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The Supreme Court's shadow docket has become a lawless mess. The justices are issuing extremely consequential rulings with either no explanation at all, or with barely a paragraph of reasoning. No full briefing. No oral arguments. Just vibes-based constitutional law that lower courts are somehow supposed to follow. Now the Court has made this chaos [...]

Last year you might recall that Vice Media suffered its final collapse after years of mismanagement by incompetent, fail-upward brunchlords. The new owners, Savage Ventures, quickly made it clear they were going to be even worse than past Vice management, firing a ton of talented writers and editors, and shifting Vice's focus even harder toward [...]

This saga of dumb began nearly a decade ago, in 2016, when a grocer named Iceland Foods," that was somehow granted an EU trademark for Iceland," began bullying other EU businesses using that word over supposed trademark infringement. Iceland, the country, caught wind of all of this when the company had the stones to oppose [...]

As numerous Walled Culture posts attest,site blockingis in the vanguard of the actions by copyright companies against sites engaged in the unauthorized sharing of material. Over the past few months, this approach has become even more pervasive, and even more intrusive. For example, in France, the Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare was forced togeoblock more than [...]

On July 8, an expanded coalition of library associations, civil society organizations, journalist groups, and other advocates for information access sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee explaining their opposition to the Pro Codes Act. This coalition has grown significantly from the original group that opposed the bill, now including major organizations like the [...]

Peter Shane'sdevastating analysisinThe Atlantichas performed the invaluable service of documenting what many suspected but few could prove: that Chief Justice John Roberts has systematically dismantled American constitutional government while claiming to restore it. But Shane's meticulous account of Roberts's proto-authoritarian canon" reveals something even more damning-the entire Unitary Executive Theory project is essentially an exercise [...]

Microsoft Project 2024 Professional is the ultimate project management tool, designed to help professionals plan, execute, and complete projects with precision and efficiency. With its robust features and user-friendly interface, this software is perfect for project managers, team leaders, and executives who need a reliable solution to manage their projects from start to finish. It's [...]

When you're shooting for 3,000 arrests a day, it seems kind of pathetic to complain about being mildly bruised a few times a week. DHS and ICE have constantly used a supposed massive increase in assaults on ICE officers to justify ICE's tactics: the masks, the unmarked vehicles, the refusal to present IDs or warrants, [...]

Earlier this month, CBS wimped out and paid Donald Trump a $16 million bribe to settle a completely baseless lawsuit - and to buy regulatory approval of their $8 billion merger with Skydance. The result is now going to be a CBS owned by Trump's close billionaire friends, the Ellison family, who are clearly signaling [...]

I recognize that trademark law is a nuanced thing and I don't expect the average person to be familiar with all of its intricacies. Hell, I write about trademarks all the time and I could probably fill a law school gymnasium with what I still don't know about it. But I honestly am often surprised [...]

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff isback at the helmof the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is thesurveillance-first-privacy-lastapproach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new [...]

Judge Loren AliKhan knows exactly how this story ends, but she's going to make the Supreme Court write the final chapter themselves. Her ruling reinstating illegally fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter reads like judicial theater-a careful performance of applying precedent everyone knows is doomed. We discussed this a bit when Trump first illegally fired [...]

Trump and his loyalists crave actual martial law. DHS head Kristi Noem has - out loud! - threatened to liberate" Californians from the democracy they currently enjoy in the state of California. Plenty of idiots and idiot newscasters continue to pretend Los Angeles is under siege when, in reality, protests against ICE have been limited [...]

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Democratic politicians have a chronic problem: they keep accepting Republican framing instead of creating their own. They run scared of Fox News, moderate their positions to appease the unappeasable, and let political consultants convince them that authenticity is dangerous. They are so worried about how Fox News will portray anything they say, they try not [...]

Authoritarian assholes really don't like public broadcasting. They don't like it because, in its ideal form, it untethers journalism from the often perverse financial incentives inherent in our consolidated, billionaire-owned, ad-engagement based corporate media. If we bolsteredrealindependent media or public broadcasting, you might see journalism more interested intelling people the truth and challenging wealth and [...]

It was over a decade ago that Mike wrote about the state of New York's trademark bullying ways when it comes to enforcing its trademarks for I NY." Now, it should be obvious just how absurd it is for the state to even hold onto a trademark designed to promote the state, nevermind the [...]

To be sure, the DHS is just going to blow off Senator Wyden's demands for answers, just as it has blown off congressional oversight, court orders, and pretty much the entirety of the US Constitution. (We're all just waiting to be told we're obligated to house National Guard troops sent by the administration to whatever [...]

We've seen some pretty ridiculous lawsuits here at Techdirt, but the one that Donald Trump filed on Friday against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal over the article about the birthday card he was alleged to have given Epstein is so legally incompetent that it reads like a masterclass in how not to file [...]

No matter what the DHS and ICE say about the justification of ICE officers remaining masked during raids, it's all about avoiding public accountability. DHS boss Kristi Noem says alarmist things about ICE officers being targeted" or doxxed," but it's all about inflicting America with its own secret police while it undergoes the process of [...]

Whether you're a science enthusiast, history buff, or technology geek, Curiosity Stream has something for everyone. Unleash the power of on-demand streaming that allows you to choose what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, and where you want to watch it. From the comfort of your living room to the remote [...]

I've been warning people since the beginning of the year to expect the Trump regime to use the Twitter Files playbook on the US government and now we're seeing exactly that play out. Trump is facing a bunch of pushback over the Jeffrey Epstein nonsense, so he needed some big new distraction quickly. Director of [...]

In a lead up to the last Presidential Election, one of the lies circulated by the Trump camp to befuddle plebs and rubes was that Trump 2.0 was going to be serious about antitrust reform." You didn't have to look far for some baseless claims in the press (or by supposed experts like Matt Stoller) [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is n00bdragon with a comment about the behavior of Grok and LLMs in general: LLMs are just bias engines. That's literally what they do. That's how they work. They find patterns (biases) and replicate them. Not all biases are bad. Sometimes you want a machine [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2020, we saw a new breed of scammers start abusing the DMCA on YouTube, and a new evolution of copyright trolls abusing the DMCA to take down social media accounts and demanding money to reinstate them. We also saw the debate following the Harper's letter reach new heights of [...]

Back when the COVID-19 vaccines were first rolled out, to the surprise of nobody intelligent, fraud schemes around vaccination cards began to pop up. Groups, including some doctors, were illegally handing out vaccination cards without actually vaccinating anyone. One of those doctors, according to charges brought by the DOJ, was Michael Kirk Moore Jr. in [...]

Donald Trump admitted yesterday that he called Rupert Murdoch and demanded the Wall Street Journal kill its story about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. When Murdoch couldn't deliver, Trump promised to sue the media company and gleefully looked forward to putting Murdoch on the witness stand. Update: Just as this story was going live, it [...]

Thisseries of postsexplores how we can rethink the intersection of AI, creativity, and policy. From examining outdated regulatory metaphors to questioning copyright norms and highlighting the risks of stifling innovation, each post addresses a different piece of the AI puzzle. Together, they advocate for a more balanced, forward-thinking approach that acknowledges the potential of technological [...]

The DHS has been hyping assault stats for weeks, making it sound like there's an actual war on ICE officers. The reality was much more underwhelming: the 700% increase touted in press releases reflected a mere 69 more assaults on officers than during the same period in 2024. Hardly worth remarking on, especially since ICE [...]

We've written before about how attacks on free speech often start with unpopular speakers who lack political power. That's why a new dissenting opinion from Trump-appointed Judge Paul Matey should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about the First Amendment. In a case involving an imam's immigration status, Judge Matey penned a remarkable [...]

Embedded systems are at the heart of modern innovation, powering everything from smart devices to automotive technology. This Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle has 10 courses to help equip you with the skills to design, program, and implement microcontroller-based solutions. Gain hands-on experience with Arduino, PIC, and ESP32, master C programming for embedded applications, and [...]

The Trump administration's maximum cruelty version of immigration enforcement has sent swarms of masked officers to anywhere someone looking kind of foreign might be found. Due process has been eliminated, with the administration relying on its invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to do its dirty, unconstitutional work for it. To make things even worse, [...]

When last we checked with CBS/Paramount, company executives had just paid Trump $16 million in bribe money to settle a completely baseless lawsuit, effectively purchasing regulatory approval of their $8 billion merger with Skydance. It was arguably one of the biggest acts of corporate cowardice in recent memory, resulting in many CBS journalists and executives [...]

Nobody who has read any of my posts about RFK Jr., particularly since his vulgar appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be under any misunderstandings about my opinion of the man. I have made it clear that I believe he is a health crackpot, dealing in wildly dangerous conspiratorial theories, the adoption [...]

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 [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. The Internal Revenue Service is building a computer program that would give deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data. ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an on demand" process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of [...]

Even during the (relatively more sane) first Trump administration, it was clear there just weren't enough dangerous criminals residing in this country illegally to back up Trump's bloated, fact-free invasion" claims. Statistics continually show migrants commit fewer crimes than American citizens while doing other useful things like paying taxes and providing an incredibly reliable workforce. [...]

Over the last year or so I've seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train. Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn't really surprise anyone-Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, [...]

Learn Raspberry Pi and start building Amazon Alexa projects with The Complete Raspberry Pi and Alexa A-Z Bundle. Catered for all levels, these project-based courses will get you up and running with the basics of Pi, before escalating to full projects. Before you know it, you'll be building a gaming system to play old Nintendo, [...]

T-Mobile has long kissed the ass of the Trump regime. You might recall when the company wanted its competition-eroding merger with Sprint approved, it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump hotel properties. It hired Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski not long after he publicly mocked a child with Down Syndrome. It worked with Trump [...]

Earlier this year, I was a part of a CNN documentary, Twitter: Breaking the Bird, which gave me much pause for reflection about the state of social media and how we got here. This year alone we've witnessed an unprecedented wave of disruption across these platforms. Government workers, locked out of their jobs, struggled to [...]

We just talked about Ross Scott's Stop Killing Games initiative, started last year, which has found new life recently due to an online back and forth with some gaming industry veterans. As a short primer, Scott's campaign centers around game preservation and ownership, two topics we discuss here regularly. It's not a complicated set of [...]

Axon Enterprise's Draft One - a generative artificial intelligence product that writes police reports based on audio from officers' body-worn cameras - seems deliberately designed to avoid audits that could provide any accountability to the public, an EFF investigation has found. Our review of public records from police agencies already using the technology - including [...]

Trump claims to love the military. Of course, he loves himself even more. And he tends to view those injured, killed, or captured by enemy forces as suckers" and losers." He also considers people who volunteer to serve this country as idiots, since the idea of self-sacrifice for the greater good is the antithesis of [...]

There's a fundamental architectural flaw in how the internet works that most people have never heard of, but it explains nearly every frustration you have with modern technology. Why your photos are trapped in Apple's ecosystem. Why you can't easily move data between apps. Why every promising new service starts from scratch, knowing nothing about [...]

LabsDigest is built for those who learn best by doing. Whether you're preparing for a CompTIA certification or diving into Python development, our platform offers interactive labs that simulate real-world tasks-no passive watching or reading, just real experience. Work through performance-based exercises for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and more, or sharpen your coding skills with [...]

The Trump administration continues to demonstrate it cares nothing for the law, despite repeated claims that it's here to restore respect for the rule of law. It's been clear since the early days of Trump's first term that he only respects the laws that let him do what he wants. For everything else, there's the [...]

A little over a year ago we discussed YouTuber Ross Scott's attempt to build political action around video game preservation. Scott started a campaign and site called Stop Killing Games when Ubisoft shut down support for The Crew, rendering this game that people bought unplayable. The goal of the site was to build political action [...]