When I was in DC last week, everyone seemed to be talking about the brewing drama at the Department of Justice’s antitrust division. The HPE/Juniper merger settlement had raised eyebrows, two senior officials had been fired, and rumors were swirling about political interference playing a role in ending what had appeared to be a decently […]
There are $42.5 billion in broadband grants that are headed to the states thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill most Republicans voted against (yet routinely try to take credit for among their constituents). But Republicans, despite a supposed feud between Trump and Elon Musk, have been rewriting the grant program’s guidance to eliminate provisions ensuring the resulting broadband is […]
We’ve already demonstrated over the course of plenty of posts that RFK Jr. is wildly incapable of running Health and Human Services. The fact that he was even nominated for a role in managing American health is absolutely bonkers, but that a Senate filled with supposed grown adults voted to confirm his appointment to HHS […]
Back in 2023 we wrote about how regional Polish rail company and a train manufacturer NEWAG had taken to using DRM to lock down trains that are repaired by independent technicians, in a bid to both monopolize — and drive up the costs of repair. This kind of effort to monopolize repair is common across […]
Support us on Patreon » As we’ve been thinking and writing about the intersection of democracy and technology, especially burgeoning AI technology, we always come back to the core issues of user control and user freedom. Recently, Chris Riley of the Data Transfer Initiative wrote an excellent piece for Tech Policy Press about the need for […]
Since it’s easier to jump people who aren’t criminals than to actually track down criminals, ICE — especially in certain parts of the country — is sending its masked officers to hang around courtrooms and arrest people who are just trying to follow the rules to gain permanent residence in the United States. This tactic […]
Here we go again. Whenever policy makers insist that there’s some “nerd harder” solution to tricky societal problems, actual experts have to spend a ridiculous amount of time explaining basic realities to them. Sometimes those are realities about the technology. And sometimes it’s realities about the technology. This time it’s age verification’s turn. Steve Bellovin—one […]
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Suck it up, shitbirds. You’re the beneficiaries of full-throated support from a megalomaniac who has just untied the purse strings and dumped pretty much everything in it into ICE’s back pocket. ICE is on its way to becoming the largest law enforcement recipient of federal tax dollars, and yet the head of its controlling entity […]
U.S. media mergers always follow the same trajectory. Pre-merger, executives promise all manner of amazing synergies and deal benefits. Post-merger, not only to those benefits generally never arrive, the debt from the acquisition spree usually results in significant layoffs, lower quality product, and higher rates for consumers. The Time Warner Discovery disaster was the poster […]
How much vodka would you have to drink before you mistakenly and drunkenly believed you were drinking it out of a shoe? That is essentially the question that has been raised by a vodka distillery that sued an online sneaker marketplace for declaratory judgment that no trademark infringement exists between them. I’m sure you’re confused; […]
Western allies are abandoning American leadership while we stand by, morally bankrupt and intellectually spent, watching children starve in Gaza with weapons we provided to a corrupt authoritarian we’re too cowardly to constrain. Meanwhile, the same brilliant minds who assured us Trump was a master negotiator who’d never actually implement his policies are already preparing […]
Few areas of law have lately been as relevant, and the focus of so much dispute, as preliminary injunctive relief. Because the subject has come up so many times already, and is inevitably bound to come up again in the near future, this post takes a moment to discuss what is meant by preliminary injunctive […]
While this latest bit of low-key embarrassment may not be a black eye for the administration, it certainly isn’t putting any more lipstick on this pig. Whatever you may think about the recent summit meeting between these two international besties, you can be assured that some of the attendees thought even less of it than […]
A federal judge has delivered an extraordinary rebuke to the FTC’s Andrew Ferguson, finding that his investigation into Media Matters was motivated by “retaliatory animus” rather than legitimate antitrust concerns. In a scathing ruling, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan granted Media Matters’ motion for a preliminary injunction, calling out not just the investigation’s pretextual nature, but […]
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Trump and his GOP enablers wouldn’t know subtlety if it held them down and punched them in the face repeatedly. Being a little bit crafty is never an option for an administration that prides itself on its performances. A little subtlety tends to go a long way, especially when you’re already fighting dozens of federal […]
A fusion of authoritarianism and corporatism is destroying what’s left of already soggy U.S. federal consumer protection and corporate oversight. You might not know this because the U.S. press and many policymakers genuinely don’t appear to care, but it’s happening all the same. Whether by dodgy Supreme Court ruling, executive order, or captured regulators, the U.S. authoritarians, often […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Strawb with a reply to a couple parts of a comment on our post about “Trump derangement syndrome” turning out to be pretty damn correct: In second place, it’s Rocky with a comment about the FCC installing a babysitter at CBS: And here it […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, we wrote about how the idea that banning TikTok thwarts Chinese intelligence was ridiculous, and how any real threat probably comes from America’s feebly secured infrastructure. As for failed security, we looked at the incredible waste of Baltimore’s aerial surveillance program, and as for worrying “security”, we looked […]
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