://www.umass.edu/political-science/umass-amherst-poll
[14]: https://www.umass.edu/political-science/about/reports/2026-4
[15]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/16579947898070845A02E0B7FA80EF2B/S1049096525101856a.pdf/follow-the-fox-elite-influence-and-white-support-for-the-great-replacement-theory.pdf
[16]: https://www.russellsage.org/research/grants/understanding-voices-diverse-electorate-through-american-multiracial-panel-study
[17]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/fear-institutionalized-racism-and-empathy-the-underlying-dimensions-of-whites-racial-attitudes/F6205AFDA74F11AAAA518DA240AC7995
[18]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/426C07EADC0D1E49D4AD26233C4CB9B8/S1047198723000219a.pdf/div-class-title-the-effect-of-fox-news-on-health-behavior-during-covid-19-div.pdf
[19]: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/12402
[20]: https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead108
[21]: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/list-fox-hosts-and-personalities-who-have-pushed-great-replacement-theory
[22]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-suspect-posted-apparent-manifesto-repeate-rcna28889
[23]: https://theconversation.com/profiles/adam-eichen-1517994
[24]: https://theconversation.com/institutions/umass-amherst-1563
[25]: https://theconversation.com/profiles/jesse-rhodes-141349
[26]: https://theconversation.com/institutions/umass-amherst-1563
[27]: https://theconversation.com/profiles/tatishe-nteta-1515087
[28]: https://theconversation.com/institutions/umass-amherst-1563
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/16/fox-news-viewership-increases-belief-in-false-conspiracy-theories-about-immigration/

2026-06-08 19:54:34 CEST

Bari Weiss Asked 60 Minutes To Lie. Scott Pelley Had Already Done Plenty On His Own.
Scott Pelley just gave an interview to the NY Times that reveals two damning things at once: Bari Weiss tried to get him to falsely describe a shooting victim as driving toward the officer who killed her — and Pelley had already bent over backwards to make protesters look as bad as possible before she even asked. That second part is the part most people are glossing over.
To understand why none of this is surprising, you need to understand what Weiss has actually been doing at CBS. Indeed, we’ve covered a bit of the [Bari Weissification][1] of CBS News over the past few months. Remember, Weiss had no real reporting experience (she was a columnist, not a reporter) and zero broadcast experience. She was picked because, as my colleague Karl keeps reminding people, she’s mastered the ability to comfort the powerful by telling them exactly what they want to hear.
Radley Balko had a wonderful piece this weekend detailing how Weiss’s publication, The Free Press (which CBS massively overpaid for in order [to get Weiss to come over][2] and drive CBS News into the ground), seems to [specialize in laundering bullshit, bigoted Trump talking points][3] to sound like they’re mainstream “centrist” wisdom.
> *Of course, Weiss understands perfectly well the moment we’re in. She knows she wasn’t put in charge of CBS News because of her skeptical nature or keen journalistic eye. She was put in charge because she has shown that *[*she can leverage*][4]* a carefully crafted image as an iconoclast and teller of truths to *[*launder MAGA propaganda*][5]* so that it’s more palatable to centrists. She was put in charge because the Ellisons need Trump’s blessing for their mega merger – and if ever there was a favor tailor-made to win Trump’s approval, it’s kneecapping a major news network and toppling one of the last remaining pillars of broadcast journalism in the process.*
Balko’s piece details how Weiss has done this with immigration:
> *When it launched in January 2021, the publication leaned heavily into the “Biden’s open borders crisis” narrative.*[* And while*][6]* it *[*still publishes*][7]* occasional*[* pro-immigration*][8]* pieces, that perspective has been overwhelmed by*[* its water-carrying*][9]* for the right on more *[*immigration-adjacent*][10]* issues like*[* crime*][11]*, Gaza,*[* multiculturalism*][12]*, protest and*[* campus activism*][13]*,*[* anti-elitism*][14]* (a fairly*[* hilarious position*][15]* given*[* the social status*][16]* of Weiss and her cadre of billionaire funders), and disdain for NGOs, academia, and institutions like USAID.*
>
> *Rowley, who started writing for The Free Press at the end of 2023, was formerly a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, the think tank that employs rabid anti-immigrant voices like Heather Mac Donald and Christopher “They’re Eating Your Pets” Rufo. A recent sampling of her social media feed makes pretty clear where her politics lie: She has*[* pined for the days*][17]* of prison slave labor,*[* praised Donald Trump*][18]*,*[* amplified Rufo*][19]*,*[* pushed general anti-immigrant propaganda*][20]*, and simped for authoritarian Trump policies like*[* pursuing “fraud” claims*][21]* against defense attorneys*[* who represent people seeking asylum*][22]*.*
He goes through, in detail, how that one reporter, Madeline Rowley, completely misrepresented issues related to refugee resettlement in a manner that not only pleased the Trump administration, but set up a sort of mutual back-scratching between the Free Press and the Trump administration.
There’s a *lot* more in Balko’s piece, and it’s well worth reading (and should give you pause before ever trusting anything that a Weiss-controlled news organization puts out).
All of that is useful background as you read the interview that [just fired][23] 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley [gave to the NY Times this weekend][24]. There’s a lot in there, but here’s the bit that I wanted to discuss:
> ***You’ve now accused Weiss of injecting “***[***falsehoods and bias***][25]***” into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did she specifically ask for? What story?**** That’s February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown there. We’ve interviewed Senator Rand Paul, Republican, because he’s going to hold hearings into this, and the fact that a Republican was going to do that was quite newsworthy. So, we interviewed Senator Paul and then built out a story about what had happened — the killing of Renee Good, the killing of Alex Pretti, the protests. I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively. We found a picture of a protester chest-bumping an officer. We found a picture of an officer being hit in the head
> with a snowball. We culled together a lot of video of protesters screaming in the faces of officers because we were going to talk about the killing of Pretti and the killing of Good, and it seemed to me important to tell the audience about the entire context. I thought we’d done a really good job with this. We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did.*
>
> *So, the story goes through screenings. It’s very well received. There are notes as always and we do rewrites as always. But this is on a very tight deadline. It’s Sunday; we’re going on the air that night. And in the case of stories that are, as we say, crashing, our deadline on Sunday is noon. So, we work on all of these things. We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.*
>
> *This is not what you see on the video. On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company.*
>
> *We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.*
There’s a lot in there, and many people are (understandably) focused on the ridiculous demands that Weiss made to inject clear bias and falsehoods into the report. But what should stand out even more is that Pelley here freely admits that he and the team at 60 Minutes had *already* inserted massive bias into the report, deliberately searching out footage that showed protesters in the worst possible light — “I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively” — even if that was an outlier from the rest of the protests. He even made sure to include the fact that Pretti had, on a previous occasion at a different protest, kicked out a taillight on a federal agent’s car — information that has zero bearing whether or not CBP officers were justified in murdering him.
But Pelley insists that he had to do this to make the piece as “fair” as possible.
He doesn’t mean “fair.” He means the poisonous “view from nowhere” form of “fairness” — the one where if one side does something bad (say, murder a random person for protesting violent government agents kidnapping their neighbors) you have to show *something* to suggest “well, maybe they deserved it.”
That is already ridiculous, and should be a clear condemnation of where CBS News and 60 Minutes already have their heads at. The same company that had [previously paid a bribe][26] to the president to get its merger with Paramount approved has long been chickenshit about reporting accurately on anything that might make MAGA sad.
Weiss’s hiring was never about taking a “leftist” news organization and making it more balanced or right-leaning. It was always about taking a news organization that has been appeasing authoritarians for decades and ramping up that effort — making it even better at laundering MAGA bullshit to an unsuspecting public.
And, as Balko notes in his piece, that’s one thing Weiss has shown she’s truly experienced at doing.
[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/tag/bari-weiss/
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/07/paramount-formally-hires-bari-weiss-to-turn-whats-left-of-cbs-news-into-a-soggy-right-wing-propaganda-and-troll-farm/
[3]: https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/how-bari-weisss-free-press-laundered
[4]: https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-free-press-passage-into-the-dark
[5]: https://www.persuasion.community/p/when-anti-woke-becomes-pro-trump
[6]: https://www.thefp.com/p/they-want-to-dismantle-the-system
[7]: https://www.thefp.com/p/this-isnt-a-life-say-immigrants-ice-deportations
[8]: https://www.thefp.com/p/meet-the-ukrainian-refugees-being
[9]: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-west-is-on-a-suicide-mission
[10]: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-german-establishments-last-chance
[11]: https://www.thefp.com/p/illegal-immigrant-crime-is-its-own-kind-of-tragedy
[12]: https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-things-worth-remembering-the-dangers-of-multiculturalism-mark-steyn
[13]: https://www.thefp.com/p/exclusive-student-visa-applicants-social-media-check
[14]: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-prophet-of-trumps-second-term?utm_source=publication-search
[15]: https://www.thefp.com/p/peter-thiel-honestly-trump-jd-vance
[16]: https://www.publicenlightenment.com/p/bari-weiss-brought-to-you-by-billionaires
[17]: https://x.com/Maddie_Rowley_/status/2046214381692694551
[18]: https://x.com/Maddie_Rowley_/status/2060054069926900002
[19]: https://x.com/Maddie_Rowley_/status/2059343091811983653
[20]: https://x.com/Maddie_Rowley_/status/2046214381692694551
[21]: https://x.com/Maddie_Rowley_/status/2059348721939157227
[22]: https://reason.com/2026/05/28/dhs-directs-ice-to-crack-down-on-allegedly-fraudulent-asylum-claims/
[23]: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/03/cbs-fires-scott-pelley-for-telling-bari-weiss-the-truth/
[24]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/magazine/scott-pelley-interview.html
[25]: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZHlWAoG3_3/?img_index=5
[26]: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/03/institutional-failure-cbs-wimps-out-pays-trump-16-million-bribe-to-settle-baseless-lawsuit/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/08/bari-weiss-asked-60-minutes-to-lie-scott-pelley-had-already-done-plenty-on-his-own/