If cops aren’t going to follow the law or the Constitution, I don’t know why we’re expecting them to adhere to end user agreements. It’s not just the fake social media profiles officers and investigators use. It’s also the tech they deploy. No matter how well facial recognition tech may perform, it’s still problematic. And […]
There have been legitimate debates about whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — which makes it a criminal act for US entities to bribe foreign government officials — sometimes creates gray areas in international business. For example, over a decade ago, the Walmart Mexico case highlighted how Walmart payments to “speed up” permitting to build […]
As if things weren’t terrible enough, the techbros of the world have decided the one-two punch of Donald Trump and Elon Musk will make them even richer than they already are, even if it means making the world a worse place to live… or suddenly die. Palantir has been on the leading edge of surveillance […]
Six Sigma is a detail-orientated crafted set of tools and techniques that help improve processes within an organization. The main goal of the Six Sigma certification is simple: to equip individuals with the skills to recognize errors in a business process and remove them. You will receive an introduction to the tools and methods that […]
Before the election, Elon Musk declared: “I think that the strong bias with respect to government information should be to make it available to the public. Let’s be as transparent as possible. Fully transparent.” When one of his fanboys tweeted that quote, Elon responded by making an even bigger claim, saying: “There should be no […]
Last year Mozilla released a report showcasing how the auto industry has some of the worst privacy practices of any tech industry in America (no small feat). Massive amounts of driver behavior is collected by your car, and even more is hoovered up from your smartphone every time you connect. This data isn’t secured, often isn’t encrypted, […]
While we all know the “Thin Blue Line” flag is just a bastardization meant to signify cops are above the law, there’s no constitutional way we can forbid cops from displaying their deliberate antagonism against their obligations to the people they serve: things like transparency, accountability, and the service and protection so many law enforcement […]
I’m quite certain that by now, a few weeks into the second Trump term, many or most of our readers are already tired of the coverage over the administration’s actions. And if that’s you, your quarrel is not with us. It’s with the administration and its plainly stated strategy of “flooding the zone with shit” […]
I’ve long maintained the certitude that anti-pornography campaigners aligned with the far-right and conservative Christian movements are directly or indirectly transphobic and anti-LGBTQ. A body of evidence in my own reporting and experiences covering the rights of sex workers and the online pornography business has built out this schema of anti-LGBTQ and anti-pornography campaigners being tied at the […]
The collapse of our democratic institutions isn’t unstoppable. Saving them requires understanding what we’re fighting for—and how human freedom actually works in our technological age. Truth isn’t complicated. It lives in simple principles we all understand: People deserve a voice in decisions that shape their lives. Our ability to think and choose depends on accurate […]
Last week, we highlighted how the richest person on the planet — Elon Musk, who currently appears to have unparalleled, Constitutionally-violating control over the US government — was running around repeating every confused 4chan dipshit’s conspiracy theory about USAID, all of which were easily debunked if you… understood how reality worked. Now it turns out […]
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Early Saturday morning a judge imposed an emergency temporary restraining order in response to the State of New York v. Trump litigation. This particular lawsuit was brought by several (blue) state attorney generals against Trump, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, and the Treasury department itself. The order, in short, tells DOGE to get out […]
A stunning 54% of Americans now believe we’re in a Constitutional crisis, according to recent YouGov polling. They’re right. As a tech billionaire effectively dismantles federal agencies without Congressional authority — agencies that Congress explicitly created and funded — we’re watching in real-time as our system of checks and balances crumbles. Yet supporters of the […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about the assault on the idea that laws have any meaning at all: A lot of people—especially in right-wing circles—tend to forget that the process of civilization is the process of everyone forgetting that they can grab a […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, Facebook paid out a hefty settlement in a facial recognition lawsuit in Illinois, which looked like bad news for the also-just-sued new kid on the block: Clearview AI, about whom we were learning lots of disturbing new things. In an ongoing attempt to avoid its own similar problems, […]
Last June, Louisiana became the third state to decide the US Constitution was subservient to cops’ wishes that they not be filmed while performing their public duties. Arizona had already tried this twice, starting at 25 feet before trimming the “halo” to an 8-foot diameter. It didn’t matter. A federal court permanently blocked the law […]
And there you have it. It was a mere couple of weeks back that I wrote about the Kansas City Chiefs potential to reach the Super Bowl and go for a third straight title and how that would mean you’d start hearing a whole lot about Pat Riley. I don’t want to say I told […]
A little over a year ago, Maine residents voted overwhelmingly (83 percent) to pass a new state right to repair law designed to make auto repairs easier and more affordable. More specifically, the law requires that automakers standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data to consumers and third-party independent repair shops. […]
In a stunning escalation that confirms our worst fears, the UK government has finally shown its true hand on encryption — and it’s even worse than we predicted. According to a bombshell report from Joseph Menn at the Washington Post, British officials have ordered Apple to create a backdoor that would allow them to access […]
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