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The Marshall Project – “Child welfare agencies often relied on flawed drug tests administered at childbirth to report tens of thousands of new parents to law enforcement. In New York, guards who brutalized prisoners or covered it up were rarely fired. And at least 50 people died while being treated behind bars by a for-profit …
The past year marked another challenging one for democracy and internet freedom. A notable trend was the increasing willingness of authoritarian governments to damage their own economies and the livelihoods of citizens by implementing total internet shutdowns. Most notable, however, was the increasing threat to internet freedom in Western democracies by-and-large considered “free.” From age …
Sweden’s V-Dem Institute Democracy Report 2026 Executive Summary – Democracy in the World 2025 – Democracy is back to 1978 levels for the average global citizen. The gains of the “third wave of democratization”, starting 1974 in Portugal, are almost eradicated. The level of democracy for the average citizen in Western Europe and North America …
April 2, 2026 Update – Washington Post: Voice of America’s effort to bring back staffers grinds to a halt. A three-judge circuit court panel stayed a decision that would have allowed employees to resume work at the global broadcaster after a year of waiting. Washington Post [no paywall]: “Voice of America employees have spent a …
Inside Climate News: Republican lawmakers are advancing legislation that would shield major polluters from legal accountability for climate change harms. Republican lawmakers in multiple states and Congress are advancing proposals to shield polluters from climate accountability and prevent any type of liability for climate change harms—even as these harms and their associated costs continue to …
Follow-up to $21.7 Billion Blunder: New PSI Report Reveals Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Squandered by DOGE – See Also 404 Media [no paywall] – “The DOGE deposition videos a judge ordered removed from YouTube on Friday after they had gone massively viral have since been backed up across the internet, including as a torrent and …
SpyTalk: “FEW NATIONAL SECURITY DEBATES HAVE RILED UP AMERICANS more than the permission Congress has given the government to eavesdrop on their private emails and phone calls. The legislation that gave these intrusive powers to the likes of the NSA and the FBI is up for renewal later this spring, and signs are that it …
All Rise News: “In a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) joined Democratic Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, giving the request bipartisan buy-in. “On January 30, 2026, DOJ published over three million pages and files of Epstein-related records, including …
CITR Challenges US Government Censorship Policy Threatening Deportation for Work on Social Media Platforms and Online Harms – The Coalition for Independent Technology Research filed a lawsuit today in partnership with the Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy, challenging the US government’s Censorship Policy that unconstitutionally targets noncitizen researchers, fact-checkers, and trust and safety workers for …
Mashable: “Before the dust had settled on the ruins of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school — a casualty of the recent U.S.-Israel military strikes against Iran, and one which resulted in the deaths of up to 168 adults and children — people were already engagement-farming online. Clips of digital flight simulators were passed off as real-time …
Via LLRX – The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health, and the Rule of Law – Part 7 – This article is the seventh in a series focused on how the second Trump presidency unleashed a causal chain that has rapidly morphed into an extensive continued attack against civil liberties, commerce, government funded …
ProPublica: “Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States. But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection. At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned …
