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It's been a long and winding road to mostly get us right back to where we started in the battle between pop star Katy Perry and Aussie clothing designer Katie Perry. If you're not familiar with this saga, here is a brief summary. Note that I will be mostly using only Katy and Katie when [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. The Trump administration is loosening restrictions on the sharing of law enforcement information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, officials said, overriding controls that have been in place for decades to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. Government officials said the changes could give the [...]

Support us on Patreon There's a notion that pops up in the comments here on Techdirt that Mike and our writer Karl Bode are deeply opposed in their opinions on AI and engaged in an epic ongoing debate. Alas, the truth is a little less spectacular: while they might have some differences of opinion here [...]

TheSAFE act,introduced by Senators Mike Lee and Dick Durbin, is the first of many likely proposals we will see to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008-and while imperfect, it does propose a litany of real and much-needed reforms of Big Brother's favorite surveillance authority. The irresponsible 2024 [...]

The DOJ is filled with grossly incompetent prosecutors these days. It's a bunch of subservients acting in obeisance to the zenith of gross incompetence: the current President of the United States. When not being sidelined by judges for not being legally appointed, the handpicked losers of Trump's DOJ Revenge Squad are being shut out by [...]

The Academy of Game Art Bundle teaches you the basics of how to create video game art. You'll learn how to use Inkscape to create logos, 2D backgrounds, pre-defined modules, UI designs, and characters. A course on using DragonBones will teach you how to animate your characters as well. The bundle is on sale for [...]

Look, I get it. Government waste is real. Bureaucratic bloat is real. The desire to have a federal government that spends taxpayer money wisely and operates without unnecessary friction? That's a pretty standard and quite reasonable desire in American politics. So when Elon Musk showed up promising he could cut $2 trillion in federal spending [...]

Brendan Carr is once again doing Brendan Carr stuff. Carr has threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of broadcasters that tell the truth about Trump's disastrous war in Iran. In a post over at Elon Musk's right wing propaganda website, Carr insists that news outlets that are running hoaxes and news distortions" (read: telling the [...]

Normally, a post about the signing of an NFL free agent wouldn't make it anywhere near these here Techdirt pages. Today, that is not the case. The site For The Win posted a mildly interesting report on the Tennessee Titans signing wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson to a 4 year, $78 million contract. But wait, you're [...]

It has long been clear: Trump needs to be removed from office before he can inflict even more damage than he already has. But he doesn't just need to be stopped; for America to have a future he also needs to be repudiated. Impeachment speaks to each need, to both make clear his behavior is [...]

We've been covering the growing parade of lawyers submitting AI-hallucinated case citations to courts for a while now. It keeps happening, and courts keep having to deal with it. But the pattern is usually the same: a careless attorney uses ChatGPT to draft a brief, the fake citations get spotted by the opposing side or [...]

We've discussed at length how Trump's fix" for TikTok's problems basically involved forcing the sale of the platform to his greedy billionaire buddies (with the help of pathetic Democrats). The deal fixed none of the real issues Trumpland pretended to be concerned about (national security, privacy, propaganda), and China still maintains a significant ownership stake. [...]

It's not that arrest and ticket quotas don't exist. They do. They always have. They always will. It's that they're illegal. Courts have repeatedly criticized quotas because they create incentives so perverse they'd make /b/ board denizens uncomfortable. Since they're presumptively illegal, most law enforcement agencies will use any word but quota" to describe these. [...]

Power all your Apple essentials-without the clutter. The Mag 3 Ultra Qi2 25W 3-in-1 Foldable Charger delivers fast charging for your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once. The new Qi2 25W makes charging 70% faster, reaching from 0 to 50% in just 30 minutes! Magnetic charging also lets you power up your Apple [...]

Much of last week I had been working on a different article than the one this became. The American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Council of Learned Societies - all plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Humanities over DOGE's mass grant cancellations - had uploaded the full [...]

We've noted how Microsoft is a little sensitive about AI slop at the moment. Back in January, CEO Satya Nadella wrote a well-circulated blog post lamenting critics of AI slop" and demanding the public simply move past such conversations. It was relatively innocuous, but wasn't received well for some valid reasons. One problem is that [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Nimrod with a comment about the lack of checks and balances for RFK Jr.: Observation If a member of organized crime were to manage to get themself elected President, they would probably try to delegitimize the legal system, law enforcement and government authority in [...]

Before we get started: last week, I asked for your feedback on the weekend posts and some possible changes we're considering going forward. The dominant theme of the responses was that lots of people like the Comment posts just the way they are, but can take or leave these History posts. We're still mulling over [...]

The World Baseball Classic is currently going on and I absolutely adore it. Essentially a World Cup for baseball, 20 nations are playing against one another in a banger of a tune-up for the Major League Baseball season. It's a flamboyant delight, with cultural celebrations such as the Italian team doing a shot of espresso [...]

We're a couple weeks late to this one, but it deserves more attention than it received. As the Washington Post first reported, a federal judge has found that the IRS violated federal law 42,695 times when it handed over confidential taxpayer addresses to ICE last summer. But the raw number, staggering as it is, undersells [...]

The power of the latest generation of AI systems is such that previously impractical applications are not just possible, but scalable. For example, moving beyond basic early AI text translation tools, it is now possible to use live translation to communicate in another language in real time. For many people that will be a real [...]

Roughly a year ago - as Trump was trying to turn anti-genocide protests into deportable antisemitism - his administration made it clear it was only willing to support white people with antisemitic views. The administration threw some anti-Israel filters into the mix for DHS vetting of incoming migrants, blending them with the anti-Trump filters that [...]

Luminar Mobile is your all-in-one creative companion designed for iOS, Android OS, and Chrome OS. Powered by an intuitive, touch-responsive interface, it lets you enhance photos effortlessly-anytime, anywhere. Whether you're adjusting lighting, perfecting portraits, or adding artistic flair, Luminar Mobile delivers pro-level results in the palm of your hand. It's on sale for $20. Note: [...]

It's been a little while since we last wrote about California's deeply problematic Age Appropriate Design Code," which tried to force internet companies into taking blatantly unconstitutional steps to pressure companies into magically preventing all harms" to kids. The law has bounced between the district court and the Ninth Circuit multiple times - and yesterday, [...]

Last election season, you might recall how the Trump campaign lied to everyone repeatedly about how his second administration would rein in big tech," and be a natural extension of the Lina Khan antitrust movement. As we noted at the time, that was always an obvious fake populist lie, but it was propped up anyway [...]

If you agree with me that what RFK Jr. has done at HHS - particularly when it comes to altering vaccine schedules, approvals, research, and access - is bad well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Kennedy rode Trump's coattails, building his own Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement on the back of the wider MAGA [...]

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. In this week's round-up of the latest news in online [...]

OpenAI, the maker of ChaptGPT, is rightfully facing widespread criticism for its decisions to fill the gap the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) created when rival Anthropicrefused todrop its restrictions against using its AI for surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. After protests from bothusersand employees who did not sign up to support government mass surveillance-early [...]

Laws prohibiting minors from accessing AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT would violate the First Amendment. But that's not stopping lawmakers from trying. Senator Josh Hawley has introduced the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2025 (GUARD Act), which would require AI companies to prohibit" minors under 18 years of age" from accessing or [...]

Senator Ron Wyden says that when a secret interpretation of Section 702 is eventually declassified, the American public will be stunned" to learn what the NSA has been doing. If you've followed Wyden's career, you know this is not a man prone to hyperbole - and you know his track record on these warnings is [...]

To completely understand computer security, it's vital to step outside the fence and to think outside the box. Computer security is not just about firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems, or anti-viruses. It's also about tricking people into doing whatever a hacker wishes. A secure system, network, or infrastructure is also about informed people. The All-in-One Super-Sized [...]

Every phone is a narc whether you realize it or not. The private sector certainly knows what information a cell phone can divulge and has leveraged the always-on nature of these devices to maximize profitability. The public sector - mainly law enforcement agencies, both local and federal - have caught onto this as well. With [...]

We've already all seen what the Ellison family's version of editorial independence" looks like over at CBS, where contrarian troll Bari Weiss has turned the already very Republican friendly news giant into a safe space for right wing zealots and autocrats. All overseen by a Brendan Carr chosen censor tasked with ensuring the channel always [...]

Alright, I think it might be time for a wellness check on the people running Buc-ee's. I realize that these chain of gas and convenience stores has a strange cult following in the south. I won't pretend to understand why that is, but whatever. Unfortunately, the company also appears to be run by a bunch [...]

Who should be directly liable for online infringement - the entity that serves it up or a user who embeds a link to it? For almost two decades, most U.S. courts have held that the former is responsible, applying a rule called the server test. Under the server test, whomever controls the server that hosts [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. Images from the missile strike in southern Iran were more horrifying than any of the case studies Air Force combat veteran Wes J. Bryant had pored over in his mission to overhaul how the U.S. military safeguards civilian life. Parents wept over their children's bodies. Crushed [...]

Last month we reported on a strange story in two strange parts: first, a coder had his AI agent create an entire smear campaign against a coding repository volunteer because he rejected AI code. Second, an Ars Technica journalist named Benj Edwards used a bunch of quotes made up by ChatGPT in a story about [...]

From the very beginning of the DOGE saga, many of us raised alarms about what would happen when a bunch of inexperienced twenty-somethings were handed unfettered access to the most sensitive databases in the federal government with essentially zero oversight and zero adherence to the security protocols that exist for very good reasons. We wrote [...]

Learn key concepts, from data preprocessing to building and evaluating models, with hands-on projects to cement your skills with the 2026 Ultimate Web Development and Coding Bundle. The 13 courses cover C++, Pythong, HTML5, Git and GitHub, Power BI, MySQL, and more. It's on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and [...]

Flooding cities with federal officers more used to dealing with border crossings and customs enforcement has led to multiple killings by these officers. They're not trained to do what they're being ordered to do. And their new hires aren't being given the training they need because, apparently, the job of ejecting non-whites from this country [...]

The President of Larry Ellison's new and improved" Paramount, Jeff Shell, has been conspicuously absent from recent events heralding the company's problematic acquisition of Warner Brothers. The reason? Shell is being accused by a whistleblower" and former partner of leaking company info, including early word of the company's $7.7 billion August 2025 deal to obtain [...]

I've spent a lot of digital ink detailing just how bad RFK Jr. has been in his post at HHS. Everything from his attempts to entirely remake vaccine policies in the country, to his neutered response to the ongoing measles outbreak in the country, up to and including his attempts to strong-arm the entire federal [...]

Ideally, the U.S. public is supposed to be able to comment on government policy proceedings, and the government is supposed to listen to that input. Of course, it doesn't really work that way: For years we've noted how U.S. regulatory comment proceedings arefull of bots and fake comments from industries trying to game regulators, and [...]

We've been covering Stephen Thaler's quixotic quest to get copyright (and patent) protection for works generated entirely by his AI system DABUS" for years now. If there's one thing Thaler has proved beyond all reasonable doubt, it's that you can be comprehensively, thoroughly, and repeatedly wrong at every level of the American legal system and [...]

We have met the enemy and he is us. When a teenage boy in Orlando started texting Character.AI's chatbot, it started as an innocent use of a new tool. Sewell Setzer III customized the chatbot to have the Game of Thrones-inspired persona of Daenerys Targaryen, the series' prominent dragon-riding queen. In the months that followed, [...]

Transform your future in cybersecurity with 7 courses on nextlevel packet control, secure architecture, and cloudready defenses inside the 2026 Complete Firewall Admin Bundle. Courses cover IT fundamentals, topics to help you prepare for the CompTIA Server+ and CCNA exams, and more. It's on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and [...]

I come here to celebrate the apparently permanent sidelining of former DHS head, Kristi Noem. I know the adage usually does some hedging before damning with faint praise, but I'm not interested in praise, faint or otherwise, much less pretending this isn't worth celebrating. Noem openly pined for the VP position, but shot herself in [...]

You might recall that during the great mass TikTok hyperventilation of 2021-2025, there was no limit of face fanning by Republicans like Brendan Carr about overseas involvement in social media. Carr was so particular on this subject, he scuttled an FCC program aimed at shoring up smart" home device security standards because one of the [...]

There's this insane subset of people who, when they talk about Donald Trump, I'll never understand. It's the ones who claim that taking what Donald Trump says seriously is a mistake that most people are unlikely to make. It's also expressed by the crowd that claims something to the effect of: you shouldn't take Trump [...]

On Wednesday of last week, I wrote a post about how the Trump administration had quietly given up defending its unconstitutional executive orders targeting law firms. The DOJ was dropping its appeals, the firms that fought had won, and the firms that capitulated-led by Paul Weiss and their nearly $1 billion in groveling pro bono [...]