Washington Post [unpaywalled]: Six things you can do to get a sense of whether your employer is watching what you do on your computer and other devices. The reality is, your bosses may be able to see everything you’re doing on your phone or computer. So how can you be sure? Employers have a growing… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Civil Liberties
How Trump Could Remake the Supreme Court for a Generation
The Nation: Donald Trump is poised to become the first president since FDR to have appointed the majority of high-court justices. His potential picks are terrifying.This article appears in the March 2025 issue, with the headline “The Supreme Trump Court.” Donald Trump’s first term as president gave the republicans control over the most dangerous body… Continue Reading
The List of Trump’s Forbidden Words That Will Get Your Paper Flagged at NSF
Gizmodo – “It’s fascism, plain and simple.Every federal agency in the U.S. is currently trying to figure out how to purge forbidden words from documents posted online, in a desperate attempt to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to purge “DEI” from every facet of American life. And nowhere is that effort more bizarre… Continue Reading
Executive Actions and Legal Challenges in President Trump’s First 100 Days
Lawfare: “On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States. After taking the oath of office, President Trump began signing executive orders pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, implementing Schedule F to reclassify civil servants as political appointees, declaring a national emergency at the border, and more. Executive actions related to national… Continue Reading
Elon Musk’s AI Fueled War on Human Agency
The New Yorker [unpaywalled]: “…To run his agency [DOGE], Musk brought on a group of tech-company managers and inexperienced twentysomethings whose credentials included internships at SpaceX. We watched as this crew began interrogating federal employees about their jobs, interfering with the system that controls payments at the Treasury Department, and trawling government budgets while Musk… Continue Reading
NSA can track powered-down phones: how to actually protect your privacy
BoingBoing – Ellsworth Toohey: “Yesterday I wrote about Privacy Guide’s mobile phone privacy and security guide for protesters. Today, Randy Zar, CEO of Faraday pouch manufacturer SLNT wrote: “Just want to let you know your cell phone is tracking you regardless if you have it in airplane mode or not. It even ping’s when it’s… Continue Reading
Anatomy of an AI Coup
Tech Policy News: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology for manufacturing excuses. While lacking clear definitions or tools for assessment, AI has nonetheless seized the imagination of politicians and managers across government, academia, and industry. But what AI is best at producing is justifications. If you want a labor force, a regulatory bureaucracy, or accountability… Continue Reading
Policy Map – Where to Find Trump’s Disappeared Data
“The administration removed hundreds of federal web pages containing critical information about Americans. Fortunately, it still lives at Philly-based PolicyMap, whose director walks us through what just happened — and why it’s too soon to Last week, President Donald Trump came for our data. Executive orders to eliminate any DEI and climate change-related language from… Continue Reading
Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive
“Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and… Continue Reading
DOGE Emails Went Out to Federal Judges by Mistake
As if we have not been in a lessons not learned class since noon on January 20, 2025 today Newsweek reported: “One of the people who received an email from allies of Elon Musk was a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at blocking these messages. “I, like probably every other judge in the country,… Continue Reading
Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, Updated Continuously
Via LLRX – Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, January 28, 2025 – Updated Continuously – I am adding news and government document updates to this article to keep readers abreast of the accelerating plan to force federal employees, who work at agencies throughout the government, to resign by the end of day, February 6,… Continue Reading
Trump’s first 100 days: all the news affecting the tech industry
The Verge: “President Donald Trump kicked off the first day of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive actions, including halting enforcement of the TikTok ban and rolling back the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence order. Having already run the country once before, Trump entered the presidency with the goal of hitting the ground running,… Continue Reading
