Category «Civil Liberties»

This is how Identity Verification Companies Store Your Data

Via Reddit – “This is what the storage of user information by an age verification company called FaceTec looks like, one of the big players alongside Persona and Yoti. They claim to be “privacy-friendly,” but they proudly allow companies that purchase their software/solution to store as much user data as they want. The company permits …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Ballots Have Been Seized Across the US. No One Knows What Will Happen Next

Wired: “So far this year, authorities have seized or demanded ballots from elections in four states. Experts fear the trend could throw the midterms into chaos unless courts draw a line. As US voters look to the November midterms, the Trump administration is obsessed with looking back to past elections, seizing ballots cast years ago …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

An Incomplete List of Successful Anti-Data Center Legislation

404 Media [no paywall]: “No one wants to live next to a noisy computer warehouse and communities across the country are successfully fighting them. Opposition to the massive data centers that power AI is bipartisan and growing across the country. From Maine to California, more states and local communities are passing moratoriums and bans on …

Subjects: AI, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Legal Research, Legislation

Confidential Government Information Nondisclosure Agreement

Confidential Government Information Nondisclosure Agreement, Federal Register, May 27, 2026 AGENCY: Office of Personnel Management. ACTION: Notice with request for comment. SUMMARY: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) requests comment on a draft nondisclosure agreement (NDA) for use by Federal agencies for both new and existing employees. The form is intended to document Federal employees’ …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

‘BusPatrol’ Put AI Cameras in Tens of Thousands of School Buses

404 Media – Now They Want to Give Cops Access: “BusPatrol, a company that has installed AI-powered cameras in tens of thousands of school buses around the U.S., now plans to turn those cameras into automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), capturing the location of every vehicle the buses drive past, and give that data to …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Legal Research, Privacy, Transportation

Local prosecutors warn Trump: “If you send ICE to the polls, we’ll put them in jail.”

Defiance News: “Today, a coalition of locally elected district attorneys and prosecutors from across the United States have officially put the Trump administration on notice: any federal agent who shows up at a polling place in violation of state or federal law will be investigated and prosecuted under the laws of the jurisdiction in which …

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

Ever Been a Member of the Federalist Society or Endorsed Unitary Executive Theory

A serious claim requiring serious consideration. Christopher Armitage – “The Federalist Society spent forty years building a captured federal judiciary, and we are now living inside the result. The doctrine they built it around has a name, unitary executive theory, and the doctrine has a method. The method is to read every Democratic exercise of …

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

The Pope just released a major manifesto on AI

NOTICE News: “Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical Monday — an 83-page document titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) — and it reads less like a church document and more like a progressive policy agenda for the digital age. The pope called on governments to regulate AI, warned that companies invoking ethics “in the abstract” …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Economy, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Internet, Legal Research

Auschwitz Started in a Warehouse Too

Glass Empires: “This article is the historical companion to yesterday’s investigation of the WEXMAC TITUS warehouse buildout. Read this before they build the next camp. “If they did not know, they did not know because they did not want to know.” — Primo Levi, Afterword to If This Is a Man / The Truce, 1987.  …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Former prosecutor pursued by Trump calls for crackdown on election lies: ‘Lying can be held to account’

The Guardian – Politicians must be held accountable if their lies damage democracy, according to a former US federal prosecutor and FBI general counsel who was pursued by Donald Trump. Andrew Weissmann argues for new law to hold political liars like US president accountable for harming democracy. The US must be “as creative as possible” …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Recommended Books

After Town Bans Flock, Councilmember Crashes Out, Proposes Internet and Phone Ban

404 Media – “After months of discussion and outrage from residents, the city council of the tiny town of Bandera, Texas voted 3-2 to immediately end its contract with the surveillance company Flock. In the aftermath of the vote, one of the dissenting council members crashed out and said he would be introducing measures to …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

FBI seeks US-wide access to license plate cameras, wants “data in near real time”

Ars Technica: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced plans to buy nationwide access to a network of license plate readers, saying it will award contracts to one or more vendors that can offer “near real time” information from cameras across the US. The proposed contract is for the FBI Directorate of Intelligence. “To evaluate and …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Legal Research, Privacy, Transportation