When Congress eventually reopens, the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will be moving toward a vote. This gives us a chance to see the priorities of the Secretary of Defense and his Congressional allies when it comes to the military—and one of those priorities is buying technology, especially AI, with less of an obligation to prove it’s effective […]
Within twenty-four hours of Republicans getting crushed in elections they’d convinced themselves were winnable, Fox News deployed the counter-move. Not denial—the losses were too visible for that. Bret Baier had already explained to Fox & Friends viewers how bad it was. “It’s a big loss,” he said. Not just the results, but “the spreads are surprising.” Not acceptance—that would […]
VPN company CyberGhost just sent Cloudflare a bogus DMCA takedown demand, claiming that our article about their last bogus copyright takedown demand, somehow violates their copyright. I’m not sure I’d trust a VPN company that fucks up this badly. There are a lot of sketchy VPN companies out there, and it’s sometimes tricky to tell […]
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This news should be far more heartening than it is. In any normal version of the United States, it might have been. The administration’s willingness to perpetrate immoral and illegal evil on a daily basis has outpaced efforts by citizens and the judicial branch to stem the tide. Still, maybe this is hopeful? I mean, […]
Last year almost a dozen major U.S. ISPs were the victim of a massive, historic intrusion by Chinese hackers who managed to spy on public U.S. officials for more than a year. The “Salt Typhoon” hack was so severe, the intruders spent much of the last year rooting around the ISP networks even after discovery. AT&T and Verizon, […]
We knew this was coming, but it doesn’t make it any less stupid. The road to the IRS’ Direct File program was long and hard-fought. We here at Techdirt have been talking about, and advocating for, something like the Direct File program for at least 15 years. The concept behind the program is a simple […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online […]
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. ⚠️ This story contains videos showing violence. President Donald Trump and officials in his administration say National Guard troops are needed in “War ravaged” Portland, Oregon, to protect a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that he described as being under siege. But a ProPublica review […]
Last week, I wrote about how the Trump administration has replaced any sort of concept of governance with governance-by-trolling—a government optimized purely for making a huge segment of the country angry while the base cheers them on. The entire apparatus of federal power has been repurposed into a machine for generating engagement through cruelty, with […]
Tuesday, Republicans got crushed in elections across New Jersey, Virginia, and New York. Not close races. Not razor-thin margins. Massive defeats in states they’d convinced themselves were winnable after Trump’s 2024 victory. Bret Baier—on Fox News, to Fox & Friends—had to explain to his audience how bad it was. “It’s a big loss,” he said. Not just the […]
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Nothing survives a purge. Especially not the truth. The DOJ secured a conviction for Washington state resident Taylor Taranto. According to the DOJ’s May 21, 2025 press release, Taranto had committed several federal crimes, including carrying two guns without a license and engaging in “false information and hoaxes.” Here are the details: On June 28, […]
U.S. media mergers always follow the same trajectory. Pre-merger, executives promise all manner of amazing synergies and deal benefits. Post-merger, not only do those benefits generally never arrive, the debt from the acquisition spree usually results in significant layoffs, lower quality product, and higher rates for consumers. The Time Warner Discovery disaster was the poster child […]
Well, this is actually pretty fascinating. We’ve been discussing the somewhat bizzare patent lawsuit Nintendo is waging against PocketPair in Japan for some time now. PocketPair is the company behind the hit game Palworld, which has obviously drawn inspiration from the Pokémon franchise, without doing any direct copying. Powering this attack were several held or […]
We’ve long established that modern “smart” devices aren’t always all that smart. Whether it’s “smart” door locks that are easily hacked to gain entry, “smart” refrigerators that leak your Gmail credentials, or “smart” vehicles that sell data to insurance companies without your permission, the act of modernizing something with internet access and a CPU isn’t […]
We’ve always been wary of putting cops in schools. Putting cops in schools just means administrative issues (i.e., student discipline) get the law enforcement treatment, which turns misbehavior into criminal acts and generates exactly the sort of school cop overreactions you’d expect. Adding AI-assisted tech was never going to improve anything. Administrators were certainly told […]
The faux “party of free speech” strikes again. For years, the MAGA GOP has insisted that it is the true “party of free” speech even as all evidence suggests this administration is the most censorial and the most dismissive of the First Amendment in modern history. Over and over and over and over and over […]
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The FBI is currently flying at half-staff. A bunch of its field agents are now just immigration officers, thanks to this administration’s desire to eject as many brown people from countries south of our border from the US as possible. But there are enough people left in the FBI to go after the brown people […]
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