Browsed by
Category: Law/Crime

Trump demanded that taxpayer money be used for TV ads praising him

Trump demanded that taxpayer money be used for TV ads praising him

The New York Times reports: President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter. The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet…

Read More Read More

We live in a rape-prone society. The horrific Cornell case reveals what that looks like

We live in a rape-prone society. The horrific Cornell case reveals what that looks like

Rebecca Solnit writes: Sometimes a story is so so appalling, it captures the public’s attention, including the attention of people who don’t focus on the issue otherwise. Such is the case with the alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University. For feminists who focus on violence against women or anyone who has ever cared about campus rape, the claims made in Jane Doe’s civil lawsuit against the alleged perpetrators may be unusual in its severity – but we know the…

Read More Read More

ICE has been dumping protester photos into a Palantir database

ICE has been dumping protester photos into a Palantir database

Wired reports: An explosive and newly partially unsealed court filing alleges that the US Department of Homeland Security built up dossiers on ICE observers—including their photos, license plate numbers, and other information—and stored them in a system called the Investigative Case Management database, which was built by Palantir. Palantir did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for DHS calls the case “meritless” and says that “the underlying lawsuit is based on the lie that there is a…

Read More Read More

Is there anything FBI Director Kash Patel won’t do for Trump before the midterms?

Is there anything FBI Director Kash Patel won’t do for Trump before the midterms?

Sarah Fitzpatrick writes: Earlier this year, FBI Director Kash Patel vowed before God, Fox Nation, and Donald Trump that he would punish the “deep state” for its manifold transgressions, especially the (actually nonexistent) conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. “I’ve been with the president nearly since day one on this,” he said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo. “I can announce on your show that we’ve got all the information we need. We’re working with our prosecutors at the Department…

Read More Read More

Renee Good’s family sues U.S. government and immigration officials over her killing in Minneapolis

Renee Good’s family sues U.S. government and immigration officials over her killing in Minneapolis

The Associated Press reports: Renee Good’s family sued the U.S. government and the architects of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown on Thursday, saying “the time is absolutely now for accountability” after her killing in January by a federal agent in Minneapolis. Good’s partner, Becca Good, and brother, Brent Ganger, accused the government and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot into her SUV and killed her, Jonathan Ross, of unjustified and excessive use of force. The Jan. 7 shooting,…

Read More Read More

OpenAI gets sued over Hugging Face cyberattack

OpenAI gets sued over Hugging Face cyberattack

Wired reports: A legal nonprofit sued OpenAI in a California court on Tuesday over the company’s agents escaping a testing environment and hacking the open source AI platform Hugging Face. “OpenAI’s actions straightforwardly violated California law,” the suit alleges. The suit was filed by Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology (LASST) and the law firm Gerstein Harrow in California Superior Court in San Francisco, where OpenAI is headquartered. It alleges that OpenAI’s agents violated California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access…

Read More Read More

FTC launches broad investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI

FTC launches broad investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI

The Washington Post reports: The Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad investigation into the safety of artificial intelligence systems made by Anthropic and OpenAI, a senior agency official said Wednesday. The full extent of the probe was not clear, but the FTC has wide authority to investigate unfair and deceptive practices that hurt American consumers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an investigation that has not been made public. The investigation could provide backing for…

Read More Read More

How Meta uses AI data centers to avoid billions in federal taxes

How Meta uses AI data centers to avoid billions in federal taxes

The New York Times reports: Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s A.I. push is a tremendous success. “Our investments in A.I. are accelerating every major part of our core business,” he has told investors. “Every sign that we’re seeing in our own work and across the industry gives us confidence in this investment.” But when Meta files its taxes, it tells the Internal Revenue Service a different story. It claims that its A.I. data centers are a giant experiment that could fail,…

Read More Read More

The FBI was hacked. We’ve seen the data

The FBI was hacked. We’ve seen the data

  Garrett Graff writes: In what might turn out to be the gravest intelligence breach of the FBI in history — and perhaps one of the worst in all of US history — a criminal hacking group is claiming to have compromised the bureau’s hiring and personnel records. The group, known as ShinyHunters, appears to have “exfiltrated” data on perhaps tens of thousands of current and former FBI employees, both agents and not, perhaps even effectively everyone who has been…

Read More Read More

Trump is ‘literally stealing’ $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads

Trump is ‘literally stealing’ $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads

The Associated Press reports: The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law. In a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, two top Democratic senators said that the money is being drawn from Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” and was supposed to go for…

Read More Read More

‘A massive power grab’: White House proposal threatens funding that helps disabled Americans vote

‘A massive power grab’: White House proposal threatens funding that helps disabled Americans vote

By Lisa Song This story was originally published by ProPublica Without Amy Miller, some elderly and disabled people wouldn’t be able to vote. The attorney for Disability Rights Nebraska travels the state, investigating the quality of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As she reminds the residents how they can report abuse or neglect, she also offers voter registration forms. Last month, she helped a veteran with a traumatic brain injury fill out change-of-address paperwork so he could vote in…

Read More Read More

Trump brought gold from Venezuala’s notoriously corrupt industry to the U.S. but refiners won’t touch it

Trump brought gold from Venezuala’s notoriously corrupt industry to the U.S. but refiners won’t touch it

The New York Times reports: In early March, as President Trump basked in the success of a military intervention in Venezuela, he joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the West Wing for a private celebration. A businessman also attended, and brought along a pile of gold. The president looked approvingly at the 10 Venezuelan gold bars stacked in the Roosevelt Room, across from the Oval Office, White House officials recalled. Aides took photos and joked about keeping the gold. Mr….

Read More Read More

Hackers stole data on thousands of employees. FBI then sent out cybersecurity awareness reminder

Hackers stole data on thousands of employees. FBI then sent out cybersecurity awareness reminder

The New York Times reports: The theft by a criminal hacking group of reams of sensitive personal data involving potentially tens of thousands of former and current F.B.I. employees is emerging as one of the worst breaches of sensitive government information, leaving the bureau rushing to protect its personnel as an uncertain deadline loomed. Nearly a week after the group, known as ShinyHunters, revealed it had pilfered intimate details about bureau personnel from the agency’s jobs portal and threatened to…

Read More Read More

The untold origins of Trump’s plan to sharply restrict mail-in voting

The untold origins of Trump’s plan to sharply restrict mail-in voting

By Jen Fifield and Peter Elkind This story was originally published by ProPublica Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump restricting voting by mail in ways that could have thrown the upcoming midterms into chaos. But the White House originally had far more disruptive plans, ProPublica has learned.  According to several people knowledgeable about the discussions, the administration initially floated an idea that would have virtually shut down mail voting: requiring all ballots…

Read More Read More

U.S. and Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact

U.S. and Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact

The Washington Post reports: Early this month, hundreds of diplomats huddled in a cavernous U.N. conference room in Switzerland, working toward a muscular treaty to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weapons — the first agreement governing the use of killer artificial intelligence arms. On the last day of negotiations, the talks turned aggressive. Over the next roughly 15 hours, U.S. and Russian diplomats hammered away at the document, removing a range of provisions designed to safeguard the use of…

Read More Read More

Pro-Trump ads are being paid for by U.S. taxpayers

Pro-Trump ads are being paid for by U.S. taxpayers

The New York Times reports: As President Trump ran to return to the White House in 2024, his campaign released a somber, black-and-white ad in which he railed against the “deep state” and vowed to expel “warmongers” from government. “This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump is heard saying in the online ad, which shows him walking silently down a hallway. That ad has returned this weekend, airing on television stations across the country, with one notable difference: As it…

Read More Read More