Crooked Bough News Round-up

— This Week In Techdirt History: November 1st – 7th

 

at 11/7/26 1:00pm

This Week in 2016 Supreme Court Asks White House To Weigh In On Dancing Baby Fair Use Case My Talk At Wikimedia: Copyright Impacts Everything Copyright Office Fucks Over Thousands Of Sites With Plans To Remove Their DMCA Safe Harbors Hey, You Can Hack Your Car Without Violating Copyright Law (For A Little While) Finally Come The Calls In Major Media To Rethink Canadas Notice And Notice Copyright System Adobe Asked Google To Censor Techdirts Story On How Adobes DRM Got Cracked This Week in 2011 Go Daddy Supports E-PARASITE Legislation Even Though Its Own Site Is Dedicated To Theft Of Property Under Terms Of The Bill Do The Authors Of The Felony Streaming Bills Even Know What The Details Of Their Own Bills Mean? Content Industry Insists E-PARASITE Wont Rewrite DMCA, But Co-Author Of The Bill Admits Thats The Plan The Article On The E-PARASITE Act That You Need To Read Joe Biden On The Internet: If It Aint Broke, Dont Fix It… Unless Hollywood Asks You To Fight The Power: Chuck D Sues Universal Music For Hundreds Of Millions In Unpaid Royalties This Week in 2006 Greece Still Having Trouble Figuring Out The Internet: Arrests Blog Aggregator For Aggregating Content It Doesnt Like Record Labels Not Planning On Sharing YouTube Windfall With Musicians NY Times Comes Out Against The Broken Patent System Internet Bill Of Useless Rights Proposed Remember How Shutting Down The Pirate Bay Was A Huge Victory For The Entertainment Industry? If HTML Were Invented Today, Someone Would Try To Patent It

[Category: 1, history, look back]

— America Records Its 8th Measles Death Of The Year In Wisconsin

 

at 11/6/26 8:39pm

The national embarrassment that is Americas measles problem continues to have devastating effects. While the federal government generally, and RFK Jr. specifically, blissfully ignores the thousands getting sick from a disease that was declared eradicated more than two decades ago, it all continues to get worse and worse. We have the tools at our disposal that would have precluded all of this sick and suffering, of course, but were currently being governed by ignorant anti-vaxxers that have spent decades driving down vaccination rates. Only days ago, we learned that a 7th person died just this year from measles. If you thought this was purely an East Coast problem, you were wrong. The country now has its 8th fatality from measles this year, this time in Wisconsin. The anti-vaxxer movement puts everyone in danger, not just the unvaccinated. If you need a reminder of that, well, this latest fatality in Wisconsin was that of an infant, too young to be vaccinated. An infant in Wisconsin has died of measles, the state health department said Thursday — the third measles-related death reported in the U.S. this week. It’s Wisconsin’s first measles-related death since 1990, the Health Service Department said, adding that a coroner had listed measles as the infant’s immediate cause of death. None of the eight people who have died were vaccinated, according to state health departments; some were ineligible because of their age or health status. Typically, the first dose of the vaccine is administered around a child’s first birthday. The deaths of every one of these people is on the heads of the anti-vaxxer movement. But there is a special flavor of anger that should be reserved for infants infants! who are dying as blameless victims, killed before they could be vaccinated. That this is occurring is abhorrent. That the current administration is staring down the deaths of children and doing nothing about it is criminal. We went 30 years without a measles death in the entire country. Now we have 8 so far in one year, along with thousands of confirmed infections and climbing. Around 85% of kindergartners in Wisconsin have been vaccinated against measles — below the national average of 92%. Experts say 95% is the threshold needed to keep the population protected. “We can actually eliminate transmission of measles in the community by getting enough people vaccinated,” said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, the state epidemiologist for communicable diseases. “We have the opportunity to take a disease that could affect everybody and essentially make it go away.” Go away again. Damn it, we did this already. Fire or impeach RFK Jr. and show the country that youre serious about fixing this.

[Category: 1, anti-vaxxers, cdc, hhs, measles, rfk jr., vaccines, wisconsin]

— Resisting The Menace Of Federal Data Consolidation

 

at 11/6/26 4:35pm

In the past two years, the federal government has unlawfully consolidated data exposing our private information.  This consolidation has been chaotic but generally came in three rolling waves: It started with DOGE, moved to agency-to-agency data sharing with ICE, and then attempted data-driven purges of state voter rolls. We all deserve to live in a world where the data we use to pay our taxes, receive benefits, and vote is not combined and weaponized against us. The amalgamation of data leads to mistakes, abuses, and a lack of trust in institutions meant to protect us. Overall, it can chill our participation in society. This is particularly true for groups disfavored by this administration—especially immigrants and protesters. Congress highlighted similar abuses—including the creation of enemies lists and snooping on activists and federal employees—following the McCarthy and Watergate eras. And the increasing use of computers to magnify those harms led Congress to pass a slate of protections like the federal Privacy Act of 1974. The good news is that many people have stepped forward to resist the federal government’s unprecedented and unlawful data consolidations. Many groups, including EFF, have filed lawsuits to enforce our data privacy laws, and many states have, too. Legislators at the federal and state levels have worked to expose and oppose these surveillance programs. And many people have protested for their right to data privacy. Existing data privacy protections have been essential in the past two years, but they can be improved. This should include: narrowing loopholes and increasing enforcement in existing laws, limiting the government’s purchase of data on the commercial market, and passing a comprehensive consumer privacy law. Data Consolidation by DOGE Starting on January 20, 2025, President Trump created DOGE—essentially renaming an existing agency originally meant to modernize government technology. Rather than engage in modernization, DOGE quickly obtained high-level access to sensitive databases across the government that store millions of people’s personal records—including at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Social Security Administration, and the Treasury Department. DOGE was staffed with people with little government or cybersecurity knowledge and who often had conflicts of interest. DOGE’s early aim was not always clear, aside from gaining “prompt access to all unclassified agency records” and the “sharing and consolidation” of those records. The result? The indiscriminate firing of government employees and the decimation of important agencies that focused on consumer protection and foreign aid. It also resulted in clear misuses of data. For example, while working with DOGE at the Social Security Administration, one individual signed an outside agreement with an advocacy group with the aim of using SSA data to find evidence of alleged voter fraud and “overturn election results in certain States.” DOGE’s data access and consolidation violated the federal Privacy Act, which limits the sharing and consolidation of government databases. Many groups stepped in to sue. For example, EFF and our co-counsel at Lex Lumina LLC and Democracy Defenders Fund, on behalf of two public employee unions (AFGE and AALJ), sued the OPM for unlawfully disclosing federal workers’ information to DOGE. After EFF and others secured early victories, the government sought to end the lawsuits by firing many DOGE agents and removing their access to records. A great deal of damage remains in need of a judicial remedy. Data Consolidation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Even as DOGE’s influence diminished, federal agencies have attempted to share, compare, and seize large databases, in order to target immigrants. In some cases, they have succeeded. This happened with tax records at the IRS, Medicaid data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and public housing data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Department of Agriculture also sought to collect databases regarding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) from states. Many groups have filed lawsuits to block this anti-immigrant-motivated data consolidation, alleging it violates privacy protection laws. EFF filed amicus briefs in support of two of these lawsuits: Centro de Trabajadores v. Bessent, which concerns IRS data; and California v. HHS, which concerns Medicaid data (and where we teamed up with EPIC and Protect Democracy). Most recently, states have stepped up to challenge the federal government’s attempted seizure, for immigration enforcement purposes, of state commercial driver’s license data held by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a non-profit organization. This data consolidation for immigration enforcement has also included government purchase of commercial products. This includes ICE’s purchase of commercial location data without a warrant, and its interest in “Big Data and Ad Tech providers.” ICE also has contracts with companies like Palantir, which help organize all the datasets the agency collects. Data Consolidation for Voter Purges The right to vote is fundamental to every democracy. That’s why EFF has long advocated for cybersecurity in voting systems, to make sure every vote is properly counted. Voter purges are a longstanding threat to the right to vote. State and local officials regularly delete people from the voter registration rolls, often for bad reasons and without adequate notice. This has a disparate impact against people of color. Now the federal government is trying to purge voters, too. To do so, it has consolidated our data in three ways. First, it is using an old data system called SAVE for a new purpose: checking voter eligibility. Second, it has seized voter information from states. Third, it has created a federal list of eligible voters. As a direct result, people with a right to vote will be purged from voter rolls because of erroneous data. Others will be intimidated from voting or registering. And all registered voters suffer a violation of their data privacy rights: information collected for one purpose is being used against them for another purpose. Expansion of SAVE Since 1986, the federal government has operated SAVE, which stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. It is not a database, but it facilitates easy access to databases. It is used to determine whether immigrants and naturalized citizens are eligible for various government benefits, such as food stamps. In 2025, the federal government started using SAVE for a new purpose: checking voters’ eligibility. Further, SAVE now provides access to new databases and allows bulk searches. More than 60 million voters have been run through SAVE, and 21,000 were flagged as potential noncitizens who are ineligible to vote. Erroneous flags have caused purges of lawful voters – such as Anthony Nell. A case called League of Women Voters v. DHS challenges this expansion of SAVE. The plaintiffs are represented by CREW, Democracy Forward, the Fair Elections Center, and EPIC. A federal judge held this program unlawful and set it aside. DHS appealed and asked for a stay of this order, and a federal appellate court denied the stay. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the stay, exercising its controversial “shadow docket” authority by a six-to-three vote. Federal employees in DHS’s “Fraud Detection and National Security Unit,” which ordinarily investigates alleged immigration fraud, have been re-assigned to examine voter eligibility. A whistleblower alleges that employees have been directed to go to state election agency websites, enter some of a voter’s personal information, and thereby access more of it. This may violate state laws requiring a person, before accessing a voter’s information, to attest they are that voter or have that voter’s authorization. Federal Seizure of States’ Voter Information Since 2025, the federal government has demanded that at least 48 states hand over their voter information. At least 16 states have complied. The federal government is running this information through SAVE, searching for voters to purge. The federal government has sued 30 states for refusing to comply. So far, courts have dismissed 25 of these suits. There’s also a lawsuit against this data grab, titled Common Cause v. DOJ, brought by CREW, Protect Democracy, and the ACLU. The New Federal Voter Eligibility List In March 2026, President Trump issued an executive order requiring DHS to create a list of people who are U.S. citizens, aged 18 or older, and residents of the state. The order also requires DOJ to prosecute anyone, including state and local officials, who provides a ballot to a person who is not eligible to vote in federal elections. In California v. Trump, 24 states allege that this executive order violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. A federal judge enjoined this program, and an appellate court denied a stay. But the U.S. Supreme Court by a six-to-three vote granted a stay, which allows the program to move forward. (By a seven-to-two vote, the Court denied a stay of an injunction against a different part of the same executive order, which concerned mail-in ballots.) Another legal challenge, titled EPIC v. USCIS, alleges that the new federal voter eligibility list violates the Privacy Act as well as the separation of powers. Next Steps It is encouraging to see so many people, groups, and states step forward to protect our data privacy from these unlawful waves of federal data consolidations. Still, more work remains. For example: The Privacy Act of 1974 has proven a critical bulwark. But after a half century, it could use a refresh. For example, Congress should close its loopholes and expand its enforceability. Law enforcement agencies must be prohibited from avoiding the Constitution’s warrant requirement by buying our personal data from brokers. For example, Congress should pass the “Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act.” We need a comprehensive consumer data privacy law, among other reasons to reduce the flood of our personal data that corporations provide to law enforcement agencies. Legislators should check out EFF’s “privacy first” framework. In the meantime, there’s no time like the present to practice surveillance self-defense, like using strong passwords and disabling your phone’s ad identification. Republished from the EFFs Deeplinks blog.

[Category: 1, 4th amendment, consolidated data, cybersecurity, dhs, doge, elections, irs, privacy, voter rolls, voting]

— Judge Tosses Trump’s Epstein Letter SLAPP Suit Against Murdoch, For Real This Time

 

at 11/6/26 3:05pm

Last year when Donald Trump sued Rupert Murdoch over the WSJs article revealing the um birthday card he sent Jeffrey Epstein, we pointed out that it was a pure SLAPP suit (and also that it was against a guy who, you could argue, is one of the main reasons he ever got elected). Trump insisted, both publicly and in the lawsuit, that the letter was a fake thing and that he never wrote it. So, of course, after the lawsuit was filed, the birthday card was released by the House Oversight Committee that had subpoenaed the Epstein Estate. Youve seen it by now in all its creepiness. As we pointed out, the lawyer who brought the suit, Alejandro Brito (who has become the latest of Trumps go-to lawyers) didnt seem to have much experience with defamation law, and it shows. Earlier this year, the judge in the case, Darrin Gayles, dismissed the lawsuit while pointing out its many faults. But he gave Trump leave to file an amended complaint, and Trump (of course) took it. But, no more. Last week Gayles dismissed the lawsuit — with prejudice this time, making sure Trump cant refile — and the order makes clear that Gayles absolutely knows this lawsuit is bullshit. He opens with a Justice Brandeis quote (from his 1927 concurrence in Whitney v. California) that the Supreme Court leaned on in NY Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 ruling that established our modern-day understanding of how the First Amendment and defamation law work: Those who won our independence believed * * * that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed. Famously, the Sullivan case (which includes this quote of the earlier Brandeis concurrence) established the actual malice standard for defaming public figures. And, as we repeat every time actual malice comes up, it does not mean what people think it means in plain English. Actual malice means that the content was published knowing that it was false or with reckless disregard for whether or not it was false — which, in practice, means they had to have entertained serious doubts about whether what they were publishing was true. Judge Gayles had explained the actual malice standard to Brito in the original dismissal, noting that the complaint comes nowhere close to meeting the actual malice standard. Brito, it appears, learned little in his second attempt. As Judge Gayles notes, the amended complaint still fails to show actual malice: Here, the Amended Complaint falls short of pleading actual malice. Indeed, the allegations regarding malice are conclusory, vague, sometimes inconsistent with the Article, and often irrelevant to whether Defendants knew or should have known that the statements in the Article were purportedly false. As the court points out, just claiming that the WSJ should have known the content was false is not enough for actual malice. Similarly, the fact that Trump told the WSJ that the story wasnt true doesnt make it actual malice. This comes up in all sorts of defamation cases. The plaintiff claims well I told them it was false, and therefore its actual malice. But thats not how it works, because people often deny true things. In effect, President Trump argues that once he declared the Letter a “fake,” Defendants should have disregarded everything else they learned in their investigation and not published the story. But that is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment. Indeed, were that the law, any time a public figure or his team denies an accusation, journalists would be immediately blocked from publishing negative or contradictory press—a result that flies in the face of the “American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions[.]” Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 269 (quoting Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 270 (1941)). Moreover, the Article did not ignore or minimize President Trump’s denial. Rather, it informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it. By “allowing readers to decide for themselves what to conclude from the [Article], . . . any allegation of actual malice [is] less plausible.” Turner, 879 F.3d at 1274; see also Michel, 816 F.3d at 703 (holding that “reporting perspectives contrary to the publisher’s own should be interpreted as helping to rebut, not establish, the presence of actual malice”). On top of that, the court points out that merely claiming the reporters didnt do enough investigation is not enough to show actual malice: As detailed above, a failure to investigate, without more, does not establish actual malice. Id. Rather, “a plaintiff must show the defendant deliberately avoided investigating the veracity of the statement in order to evade learning the truth.” Reed, 2025 WL 1874638, at *3. The Amended Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Indeed, the Article details a thoughtful and detailed investigation. Before running the story, Defendants contacted President Trump and his team, Justice Department officials, and the FBI for comment. President Trump and his team responded with his denial, the Justice Department did not respond at all, and the FBI declined to comment. Defendants also attempted to speak with Maxwell; she did not respond to their request and her attorney stated that she was focused on her case before the Supreme Court. In addition, Defendants reached out to other individuals named in the Birthday Book, including Leslie Wexner and Alan Dershowitz, and to individuals involved in binding the Birthday Book, who confirmed that Weitz put the book together. In short, President Trump’s allegation that Defendants failed to conduct an adequate investigation is rebutted by the Article and is insufficient to establish actual malice The judge accuses Trump and his lawyers of grasping at straws to manufacture flaws with the investigation but again points out that none of that meets the actual malice standard: Grasping at straws, the Amended Complaint attempts to manufacture flaws with the investigation. First, it alleges that the investigation was lacking because Defendants only reviewed the Letter but did not have a copy in their possession. The Court cannot discern any substantive difference—and certainly not one that would establish actual malice—between Defendants reviewing the Letter before publication and obtaining a copy of the Letter. Defendants reviewed the Letter and later reported on its contents. Nothing in the law suggests that Defendants needed to obtain, retain, or publish a copy. Also, when the judge has already made clear that your lawsuit is bullshit, maybe dont play games like pretending the WSJ didnt report on Trumps denial when they actually did: Finally, the allegation that Defendants intentionally omitted President Trump’s denial that he signed the Letter or a discussion on whether the signature on the Letter is authentic, [ECF No. 67 ¶¶ 57-60], is belied by the Article. It states, multiple times, that President Trump denies writing the Letter and that “[i]t isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared.” [ECF No. 68-2]. This is more than sufficient to encompass any denial that he “signed” the Letter or that the signature on the Letter is authentic. While Murdoch and the WSJ asked for fees under either Florida or New Yorks anti-SLAPP laws, Judge Gayles says its unclear which states laws apply to the claims here, and that matters, given that they have very different procedural postures. So he reserves that issue to explore separately. Of course, Donald Trump and Alejandro Brito are not one to give up lightly. Theyve already told the judge theyre appealing to the Eleventh Circuit. Good luck finding an Eleventh Circuit panel that sees actual malice in a complaint this thin. Meanwhile, Brito, who is also representing Trump in Trumps even more disastrous lawsuit against the BBC, might want to spend a bit more time focusing on that case? The BBC turned around and decided to use the discovery process to demand all sorts of info on Trumps businesses and hes been running and hiding, even backing out of a scheduled deposition citing other matters of national importance on a day he spent at a political rally and Mar-a-Lago. But the magistrate judge in that case, Enjolique Lett, has said that Trump has until December 11th to give a deposition or he could face consequences. And the DOJ is also running around trying to block former special counsel Jack Smith from testifying as well. So, while the bullshit SLAPP suit against Murdoch and the WSJ is dead (pending an appeal that looks doomed), the one against the BBC seems to be blowing up in Trumps (and Britos) face spectacularly. And this is why we dont file SLAPP suits. Its also why we need more and stronger anti-SLAPP laws in every state and at the federal level. The very fact that this court cant even deal with the attorneys fees issue at this point, because of the complex interplay of different state anti-SLAPP laws (and how they work in federal court) is all the more reason to fix our anti-SLAPP laws across the entire country. And maybe, with this new incoming Congress, we can finally get that.

[Category: bbc, dow jones, news corp., actual malice, alejandro brito, anti-slapp, defamation, donald trump, florida, jeffrey epstein, new york, rupert murdoch, slapp]

— ICE Officer Turns Himself In After Being Indicted For Deliberately Running Over A Random Person

 

at 11/6/26 11:57am

All good things come to those who wait? Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes, you need to take action to make good things happen. Other times, you just have to hang back and wait for the slow-moving wheels of justice to do their thing. Its the latter here. Last month, an ICE officer deliberately (allegedly) ran over a fleeing person with their ICE-mobile. The whole thing was caught on camera, albeit not by any of the cameras ICE officers are supposed to be wearing. Instead, it was caught by a CCTV camera operated by a local business. ICE claimed migrant Miguel Parra-Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle, which resulted in the severe injuries one might associate with being run over by an SUV. This narrative lasted less than a day before CCTV footage showed an ICE vehicle crossing a street and accelerating through a parking lot before accelerating through Miguel Parra-Hernandez. (It also showed ICE officers moving crime scene evidence the vehicle Parra-Hernandez exited from the street where it stopped to the parking lot where he was run over.) A refresher course: As anyone can see from the footage, the ICE vehicle swung in and took the man down, even though there was no public safety reason that might possibly justify running over some random fleeing person. Local Houston (TX) prosecutors felt the same way, especially after it was revealed that the person ICE was actually hunting had likely been dead for nearly a decade. They moved forward with criminal charges, resulting in a grand jury indictment of ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales. This indictment was especially unique, given where it happened. The agent, Mario Alberto Morales, 33, is facing state charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, said Sean Teare, the district attorney in Harris County, which includes Houston. He added that Mr. Morales has not surrendered. Efforts to reach Mr. Morales were not successful, and it was unclear whether he had legal representation. Mr. Morales is the first federal agent to face charges in Texas as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.  Things have changed since this October 30th report from the New York Times. Mr. Morales has now surrendered, as NBC News reports: ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales turned himself in Monday after being indicted last week in connection with running over a man who was on foot.  In connection is an extremely generous interpretation of the incident caught on tape by an entity ICE officers apparently didnt expect to be engaged in always-on recording. For now, though, Officer Morales remains more free than the man he (allegedly) ran over, who is presumably still recovering from multiple surgeries to repair his crushed legs. Morales was hit with a $30,000 bond, but has reportedly bonded out, which puts him back on the streets, but presumably not back in an ICE uniform. More digging into this officers time as an ICE goon has managed to highlight pretty much everything thats wrong with ICEs current hire-now-worry-about-it-later surge that began shortly after Trump took office for a second time. Training has been minimized and hiring standards have been lowered. Morales was part of that surge, hired by ICE in August 2025. Texas prosecutors highlighted this lack of experience and presumed lack of training during their statements following the indictment. Morales is represented by an idiot, which doesnt mean hes representing himself. Instead, hes represented by an actual idiot, who thinks actions by red state prosecutors are politically motivated a wild-ass claim buttressed by even more wild-assed claims about what Morales was doing when he (apparently and [still] allegedly) decided to run over a fleeing person. “This Democratic district attorney has great issues with the conservative Republican Party government’s ICE agenda, and he’s trying to pick a fight with them, but he’s smashing this individual to do so,” [David] Lindenmuth said. Lindenmuth said the car strike was accidental and happened as Morales reacted to avoid hitting a car that was in front of him. Im not sure what smashing this individual means in this context. I assume its a Freudian slip that refers to his client smashing an individual an act that led to his client being indicted on vehicular assault charges. As to the rest of his statement that his client was just trying to avoid hitting another car in the parking lot well, lets go back to the recording and let it speak for itself: Then theres this new fact, which was not captured by the CCTV camera: Morales not only didnt care what happened to the person he decided to deliberately/allegedly strike with his vehicle, but he also didnt care about the other detained migrants that were involuntary passengers when he decided to turn his car into a guided missile: According to the DA’s office, Morales had two handcuffed arrestees sitting in the back of his car without seat belts when the vehicle hit Parra.  According to public records and other information obtained by prosecutors, Moraless law enforcement experience is limited to a stint as a military police officer (less than 2 years) and seven months as a prison guard. Those seven months mean even less than the less-than-illustrious career that saw Morales exit the military with pretty much the same rank he entered it with (Private First Class). Heres the upshot of the seven months Morales spent as a Texas correctional officer: He resigned in 2018 while on probation with the agency for falsification of records, specifically documenting security rounds as completed when they had not been conducted That apparently led to seven years of unrelated employment. No wonder Morales took a shot at ICEs $50,000 signing bonus, especially when he had a few years of law enforcement-adjacent experience, even if that experience was vastly overshadowed by his inability to do his job honestly and/or remain employed in the law enforcement field. Morales isnt a poster boy for ICE misconduct. Hes just another contributor, which makes him as unique as an involuntary reflex. The only thing thats different is that he got caught. Now, we just have to hope that it sticks.

[Category: 1, dhs, houston, ice, mario morales, mass deportation, miguel parra-hernandez, texas, the immigration cops are rioting, trump administration]

— Daily Deal: Salesforce Certification Exam Training

 

at 11/6/26 11:53am

The Salesforce Certification Exam Training Bundle includes practice exam questions and study guides for various certifications, covering a wide range of roles such as administrators, developers, architects, sales representatives, and marketing cloud professionals. With lifetime access to the resources, professionals can continually update their skills and stay ahead in the evolving Salesforce landscape. Regardless of your professional role, ForceDigest provides a tailored path specifically designed for you. Its 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— MAGA Fell For Its Own Hunter Biden Laptop Conspiracy Theory And Brought A Case Too Dumb To Survive A Probable Cause Hearing

 

at 11/6/26 10:23am

You may have heard some talk in the last week or so regarding a criminal case against two former FBI agents, supposedly having something to do with Hunter Bidens infamous laptop. On Monday, a magistrate judge dismissed the case, noting that it was pure political hackery. A federal judge on Monday tossed out a criminal case ​accusing two former senior FBI officials of lying about their involvement in an investigation of former President Joe Biden’s son ‌Hunter, excoriating the Justice Department for bringing what he said was a political prosecution before Tuesdays midterm elections. US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui threw out the case at a remarkably early stage, finding that prosecutors had not shown sufficient evidence that the two officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, both former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence officials, had knowingly made false statements. What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization of federal law enforcement, Faruqui said during a court hearing. But the reason behind the actual case is so stupid, and so convoluted, that its difficult for most people to follow. Indeed, MS Nows Steve Benen put up a post correctly calling the case dumb, but even he got the details wrong, claiming that the FBI agents worked on the Hunter Biden laptop case. But part of what makes this case so dumb is that the two agents in question did not work on the Hunter Biden case at all, even if most of the media coverage suggests otherwise. They were working on something entirely different. They were arrested because, years later, they were asked during a congressional interview about their knowledge of the laptop, and both answered that they didnt really know much about the laptop (which, again, was not something they were directly working on), and that was the lie to Congress the DOJ went after them for. Part of this actually has to do with the never ending MAGA fantasy that Hunter Bidens Laptop was the scandal of the century. In the past, Ive dealt with the complete fabrications regarding the false claims that the FBI told Twitter to censor the story about the laptop. That did not happen. But some of the conspiracy theories about this revolve around the claim that the store owner where Biden had brought some computer equipment in for repair had delivered hard drives to the FBI a year or so earlier. It is clear that the FBI did get access to some computer equipment that once belonged to Hunter Biden in late 2019. Though, it appears that this material was somewhat different than what became the source material for the infamous NY Post story in October 2020. At issue was that there were multiple copies of the data in question. There was a laptop and an external hard drive. There was data that the repair shop owner (John Paul Mac Isaac) copied from the laptop in the spring of 2019 to the hard drive as part of his attempt to repair (both machines were then never picked up). The FBI was alerted to this leftover equipment and eventually got a subpoena and picked up the machines in late 2019. Mac Isaac apparently made a backup copy of all the data, and in 2020 got some information from the backup to Rudy Giuliani through a colleague of Giuliani, who then got it to the NY Post, who published their story about it. The FBI team that picked up the computer equipment in late 2019 were investigating Biden for a few things, including financial impropriety. There is little indication that there was anything all that important on either the laptop or the hard drive. But, because the laptop looms so large in the minds of MAGA conspiracy theorists, they are also convinced that it was a HUGE priority of everyone in the FBI in 2019 and 2020. They are positive that basically every FBI agent was intimately familiar with the laptop and how important it was. And that means that they assumed that when the NY Post story broke in October of 2020, everyone at the FBI immediately knew that the story was legit because the FBI already had possession of one copy of the data. Thats part of the reason they claim it was so damning that the FBI told Twitter to take down the story (which, again, the FBI never actually did). The confusion (or, really, the confirmation bias) came from conspiracy theorists mashing that together with an entirely separate story: FBI folks who worked on foreign interference had given very general warnings to social media platforms to watch out for foreign agents, including the Russians, launching misinformation campaigns targeting high profile figures in US politics. People from Twitter and Facebook have said (sometimes under oath) that FBI agents gave them general briefings to watch for Russians leaking hacked data and for content targeting key political figures. Reports are mixed on whether Hunter Bidens name ever came up, and if it did, it was likely in passing, as one example in a longer list. The conspiracy theorists believe — with no evidence — that the reason Hunter Biden may have been briefly, incidentally, mentioned in these discussions was because the traitors in the FBI were trying to suppress the eventual leak of the laptop which THE FBI ALREADY POSSESSED!!! But, again, the more likely explanation was just that the agents working on foreign influence had no idea about the laptop (which was part of a financial crimes investigation) and were generally mentioning the kinds of people who might be targeted, which would likely include anyone in and around the Biden family (and likely also the Obamas, the Clintons, and Kamala Harris). Its worth restating, because you need to understand this chain of weak connections to understand how this case was eventually brought: the nutjobs believed that the FBI got the laptop and hard drive in 2019, knew it was full of damning stuff, then collaborated with social media companies to eventually suppress the bombshell reporting on it, because they wanted Biden to win. Thats the scandal in a nutshell. The problem is that none of that is true. So, that takes us to this year. Back in July, Donald Trump gave a rambling speech blaming China for the 2020 election, even though the evidence he released showed that everyone agreed that Russia had, in fact, tried to meddle in the 2020 election while China had decided to sit it out. In that speech, Trump whined that rogue bureaucrats had suppressed information about Chinese meddling and kept it from him. They seemed to concentrate on Floris in particular because she had convinced the FBI to retract an initial report that the Albany office had released, based on a highly questionable Chinese source about potential interference in the election. But the sourcing was sketchy (he claimed China was building bunkers in Republican states). So Floris convinced the FBI to pull back that report — which Trump now claims was an attempt to hide from him that China was interfering in the election. However, as a part of Floris getting that report retracted, she made a joke, saying she was running a shadow government within the FBI. Because of her frustration with the shoddy report coming out of Albany, she pushed to have all FBI offices releasing any reports regarding foreign interference in the election go through her office handling Foreign Influence campaigns since theyd have a better sense of whats real. In explaining that effort to a colleague, she jokingly texted im basically running a shadow government across the FBI at this point. But, of course, Donald Trump and Kash Patel misread that to mean that she was part of the deep state running a shadow government in the US. Indeed, they dropped the across the FBI part of her quote, making it sound like she was running a shadow US government. Trump mentioned it in his big China interfered! speech. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election. Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about Chinas election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press. Thats not at all what she said or implied. But, Kash Patel had been given his orders and immediately ordered an investigation. Patel highlighted the very out of context shadow government quote in his triumphant tweet about the arrest of Floris and Benavides, while also accusing them of lying about their (non-existent) involvement in the Hunter Biden case. According to testimony at last weeks three-day preliminary hearing (aptly covered by Anna Bower at Lawfare), the very next day after the speech, Kash Patel directly tasked an FBI agent (something that agent testified was unprecedented in his 24-year career) to investigate former FBI agents for apparently not telling Trump enough about Chinas (non-existent) attempts to interfere in the 2020 election. Special Agent Bryan Witt (or possibly Special Agent Byron Militello — well get to that) apparently then just combed through everything Floris and Benavides did to try to find something to charge them with. When the original assignment (that recalled report from the FBIs Albany office on Chinese interference) turned up nothing chargeable, investigators shifted to the most technical of technicalities. In 2023 (nearly three years after the NY Post story about the laptop) both Floris and Benavides were called before a congressional committee that was fully down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole that the FBI tried to suppress the story of the laptop. So they asked those two FBI agents about their knowledge of the laptop and both basically said yo, that wasnt our job, didnt really know much about it, we were focused on actual foreign influence campaigns. But, the FBI then went back to their communications from when the NY Post story came out, and showed that Floris and Benavides had been curious about whether or not the FBI had the laptop in question, and had asked around to find out more info about it. The complaint makes a big deal of the fact that the FBI criminal team that got the laptop had met with Benavides and Floris in August of 2020 (before the NY Post story came out) as part of preparations for some defensive briefings (basically warning people that they may be targets of foreign influence campaigns) given to some Republican Senators (Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson). The affidavit is vague on this point, hinting (without strong evidence) that FITF prepared to discuss Hunter Biden as a potential target during that defensive briefing. When the NY Post story came out, Benavides was asking around about whether the FBI actually had the laptop, which suggests he didnt know they had it: So, that indicates that he didnt know about the laptop and was just curious if the FBI had a copy. Benavides and Floris then worked with others at the FBI to figure out how to answer questions — including from Senator Mark Warner — regarding their own estimation of whether or not the files the NY Post revealed were real or if they were a part of a foreign influence campaign, as some suspected. Benavides basically pointed out that they should say that the FBI has not made that determination in this specific instance and wont comment on investigations or investigative actions. Basically, the foreign influence side of the FBI was pretty much in the dark as well and didnt want to say too much. After sending that out, he kept digging with other folks at the FBI to find out about the laptop: Benavides left the FBI in November of that year, but the complaint details that Floris had a few more conversations about Hunter Biden over random emails at the end of 2020 and throughout 2021. It cites seven whole emails over a period of 10 months, but makes it seem like that number of emails meant that it was a regular topic between FLORIS and her FITF subordinates. Three years later, in 2023, Rep. Jim Jordan had the House Judiciary Committee on a basically never ending quest to accuse the deep state of conspiring with Twitter to suppress this story. As part of that, he hauled both Floris and Benavides in for questioning. During that questioning, both of them were quizzed repeatedly about the Hunter Biden laptop and both said — accurately — that it wasnt something they were investigating, because it wasnt. Remember, they were focused on foreign influence campaigns, and the only place that crossed over was some early questions about whether or not the NY Post story was the result of just such a campaign, which it turned out not to be. Floris repeatedly points out that her work had nothing really to do with Bidens laptop. Benavides claims that he remembers some of the hubbub about the laptop when the NY Post story was published, but didnt recall any of the details until he reviewed the Wikipedia page days before the Jim Jordan hearing. From this the DOJ claims that Floris and Benavides lied to Congress. Thats literally it. Because when the NY Post story came out, the two had brief discussions about it (effectively crossing ts and dotting is since it wasnt really within their purview). Then, three years later, Jim Jordan hauled them in while trying to gin up a fake controversy that the FBI suppressed info about the laptop, and they accurately said it wasnt their thing. And then, three years after that, because Donald Trump demanded Kash Patel find some scalps, the FBI went hunting for literally anything they could find. Meanwhile, the DOJ continued its track record of absolute incompetence in this case. They filed a complaint that includes a statement of facts signed by Special Agent Byron Militello which made some pretty big claims. Oddly, they did not go to a grand jury to try to get an indictment first. Its possible they realized just how weak the case was and knew theyd never get an indictment (at least not before the midterms, which is what they clearly wanted). So they just filed the complaint without it, which is odd. But that also entitled the defendants to a preliminary hearing, which meant someone from the FBI would have to answer questions on the stand about all of it. So, then, just hours before that hearing was supposed to happen, they tried to file a superseding criminal complaint with a declaration that was quite similar to Militellos (though toned down in some key areas) and this time signed by a different Special Agent, Bryan Witt. But again they fucked up. A complaint needs to be made under oath before a magistrate, but they hadnt done that. Also, theres no such thing as a superseding complaint. There are superseding indictments, but thats different. The DOJ basically looks like it has no clue what its doing. When called on this by the magistrate judge, Faruqui, the DOJ said that you could do a superseding complaint and that they didnt need a probable cause finding from the judge because they werent seeking a new arrest warrant (thats not how any of this works). Faruqui (correctly) refused to treat the filing as a complaint. Then Witt (who signed the later declaration) was put on the stand where he basically had to admit to the differences between his declaration and the original statement of facts signed by Militello, effectively admitting that that original complaint was full of some pretty important errors. Also, Witts updated version claimed that Benavides was under oath when he testified before Jim Jordans committee, but on the stand admitted that was false (kinda a big deal). Either way, the whole thing turned into a complete joke, mainly because people up and down the DOJ, and MAGA staffers in Congress, so thoroughly believe their own conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden and the deep state that they cooked their own brains into believing that a truthful we didnt work on Hunter Biden issues statement in 2023 to Congress somehow implicated them in lying to Congress because in 2020, while working on foreign influence and election issues, they very briefly overlapped as the Hunter Biden story became public — and they sought to figure out if the story was part of an actual foreign influence campaign, and asked around to others at the FBI to see what they knew. This is the most nothingburger of nothingburger stories, and the judge finally saw it for what it was. Political theater in an attempted October surprise before the midterms. But just the fact that its taken me nearly 3,000 words just to explain the nonsense, and even experienced reporters think these two former FBI agents actually did work on the Hunter Biden case should give you some sense of just how ridiculous MAGA conspiracy theories run these days, and the lengths one has to go through to debunk them.

[Category: 1, doj, fbi, foreign interference, hunter biden, hunter biden's laptop, kash patel, zia faruqui]

— Musk’s Starlink Embraces ‘Dynamic Pricing,’ Further Jacking Up Costs

 

at 11/6/26 6:23am

For years I’ve noted that while Elon Musk’s low-Earth-orbit (LEO) Starlink satellite broadband system can be very useful for people with no other options (war zones, RVs, boats, rural Americans), the network has struggled to maintain performance as it grows into more mainstream markets, resulting in not only widespread slowdowns, but also the company socking users with massive “congestion surcharges.” These surcharges are actively designed to deter use because the network is struggling to handle the load. They started at around $100 a few years ago, then jumped to $750. Then suddenly $1500. And because Musk’s companies historically don’t invest in customer service, calling up to complain doesn’t really help. Now Musks Starlink has jumped on the dynamic pricing trend, charging users more money in more congested markets, and ideally less money in less congested areas. But since companies arent keen to charge you less and lose money historically, the shift toward such pricing (especially in telecom) generally always involves most people paying more: The Missouri-based Reddit user who received the email said their Residential 100 Mbps plan is increasing from $50 per month to $60.50, effective in their next billing cycle on or after Nov. 30. Another user on Facebook, also in Missouri, reported their Residential Max plan increasing to $156 per month, up from $130. Many of the users seeing new dynamic pricing increases had just seen price hikes, as Starlink increasingly raises prices and imposes annoying new restrictions on usage. Because weve gutted our telecom consumer protection regulators (you know, for innovation), theres really nobody left to ensure that Starlinks calculations are consistent or fair. Last year, a study from researchers at X-Lab showed that Starlink struggles to manage the load as the network grows, making it ill-suited as serious game changer for U.S. access. So as the network scales up, Starlink will be forced to impose more and more limits and restrictions on usage to ensure that most people have an acceptable experience. The laws of physics are kind of annoying like that. That a niche broadband option gets congestion normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal; the problem is Trump Republicans have hijacked and retooled the $42.5 billion infrastructure bill broadband grant program to throw what could be billions of dollars — and millions of new customers — at Musk’s Starlink as a personal favor to one of the U.S. president’s biggest donors. This is, to be clear, immense taxpayer subsidization for a satellite network Musk planned to deploy anyway without subsidies. As front-line cheerleaders in the cult of Musk, Republicans genuinely believe that Starlink is akin to some sort of connectivity magic and can just be sprinkled around generously to quickly fix the entirety of U.S. connectivity woes. It doesnt work that way. Musks fraud-riddled SpaceX IPO prospectus predicts that Starlink is going to quickly grow from its current 13.6 million subscribers to something more akin to 300 million. But the service simply isnt capable of scaling in this way; and the companys purported push into trying to compete with cellular wireless with small femtocells is broadly being maligned as a very costly mess (one telecom analyst recently stated it was “one of the top three dumbest ideas in my four decades of being in this industry). Musks own erratic and treasonous behavior is also heavily incentivizing more LEO competitors to come to market, which will also erode per-subscriber revenues in the years to come as the company is finally forced to try and take pricing seriously. In the interim, as federally-subsidized users are driven toward Starlink as an illusory quick fix for the U.S. digital divide, the congestion, price hike, and capacity issues will only get worse. And thats not great news for a country where broadband affordability continues to be the biggest impediment to adoption, and the federal government has completely abandoned any pretense of caring.

[Category: 1, spacex, starlink, broadband, congestion, dynamic pricing, elon musk, price hikes, satellite]

— One Subplot To The GOP’s Midterm Debacle Was A Repudiation Of The MAHA Movement

 

at 11/5/26 9:03pm

The midterms are over and the Republicans got their asses waxed. We can point to any number of reasons why the country delivered a stinging rebuke to the GOP across the union. It was a slap to Donald Trump. It was about the economy. It was the war in Iran. It was all of the ICE antics as they cosplayed as the Gestapo in major American cities. All of those are, to one degree or another, true. You dont get this kind of result without a panoply of valid complaints about the party in power. But part of what occurred is also a repudiation of many MAHA movement leaders that were in government. Tuesday was a particularly brutal night for MAHA Republicans in Iowa, where several Kennedy-backed candidates were swept up in the seismic blue wave. Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, who shared Kennedy’s concerns about pesticides in farming, lost to Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand on Tuesday. At a campaign rally last week, Kennedy described Lahn’s race as “the most important election going on in this country.” The names keep piling up from there. Iowa Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both of whom Kennedy campaigned for, also lost their re-election bids as Democrats flipped dozens of House seats. Another MAHA advocate and Kennedy pick, Joe Mitchell, lost his Iowa House race to Democratic opponent Lindsay James. The seat is being vacated by Ashley Hinson, who was among several Republican Senate candidates to lose their races in red states on Tuesday. And, tangentially, one of the most stunning upsets of the midterms, in which Dr. Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham, the late Lindsay Grahams sister and handpicked Trump candidate, primarily came about because of RFK Jr. “The day that RFK Jr. was nominated to lead HHS was the day that I really seriously started considering running for this seat,” Andrews told The New Republic in July. “RFK Jr. has been my professional archnemesis for decades, and there are thousands of pediatricians across the country who would say the same thing.” To be clear, nobody is claiming that opposition to Kennedy or the MAHA movement is why all of these candidates, and others, lost their races. It also isnt some primary reason for the election results overall. But Kennedy and MAHA was embraced by Trump because they were supposed to be a differentiator on the political landscape. Kennedy was no MAGA Republican before joining the administration. Far from it. And the MAHA movement is in many ways apolitical. The theory was that both would bring independents, and even some Democrats, into the GOP voting bloc. As we now know, that didnt happen. And it makes Kennedys continued presence in Trumps cabinet fairly pointless.

[Category: 1, annie andrews, darline graham, health, hhs, maga, maha, rfk jr., rob sand, zach lahn]

— Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Mike & Ben Review The Social Reckoning (Teaser)

 

at 11/5/26 4:30pm

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations 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. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on Patreon. In this special bonus episode for our Patreon supporters, Mike and Ben share their reactions to The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s much anticipated (but it seems not much loved) followup to his acclaimed 2010 movie The Social Network.  This free teaser covers the beginning of their conversation, but there’s much more in the full episode. Become a Ctrl-Alt-Speech supporter on Patreon to hear the whole thing, and to get extended episodes of the regular podcast every Thursday. Also be sure to check out our recent regular episode with guest co-host Jeff Horwitz, whose reporting on the Facebook Files was a driving force of the story, where he shares some of his own reactions to the movie and being portrayed by Jeremy Allen White. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky! If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

[Category: 1, facebook, meta, content moderation, mark zuckerberg, movies, the social reckoning, trust and safety]

— Two States Can Now Restrict Social Media Access—Here’s What To Do Next 

 

at 11/5/26 2:02pm

Recently, two federal appeals courts issued opinions that will allow Florida and Georgia to start enforcing laws that will age-gate and block young people from accessing social media. The laws do not adequately respect minors’ rights to play, speak, and learn online. More fundamentally, these laws don’t help young people stay safe online—a goal that lawmakers should pursue. Because of the new laws, some young people will lose their ability to access lawful information, find their online communities, and even engage with school board members. Others will need parental permission to stay online. And adults will face increased demands to prove their age, which will put their privacy at increased risk simply to continue to use the services they already use.  We opposed these laws because they threaten the free expression and privacy of both minors and adults.  Even though these lawsuits are not over, the injunctions that paused enforcement have been lifted, and the states of Florida and Georgia will now be able to enforce broad restrictions on social media use.  The restrictions that these states will start enforcing are a setback for the rights of all internet users, but they are not written in stone. That’s why EFF is encouraging internet users and particularly young people – to start keeping a record of how they are affected. If you are a teenager who loses access to an online discussion, can’t participate in a political campaign, or stop seeking information because you don’t want to upload personal information, document what happened. The same is true for adults who may be mistakenly blocked by age checks, and parents who may encounter obstacles to authorizing their childrens use of online services. These experiences matter. They can help us show courts, policymakers, and the public what government restrictions on online expression actually cost the people who live under them.  Hopefully, with enough proof of the expressive harms these laws cause, we can push lawmakers to rescind them. That’s why we’re encouraging folks to reach out to EFF once they’ve documented these harms. You can write to us about this issue at the email address agegates@eff.org.  The Decisions These two opinions, issued by the same panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, allow Florida and Georgia to enforce restrictions on social media accounts for people under 16 years old. The requirements differ by state.  In Florida, the judges allowed that state’s H.B. 3 to move forward, which requires covered platforms to ban anyone under 14 from opening or keeping accounts—even with parental permission. Teenagers who are 14 or 15 can have accounts only with parental consent. To be covered, a platform has to use algorithms, allow content uploads or the viewing of other peoples’ content, and have at least one feature on a list of features the state considers bad, including livestreaming, engagement metrics, autoplay, infinite scrolling, or push notifications. These requirements effectively apply to every major social media service that young people use. To the extent there is a silver lining in the ruling on Florida’s law, it’s that the panel recognized that H.B. 3 targets expression protected by the First Amendment. The problem is that the ruling uncritically accepts the idea that a social media service is addictive in a clinical sense, even if just 10% of users under 16 are using the platform for two or more hours per day (the standard set in H.B. 3). The court simply accepts that time spent online is a proxy for harm. The bill doesn’t distinguish doomscrolling or compulsive use from organizing a campaign, making art, or talking with friends.  In Georgia, S.B. 351 can now be enforced. That law requires parental consent for anyone under 16 to hold an account on social media platforms. It also requires platforms to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to check users’ ages, which creates a hurdle for adults as well as under-16s.  The ruling acknowledges that S.B. 351 “overwhelmingly applies to platforms that overwhelmingly host protected speech.” But the ruling faults the plaintiffs for not being able to show that “invalid applications substantially outweigh the valid ones.” That asks the groups challenging the law to meet a virtually impossible standard—to make their case, they would have to measure and evaluate the content hosted by all online services affected by the law.  Both of these cases may be further appealed, and are likely to continue in the lower courts. But people in Georgia and Florida can no longer count on court injunctions to protect their access to the web. What the effects will be going forward depends on how platforms implement these new restrictions, including how they check ages and parental consent, as well as state officials’ views on these efforts.  If you hit an age-gate while online, check out our blog post about how you might want to proceed, and our age-gating resource hub. If you want to speak out about your experience, you can talk to us at agegates@eff.org. What is Lost Some youth who lose their social media accounts will lose contact with friends. Others will lose access to a support group, the ability to speak out on current issues, or an audience for their artwork. More young people will be shut out of discussions about what’s going on in their school and their community. U.S. law has long recognized that people under 18 have their own rights to speak and receive information. These new laws interfere with those rights.  The Florida opinion suggests that young people can browse the internet without an account, or use a parent’s account. But that doesn’t help those who might participate in a private group, send a personal message, or speak to an audience they have built up. Nor does it recognize the reality that in many households, young people may not have the ability to use a parent’s device, or even have healthy relationships with their parents. For parents of children under 14, the Florida law also overrides parental autonomy—even if parents wanted to allow their child on these services, they cannot do so by law.  These laws won’t just harm younger kids. Adults and older teens will bear the cost of the new rules. In order to figure out who is young enough to not be able to join, or who needs parental consent to join, services will have to check users’ ages. That likely means asking people to submit ID or other sensitive information. Some people will be mis-classified as too young; others will decide that they’d simply rather stop participating instead of handing over even more personal data.  Keep A Record Between the recent Meta settlement and these 11th Circuit decisions, despite widespread opposition, age-gating is becoming a reality for the American internet. As these laws are enforced, we need to understand what they mean for the people who have to deal with them. And we need to create a record of their effects on everyone’s speech so we can push to repeal them. If you encounter a restriction due to these laws that affects you, keep a record, ideally while the details are still fresh in your mind. Screenshots, along with notes about the date and time, the service involved, and the task you were trying to accomplish, will all be helpful.  Did you lose an account or can’t participate? Describe what you lost. Were you using a group to organize a club, volunteer in your community, or keep in touch with friends? Did losing your account cut you off from people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to be in touch with? Even if you just used the account to access local news or follow your favorite content creator, that’s still a significant loss of your right to access information online. Record problems with age checks and parental consent. What information did the service request from you? Were you able to provide it? Did it reject your age proof, or classify you incorrectly? If you’re a parent, were you able to give permission, and what did you have to provide? What promises did the service make about what it did with the data it collected from you? Save explanations given by the platforms or any services they employ to age gate, including any law they cite. If you are to appeal a result and choose to, keep track of those attempts as well.  You can also document choosing to drop out. If you abandon an account or service because you’re unwilling to provide ID or other personal data, write down what you gave up, and why. You don’t need to submit sensitive information to show that you are burdened by new rules.  You Can E-Mail agegates@eff.org If these restrictions affect you, we encourage you to reach out to EFF by emailing agegated@eff.org and telling us more about what happened.  EFF will continue to oppose laws that prevent adults and minors from expressing themselves online, or that push people to give up their privacy to participate in the digital world. These recent court decisions are setbacks, but they don’t settle the debate. By keeping track of people who lose access, age-check failures, and the online conversations that can no longer happen, we’ll be in a better position to challenge the worst of these restrictions, in both legislatures and courts.  And in the meantime, EFF will keep fighting for laws that actually make us safer online—like stopping social media companies’  harmful surveillance of all internet users. We’ll continue to push for laws that empower parents, children, and all internet users to have meaningful choice and control over their online services. Those goals can make everyone safer online, while preserving our ability to speak and access information.  Republished from the EFFs Deeplinks blog.

[Category: 1, 11th circuit, age gating, age verification, florida, georgia]

— Judge: ICE Officers Can’t Be Trusted And The Only Way To Fix This Is To Put Them On The Stand

 

at 11/5/26 12:05pm

We all know ICE officers cant be trusted. Neither can the agency that heads up most of Trumps anti-migrant activities. Every murder by immigration officers is immediately greeted with self-justifying lies about threats to officers. Every assault gets the same treatment. Every recorded instance of abuse is immediately rebutted by bullshit claims about violent resistance or, at the very least, that any actions the officers took were justified because the person deserved to be arrested. The DOJ has been dangling by several threads for months now. Federal court judges have made the point (repeatedly!) that it can no longer trust the government to be acting in good faith. The presumption of regularity the ideal that states that both sides of a court case are doing their honest best under the law is no longer a privilege the DOJ can expect to avail itself of. It gets so much worse when the topic shifts to Trumps mass deportation programs. The government has renditioned people to torture prisons in foreign countries, actively dodged court orders with late-night flights and other fuckery, eliminated due process for migrants by both misquoting the law and shuffling detainees from prison camp to prison camp to ensure theyll never have standing to sue due to filing a lawsuit in the wrong jurisdiction. ICE has done more than most to earn the distrust of federal courts. Its something that begins with the masks and the refusal to properly identify themselves and ends with the lies officers put in their reports and, on rare occasions, repeat in court when asked to testify. A federal judge in Oregon (Mustafa T. Kasubhai) is sick of this shit. Whether or not his personal sickness will infect the rest of the court system remains to be seen, but at least hes doing everything he can to talk other courts into treating ICE officers as inherently unreliable witnesses. (h/t Kyle Cheney) This order [PDF], handed down in a case involving a violation of a previous court order forbidding warrantless arrests by ICE officers in Oregon, gets right to the point in the opening paragraphs, saying what needs to be said about ICE and its officers: An ICE officer fabricated facts in official records to justify an arrest. This Court knows this because at an evidentiary hearing on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Enforce Preliminary Injunction, he testified under oath that what he wrote in the official records of the arrest were incorrect. On the witness stand he minimized the error as mere oversight. This Court found he lied after evaluating his live testimony and the documentary evidence. Evaluating live testimony is a time-tested method for truth finding. Written declarations are convenient, but insufficient on their own when witnesses are willing to lie. This enforcement action is a powerful reminder of two principles. First, uncovering truth is not a passive activity. Developing a robust evidentiary recordworthy of telling the story of what really happened can never fully materialize from a stack ofsigned written statements. Live testimony is necessary. Examination and cross-examination are necessary. The trial courts are the uniquely specialized forum in which building a full evidentiary record is possible. Second, this case underscores what happens if people were not called to testify under oath in a courtroom, if as a society we do not demand that government agents explain their actions, and if the public fails to shine a spotlight on what is happening under cover—people with authority know they will not be held to account. What follows are multiple examples of the lies told by ICE officers to justify warrantless arrests they had already been forbidden to perform. How did the court determine this? By putting officers on the stand and forcing them to talk their way out of their web of lies something that rarely happened. CIP #1: Based on the substance of H-D-G-H-’s testimony and his demeanor, the Court finds thatH-D-G-H-’s account is credible and that Officer J.G.’s testimony is false. [] The I-213 for H-D-G-H-’s arrest describes a series of events that Officer J.G. now admitsnever occurred. Featured in this testimony as well: ICE stating it performed only 13 warrantless arrests, despite performing 504 non-custodial arrests, which were exactly the sort of arrests that tended to be warrantless and led to the injunction blocking these arrests, which ICE apparently chose to ignore. Also: the officer testifying that he and his fellow officers kept a bunch I-200 forms in their vehicles, with pre-printed probable cause determinations[s] on them, apparently in order to expedite warrantless arrests. In another case, ICE officers claimed that a warrant for which a migrant had already been arrested, detained, and released justified their own warrantless arrest. That claim again results in the ignition of righteous anger from the judge: The 2023 warrant states that an ICE officer served the warrant on J-C-C-V- in McAllen,Texas, on April 25, 2023. ICE detained J-C-C-V- for eight days in 2023. Now, Defendants contend that the same warrant would have permitted officers to rearrest J-C-C-V- in 2026. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(b), the Attorney General can rearrest individuals based on previously executed warrants. However, a key detail Defendants ignore is the Attorney General must first “revoke a bond or parole” before rearresting. 8 U.S.C. § 1226(b). Defendants presented no evidence of revocation. Instead, Defendants argue through their counsel, that the I-213 form for J-C-C-V- “indicates there was an intention to revoke the bond or parole.” Tr. 250. Intention does not constitute revocation, and the Court admonishes counsel that they are expected to make good faith arguments as officers of the court. Real people’s lives and liberties are at stake and they should remember that. Evidentiary hearings are not first-year law school examinations where one can score points with a scattershot strategy. From there, the court moves on to point out how absolutely necessary it is to put officers on the stand, especially when the government has repeatedly shown it is not to be trusted. The more insidious problems with Defendants’ documentation are the errors not apparenton the face of the documents. For example, and as discussed above in greater detail, Officer J.G. testified during the evidentiary hearing that the I-213 for H-D-G-H- failed to accurately describe the circumstances of H-D-G-H-’s arrest. Tr. 163. Officer J.G. lied in the I-213 by copying the language that he wrote in the report for driver M-T-M-, the initial target of Officer J.G.’s investigation. Tr. 163; Pls.’ Ex. 112. Anyone reading the I-213 for H-D-G-H- would believe thatOfficer J.G. had identified H-D-G-H- before conducting the investigatory stop, yet Officer J.G. admitted that he had no idea who H-D-G-H- was or that H-D-G-H- was even in the car until afterthe stop occurred. Tr. 163. Had this Court not conducted an evidentiary hearing, and had OfficerJ.G. never testified, Officer J.G.’s falsification of H-D-G-H-’s I-213 form would have been left unchallenged and never corrected. Thats the damage done by just a single warrantless arrest that federal officers lied about in both the initial report and while testifying in court. Theres more in the order, but this is how its all summed up: The presumption of regularity directs the courts to assume, unless clear evidence indicates differently, that government officials have properly discharged their duties, acted in good faith and followed required procedures. This presumption no longer holds for Defendants. The evidence in this case proves as much. That points directly back to the opening paragraphs of the decision. This court is stating plainly that the government cannot be taken at its word. Since thats the new normal, courts need to respond by putting as many ICE officers on the stand as possible during cases like these. What was seen here will be seen elsewhere: that when officers are ordered to explain the deficiencies in their warrants, narratives, or whatever else, theyre going to expose themselves for the liars they are. And if they arent actually lying, that much will be made apparent through direct testimony and cross-examination. Allowing the government to get away with lying by refusing to challenge the boilerplate just makes things worse for Americans and better for the bitter, bigoted facists who think they should just be able to get away with all of this.

[Category: 1, cbp, dhs, doj, ice, trump administration]

— Daily Deal: The 2026 Canva Creator Mastery Course

 

at 11/5/26 12:01pm

Take your design skills to the next level with the 2026 Canva Creator Mastery Course. This program teaches you how to use Canva effectively to produce professional-quality visuals for any purpose. You’ll explore practical design techniques, creative workflows and branding strategies that make your content stand out. It removes the complexity of design and replaces it with simple, actionable steps. With hands-on learning, you’ll quickly gain the ability to create scroll-stopping graphics for any platform. This bundle is perfect for anyone ready to upgrade their digital presence and design skills. The course is available to new and existing users of Canva 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— The Tech Bros Who Bet On Fascism Lost. Don’t Let The Internet Pay For It.

 

at 11/5/26 10:30am

Well its now been a couple days since the Democrats obliterated Donald Trump and MAGA in the midterm. It turns out that the messaging of price hikes, soldiers in the street, new forever wars, and diarrhea for everyone, with a side of enriching the rich while protecting pedophiles somehow failed to resonate. Which is how you end up with absolutely historic midterm results. As happens after every election, no matter how narrow or lopsided, lots of people rush in to explain how it proves their own pet worldview. Im not going to do that because I dont think a single election can ever show any long term support for any particular worldview, and most elections are decided by a variety of factors, mostly based on the vibe of do I think things are heading in the right direction or wrong direction which is a very subjective thing. But, I will note that for those who bought into the MAGA gains of 2024 as some sort of permanent shift in the American outlook, you played yourself. And I will highlight specifically those goons (mostly among the VC and tech billionaire class) who seemed to assume that this was an invitation to go all in on supporting fascism. We warned you. Last year, in a post called Fascism for First Time Founders, I pointed out to the tech bros embracing MAGA-style fascism in the short-sighted belief that this was their moment to become the permanent overlords of the tech world that it would not end well. Fascism never does. And as for the idea that Silicon Valley as a whole (beyond the VC bro / tech bro set) had gone all MAGA, well: Of course, there is still likely to be a real reckoning for all the tech companies that cozied up to Trump, thinking that donating to his ballroom or suddenly deciding to call AI Super Intelligence because Trump said so, would somehow set them up to be the new leaders of the next tech revolution. And it would have been nice if the bozos with billions had thought literally any of this through. I mean, they have these AI tools now, couldnt they have asked them how this might play out? But, no, the billionaire tech bros decided this was their chance to go all in for fascism, and now the entire tech industry will almost certainly pay the regulatory price. Though, arguably, after all the handwringing about Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, and Peter Thiel putting their thumbs on the scales for Trumpian fascism, the fact that their side still got walloped this badly — even with all the money they spent as well — suggests their power to manipulate minds through their platforms isnt nearly as strong as some commenters make out. My fear is that the good parts of the internet — the parts that empower individuals against billionaire control — get destroyed as collateral damage by those in power who will now seek (understandably) to exact revenge on the billionaire tech bros who took their shot at becoming new fascist overlords and missed. Knocking them all down a peg should be the goal, and the way to do that is by backing decentralized, user-controlled tools. We can take away their power by giving it to the actual users of the internet. That means we should avoid tech policies that punish big tech companies in a way that just inherently gives them more power and more control over our lives. The easy path is regulating social media and AI, but done badly (like most current proposals) and in a way that actually gives those jackasses more power by making sure that only they and their giant bank accounts can afford to comply. Instead, we need policies that make it more difficult for big tech to have so much control over our lives. Keep Section 230 strong (which protects small forums and internet users way more than the giants). Fix the DMCA 1201 and the CFAA, both of which big tech companies keep using to try to stifle competition. While were at it, we can still do more to fix patent law to prevent troll lawsuits that harm competition. And make sure that decentralized offerings — in both social media and AI — can actually function without needing government sign-off on every move, even when the real goal of a regulation is to hamstring the giants. Now I know that there are some who worked at the big companies who got in line behind Trump, saying some variation on we needed to do so just to keep our business going, and that is, indeed, different than those (listed above) who seemed positively eager to support and promote Trumps MAGA agenda. But to me thats little excuse. Have a backbone. Stand up for whats right. Isnt that what free thinkers in the wild west of the tech world keep claiming is so important? Anyway, theres no doubt that a reckoning is coming to Silicon Valley and the tech bros who tried to use the last two years in pursuit of a technocratic fascist network state. And they totally deserve it. But it would be nice if we didnt take down the rest of the internet — especially the parts that actually are empowering to users — with it.

[Category: 1, donald trump, elections, elon musk, fascism, maga, marc andreessen, mark zuckerberg, midterms, peter thiel, silicon valley]

— Israeli Spy Company Busted Using Malware Ads To Infect, Locate, And Spy On Starlink Users

 

at 11/5/26 6:29am

Israeli spy outfit Discover-Tech spied on internet users through a sprawling network of dodgy online ads ​that it used to track, surveil, and geolocate internet users. In some instances simply having the firms zero click spyware ads displayed by devices resulted in infection. The company seemed particularly interested in using ads to surveil and geolocate Starlink users, according to a new Reuters report: Researchers at TrendAI, a unit of Tokyo-based cybersecurity company Trend Micro (4704.T), opens new tab, ‌concluded the Israeli company Discover-Tech was one of the biggest sources of digital ads shown to users of SpaceXs Starlink service and that the ads were likely being used to geolocate or otherwise surveil them, according to the six people. For some reason TrendAI and Trend Micro originally didnt formally name Discover-Tech; something only disclosed after follow up reports by both Citizen Lab and New York ad security firm Confiant. According to Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech posed as a legitimate vendor on ad exchanges, but was really just a proxy for outfits like Israels Candiru a spyware company blacklisted by the U.S. government. Being broadly declared as “certified” and “approved” by unregulated establishment ad vendors and markets allowed Discover-Tech to target people with zero-click malware across more than 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps. The totality of information gleaned from ad auctions is quite valuable. A company with access to auction data can track users without their knowledge as they move around in physical space, or switch between cellular, Wi-Fi, and VPNs, by observing how bid requests tied to a specific identifier change location or IP address over time. In fact, the surveillance industry sells access to so-called ad intelligence (ADINT) platforms that leverage this sort of data, often combined with third-party tracking data. In recent years, several investigations and media reports have uncovered vendors that sell ADINT to defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies. Citizen Lab goes on to detail advancements in zero click ad-based malware, where simply having the ad displayed is enough to begin the infection process: Advertisers or DSPs may run HTML and JavaScript code when an ad is shown to the user. That code retrieves additional JavaScript code, which may, in turn, load further code, such as a browser exploit to install spyware. Since the code can contain identifiers for the user or their device, arbitrary JavaScript code can be sent precisely to a single user’s device. Our research in this report indicates that this architecture is indeed abused to facilitate the delivery of zero-click targeted spyware, and that the simple display of a targeted ad is enough for infection. Last May, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that numerous Israeli spyware vendors had begun specifically advertising their ability to locate and spy on Starlink users, of obvious importance in military conflicts in Ukraine. Weve noted repeatedly how the U.S. has failed to regulate data brokers and online ad markets for two primary reasons. One, the country is corrupt and repeatedly places online ad revenues above public safety, national security, and even the safety of U.S. troops. And two, the U.S. government also enjoys being able to bypass warrants by buying much of this unregulated data itself. The end result is an ecosystem poised for widespread exploitation and abuse by a long parade of unethical predators. And despite decades of constant scandal, little seems to change. In fact, U.S. regulators under Trump have actively made life easier on these sorts of bad actors by rolling back even the more modest efforts to regulate online data brokers.

[Category: 1, candiru, discover-tech, spacex, starlink, data brokers, hacking, israeli, malware, privacy, spyware, zero click]

— Post Midterms, Pete Hegseth & RFK Jr. Stare Down Likely Impeachment Efforts

 

at 11/4/26 9:05pm

The impact of the midterm election result is going to be felt for years, to be sure. But some of the effects will be far more swift than that, likely kicking off right after the new Congress is sworn in. Were mere hours removed from the election, with some votes still being tallied, but already some in the media are handicapping who in the administration will remain in their positions and who will not, either because an angry Trump searching for a scapegoat fires them, or through impeachment efforts. Many people think that a third Trump impeachment will be the focus. I dont. And I hope thats not the route the Democrats go, though not every Techdirt writer agrees with me. I guess Im just not all that excited to watch J.D. Vance walk into a room while Hail to the Chief plays behind him, even temporarily. I much prefer the government go after the many valid targets for impeachment that currently sit in Trumps cabinet. And, given that both Trump and Vance are currently blaming the Iran not-a-war for the GOP loss, Pete Hegseth seems like a likely candidate to be the first to go. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth faces impeachment accusations when Congress returns after the midterm elections and others, including President Donald Trump, could be investigated for alleged misconduct as Democrats return to power. There are all kinds of reasons to impeach Hegseth. His injection of Christian nationalism into the DoD is plainly unconstitutional. Hes currently running a war with Iran that is without Congressional authorization and has resulted in the cavalier bombing of such dastardly targets as Iranian schoolgirls. He is almost certainly personally responsible for the murder of human trafficking victims as part of his campaign to lob bombs at boats off the coast of South America because they might be running drugs. In quick order, the military under Hegseth also managed to double-tap strike its victims in these boats to ensure the victims couldnt seek justice. Thomas Massie already has articles of impeachment for Hegseth written. But Hegseth is also an easy target for Trump to fire, which may happen before any impeachment efforts can really get kicked off. Its not like Trump would lose much in firing Hegseth. He wasnt qualified for the position to begin with. And neither is the other likely target of impeachment efforts: RFK Jr. The number of justifications for impeaching Kennedy are legion. Hes completely failed in his role, preferring to run podcasts and host cooking shows instead of doing his job. Measles, screwworms, pertussis are all on the rise under his failed leadership. The medical community is in full revolt over his vaccine policies. Hes hiding data from the public as to the results of his disaster of a tenure at HHS. Like Hegseth, Kennedy already has impeachment articles filed against him that are ready to go. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Michigan, filed impeachment accusations against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in December. Stevens accused Kennedy of freezing or canceling billions of dollars in research, firing health advisers and spreading conspiracy theories. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has imperiled the health and safety of the American people, eroded public confidence in the nation’s public health institutions and stalled decades of scientific and medical progress, Stevens wrote in the resolution. Kennedys ouster from HHS is long, long overdue. None of this should be misconstrued to suggest that Democrats should take a page from Trumps playbook and go on a revenge tour. But dismantling the corrupt, inept regime at the Secretary level makes all the sense in the world. Both Hegseth and Kennedy have been absolute disasters for the country on a variety of levels. Allowing them two more years to continue to harm the country is plainly unacceptable. And, importantly, there are Republicans that would be likely allies to impeachment efforts of both of them. The project of American restoration has to start now. Tearing down the House of MAGA must begin, brick by brick. Perhaps then, and only then, we can truly be great again.

[Category: 1, donald trump, impeachment, maga, midterm elections, midterms, pete hegseth, rfk jr.]

— DOJ Admits Its ‘Illegal Voter’ Lists Can’t Be Trusted, Leading To Three Court Losses In 24 Hours

 

at 11/4/26 4:15pm

A last minute attempt to throw the midterm election into chaos failed. Leading up to this point, the signs were never good in the Magic 8 Ball way. The Trump administration wants people to believe California was overrun with non-citizen voters. The facts, however, refuse to comply with the narrative. This particular ship has been sinking for a couple of weeks now. The DOJ delivered an accusation before it even delivered a list. It claimed absolutely without facts in evidence that there were at least 20,000 illegal voters in California. And by illegal, the administration definitely meant brown people wed like to expel from the country. California pushed back. First, it questioned the claim and received no definite answer. Then the administration reluctantly admitted as it has in other states that its first allegation may have been overstated. But rather than pull back and reassess, the DOJ went the other way. I assure you that I am not making this next part up: it delivered a thumb drive containing a list of the 20,000 illegal voters, along with a password written on a Post-It note you know, the way aging parents handle login info for their cable TV-provided email accounts. Then the state sued the DOJ, right after the DOJ demanded California investigate each and every one of these 20,000 allegations within 48 hours of being thumb-drived. Other voters sued the DOJ as well, which set it up for the string of extremely speedy failures it recently experienced. Things already looked bad for the DOJ when its DHS-aided raids in California resulted in the arrests of 28 illegal voters this in a state that has 23 million registered voters. Not content with this failure, the DOJ then claimed California election officials just werent doing enough and demanded they do all the heavy lifting while the DOJ pursued its minuscule number of prosecutions. With the mid-term election just a couple of days away, the courts moved speedily to handle this bullshit. As Chris Geidner reports, the first thing the DOJ did with the clock counting down to FLIP EVERYTHING time is shoot itself in the face while attempting to shoot itself in the foot: A Justice Department lawyer on Monday admitted in court that it was “fair” to say that the Trump administration’s list of “likely noncitizen” voters has a high error rate. The shocking admission from Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Kao came in a hearing in a lawsuit brought last week by unions representing election workers and civil rights organizations over the Trump administration’s threatened prosecution of those election workers and other related conduct. Yep, thats the way the DOJ does business under Trumps control: You fuck up until youre forced to admit youve fucked up. Firings and forced resignations ensue. New sychophantic rubes are pressed into service. Rinse and repeat. But whats really enjoyable about this is how fast the DOJ (and the administration overseeing it) lost at every single level of the federal court system after making this admission. Geidner has reproduced the entire timeline, which is truly a sight to behold. At 10:10 pm (ET), the federal court handling the lawsuit denied a request for a stay of its order. This led immediately to the administration running its election interference campaign to the next two levels of the court system, hoping against hope that at least one set of judges would give the DOJ permission to fuck with midterm elections in Calfornia. No dice. [UPDATE, 4:00 p.m. ET November 3: After a flurry of activity in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since Judge Thompson denied DOJ’s motion for a stay of her TRO, a 6-5 limited en banc panel of the appeals court issued an order Tuesday that stays Thompson’s TRO pending the Justice Department’s appeal of it at the Ninth Circuit.] [UPDATE, 6:15 p.m. ET November 3: The plaintiffs are seeking full court en banc review at the Ninth Circuit, arguing, Federalism principles of the highest order, embedded in our Constitution, require correction of this erroneous decision by the full Court.] Meanwhile, the administration was trying to secure a parallel victory in the highest court in the land, pursuing its appeal of an earlier rejection of the DOJs lawsuit against California one that demanded election officials segregate any ballots that might be related to the DOJs admittedly highly erroneous list of 20,000 voters. The Supreme Court couldnt be bothered. Its rejection failed to state if it was less than impressed with the administrations lack of subtlety when it came to its own election-rigging efforts: [Update, 6:05 p.m: The Supreme Court quickly rejected [Solicitor General John] Sauer’s request on Monday evening — before any opposition was even sought or filed There were no noted dissents.] So, if youre following along and can read a clock, youre seeing something rather remarkable: an administration being shut down by three consecutive levels of the federal court system in less than 24 hours. And that means California doesnt have to do any of the bullshit the DOJ demanded and then sued about. It also means the DOJ doesnt actually have any illegal election dirt on 99.9999% of Californias voters and we wouldnt be shocked at all if it doesnt have any dirt on the 28 people it managed to round up during its statewide sweep.

[Category: 1, dhs, doj, trump administration, voter suppression]

— Congress Has Abdicated Its Role Of Holding The President In Check

 

at 11/4/26 2:08pm

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. On the evening of Oct. 11, just weeks before the 2026 midterm elections, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop airing taxpayer-funded television advertisements praising President Donald Trump. Yet two of the ads continued running past the court’s deadline, including during broadcasts of “60 Minutes” and “ABC World News Tonight.” The commercials in question aired in violation of a decades-old congressional prohibition against using federal money for unauthorized publicity and propaganda. Yet Republican congressional leaders did little to stop the president’s ad spending. That left outside organizations and a political candidate to challenge them in federal court. The episode illustrates a larger development in Trump’s second presidency. Across disputes involving federal spending, government agencies and military operations, the administration has asserted authority that is either restricted by law or that the legislative branch has reserved for itself. But responsibility for enforcing those limits is increasingly falling to organizations, institutions and individuals outside of the legislative branch. As a scholar of the American presidency and deliberative democracy, I pay close attention to how the nation’s chief executive exercises power and communicates with the public. When presidents are allowed to break rules and disregard democratic norms without consequence, I worry that citizens will grow cynical and lose faith in the idea of self-government. As this happens, citizens may come to see the law as something that applies selectively, depending on who holds power, and lose confidence in the institutions responsible for holding their leaders accountable. They may also begin to accept the absence of accountability as a normal feature of political life, weakening the public expectations on which democratic government depends. Practical immunity Congress is not the only branch of government demurring from holding the president accountable. In July 2024, the Supreme Court provided presidents sweeping protection from criminal prosecution for actions taken in office under the “core constitutional powers” of the position. In “Trump v. United States,” the court held that former presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for actions taken under powers the Constitution gives exclusively to the president. Along with this “absolute immunity,” the justices also granted “at least presumptive immunity” for other official acts. In their decision, the court’s conservative majority extended the meaning of official conduct to the “outer perimeter” of presidential responsibilities and prohibited courts from examining a president’s motives when determining whether an act was official. The ruling only addressed criminal liability and did not curtail Congress’ constitutional authority to investigate presidential conduct, control federal spending, enact statutory restrictions and, in serious cases, pursue impeachment. Yet the Republican majority in Congress has largely declined to exercise these powers against Trump, in areas ranging from declaring war to spending money. Their acquiescence is helping create a new form of official protection, which I call “practical immunity.” In using this term, I am borrowing from the work of scholars who study abuse in the American penal system. Those thinkers argue that legal obstacles, institutional hesitation and political incentives sometimes make it difficult to hold public officials accountable, even when the law suggests there has been illegal conduct. That is what appears to be increasingly happening now with Congress, the courts and the president. When Congress stops defending its laws The television ads case illustrates the conundrum of practical immunity. In opposing the temporary restraining order, the Trump administration’s attorneys did not contest the argument asserted by the plaintiffs – Common Cause and two unions – that the expenditures violated federal appropriations law. Instead, they said the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. They also argued that the case was moot because the advertising campaign was ending. Those arguments failed in court. Yet the administration’s defense demonstrated how elusive enforcing a law can be when Congress fails to assert its constitutionally granted role, even when the underlying legal restriction is clear. To win, a plaintiff must establish a concrete injury and persuade a judge to intervene. While this happens, the disputed conduct often continues. In this case, the president went on spending public money in violation of the law. The GOP-led Congress, meanwhile, remained silent, even though its own role was being usurped. Another boundary that Trump has repeatedly tested is the so-called “power of the purse”, which is among the legislative branch’s most important constitutional responsibilities. Presidents may spend federal money only for purposes Congress has authorized. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 protects lawmakers’ decisions against presidential efforts to ignore congressional appropriations. In September 2026, Trump’s administration canceled more than US$800 million in congressionally approved spending for immigrant services, climate change and civil rights for minority groups. The cancellation was done through a maneuver known as a pocket rescission. The administration timed its action to make it difficult for Congress to consider or stop the rescission. The Government Accountability Office – an independent agency that examines how taxpayer dollars are spent – said tactics like these violate federal law. When this happened, a few members of Congress tried to intervene and stop the rescission, but the Republican majority blocked their efforts. The collapse of institutional rivalry The separation of powers divides authority among the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government to prevent too much power from becoming concentrated in any one place. The architects of the Constitution anticipated that officials in different branches would compete to preserve their authority. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison argued that maintaining the balance established by the separation of powers depended on the ambitions of public officials coming into conflict. Members of Congress could be expected to resist presidential encroachments because those encroachments diminished their own power. Fierce partisanship has complicated this arrangement. Legal scholars Daryl Levinson and Richard Pildes have shown how political competition mostly now happens inside and between parties, rather than among branches of government. When one party controls Congress and the presidency, legislators may become more invested in advancing their party’s agenda than they are in defending their institution’s constitutional authority. Trump’s influence over Republican voters intensifies these incentives. Lawmakers who oppose him risk public ridicule, primary challenges and diminished political support. Defending congressional authority may therefore carry greater immediate – and personal – political costs than allowing presidential power to expand. The result is a political system in which a president can act in ways that may violate federal law, undermine democratic norms and encroach on Congress’ constitutional authority. Madison’s constitutional design assumed that public officials would defend the powers entrusted to them. The danger to the American constitutional system emerging in Trump’s second term is that congressional leaders have begun to regard those powers as expendable, allowing the president to exercise authority under conditions of practical immunity. He faces little fear of meaningful institutional consequences. Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin is the Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs at Boise State University

[Category: 1, branches of government, congress, donald trump, executive branch, supreme court]

— ICE Is Now Arresting People Who’ve Been Released From ICE Detention By Court Orders

 

at 11/4/26 12:05pm

US federal court have overwhelmingly ruled (10,000 orders and counting) that migrants are just like natural-born citizens entitled to constitutional rights. Among them is the right to due process. This means that detained migrants have a right to a hearing to see whether they can be held in custody until a hearing on the issue. And that issue is whether or not they can be held indefinitely. The courts have said migrants have rights, far more often than not. The Trump administration has sought to counter this with an extremely novel interpretation of immigration laws that have been on the books for decades, claiming theres ultimately no difference between someone caught crossing the border illegally (who can be detained and deported without worrying about the Constitution) and someone who has been in this country for months or years and poses no actual flight risk, much less a threat to public safety. Since its not on the right side of the law, the party of law and order has encouraged ICE to thwart the law and/or flat-out ignore court orders. ICE has made it a habit to immediately move detainees from detention center to detention center in hopes of preventing their cases from being heard. Not only does it distance migrants from their legal representation, it keeps the venue in permanent flux, which means habeas petitions are doomed to fail because they were filed in place other than where the rights violation took place (the location of the arrest). ICE also tends to route most detainees to large concentration camps in Texas and Louisiana because theyre ultimately overseen by the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court, which has (now) repeatedly decided migrants dont have rights. Apparently, the usual ICE bullshit isnt working well enough or often enough. Now, the administration is straight up mocking the 10,000+ decisions in favor of due process rights by deliberately targeting migrants who have been freed from detention by federal court orders. Immigrants who have been granted release from detention after winning habeas corpus petitions in court are being re-arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Guardian has identified at least 20 cases nationwide relating to people who were detained after being released on habeas corpus petition in the last year, according to court records, attorneys and media reports. Twenty cases may seem like an immeasurable drop in the bucket compared to the nearly 100,000 habeas petitions that have been filed since Trumps assault on migrants began early last year. But its also an obvious undercount. This determination relies on what can be gleaned from court records, which means there are likely hundreds of re-detainees who havent been able to file a motion due to ICEs deliberate attempts to separate migrants from their rights and representation. And this effort is amazingly brutal. No normal human being would consider this to be acceptable US government behavior. But this is something the psychopaths and sociopaths running the GOP are willing to do to indulge the whims of their preferred demagogue. And in Minnesota, seven immigrants were re-detained before even exiting the Whipple federal building detention facility on the outskirts of Minneapolis, as first reported by MPR. “I don’t think being taken out of a building and directly into the arms of four or more officers complies with the court’s order,” Daniel Suitor, attorney to two of the men, said in a phone interview . In Louisiana (Fifth Circuit, yo!), immigration officials were held in contempt after re-arresting a single migrant three times after hed been granted release by federal judges. More of the same is going on in Minnesota (see above) and Pennsylvania. Not only are migrants being re-arrested immediately after securing their release via court orders, but they are increasingly being deported to countries with which they have no ties. Cruelty on top of cruelty on top of hideous displays of inhumanity. Thats just the day-to-day operations of our current administration, one completely consumed by hatred and capable of little more than inflicting whatever pain it can until it runs out of time or victims.

[Category: 1, bigotry, cruelty, dhs, due process, ice, mass deportation, trump admininstration]

— Daily Deal: uTalk Language Education

 

at 11/4/26 11:59am

We have all wanted to learn a language at some point but its hard to get started. Some language learning tools can be complicated and very time-consuming. But with uTalk, youll be speaking keywords and phrases in no time, and will start to see the results straight away. It helps you overcome the language barrier challenge by helping you learn real, practical vocabulary in a wide variety of languages from any device that you choose. uTalks language programs let you listen to native speakers who are recorded in uTalk’s recording studio and feature independently verified translations so youll be able to navigate through your next vacation like a real local. Get 2 languages for $30, 6 languages for $50, or all 100+ languages for $69.97. 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— Ofcom Admits ‘Highly Effective’ Age Checks At 16 Really Mean ‘ID Scans For Teens’

 

at 11/4/26 10:31am

Last week, Ofcom, the UK regulator in charge of all this stuff, released its rapid assessment of highly effective age assurance at 16. That came right on the heels of its quietly released (only because the law required it) report showing that the Online Safety Acts duty of care wasnt actually having any noticeable impact on kids access to harmful content. Even as the Online Safety Act was being rolled out after years of debate, UK politicians started whining and screaming that they had to follow other countries towards banning kids from social media entirely. Ofcom is supposed to help put together a plan for such a social media ban by the end of the year, with implementation set for next spring. As part of this, Ofcom was tasked with reviewing the state of technology that can determine whether someone is under or over 16, and in doing so basically confirmed what many activists have been pointing out all along: if youre putting an explicit age limit on social media, you are requiring kids to hand over private information and put themselves at risk. The report includes this handy chart, which basically notes that if youre trying to determine if someone is between the age of 16 and 18, youre really talking about having them hand over private information: That first column on the left is the telling one. Thats the one that says there are only four(ish) highly effective means of doing age assurance and basically all of them are actually send private info to a company. The first two are obvious: uploading a photo ID or banking info, both of which are incredibly risky, especially since youll be uploading them to companies which are clear targets for hackers. The third one is really the same thing, because even as digital identity services are coming online with the goal of doing the ID part as a third party and then issuing some sort of old enough / too young token, those services are still getting that information via the uploading of private info. But its the last one thats the funniest. For years, age verification providers have insisted that no one would have to upload private info, because they could estimate your age just based on scanning your face. But weve always called bullshit on that. Such scanning may be able to tell the difference between a 50-year-old and a 15-year-old but its effectively useless for determining the difference between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old. And Ofcom kinda admits that. It still lists facial age estimation as highly effective, but only with that parenthetical caveat. And the full paper concedes that the technology falls apart for exactly the kids closest to the age line: The margin of error for facial age estimation becomes more significant for the ages closest to the target age gate (16 in this case). For example, if the facial age estimation algorithm is accurate within two years for children aged 15, it could estimate them as aged 17. This could result in significant numbers of children under 16 gaining access to services or functionalities that are restricted. It could also result in a 17-year-old being denied access if they are estimated to be 15, unless they use another method. However, this is only likely to affect users who are close to the target age, as most adults offered this method would be estimated to be clearly above 16. So, yes, if youre much older, perhaps a facial scan gets you onto a website without uploading your ID. But if youre anywhere near 16, youre basically out of luck, because Ofcoms fix for the margin of error is to kick anyone who looks young-ish over to a different method and a different method is always going to be upload an ID. In order to account for the margin of error in a facial age estimation algorithm, services should implement a ‘challenge age’ (sometimes known as a ‘buffer age’). A challenge age approach is widely used in an offline context when selling age-restricted products like alcohol in retail environments, for instance, through the retailing strategy ‘Challenge 25.’ In this approach, anyone who appears to the provider of restricted products to be under the age of 25 should be challenged to provide acceptable ID proving that they are over the age of 18 if they wish to buy alcohol. Of course, requiring kids to upload their photo IDs or banking info is going to be difficult given that many kids dont actually have photo IDs or banking info at age 16. Ofcom argues that 89% of 16-year-olds have a passport while 19% have a provisional driving license. But passports also arent the kind of ID that kids regularly have at the ready any time theyre reaching an internet service. Perhaps Im out of touch with the youth of the UK, but Id be surprised to find many of them regularly have passports at arms length most of the time. The likely result is forcing more kids to get IDs at younger ages than they would otherwise need them, again creating privacy questions for those kids. Either way, teenagers are in for a lot of your papers please! and Ofcom says so pretty directly: Our preliminary assessment suggests that 16- and 17-year-olds are more likely than users of other ages to need access to a photo ID document. Of the methods listed as capable of being highly effective at 16, a photo ID will likely be needed at some point in the process. This is either because the method itself requires a photo ID, because ownership of a photo ID is part of the underlying process for accessing another method (such as opening a bank account or using a digital identity service), or because a 16- or 17-year-old will most likely fall within the challenge or buffer age for facial estimation methods and be asked to prove their age with a secondary method. In other words, what UK politicians (and plenty of child safety activists) are demanding here is that a bunch of kids have to give up their privacy and hand over documents that can put them at risk. For their safety. At a time when there remains little to no evidence that barring kids from internet services will actually improve their safety.

[Category: ofcom, age verification, highly effective age verification, protect the children, social media bans, uk]

As of 11/8/26 1:50am. Last new 11/7/26 2:15pm.