Author archives

iceout.org

“How does iceout.org work? Our objective is to collect community-submitted information about possible ICE activity to help inform the public and raise awareness. All reports are reviewed by our moderator team before appearing on the map. We categorize reports as either confirmed, which are submitted through trusted community partners such as RRNs and nonprofits, or …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Pentagon integrating Grok into military systems

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would integrate Elon Musk’s Grok models into military systems: “Last month I took the first step toward changing how the department does business with frontier AI technologies when we announced the rollout of GenAI with our partners from Google, and I want to thank the Google team for …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Defense, E-Government, E-Records, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The full list of 75 countries where Trump is suspending visa processing

The Guardian: “The Trump administration has indefinitely suspended immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries, marking one of its most expansive efforts yet to restrict legal pathways to the United States. The freeze, which takes effect on 21 January, targets applicants officials deem likely to become a “public charge” – people who they believe …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Economy, Education, Government Documents, Legal Research

Verizon Outage – Downdetector’s live tracker

ZDNet: “It’s been a rough 24 hours for Verizon, as one of the largest network operators in the US faced a major outage that generated millions of user reports nationwide. If you’re affected by the loss of cellular connectivity, you may even notice an SOS symbol on the top of your phone screen. It’s an …

Subjects: Internet

AI is speeding into healthcare. Who should regulate it

Harvard Gazette: “Medical ethicist details need to balance thoughtful limits while avoiding unnecessary hurdles as industry groups issue guidelines. AI is moving quickly into healthcare, bringing potential benefits but also possible pitfalls such as bias that drives unequal care and burnout of physicians and other healthcare workers. It remains undecided how it should be regulated …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Health Care, Legal Research, Medicine

Why the White House keeps shitposting

“A political comms professional breaks down Trump’s meme media strategy, Tina Nguyen [no paywall – The Verge: Last week was a grim reminder that no matter what sort of horror is being perpetrated or how many people end up dead, the Trump administration’s knee-jerk response is to shitpost through it. The White House’s response on …

Subjects: AI, E-Government, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

OpenAI’s ChatGPT translator challenges Google Translate

The Verge [no paywall]: “OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Translate, a standalone web translation tool that supports over 50 languages and is positioned as a direct competitor to Google Translate. The two services look visually similar: both feature two text boxes — one for typing or pasting the source text and another that displays the translated …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Legal Research, Search Engines

The Top 10 Fastest Growing Technologies of 2025

IFI CLAIMS Patent Services: Fast Growing Technologies Look For Circular Economy – “The big 2025 technology story was a recurrence of what we saw in 2024 and 2023: artificial intelligence, and all the ways AI is changing (and will surely transform) the way the world does business and the structure of society. So you would think IFI …

Subjects: AI, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Internet, Legal Research, Patent and Trademark

FBI Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist in a Leak Investigation

Updated January 21, 2026, Washington Post: “The Washington Post demanded in a court filing Wednesday that federal law enforcement officials return electronic devices the government seized from a staff reporter’s home last week, writing that the extraordinary search “flouts the First Amendment and ignores federal statutory safeguards for journalists.” Federal agents executed a search warrant …

Subjects: Legal Research

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error

404 Media – np paywall: “A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. Flock responded to this revelation by threatening a site …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Internet, Search Engines, Transportation

Disable your phone’s biometrics, and 6 more ways to protect your privacy

ZDNET: ” Many of us would have preferred a few slow news days easing into 2026, but the year is off to a particularly volatile start. With widespread protests erupting across the globe, concerns turn once again to how we can demonstrate safely in a surveillance-heavy world. You have the right to protest, but you …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy