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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 sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw [...]

It sounds absolutely batty that there is a strong, bipartisan push to lock up aspects of our law behind copyright. But it's happening. Even worse, the push is on to include this effort to lock up the law in the must pass" National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the bill that Congress lights up [...]

Good news for phone owners. Perhaps a little less great for law enforcement, which presumably still doesn't have the capability to crack the latest cell phones. Not that it's all bad news for law enforcement. Whether or not compelled password production is a constitutional violation is still an open question. Those whose phones are secured [...]

In a stunning display of technocratic incompetence, the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) has effectively outlawed the very tool that online platforms have relied on for years to combat trolls: shadowbanning. Recent court decisions suggest that the DSA's (possibly?) well-intentioned but misguided Article 17 has created a troll's paradise, leaving websites in an impossible position [...]

The leading candidate to head the FCC should Trump win re-election is facing calls for an investigation into Hatch Act violations after he helped co-author the controversial Project 2025. Sixteen House Democrats have sent a letter to government officials arguing that Carr's involvement in the openly political Project 2025 is a clear violation of the [...]

Here's a fun one, coming to us via MLive, which at least let us know this exists, even if it couldn't be bothered to post the freely available decision posted at the Michigan Supreme Court's website. I can only imagine the amount of cop whining this will provoke. When cops don't have a legitimate reason [...]

Late last year, the FTC appealed the decision by the court to allow Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard to go through by denying the FTC's requested injunction against it. Since then, Microsoft appears to be running some sort of experiment to see just how completely it can prove the FTC's warning about the deal was [...]

Students have rights. That's something educators and (especially) administrators seem to forget. Schools also aren't immune from the same issues that negatively affect the outside world. Adding cops to the school discipline mix definitely hasn't helped anything. Biased policing is an everyday occurrence pretty much everywhere in the county. Just because the officer patrols halls [...]

The First Amendment is America's secret sauce. Far from a relic of the 18th century, the right to speak freely and question authority is a cornerstone of innovation, which thrives on pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. This freedom is why the United States consistently out-invents and out-performs other societies that do not prioritize [...]

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When tragedy strikes, it's human nature to search for answers. But when you're Fox News, it seems that the answer is always the same: blame video games, social media, or anything else that fits your preconceived notions, facts be damned. In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I idly wondered how long [...]

You might just start to detect a theme here. Consumer Reports' latest survey of the most popular ISPs in America is once again dominated by smaller providers and community-owned and operated broadband networks. Networks often built by locals that were tired of being ripped off by local monopolies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, or Charter. According [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about Silicon Valley VCs lining up to back Trump and our supposition that it's because they cynically welcome chaos: Look, we put BBQ sauce on our faces and everything, so no snacking alright?' Either that or in the [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, an opportunistic IBM sold out Section 230 while the Third Circuit joined the Ninth in denying its protections to e-commerce platforms, soon followed by the Sixth Circuit making a mess of it as well, so we wrote more about how Section 230 is not exceptional and is not [...]

Earlier this year, I brought to you an absolute bonkers trademark lawsuit filed in Turkey by Hermes, the luxury brand, against Hermes Sahaf, an itty bitty bookstore. There was never a reason to file this lawsuit, but it's an especially bad PR look for a massive company like Hermes to be going after an independent [...]

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 [...]

Apparently, exceptions apply. The Thin Blue Line" is the supposedly united front of law enforcement that protects society against evil. But it's not unconditional. If you're a good cop, you get frozen out. And, if you're a woman, you get treated like most cops treat most women. The Blue Line" often seems to be the [...]

I'm curious how Republicans would react if AOC suddenly sought to hold a hearing questioning Elon Musk's bias in endorsing and promoting Donald Trump on ExTwitter. I imagine there would be apocalyptic outrage and nonstop cries of tyranny over such a blatant abuse of power to punish someone for their political views. And they'd be [...]

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This is not great news, even if the law pretty much aligns with case law. Nonetheless, this is concerning. Tennessee law enforcement agencies will continue to be able to use drones without a search warrant in various investigations following the approval of a bill earlier this year. In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a [...]

We've noted a few times that states will soon receive more than $42.5 billion in taxpayer funded broadband subsidies courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. A lot of that money will go to big giant monopolies with terrible track records on subsidy fraud. But a lot of it is also poised to go toward super [...]

Terms of Service are a reality we deal with all the time with digital goods and services. And by deal with", I mostly mean we don't read them and simply agree to whatever they say instead, assuming there is nothing crazy in them. But that also causes a lot of problems, with customers of these [...]

Last year bothGannettandSports Illustratedwere caught creating fake, AI" generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism and mistake-prone journalism." In both instances the kind ofbrunchlord executives that fail upward at these kind of dying media companiesthought it would be great to replace real human journalism with automated junk - without informing their actual human employees. AI" (not [...]

The city of Chicago's Inspector General is back at it, pointing out things are very, very wrong with the Chicago Police Department. Not that anyone needed any reminders. A long history of disinterest in disciplining misbehaving officers has led to everything from an off-the-books black site operation to more than 100 misconduct charges being racked [...]

It's pretty rare to see a judge disqualify a law firm from taking on a case. But Judge William Alsup has done just that, disqualifying the litigation powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel from representing ExTwitter in a big data scraping case. We wrote about this case back in May, highlighting both the importance and complexities [...]

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Back in 2022, a federal court responded to a challenge of a geofence warrant with some good questions. But its ultimate ruling was a shrug. A geofence warrant obtained by investigators searching for a bank robbery suspect covered a whole lot of ground, subjecting hundreds of innocent people to a search of their geolocation records. [...]

A few years ago you might recall there was a three year news cycle about how the modern Trump GOP was somehow serious about antitrust reform this time." The party, which has never met a consolidated monopoly it didn't adore (see: airlines, telecom, pharma, health, energy), was suddenly getting credited in the press for being [...]

While the vast majority of what I get to read about when it comes to intellectual property law generally, and trademark law specifically, makes me roll my eyes, the concept of geographic indicator trademarks actually isn't one of them. The application of GI marks certainly does get my fur up often times, but the concept [...]

New York's finest just don't want to have to do the work that comes with being a cop. They've really never wanted to do it. A new law requires officers to collect more data during more encounters with New York residents, which has kicked off a new wave of bitching from those who think they [...]

A few weeks ago, Mike was the moderator on a panel hosted by CCIA all about link taxes - the various problematic efforts around the world to force internet companies to pay media outlets for sending them traffic. The panel featured Public Knowledge Policy Director Lisa Macpherson, Lion Publishers Executive Director Chris Krewson, and lawyer [...]

One of the most important transitions taking place today in technology is the shift to electric vehicles (EVs). Most attention is focused on electric cars. That's in part because they are big glamorous items, and they have high-profile cheerleaders like Elon Musk. But there is another side to this transition to electric power, less glamorous [...]

Meta has a long history of making sure no one but Meta, or Meta-approved apps, can operate on top of its services. And now, in a new court filing, it's going to somewhat ridiculous lengths to try to stop one developer from making sure he won't get sued for creating a tool that automates clicking [...]

This Little Wonder Solo Stereo Multi Connect Bluetooth Speaker may look small, but it produces as clear and powerful a sound as any other speaker. It comes in a solid and metallic look that is great for any setting and decor at your home, office, pool, picnic spot, and more! Connect this speaker to your [...]

Serving your time is only part of the bargain. Once released, ex-cons can expect to live life with diminished constitutional rights, at least for as long as they're on parole or supervised release. (And after that point, they can expect a very uphill road back to anything resembling normal day-to-day life, since a lot of [...]

We recently noted how the telecom industry, with the help of the recent Chevron ruling, was gearing up to deliver what it hopes will be the killing blow to popular net neutrality protections. Protections designed to prevent telecom monopolies from abusing their market power to screw customers and competitors. They appear to be having some [...]

Putting cops in schools is never a good idea. The most likely result of bringing a cop indoors to police schools is that the officer(s) will, indeed, police" the school. Things that used to be handled with detention, meetings with parents, or suspensions instead become incidents" where officers will do the worst thing they can [...]

One of the drums upon which I've banged for many years now is the need for live sports to get its streaming shit together to actually deliver a great product to fans. Some leagues do this better than others, but decisions like this do tend to happen at the league level, rather than with individual [...]

ShotSpotter may be making the most headlines (and losing the most large contracts), but it has competitors in the field of gunshot detection. But, according to this report by Todd Feathers for Wired, its closest competitor isn't any better than the current market leader. In February 2023, San Jose began piloting AI-powered gunshot detection technology [...]

The RIAA just won't quit in attacking users on the internet and trying to get them banned from using the internet entirely. The latest news is that all the major record labels have sued Verizon for not kicking users the RIAA accuses (but has not litigated) of being infringers off the internet. But, there's a [...]

I can't even imagine what it must be like to fight an obviously bogus lawsuit for most of a decade. That's what activist DeRay Mckesson has been dealing with since 2017. Mckesson participated in a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana all the way back in July 2016. At that protest, Officer John Ford (previously known [...]

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I supposed the court had no choice, but I'm always a little wary when the Fifth Circuit decides to take another look at some litigation, especially when it involves certain amendments like the First. Or the Fourth. This case, however, is a mess. It began (as far too many do these days) with a supposedly [...]

Hey, remember when the FCC tried to implement some really basic consumer privacy protections for wireless and broadband but AT&T convinced GOP Senators to kill those efforts before they could even take effect? Good times. Anyway, AT&T has revealed that the detailed call and text message data of millions of customers were illegally download" from [...]

Far too many law enforcement officers believe the best way to deal with suicidal people is to kill them. That's the case here with Washington County Deputy Brian Krook. He came across a suicidal person and decided to make that final decision for them, shooting and killing 23-year-old Benjamin Evans as he knelt on the [...]

Back when Vladimir Putin first launched his aggressive war of choice on Ukraine, much of the Western world mobilized into action in a way that was fairly impressive. All kinds of companies and brands voluntarily began pulling out of the market, sometimes at the request of Ukraine itself. Much was made of tech firms pulling [...]

It's well-known that cops can lie to suspects to obtain confessions or further information from suspects. But not always. This Delaware case, brought to us by FourthAmendment.com, demonstrates that while lying in interrogation rooms is usually cool and fine, it isn't when it moves someone to consent to a search they wouldn't have agreed to [...]

Elon Musk declaring the EU DSA regulation as exactly aligned with my thinking" and agreeing with everything" it mandates is looking pretty hilarious at this point. Elon Musk loves endorsing things he clearly doesn't understand and then lashes out when they backfire. Last week, we had the story of how he was demanding criminal prosecution [...]

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As has often been said about ICE and CBP, the cruelty is the point. Both agencies have seemingly gone out of their way to harm people, even though their directives don't demand the often cruel actions they take. Both CBP and ICE have been separating immigrant families for years, even though Trump's decision to badmouth [...]