Podcasts about Electronic Frontier Foundation

This week and next, we're bringing you recordings from our second-ever live taping in San Francisco. First, we sit down with Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella, to hear what he's maxing out his A.I. tokens on, why he's skeptical that software developers will ever be fully replaced, and how he's hoping to create a new business model for Xbox. Then, Phil Mohun tells us what it has been like to watch people in the Bay Area interact with two robot dogs that wear the faces of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And finally, we talk with the longtime privacy defender Cindy Cohn about where things stand in the fight to protect internet users from digital surveillance by Big Tech and the government. Guests: Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive of Microsoft. Phil Mohun, executive director of Node. Cindy Cohn, former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of “Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.” Additional Reading: Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella Says, ‘Everyone Is a Stakeholder' in A.I. Node presents “Beeple: /Infinite_Loop” We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Headlines for June 11, 2026; “They Have Never Faced an Adversary Like Iran”: Rami Khouri on Latest U.S.-Iran Strikes; “World Cup of Exclusion”: Games Begin Amid U.S. Visa Restrictions, High Ticket Costs & Iran War; World Cup Kicks Off in Mexico Amid Protests Against Austerity and Forced Disappearances; “Keep the Game Beautiful”: Why ICE Crackdown & FIFA Greed Could Spoil the World Cup; Will Congress Renew Controversial Surveillance Law? Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cindy Cohn

Headlines for June 11, 2026; “They Have Never Faced an Adversary Like Iran”: Rami Khouri on Latest U.S.-Iran Strikes; “World Cup of Exclusion”: Games Begin Amid U.S. Visa Restrictions, High Ticket Costs & Iran War; World Cup Kicks Off in Mexico Amid Protests Against Austerity and Forced Disappearances; “Keep the Game Beautiful”: Why ICE Crackdown & FIFA Greed Could Spoil the World Cup; Will Congress Renew Controversial Surveillance Law? Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cindy Cohn

On today's show: Headlines “They Have Never Faced an Adversary Like Iran”: Rami Khouri on Latest U.S.-Iran Strikes “World Cup of Exclusion”: Games Begin Amid U.S. Visa Restrictions, High Ticket Costs & Iran War World Cup Kicks Off in Mexico Amid Protests Against Austerity and Forced Disappearances “Keep the Game Beautiful”: Why ICE Crackdown & FIFA Greed Could Spoil the World Cup Will Congress Renew Controversial Surveillance Law? Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cindy Cohn   Democracy Now! is a daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. The post Democracy Now! – June 11, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

The revelations of widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency after 9/11 brought to light one aspect of how the government has capitalized on digital technology to amass power – and such dangers have only multiplied. Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been involved in numerous groundbreaking legal battles with the U.S. government over surveillance and privacy, including establishing encryption as protected speech. She discusses the battles over government spying from the rise of the internet to the present. Cindy Cohn, Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance MIT Press, 2026 Electronic Frontier Foundation: Surveillance Self-Defense Section 702 Spying Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash The post Fighting Surveillance appeared first on KPFA.

As we cascade further into the digital age, concerns over privacy and data security continue to rise with increasing urgency. As artificial intelligence expands its reach, vast aggregates of personal data are constantly being mined to refine future models. But, the fight for digital privacy is as old as the digital age itself. In Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, author and Digital Rights Activist, Cindy Cohn, chronicles her career-long battle to preserve our right to privacy online. Part memoir and part legal history for a general audience, Privacy's Defender reminds the reader just how hard-won the privacy rights we enjoy today were. Cohn stresses the societal importance of digital privacy, citing its role in combatting authoritarianism, organizing public protests, and reinforcing other human rights as well. Dismantling the myth that our digital landscape was the sole work of several male charismatic tech founders, Cohn instead paints a fuller picture of our technological history. Through weaving her own story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state, Cohn reveals how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, even helping her to discover her birth parents and a life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which Cohn grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world. As we all know, advancements in technology never cease. Reckoning with its impact on our basic human rights is a conversation that Cindy Cohn has been having for over 30 years. Join Cohn at Town Hall Seattle, for a night of education, storytelling, and a reinvigoration in our fight to protect our rights in the digital age. Cindy Cohn is Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000 to 2015, she served as EFF's Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Today, she spearheads a team of more than 120 lawyers, activists, and technologists who are dedicated to ensuring that technology supports speech, privacy, and innovation for all the people of the world.

When the Pentagon formally designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” this March, the dispute put a spotlight on civil liberties concerns in the AI-era. Anthropic had reportedly hit an impasse with the Trump administration over the company's push for guardrails banning the use of its Claude model to conduct mass surveillance. Anthropic's CEO had called such surveillance a “red line” it would not cross. But where exactly should those lines be drawn, and who should draw them? Few people have spent more time thinking about those issues than Cindy Cohn, executive director of the San Francisco-based civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. Throughout her career, EFF's executive director has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Her new book, Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, chronicles her battles to protect our right to digital privacy. Cohn weaves her own personal story with the history of the Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into “one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world.” Cohn will be joined by Adam Savage, former co-host of the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters,” to talk about the issues raised in her book, EFF's work, and the emerging battle over AI surveillance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cindy Cohn is one of the world's leading advocates for digital rights and online freedom. She is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF. Cindy has spent more than three decades fighting landmark battles for us over encryption, privacy, free expression, and government surveillance. It's my great honor to interview her today!

FOLLOW UP: This week, it seems America believes every complicated social problem can be fixed by asking, “Have you tried turning the internet off for the children?” Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly notes that the science behind social media bans might not be as clear-cut as cable-news dads screaming about dopamine loops claim. Turns out, teen anxiety may also be linked to pandemics, school shootings, climate dread, and an economy that feels like a Fallout side quest. Meanwhile, Snap Inc. and YouTube settled another lawsuit accusing their apps of turning kids into doomscrolling goblins, Meta continues to insist social media addiction isn't real while losing money in court, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed at a graduation speech after telling graduates to hop on the AI rocket ship without asking questions — exactly what a billionaire says when he already owns the rocket.In the news, Elon Musk lost another OpenAI lawsuit because apparently even juries have limits. SpaceX's IPO revealed Musk plans to power AI with enough gas turbines to recreate 1890s London smog, and Grok officially became a disclosure liability after the whole “MechaHitler” incident. Tesla robotaxis still clip fences and occasionally require humans to remotely drive the “self-driving” cars. Trump Mobile somehow shipped a gold phone that actually works — a stunning upset — before immediately leaking customer data. LinkedIn finally admitted the platform has become an AI-generated motivational swamp filled with “it's not about X, it's about Y” sludge from people named Brayden. Spotify is handing out podcast verification badges so listeners can tell real creators from algorithmic nightmare fuel. Meta laid off thousands more workers while reportedly using employee surveillance to train AI replacements. And OpenAI is giving everyone in Malta a free year of ChatGPT Plus if they complete an AI literacy course, which honestly makes Malta sound more technologically responsible than Silicon Valley.APPS & DOODADS reflect classic Gen-X paranoia, as Backblaze highlights California's constant threat of wildfires and the idea that local backups are optimistic. YouTube introduced AI deepfake detection tools, allowing creators to finally see which scam ads are using their faces to promote crypto vitamins, while X limited free users to 50 posts a day unless they pay for a blue check — proving once again that the true free speech was the subscriptions we sold along the way. Retrocodex arrived with a strong “everything your teachers confidently told you in 1987 was wrong” vibe.MEDIA CANDY opens with the eternal cry of “FUCK THE FIRETV!!!!” before Jason taps out of Good Omens after ten minutes while Brian takes the bullet for the audience. There's also chatter about Mortal Kombat 2, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Billy Corgan talking goth history with David J, and more existential dread courtesy of Dan Carlin's Common Sense.THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE welcomes back Dave Bittner for a Mando & Grogu review, Darth Maul, and a stunning but absurdly expensive LEGO Disneyland set. There's also a guy who built a full-size Millennium Falcon “with his wife's permission,” a fan-made Star Tours film, and the Federal Trade Commission discovering that those creepy “your phone is listening to you” ad-tech companies mainly just had PowerPoint decks and confidence. Also: mechanical keyboard simulators now exist, because apparently even fake typing has become a lifestyle brand.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpyPrivate Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/747Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/eX5jVfewaswFOLLOW UPThe Science is Not Settled: How Weak Evidence is Fueling a National Push to Ban Social Media for YouthSnap and YouTube have reportedly settled another major social media addiction lawsuitEx-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Fails to Read Room on AI, Gets Booed into OblivionIN THE NEWSElon Musk took too long to sue OpenAI, jury unanimously agreesSpaceX IPO Filing Reveals Nearly $3 Billion Investment in Gas Turbines for AI Data Centers‘MechaHitler' Is SpaceX's Problem NowTrump Mobile Phone Beats Expectations by Actually ExistingNew crash data highlights the slow progress of Tesla's robotaxisIf You Used Insider Knowledge to Score Big on Polymarket, You May Now Be in Huge TroubleMinnesota passes prediction markets banLinkedIn doesn't want your AI slop anymoreSpotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help listeners avoid AI slopZuckerberg Tells the Tattered Remainder of His Workers That He Won't Conduct Another a Mass Firing for at Least Seven MonthsOpenAI is offering ChatGPT Plus to citizens of Malta for a yearMassive Crypto ATM Company Bitcoin Depot Is Shutting Down as the Whole Industry Collapses‘Smoke Weed and Earn Bitcoin' With This Vape Pen in Our Increasingly Dystopian Nightmare‘Unstoppable' Crypto Exchange Halts Trading After $10 Million TheftIran Doubles Down on Bitcoin for Ships Passing Through the Straight of HormuzTrump-Linked Crypto Company Notes 'Substantial Doubt' It Can Survive Another 12 MonthsAPPS & DOODADSBackblazeYouTube's AI deepfake detection tool is now available to all creators 18 and olderX accounts are limited to 50 posts and 200 replies a day unless they pay for a blue checkmarkRetrocodexMEDIA CANDYGood Omens Season 3 - The FinaleThe Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - David J of Bauhaus & Love & RocketsCommon Sense 326 – The Water in Which We SwimTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingMaul: Shadow LordRogue One: A Star Wars StoryNot Even Baby Yoda Can Save ‘Star Wars'Colorado man creates replica Millenium FalconSomeone made a Star Tours fan film.Bring Disneyland Home With This Gorgeous New Lego Set‘Creepy' Listening Tool for Targeted Ads Didn't Actually Work, FTC SaysMechanical keyboard simSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cindy Cohn joins Plutopia to discuss her new book, Privacy's Defender, and reflects on her decades of work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, from the landmark Bernstein encryption case to… The post Cindy Cohn: Privacy's Defender first appeared on Plutopia News Network.

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, James talks with Eva the director of cyber security for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They talk about the spies in our pockets, smart phones, and some things you can do to be more safe on them. The EFF can be found at: EFF.org Find the Surveillance Self-Defense Guide here. Find tools for journalists here. Host Info James can be found on Twitter @JamesStout or on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Jamesstout. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness and Blue Sky @tangledwilderness.bsky.social You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-69f62d for 40% off for 4 months, and support Live Like the World is Dying.

Depuis le début de l'année, plus de 260 000 Haïtiens ont été expulsés de République dominicaine, souvent dans des conditions dénoncées comme brutales par les autorités locales et les ONG. À Anse-à-Pitre, ville frontalière du sud-est haïtien, les structures sanitaires sont débordées par l'arrivée quotidienne de dizaines de personnes qui se trouvent souvent dans un état critique. Un dossier de Ronel Paul. Le centre hospitalier de la commune, déjà fragile, peine à faire face à cet afflux. Son directeur, le docteur Charles Denis, dénonce des renvois « inhumains » et un manque criant de moyens. L'ONG humanitaire ALIMA a renforcé ses opérations dans la région depuis juillet 2025 afin d'améliorer la prise en charge des urgences, notamment des femmes enceintes et des enfants souffrant de malnutrition. Mais au-delà de l'urgence sanitaire, les autorités locales dénoncent l'absence de soutien de l'État haïtien. Le maire d'Anse-à-Pitre, Harry Bruno, affirme que les centres d'accueil improvisés sont saturés. Beaucoup de ces expulsés sont nés en République dominicaine, ils n'ont pas de documents haïtiens et se retrouvent aujourd'hui sans nationalité reconnue. Bolivie : six mois après son arrivée au pouvoir, Rodrigo Paz confronté au retour de la crise économique Élu il y a six mois après deux décennies de gouvernements de gauche, Rodrigo Paz avait promis de redresser l'économie bolivienne. Mais les difficultés persistent. Ces derniers jours, des grèves et blocages ont paralysé plusieurs régions du pays pour dénoncer la mauvaise qualité du carburant et le retour des longues files d'attente dans les stations-service. Les pénuries de diesel et de dollars, qui semblaient temporairement maîtrisées, réapparaissent progressivement. Pour l'économiste Luis Fernando Romero, l'amélioration observée après l'arrivée du nouveau gouvernement relevait surtout d'un regain de confiance des acteurs économiques. Selon lui, le problème structurel demeure le manque de devises étrangères dans le pays. Une partie importante des revenus issus des exportations ne reviendrait plus dans le système bancaire bolivien, ce qui aggrave la fragilité financière de l'État. Un reportage de Nils Sabin. À lire aussiBolivie: comprendre la crise économique qui frappe le pays États-Unis : le Congrès se déchire autour du programme de surveillance FISA Aux États-Unis, la prolongation du programme de surveillance FISA provoque un débat explosif au Congrès, y compris dans le camp républicain. Au cœur des tensions, nous explique notre correspondant Vincent Souriau : l'article 702 du texte, qui autorise les services de renseignement américains à intercepter les communications de cibles étrangères situées hors du territoire américain. Mais dans la pratique, les échanges de citoyens américains peuvent eux aussi être collectés accidentellement. Les défenseurs des libertés civiles dénoncent un système opaque qui permet au FBI et à la NSA d'accéder à certaines données sans mandat judiciaire individuel. Pour Anne Toomey McKenna, ce mécanisme contourne les protections prévues par le quatrième amendement de la Constitution américaine contre les perquisitions abusives. Des ONG comme Electronic Frontier Foundation réclament davantage de transparence et de garanties pour les citoyens américains. À lire aussiComment la NSA enfreint des milliers de lois sur la vie privée Journal de la 1ʳᵉ La Guadeloupe en pré-alerte sanitaire avec l'arrivée des algues sargasses. À lire aussiPourquoi les sargasses envahissent-elles chaque année les plages des Caraïbes?

CGB stands for the Cult of Goofy Billionaires, and they are way, way, waaay goofier than you might imagine.I'm talking about prestigious, frontline, brand-name billionaires: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and other Silicon Valley Royals who perceive themselves as otherworldly geniuses. As such, they feel entitled to redesign your, my, and humanity's future – whether we want them to or not.So, for months, these techno-oligarchs have been furtively imposing a multitrillion-dollar network of invasive data centers all across America. Why? To power a whole new mechanomorphic species they call “generative AI chatbots.” Musk gushes that the super-intelligent bots will be “more human than humans” able to reproduce themselves, evolve, and displace us primitives in nearly every workplace.Which raises the question: Could this gaggle of billionaire megalomaniacs get any goofier?Gosh, yes! Musk, Thiel, and others have become disciples of a Swedish “philosopher” named Bostrom. He idealizes a “post-human future” in which us biological earthlings literally merge into the digital machine race. Indeed, Judd Legum investigative Substack, Oligarch Watch, reports that Musk has already launched a venture to produce implants to fuse human brains with computers.Meanwhile, Thiel, the PayPal/Palantir billionaire, says policymakers should stop worrying about little problems like world wars and climate change, for “transhumanism” technology will create a digital species that is immortal. He also warns ominously that anyone who tries to regulate AI is doing the bidding of “The Antichrist.”Then there's Google's goofy billionaire, Larry Page, who blithely says “if we let digital minds be free… the outcome is almost certain to be good.” Almost certain? Sure, Larry, unbridled tech never goes bad, right?Do something!The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been at the forefront of the fight to protect humans from and with tech advances for decades, and their work on the impact of AI is vital. Dive in here to join up with them.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), for a wide-ranging conversation covering the EFF's origins and mission, the countercultural roots of Silicon Valley, the rise of surveillance-based business models, the challenges facing open source software and open-weight AI models, the legal landscape around intellectual property and privacy law, and the growing tension between government overreach and civil liberties in the digital age. Cindy also discusses her upcoming departure from EFF after 26 years, the transition to new leadership, and her recently published book Privacy's Defender, which chronicles key legal battles she fought to protect digital privacy rights.Links mentioned:- EFF website: eff.org- Privacy's Defender book: eff.org/privacysdefenderTimestamps00:00 - Stewart introduces Cindy Cohn, EFF Executive Director, who explains the organization's mission protecting digital rights since 1990.05:00 - Cindy connects counterculture roots to early internet idealism, describing how digital communication broke down physical barriers for organizing.10:00 - Cindy reveals surveillance becoming the dominant business model surprised her, blaming corporate consolidation over naive techno-optimism.15:00 - Discussion shifts to Silicon Valley's military contractor substrate and how corporate money co-opted hacker ethos.20:00 - Open source community faces existential threat from age verification legislation while open-weight AI models emerge as critical alternative.25:00 - Cindy outlines legal frameworks like compulsory licensing and easements that could democratize access to foundational AI models.30:00 - Privacy principles around secondary data use identified as core surveillance problem, with Anthropic's domestic surveillance red line praised.35:00 - Cloud Act, Five Eyes surveillance networks, and global jurisdictional complexity examined through individual threat modeling lens.40:00 - Constitutional rights and democratic participation framed as irreplaceable bulwarks against authoritarian surveillance tendencies.45:00 - Cindy announces departure from EFF after 26 years, naming successor Nicole Ozer while planning return to courtroom litigation.Key Insights1. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in 1990, before the World Wide Web existed, by Mitch Kapoor, John Perry Barlow, and John Gilmore, with early support from Steve Wozniak. Its core mission is to ensure that civil rights and freedoms follow people into the digital world, using lawyers, technologists, and activists to keep the internet on the side of users.2. The early countercultural movement of the 1960s and 70s heavily influenced the founders of the internet and EFF. Figures like Barlow believed the digital world could reduce physical barriers like race, class, and geography, allowing people to be judged by the quality of their ideas rather than the circumstances of their birth.3. The dominant surveillance business model that emerged was not inevitable. Cohn argues it resulted from deliberate policy failures, particularly the abandonment of competition law, which allowed a handful of companies to consolidate control over the entire internet and adopt 360-degree data collection as their primary revenue strategy.4. Open source communities remain active and vital but are under serious threat from legislation like age verification laws that make it practically impossible to maintain fully open tools. Cohn sees this community as essential to reclaiming public control over computation, especially in the age of AI.5. The open weights question for AI models is fundamentally different from traditional open source software because of the enormous capital required to train foundation models. Cohn suggests legal mechanisms like compulsory licensing, similar to how cover songs work in copyright law, as one possible path toward broader public access.6. A core privacy principle Cohn advocates is that data collected for one purpose must not be used for others. This single rule, if enforced, would begin dismantling the infrastructure that enables mass individual surveillance, including the AI-powered profiling she sees as the next dangerous frontier.7. Cohn is stepping down from EFF after 26 years to allow new leadership and return to litigation, which is where she believes her impact is greatest. She also wrote a book called Privacy's Defender to preserve the history of digital rights fights from the 1990s onward and to help people understand how current threats emerged so they can work to reverse them.

Jaws of Justice Radio investigates how we can achieve justice from a system of laws deeply rooted in economic, social and political inequality.  We want to dispel misconceptions created by the news and entertainment industry, politicians and our educational system. We hope you will listen. Host Terri Wilke speaks with author Cindy Cohn about her new book, Privacy's Defender, My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance and her work as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is the world's biggest and oldest digital rights organization. https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender Cindy Cohn recounts the fight against sweeping government surveillance after 9/11, her reservations about internet regulations backfiring if placed in the wrong hands, and why the solution to these problems is a combination of comprehensive privacy law, revised business models of giant tech companies who make money off of user data, and more platform choices for individuals. Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, and also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights. Cindy Cohn is an American civil liberties attorney specializing in Internet law. She has served as executive director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2015.   In the second part of our hour, I will speak with the Rev. Phil Woodson, Pastor, Stilwell United Methodist Church, Stilwell, Kansas and Dianna Heffernon, church member and retired teacher. They will talk about the Saturday, May 2, 2026 event, Guns to Gardens Kansas City, from 1 – 3 PM at the Stilwell United Methodist Church, 19335 Metcalf Ave, Stilwell, KS 66085 This event welcomes everyone who wants an opportunity to dispose of unwanted firearms safely, responsibly, and anonymously. Grocery store gift cards will be offered in appreciation for safely disposing of firearms, while supplies last. https://www.gunstogardenskc.org/ On Jaws of Justice, we examine how to find justice in our society.  Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.  

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Northwest Registered Agent - https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Render - https://render.com/twist Agree - https://agree.com Ro - https://Ro.co/Twist Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twistToday's show:The US military is running low on missiles, but now, Firehawk Aerospace is using 3D-printed solid rocket propellant to cut production costs in half and 5x U.S. output.Plus: PhD researcher Maruchi Kim just built camera-equipped earbuds that perform on par with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and could be the next wearable AI platform hiding in plain sight.GuestsWill Edwards: https://x.com/williewocketsFirehawk Aerospace: https://firehawkdefense.com/Maruchi Kim: https://x.com/maruchikimVueBuds project: https://vuebuds.cs.washington.edu/Related LinksThis Week in AI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/“Ghost Murmur: The Heartbeat-Tracking Tech That Has Experts Questioning the Laws of Physics”: https://www.military.com/feature/2026/04/18/ghost-murmur-heartbeat-tracking-tech-has-experts-questioning-laws-of-physics.htmlNeurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/Meta Ray-Bans: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/Hanwha Defense USA: https://www.hanwhadefenseusa.com/Raytheon: https://www.rtx.com/Pilatus PC-24 corporate jet: https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/pc-24PlaneSense: https://www.planesense.com/Slopes app: https://slopesapp.com/Speechify: https://speechify.com/Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/Timestamps:0:00 Are all these layoffs really AI's fault?8:51 Why laid off people should start their own companies9:27 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist13:18 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!15:25 Will Edwards of Firehawk joins the show15:46 What are Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs)?20:06 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.23:10 Who are Firehawk's customers?24:25 Reimagining and reinventing the US military28:35 How do missiles fit into the military's operations?29:34 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!31:01 What's next on the roadmap for Firehawk?31:49 How to make propellant (with easy to find ingredients)33:13 A cheaper way to fly private38:03 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.40:48 Maruchi Kim of Vuebuds joins the show!44:35 Why are VueBuds better than meta glasses?46:23 The biggest VueBud use cases48:09 Jason wants to use VueBuds on the slopes55:38 Jason's advice for angel investors: never underestimate anyone!Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

The early internet opened unprecedented avenues for speech, creativity, and connection without traditional gatekeepers. But it also raised civil liberties questions: Do our offline freedoms exist online? And if so, how far do they extend? Today, those questions are more urgent than ever. Advances in AI have given governments powerful new tools to track, monitor, and analyze our behavior, raising fundamental concerns about the future of free expression in the digital age. Today we are joined by Cindy Cohn, the executive director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She has spent thirty years as a civil liberties attorney specializing in digital rights, which she documents in her newly published memoir Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.   Timestamps:  00:00 Intro   05:17 Why write this book now? 09:11 Does privacy make free speech possible? 14:52 Code as speech: Bernstein v. United States  33:34 The Patriot Act and government spying 51:09 National security letters and Section 702 57:57 Who is Tony Coppolino? 01:06:06 Why EFF left X 01:11:05 What's next for Cindy 01:13:56 Outro Read the transcript here. Enjoy listening to the podcast? Donate to FIRE today and get exclusive content like member webinars, special episodes, and more.  If you became a FIRE Member through a donation to FIRE at thefire.org and would like access to Substack's paid subscriber podcast feed, please email sotospeak@thefire.org.

08:00 — Omid Memarian is the Director of Communications at DAWN and also serves as the organization's Senior Iran Analyst. He has previously worked as a journalist and human rights professional.                                       33:00 — Matthew Guariglia is a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, working on issues of surveillance and policing at the local, state, and federal level. 45:00 — Tim Redmond, founder of 48hills. Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. The post Looming Deadline of US-Iran Ceasefire; Plus, What Does the FISA Extension Mean?; And A Look at San Francisco's Policy Priorities appeared first on KPFA.

WORT 89.9FM Madison · Dane County Board Axes Flock Camera Funding Heidi Wegleitner(Photo courtesy Dane County Board of Supervisors) Back in March, WORT brought you the story of protestors demanding that the UW Police remove Flock Systems automated surveillance cameras from campus.  Flock Systems' website boasts it is “shaping the future of safety together” and claims that it has worked with “over 12,000 cities, towns, counties and business partners.”   Meanwhile, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have criticized the company for its indiscriminate surveillance, capturing people's comings and goings,whether or not they are suspected of a crime.  On April 16, the Dane County Board of Supervisors voted 32-1 to cut Sheriff's Department funding to install Flock System license plate readers.  Heidi Wegleitner represents District 2 on the Dane County Board of Supervisors and sponsored the budget amendment.  She joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on April 20, 2026. Featured image: Flock Camera (Aurora, IL) (Photo by LemononoM, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons) Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Dane County Board Axes Flock Camera Funding appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

This week, legendary executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn, joins the show to talk about her new book, "Privacy's Defender." 

Grecia prohíbe redes a menores, se retrasa el iPhone plegable y Explosive Media combate la guerra con memesPuedes apoyar la realización de este programa con una suscripción. Más información por acáTemas:00:18 Electronic Frontier Foundation abandona a X00:49 Meta presenta Muse Spark01:23 Grecia prohíbe redes sociales a menores01:57 Retrasos en el iPhone plegable02:23 Explosive Media usa tecnología generativa como arma de guerra03:05 Análisis: Combatiendo la guerra con memesNotas del episodio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are the risks of allowing financial institutions to cut off access to the economy for lawful but controversial activity?Rainey Reitman is a civil liberties advocate and the author of Transaction Denied, a comprehensive investigation into debanking, financial censorship, and the growing role of financial institutions in regulating speech. She previously worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the Freedom of the Press Foundation.Timestamps: ➡️ 1:20 — Why cash functions as a civil liberty (privacy + censorship resistance)➡️ 3:21 — What inspired Transaction Denied and early experiences with debanking➡️ 5:20 — The Chelsea Manning Support Network PayPal freeze➡️ 8:27 — Operation Chokepoint and the rise of financial censorship➡️ 11:25 — “Banking while Muslim” and over-compliance with sanctions➡️ 15:08 — The Patriot Act and incentives for financial surveillance➡️ 17:12 — Financial intermediaries and the power to block transactions➡️ 17:48 — Bitcoin, custodians, and whether crypto solves debanking➡️ 19:33 — Why financial censorship affects everyone—not just targeted groups➡️ 21:58 — NRA v. Vullo and the limits of government pressure on banksSponsor: Day One Law, a boutique corporate law firm founded by Nick Pullman. Nick and his team at Day One provide strategic legal counsel to startups, crypto projects, and Web3 innovators. ⁠You can get in contact with them via this link⁠: ⁠⁠https://www.dayonelaw.xyz/#contactResources:

Four months after Australia's landmark law that banned all minors under the age of 16 from creating or owning social media accounts, the California legislature is trying to follow suit.But free speech advocates worry that these laws will infringe on the First Amendment rights of many kids and even adults. However, Aaron Mackey, the free speech and transparency litigation director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says there is growing sentiment to regulate and protect children from the harms of social media. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Mackey about how we can still protect kids and consumers without restricting free speech.

Four months after Australia's landmark law that banned all minors under the age of 16 from creating or owning social media accounts, the California legislature is trying to follow suit.But free speech advocates worry that these laws will infringe on the First Amendment rights of many kids and even adults. However, Aaron Mackey, the free speech and transparency litigation director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says there is growing sentiment to regulate and protect children from the harms of social media. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Mackey about how we can still protect kids and consumers without restricting free speech.

This week Jason brings you an interview he did with The Electronic Frontier Foundation's executive director Cindy Cohn, who recently announced she would be stepping down from the legendary digital rights nonprofit after decades of service. Cindy's new book “Privacy's Defender,” is a memoir of her work to protect Americans' privacy and fight government surveillance.Privacy's Defender weaves Cindy's life story through three incredibly important court cases. Rather than being a dry recounting of three complicated and technical cases, Cindy recounts her strategies in each case, the trials and tribulations she was going through during each period, and the stakes of each case. A quick backgrounder — the cases are Bernstein vs Department of Justice, decided in 1996, which established code and encryption as protected speech under the first amendment, a lasting decision that became critical in Apple's lawsuit against the FBI in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting. It also follows EFF's lawsuit against AT&T for building a secret backdoor in its internet data centers that gave data to the NSA for warrantless surveillance against American citizens, a case that was built in part around testimony and documents shared by Mark Klein, who showed schematics and design documents for secret surveillance rooms in AT&T's offices. And finally it follows the Alphabet Cases, which were lawsuits against FBI gag orders for national security letters, which are secret demands for customer information that came with gag orders against internet companies that prevented them from disclosing the fact that the FBI approached them for information. Those cases concerned both Cloudflare and a telecom company called CREDO, and went on for many years. Our interview with Cindy shows that the fight for privacy happens in fits and spurts, and is rarely linear. Cindy's Book Privacy Defender: https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/2OwH_XyfEhs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Ray Cochrane digs into a new study showing AI is literally frying workers’ brains, then unpacks Anthropic’s wildest month ever – from a 1,487% user surge to Pentagon retaliation to a leaked model called Mythos. Also covered: OpenAI kills Sora after burning $15 million a day, OpenClaw’s terrifying security holes, Apple axing the Mac Pro, ARM’s first-ever production CPU, and why King Tut’s dagger was forged from a meteorite. – Want to start a podcast? It’s easy to get started! Sign-up at Blubrry – Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use my link to support the show. Subscribe to the Newsletter. Email Ray if you want to get in touch! Like and Follow Geek News Central’s Facebook Page. Support my Show Sponsor: Best Godaddy Promo Codes Get 1Password Full Summary Cochrane opens the show with a study that puts a name to something most AI-heavy workers have already felt. From there, the episode moves through one of the most turbulent months in AI industry history, touching on corporate ethics, national security, hardware shortages, and ancient archaeology. AI Use at Work Is Causing “Brain Fry” A study from Boston Consulting Group and UC Riverside surveyed 1,500 full-time US workers and found that 14% experience what researchers call “AI brain fry” – mental fatigue from excessive AI tool oversight. Those affected report 33% more decision fatigue, 39% more major errors, and an increase in intent to quit from 25% to 34%. Notably, productivity peaks at one to three AI tools and drops off at four or more. Cochrane relates this directly to his own workflow, often running two to four tools side by side. However, he pushes back on the doom framing. He argues that context switching across multiple projects and rubber-stamping AI output without review are the real sources of fry. His takeaway: either work more slowly with greater intent, or use the accelerated pace to reclaim free time. Anthropic’s Wild Month: Exodus, Pentagon, and Mythos Claude sessions surged by roughly 1,487% from mid-January to early March, knocking ChatGPT off the top spot in the app store for the first time. ChatGPT uninstalls spiked nearly 300%, one-star reviews exploded 775% in a single day, and a boycott movement called “Quit GPT” has grown to between 2.5 and 4 million participants. The catalyst was OpenAI stepping in to take the Pentagon defense deal that Anthropic had publicly declined. Cochrane is firmly against automated domestic surveillance and autonomous weaponry, noting that the models are not reliable enough for such responsibilities. OpenAI tried to walk it back, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation called their language “weasel words.” Meanwhile, the Department of Defense slapped Anthropic with a supply chain risk label – a national security designation previously reserved for hostile foreign companies. Anthropic sued the Trump administration. Then Microsoft filed a legal brief in Anthropic’s defense, joined by 149 former judges, dozens of Google and OpenAI employees, and nearly two dozen retired generals. On top of all that, security researchers discovered an unsecured data cache exposing nearly 3,000 unpublished Anthropic files, including a model code-named Mythos (also called Capybara). Internal documents describe it as a step change in capabilities, scoring dramatically higher than Opus 4.6 on coding, reasoning, and cybersecurity. Then Anthropic’s source code leaked publicly as well. Sponsor: GoDaddy Economy hosting is $6.99/month, WordPress hosting is $12.99/month, and domains are $11.99. Both hosting plans include a free domain, professional email, and SSL certificate. Go to geeknewscentral.com/godaddy for the best pricing and to directly support this independent show. OpenAI Shuts Down Sora Video App OpenAI announced on March 24th that it is killing Sora, its AI video-generation app. Downloads cratered from 3.3 million in November to 1.1 million by February. The real numbers are brutal: Sora was costing roughly $15 million per day to run against a total lifetime revenue of just $2.1 million. The Sora web and app experience ends April 26th, with the API shutting down September 24th. Additionally, the Disney partnership – a billion-dollar deal meant to validate AI in Hollywood – collapsed completely. Deep fakes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robin Williams appeared almost immediately despite guardrails, and both families protested publicly. Cochrane notes that competitors like Runway, Pika, and Kling are still operating, and suspects Hollywood will pivot to generating scene backgrounds rather than full content. OpenClaw Is a Security Nightmare Cochrane’s personal OpenClaw install started making outbound requests flagged by his ISP – with no changes or new skills installed. He shut it down and plans to wipe the device entirely. The broader picture is alarming. A January 2026 audit found 512 vulnerabilities in OpenClaw, eight critical. Twenty-six percent of community skills contain at least one vulnerability. Oasis Security discovered a vulnerability chain called “Clawjacked” where any website can silently take full control of a developer’s agent. Between March 18th and 21st alone, nine additional vulnerabilities were disclosed, several of which were rated 9.9 out of 10. Cochrane draws a direct parallel to the browser extension era: supply chain attacks hidden as helpful tools. Claude Code Auto Mode: AI Policing AI Anthropic published details on a new “auto mode” for Claude Code after finding that users approve 93% of permission prompts – essentially mashing “yes.” Auto mode replaces manual approvals with a two-layer defense: an input scanner to detect prompt injection and a second AI model that monitors the first and decides whether to allow each action. The safety checker can only see what the user asked for and what the AI is trying to do. It cannot see the AI’s reasoning, so the AI cannot talk its way past the check. However, Cochrane notes it still misses about one in six dangerous actions (17%), and the fundamental question remains: if the base layer can get infected, so can the checker. Qwen Overtakes Llama as Most-Deployed Self-Hosted LLM RunPod’s 2026 State of AI report, based on usage data from 183 countries, reveals that Alibaba’s Qwen has overtaken Meta’s Llama as the most popular self-hosted AI model. Llama 4 has barely been adopted, with users sticking to version 3 because it just works. Additionally, vLLM now powers 40% of all AI endpoints, NVIDIA’s latest GPU usage scaled 25x last year, and nearly 70% of AI image work runs through ComfyUI. Cochrane sees Qwen winning on merit and argues that is how open source should work. AI Data Centers Are Taking All the CPUs Too AI data centers are not just consuming GPUs and memory anymore – CPUs are now being strained too. Intel server CPU lead times have stretched from two weeks to six months. AMD typically occurs at 8 to 10 weeks. Server CPU demand is projected to jump 15% in 2026, but Intel’s output capacity is growing in single digits. The shift from chatbots to autonomous AI agents is changing the hardware ratio, since agents require far more CPU power to coordinate tasks and call tools. TSMC is prioritizing more profitable AI chips over regular CPUs. Cochrane warns that consumers and businesses are effectively subsidizing the AI boom through higher prices and longer waits. AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2: First Dual-Cache X3D CPU AMD announced the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, the first CPU with dual-cache X3D technology. It arrives April 22nd with 208MB of total cache and a 200W TDP – up from the current model. However, AMD is unusually honest, calling the gains “modest,” ranging from 5-13% depending on the workload. Notably, they have not released gaming benchmarks, which is conspicuous for an X3D chip. Cochrane owns a single X3D chip and sees no reason to upgrade. ARM Launches “AGI” CPU After 35 years of licensing chip designs to Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, and NVIDIA, ARM has launched its first production silicon: a 136-core server chip co-developed with Meta as the lead customer. ARM’s stock jumped about 16% on the news. You can pack over 8,000 cores in a single air-cooled rack, or over 45,000 with liquid cooling. Volume shipments begin by the end of 2026. Cochrane appreciates the move but calls the “AGI” branding marketing hype. The bigger story is ARM transitioning from blueprint designer to direct competitor against Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA in data centers – while still licensing to the companies it now competes against. Apple Discontinues the Mac Pro Apple removed the Mac Pro from its website and confirmed that no future model is planned. The $6,999 machine had not been updated since the 2023 M2 Ultra model. Apple is pointing professionals toward the Mac Studio with its M4 Ultra chip, with an M5 Ultra refresh expected later this year. They also discontinued the $700 wheels kit, $300 feet kit, and Pro Display XDR the same week. Cochrane says good riddance – the Mac Studio covers what 90% of users need. Apple’s AI Pin: An AirTag-Sized Wearable Reports suggest Apple is developing an AirTag-sized wearable AI pin with cameras, microphones, and wireless charging. It would clip to clothing or hang as a necklace, running as an iPhone accessory powered by an upgraded Siri with Google’s Gemini AI. A possible 2027 release is expected alongside iOS 27, though development is early and could be canceled. Cochrane ties this to a broader shift: data collection moving from the application layer to physical devices. Apple employees internally refer to the device as “the eyes and ears of the iPhone.” He warns that always-on wearable cameras, combined with existing AI-powered surveillance poles, are pushing society deeper into mass data collection without meaningful consent. Quantum Entanglement Speed Measured for the First Time Scientists at TU Wien’s Institute of Theoretical Physics, led by Professor Joachim Burgdorfer, measured how fast quantum entanglement happens for the first time. The answer: about 232 attoseconds – a billionth of a billionth of a second. The research was published in Physical Review Letters in late 2024 and is now circulating widely. Einstein called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” Turns out it is not instantaneous – just extraordinarily fast. This measurement technique opens the door to quantum cryptography and quantum computing. However, Cochrane clarifies: this does not mean faster-than-light communication. Entanglement links particles but does not transmit information through space. Bronze Age Iron Artifacts Came From Outer Space Geochemical analysis by French scientist Albert Jambon, originally published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in 2017, confirmed that virtually all Bronze Age iron artifacts were made from meteorites. The artifacts span Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and China, including beads dating to 3200 BCE and the famous dagger from King Tut’s tomb, dating to around 1350 BCE. The story resurfaced after researchers published new findings this month on fragments of meteoritic iron weapons from China’s Sanxingdui sacrificial site. Bronze Age people lacked the technology to smelt iron ore, but meteoritic iron arrived in a metallic state, ready to be forged. Cochrane closes the episode, noting that ancient civilizations were working with extraterrestrial material before they could produce their own iron – resourcefulness that deserves respect. Cochrane wraps up the show by thanking GoDaddy for over twenty years of partnership and reminding listeners to subscribe, sign up for the newsletter, and reach out via email. The post Agentically Frying your Brain using AI #1861 appeared first on Geek News Central.

Over the last two decades, tracking “cookies” have been core to the sprawl of surveillance capitalism. Websites lodge little nuggets of text—the cookies—on a user's computer and they act as a kind of badge signalling what sites they've visited or what apps they've used. Though little discussed in privacy circles today, and despite European laws that ensure people have control over what kinds of cookies can monitor them, these trackers continue to follow users the world over. That makes them a useful tool for law enforcement, according to two search warrants reviewed by Forbes. In August 2025, a man called the Hamilton County Courthouse in Ohio and told staff there was a bomb inside the building. Security staff searched the premises with sniffer dogs, but found nothing. They determined it was a hoax. The search warrants say that investigators linked the caller with an anonymous Gmail email. Investigators then asked Google to disclose what other users had accessed this account. That's where Google's cookies proved crucial. The cookies showed that a single iPhone had been used for both the Google account linked to the hoax, and another Google account, which a user registered with their real identity. The cops had a name, Don'tavius Conley, who has now been charged with transmission of a bomb threat, and false information and hoaxes. He has pleaded not guilty. The case shows how police can unmask anonymous Gmail users if they're running multiple accounts on the same device. It also highlights how police can piggyback on tech giants' tracking mechanisms like cookies. Google hadn't responded to a request for comment. Though law enforcement often uses Google data to learn more about the subject of an investigation, they usually seek information like locations and email content. Identifying an anonymous suspect via cookies is rare, but has likely happened in other cases, says Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “I haven't seen police rely on cookies in this manner before, but that certainly doesn't mean they haven't done so,” Lynch says. “It seems like the police knew that was possible and asked specifically for this information.” Read the full story on Forbes: By Thomas Brewster   Senior writer at Forbes covering cybercrime, privacy and surveillance for The Wiretap https://www.forbes.com/sites/the-wiretap/2026/03/24/google-cookies-help-cops-identify-anonymous-users/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our future was pronounced dead last week.I mean that glorious future of The Metaverse, promised to us by Silicon Valley's tech and financial geniuses. Just a decade ago, they were promising us that by now we'd all be playing, working, and relating as digital avatars of ourselves, living out our lives in a phantasmagoric new world of virtual reality.They boldly proclaimed that the next Big Thing in tech, replacing smart phones and all other personal devices would be a “Metaverse,” digitally connecting everyone everywhere. They exclaimed that by purchasing goofy-looking, reality-augmenting headsets, interactions could be done without any in-person human contact. And who better to sell this future than the super-goofy gabillionaire, Mark Zuckerberg?The CEO of Facebook, he was so bedazzled by the digital hokum of the metaverse that he even renamed his corporation “Meta.” Then he pumped a whopping $80 billion into developing and marketing his wondrous new world, including peddling a Meta brand of those magical headsets.Not wanting to miss out on a bonanza, other tech billionaires geniuses joined the virtual reality rush. But it was just fool's gold, for the geniuses had failed to consider an essential factor: Customers. Far from dazzled, buyers pronounced the meta-mess: goofy.Even Zuckerberg has now pulled the plug on his fantasy of a digital, virtual, immersive, avatar world of tech “reality.” Don't think, however, that goofy, avaricious, egomaniacal billionaires have gained any modesty from their Metaverse misadventure. They are the same ones now hurling trillions of public and corporate dollars into erecting intrusive, massive, wasteful AI data centers all across America. Why? To power their profiteering fantasy of replacing humans with AI bots.Do something!Has Big Tech got you down? Ensuring emerging technologies are safe, useful and accessible can feel daunting, but here are 2 great organizations who've been fighting for our rights for a long time:* Electronic Frontier Foundation: eff.org* Fight for the Future: fightforthefuture.orgOn the AI data center front, our friend Clayton Tucker, who is running for Agriculture Commissioner here in Texas, has made this issue a centerpiece of his campaign— these data centers are being forced upon rural areas all over the country. Follow along with his campaign to see how the fights are being won.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

“Privacy is a check on power,” writes Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in her book, “Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.” Since the San Francisco based non-profit began in 1990 to advocate for open access to a then fledgling internet, EFF has been at the center of battles over individual rights and privacy from corporations and government in an increasingly surveilled world. We talk to Cohn about the ever-shifting world of digital surveillance and why, despite its ubiquity, we don't need to feel powerless. Guests: Cindy Cohn, executive director, Electronic Frontier Foundation; author, "Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cindy Cohn can remember using punched cards for computing during her college years in Iowa. She can tell you about watching the rise of the internet and home computing with her techie friends in San Francisco. She can also recall the times she’s stood in court, working to protect someone’s right to put encrypted code on the internet, or the fight against the NSA’s mass surveillance system after 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Cohn has led the Electronic Frontier Foundation for 25 years. That’s a non-profit that advocates for privacy and free speech. This year, she announced she is leaving her role, but not before putting out a memoir she hopes will inspire others to take up the work… GUEST: Cindy Cohn, author of Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance. RELATED LINKS: Cindy Cohn | Town Hall Seattle - Tues 3/17 Privacy's Defender - Cindy's Book Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights | WIRED The Big Idea: Cindy Cohn Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cindy Cohn joins Remarkable People to break down encryption, Section 230, metadata, and the real meaning of the First and Fourth Amendments in the digital age. As longtime leader of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, she has taken on the Department of Justice, challenged mass surveillance, and helped secure the tools we rely on every day.We also dive into her new memoir, Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, and what comes next in the fight for online freedom.--Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy's questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopologyListen to Remarkable People here: **https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827**Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!Thank you for your support; it helps the show!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Several stories have put government power over speech and technology back in the spotlight. In this episode, we break down the Pentagon's targeting of the AI company Anthropic, the push for government-mandated age verification technologies, and the Department of Justice's raid on a Washington Post reporter's home. We are joined by: Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute Mike Godwin, AI and privacy expert, first staff counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, first full-time general counsel at Wikimedia, and author of two books on internet law and policy Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE   Timestamps:  00:00 Intro   03:19 The Pentagon vs. Anthropic? 22:40 The FTC, Congress, and age verification laws 48:15 Is it unusual for the DOJ to seize a reporter's computer? 59:46 Outro   Don't miss the free speech event of the year! Get your tickets and learn more about the Soapbox Conference here. Enjoy listening to the podcast? Donate to FIRE today and get exclusive content like member webinars, special episodes, and more.  If you became a FIRE Member through a donation to FIRE at thefire.org and would like access to Substack's paid subscriber podcast feed, please email sotospeak@thefire.org.  

After experiencing Planet Nix and SCaLE, we come back convinced the next phase of Linux is already taking shape.Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

On February 8, during the Super Bowl in the United States, countless owners of one of the most popular smart products today got a bit of a wakeup call: Their Ring doorbells could be used to see a whole lot more than they knew.In a commercial that was broadcast to one of most reliably enormous audiences in the country, Amazon, which owns the company Ring, promoted a new feature for its smart doorbells called “Search Party.” By scouring the footage of individual Ring cameras across a specific region, “Search Party” can implement AI-powered image recognition technology to find, as the commercial portrayed it, a lost dog. But immediately after the commercial aired, people began wondering what else their Ring cameras could be used to find.As US Senator Ed Markey wrote on social media:“Ring's Super Bowl ad exposed a scary truth: the technology in its doorbell cameras could be used to hunt down a lost pet…or a person. Amazon must discontinue its dystopian monitoring features.”These “dystopian monitoring features” aren't entirely new, but that's not to say that most Ring owners knew what they were allowing when they originally bought their devices.Bought by Amazon in 2018, Ring is the most popular manufacturer of a product that, as of 15 years ago, didn't really exist. And while other “smart” innovations failed, smart doorbells have become a fixture of American neighborhoods, providing a mixture of convenience and security. For instance, a Ring owner away from home can verify and buzz in their mailman dropping off a package behind a gated entrance. Or, a Ring owner can see on their phone that the person knocking at their door is a salesman and choose to avoid talking to them. Or, a Ring owner can help police who are investigating a crime in their area by handing over relevant footage. Even the presence of a Ring doorbell, and its variety of motion-detecting alerts, could possibly serve as a deterrent to crime.What has seemingly upset so many of those same owners, then, is learning exactly how their personal devices might be used for a company's gains.Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at Electronic Frontier Foundation, about Ring's long history of partnering with—and sometimes even speaking directly for—police, who can access Ring doorbell footage both inside the company and outside it, and what people really open themselves up to when purchasing a Ring device.”There's this impression, a myth practically, that ‘I buy a ring doorbell to put on my house, I control the footage… But there is [an] entire secondary use of this device, which is by police that you don't really get a lot of say in.”Tune in today.You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and whatever preferred podcast platform you use.For all our cybersecurity coverage, visit Malwarebytes Labs at malwarebytes.com/blog.Show notes and credits:Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn't just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.Protect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.

Did you know that millions of Americans drive each day in cars with open safety recalls that, if ignored, could have fatal consequences? This podcast hour we discussed how you can check if your vehicle has an open recall.8:05PM: Each year in the U.S., more than 500,000 people are treated and about 300 die from ladder-related injuries, according to CDC/NIOSH. In almost every case, these incidents are preventable. March is National Ladder Safety Month & the American Ladder Institute is offering free online Ladder Safety Training.Guest: Mike Van Bree - Director of Product Safety & Engineering with the American Ladder Institute 8:15PM: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? A look at what our right is to digital privacy in today’s world.Guest: Cindy Cohn – Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation & Author of the book: Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance8:30PM: March 2 – 8 is Vehicle Safety Recalls Week. From defective airbags to overheating batteries, millions of Americans drive each day in cars with open safety recalls that, if ignored, could have fatal consequences. How you can check if your vehicle has an open recall…Guest: Mark Schieldrop - Senior Spokesperson for AAA Northeast8:45PM: The best education for future success might surprise you…Career-focused programs mistakenly assume that what seems useful today will be useful tomorrow.Guest: Greg Weiner - professor of political science & president of Assumption University in Worcester, MassachusettsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Assemblymember Chris Ward (D–San Diego) held a press conference Tuesday at the State Capitol to announce the introduction of AB 1542, new legislation to strengthen protections for sensitive personal data; continued efforts to advance AB 322, a two-year bill to ban the sale of geolocation data; and renewed momentum for AB 1337, a two-year bill currently pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee to modernize public-sector privacy protections. The press conference brought together consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, and privacy experts to underscore the urgency of protecting Californians' personal information from misuse, exploitation, and sale without consent. “Californians should not have to worry that their sensitive personal information is being sold to the highest bidder,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward. “From precise location data to deeply personal information, these bills work together to stop the sale of geolocation data, strengthen protections for sensitive information, and ensure government agencies are held to modern privacy standards. California led the nation on privacy once before, and we must continue to lead as technology evolves.” Justin Brookman, Director of Tech Policy at Consumer Reports, warned that data-driven pricing and monetization practices are outpacing existing protections. “People should not have to worry that their sensitive personal information is going to be sold to the highest bidder,” Brookman said. “The California Consumer Privacy Act was groundbreaking, but it needs to be updated to address the realities of the modern data ecosystem. Companies should use personal information like geolocation to deliver the services we ask for—not to secretly monetize it through data brokers.” Advocates emphasized the heightened risks these practices pose to vulnerable communities. “When businesses sell and trade sensitive personal information like precise location or immigration status, they open the door to surveillance, targeting, and exploitation. Those harms fall the hardest on the most vulnerable in our community, including immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking," said Lan Le, Policy Advocate at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL). “These data privacy bills send a clear message: dignity and safety are rights, not commodities.” Supporters also highlighted the need to modernize how public agencies handle personal data. “In an era of increasing digital surveillance and data collection, it's crucial that our privacy laws evolve,” said Rindala “Rin” Alajaji, Associate Director of State Affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “AB 1337 is a much-needed update to ensure local governments are held accountable for how they handle personal data.” Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Oakland Privacy, underscored how the measures work together. “The bill duo of AB 1337 and AB 322 attacks our current dystopia in two vital ways,” Rosenberg said. “They modernize privacy protections, add transparency and limits around precise location data, and curb invasive practices that expose Californians to government and industry overreach.” John Bennett, Initiative Director at CITED, emphasized the broader democratic stakes. “Privacy and freedom of movement are cornerstones of a healthy democracy,” Bennett said. “It's time to strengthen our data privacy laws and fulfill the promise of California's constitutional right to privacy—so people can move, assemble, and participate in civic life without fear of surveillance.” Ward's legislative package builds on California's landmark privacy framework to protect sensitive personal data, prohibit the sale of geolocation information, and ensure privacy rights keep pace with modern technology.

And it is dying. At least for us, humans. Our chatter and connection online is being overrun by bots — more than half of online activity is non-human. The internet is on it's way to feeling haunted, like a deserted mall where the fountain is still gurgling, the canned music is still playing, but the people are nowhere to be found. IDEAS explores the dying internet and what we will do when it's dead?If you like this episode, you may want to listen to: We're not machines. Why should our online world define life?Guests in this episode:Cory Doctorow is an activist with a non-profit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's a writer and journalist. His most recent book is called Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About ItMatt Hussey is a UK-based therapist and tech journalist.

This hour, we look at what rights individuals and protesters have. And we ask: are our rights changing? And what can we do about that? Plus, we take a look at what rights we have online, and what we should know about digital surveillance and privacy. GUESTS: Dan Barrett: American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut's legal director Dahlia Lithwick: Writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast "Amicus". She is the author of Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America Cindy Cohn: Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Her forthcoming book is Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance MUSIC FEATURED (in order): Cálice – Chico Buarque & Milton Nascimento Student Demonstration Time – The Beach Boys Is It Because I’m Black – Syl Johnson What’s Goin’ On – Marvin Gaye The People Have the Power – Patti Smith The Veil – Peter Gabriel Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we're sharing two segments. First up, a chat with Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and developer of the Rayhunter. Rayhunter is open-source firmware to turn specific hotspots into IMSI-catcher, effectively scanning for and logging any signs of fake cell towers (often known under the brand-name of Stingrays) in the area. Law enforcement has at times deployed these as a way of collecting information about phones in the area and could use it to intercept some communications like sms or phone calls. Cooper talks about what's known of law enforcement use of IMSI-catchers, what has been observed of the data collected by deployed Rayhunters, phone security at demonstrations and related topics. Then you'll hear Radio Ausbruch from Frieberg from this month's B(A)D News podcast from the A-Radio Network talking about the repression and deBanking of anti-repression projects like ABC Dresden and Rote Hilfe in Germany based on pressure from the US government related to the so-called Antifa Ost case. This carries heavy implications for prisoner support, anti-racist and other social struggles. Links Cooper at DefCon talking about Rayhunter: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meC2JqNAbCA EFF on what Rayhunter has found so far: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/rayhunter-what-we-have-found-so-far Github for Rayhunter: https://github.com/EFForg/rayhunter EFF Mattermost chat platform: https://opensource.eff.org/ A project for detecting Meta Rayban sunglasses: https://github.com/NullPxl/banrays Ouispy bluetooth scanning and notification tool: https://github.com/colonelpanichacks/oui-spy . ... . .. Featured Track: TFSR by The Willows Whisper

Welcome to episode #1024 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation). At a time when the digital infrastructure that underpins modern life feels increasingly hostile, few voices have been as prescient... or as relentless... as Cory Doctorow. A science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist, Cory serves as Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has long stood at the intersection of storytelling, policy and power. Over the course of a prolific career (one that includes bestselling fiction, influential tech policy books like Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con, and his widely read Pluralistic blog) Cory has chronicled how digital markets consolidate, calcify and ultimately betray their users. His latest nonfiction work, Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It, gives a name to the slow degradation of online platforms: the predictable cycle in which services begin by delighting users, then exploit them, then squeeze the businesses that depend on them, until only monopoly power remains. Cory situates this decline not as technological inevitability but as the result of specific policy choices that empowered monopolies and weakened enforcement. At the same time, Cory challenges the fatalism that often surrounds technological decline. Anti-circumvention laws, regulatory capture and collective action problems may constrain consumers, but they are not immovable forces. Cultural norms can shift. Policy can be rewritten. Markets can be redesigned. Grounded in economic literacy and moral urgency, Cory's work calls for ethical leadership, regulatory courage and a reclamation of agency in the systems that shape our digital lives. Enjoy the conversation… Running time: 1:00:43. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel. Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn. Check out ThinkersOne. Here is my conversation with Cory Doctorow. Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It. Pluralistic. Chokepoint Capitalism. The Internet Con. Cory's books. Cory's newsletter. Follow Cory on X. Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Cory Doctorow. (03:07) - The AI Bubble: Understanding the Economics. (06:08) - The Future of AI and Labor. (08:56) - Open Source Models and Their Potential. (11:50) - AI as a Tool: The Multiplier Effect. (14:50) - The Reality of AI's Impact on Society. (17:57) - Billionaire Perspectives and UBI. (20:56) - The Disconnect Between Wealth and Labor. (23:49) - The Future of Work in an AI-Driven World. (30:15) - The Illusion of Value in Economic Activity. (33:34) - The Crisis of Ethical Leadership. (36:56) - The Role of Policymakers in Corporate Behavior. (38:45) - Understanding Lock-In: Users and Businesses. (40:40) - The Impact of Monopolies and Monopsonies. (49:22) - The Need for Anti-Circumvention Law Repeal. (54:24) - Cultural Norms vs. Regulation in Consumer Behavior.

Grassroots organizers have increasingly used the messaging app Signal to coordinate responses to MAGA authoritarianism. It remains the best messaging app available, but the “ICE Out” protests in Minneapolis demonstrated how regime propagandists and corrupt law enforcement can attack and exploit it. Influencers entered public-facing Signal chats and ferried the information there to Kash Patel's FBI. In this PTI Bulletin, Bill Budington of the Electronic Frontier Foundation joins Jared and Mike to explain how Signal's originated, how the app works, and how to use it effectively on America's increasingly volatile streets.>> Learn more about the Electronic Frontier Foundation>> Learn more about Signal

This week we talk about mass surveillance, smart doorbells, and the Patriot Stack.We also discuss Amazon, Alexa, and the Super Bowl.Recommended Book: Red Moon by Benjamin PercyTranscriptIn 2002, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the US government created a new agency—the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, operating under the auspices of the US Department of Homeland Security, which was also formed that year for the same general reason, to defend against 9/11-style attacks in the future.As with a whole lot of what was done in the years following the 9/11 attacks, a lot of what this agency, and its larger department did could be construed as a sort of overcompensation by a government and a people who were reeling from the first real, large-scale attack within their borders from a foreign entity in a very long time. It was a horrific event, everyone felt very vulnerable and scared, and consequently the US government could do a lot of things that typically would not have had the public's support, like rewiring how airports and flying works in the country, creating all sorts of new hurdles and imposing layers of what's often called security theater, to make people feel safe.While the TSA was meant to handle things on the front-lines of air transportation, though, X-raying and patting-down and creating a significant new friction for everyone wanting to get on a plane, ICE was meant to address another purported issue: that of people coming into the US from elsewhere, illegally, and then sticking around long enough to cause trouble. More specifically, ICE was meant to help improve public safety by strictly enforcing at times lax immigration laws, by tracking down and expelling illegal immigrants from the country; the theory being that some would-be terrorists may have snuck into the US and might be getting ready to kill US citizens from within our own borders.There's not a lot of evidence to support that assertion—the vast majority of terrorism that happens in the US is conducted by citizens, mostly those adhering to a far-right or other extremist ideologies. But that hasn't moved the needle on public perception of the issue, which still predominantly leans toward stricter border controls and more assiduous moderation of non-citizens within US borders—for all sorts of reasons, not just security ones.What I'd like to talk about today is an offshoot of the war on terror and this vigilance about immigrants in the US, and how during the second Trump administration, tech companies have been entangling themselves with immigration-enforcement agencies like ICE to create sophisticated surveillance networks.—In mid-July of 2025, the US Department of Defense signed one of its largest contracts in its history with a tech company called Palantir Technologies. Palantir was founded and is run by billionaire Peter Thiel, who among other things is generally considered to be the reason JD Vance was chosen to be Trump's second-term Vice President. He's also generally considered to be one of, if not the main figure behind the so-called Patriot Tech movement, which consists of companies like SpaceX, Anduril, and OpenAI, all of which are connected by a web of funding arms and people who have cross-pollinated between major US tech companies and US agencies, in many cases stepping into government positions that put them in charge of the regulatory bodies that set the rules for the industries in which they worked.As a consequence of this setup and this cross-pollination, the US government now has a bunch of contracts with these entities, which has been good for the companies' bottom lines and led to reduced government regulations, and in exchange the companies are increasingly cozy with the government and its many agencies, toeing the line more than they would have previously, and offering a lot more cooperation and collaboration with the government, as well.This is especially true when it comes to data collection and surveillance, and a great deal of that sort of information and media is funneled into entities like Palantir, which aggregate and crunch it for meaning, and then send predictions and assumptions, and make services like facial-recognition technologies predicated on their vast database, available to police and ICE agents, among others such entities.There has been increasingly stiff pushback against this melding of the tech world with the government—which has always been there to some degree, but which has become even more entwined than usual, of late—and that pushback is international, even long-time allies like Canada and the EU making moves to develop their own replacements for Amazon and Google and OpenAI due to these issues, and the heightened unpredictability and chaos of the US in recent years, but it's also evident within the US, due in part to Trump's moves while in office, but also the on-the-ground realities in places like Minneapolis, where ICE agents have been brutalizing and blackbagging people, sometimes illegal immigrants, sometimes US citizens, usually non-white US citizens, and the ICE agents are being rewarded, getting bonuses, for beating up and kidnapping and in some cases murdering people, whether or not any of these people are actually criminals—and it's illegal to do that kind of thing even if they are criminals, by the way.All of which sets the scene for what happened following the Super Bowl, this year.Ring is a home security and smart home device company that is best known for its line of smart doorbells, but which also makes all sorts of security cameras and other alarm system devices.Even though smart doorbells, complete with cameras and other sorts of functionality, existed before Ring, this company basically created the smart doorbell industry as it exists today back in 2014, when it received a round of equity investment and changed its named from Doorbot to Ring. It was bought by Amazon four years later, in 2018, for a billion dollars.One of Ring's premier features is related to its camera: you can use your phone or other smart home device to see who's at your door when they ring the bell, but it can also be set to record when it detects movement, which makes it easy to check and see who stole your Amazon package from your porch when you weren't at home, for instance, and resultingly Ring door camera footage has become fundamental to reporting, and on occasion pursuing, some types of crime.As a direct result of that utility, Ring introduced its Neighbors service in mid-2018, this service serving as a sort of social network that allows Ring device users to discuss local issues, especially those related to safety and security, anonymously, while also allowing them to share photos and videos taken by their devices. This service also created relationships with local law enforcement, and allowed police to jump onto the network and request footage from Ring customers, if they thought these doorbell cams might have photos or video of someone escaping with a stolen car, for instance, which might then help the police catch that crook.It's generally assumed that Amazon probably bought Ring, at least in part, to entrench itself as the lord of the internet of things world, as it launched its Amazon Sidewalk platform in 2020, which allowed all Amazon devices, including Ring devices, to share a wireless mesh network, all of them communicating with each other and all using Amazon's Alexa as an interface.In 2023, Ring was sued by the FTC for $5.8 million because it allowed its employees and contractors to access private videos by failing to have basic security and privacy features in place—so not only could any Ring employee view their customer's private video feeds, hackers could easily access all this media and data, as well. Just one example surfaced in that lawsuit shows that a Ring employee viewed thousands of video recordings of at least 81 different female users over the course of a few months in 2017.So Amazon was building a surveillance network that worked really well, in the sense that it was predicated on popular, at times quite useful devices that people seemed to love, but which was also quite leaky, giving all sorts of people access to these supposedly private feeds, and it was shared with law enforcement via that social network. It's also been alleged that Ring (and Amazon) have used users' footage without further permission for things like facial recognition and AI training. Their partnership with police agencies also allegedly created incentives for the police to encourage citizens to buy Ring cams and other security devices for their homes, creating perverse incentives. And again, these devices connect wirelessly to other internet of things devices, expanding their reach and the potential for abuse of collected user data.In late 2025, Ring announced a new partnership with Flock Safety, a company that's best known for its security offerings, including automated license plate readers and gunshot detector systems.These are mass surveillance tools used by some governments and law enforcement entities, and they use cameras and microphones to capture license plates, people's faces, and sounds that might be gunfire and aggregate that data to be used by police, neighborhood associations, and in some cases private property owners.This sort of technology is incredibly useful to companies like Palantir, which again, aggregates and crunches it, on scale, and then shares that information with police, ICE, and other such agencies.These tools can sometimes help flag areas where guns are being fired or where crimes are being committed, but they're also imperfect and at times biased against some groups of people and areas, and some data show that not only is crime not reduced by the presence of these systems, but there's a fair bit of evidence that this data often falls into the hands of hackers or is used by employees for nefarious, stalkery purposes, as was the case with Ring's cameras. So most civil liberties groups, like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are vehemently against them, but governments like the second Trump administration like them, because they create a surveillance mesh they can tap into and use for, for instance, figuring out where to deploy ICE agents, or, in theory at least, spying on your political enemies or ex-spouses for abuse or blackmail purposes.Ring's late-2025 announcement wasn't widely reported, but in early 2026 the company bought a Super Bowl ad to announce a new feature called Search Party, enabled by their partnership with Flock.The ad showed a neighborhood coming together to find a lost dog, using the web of doorbell cameras on all the homes in the area to track the dog and figure out where it went—all the cameras activated at once to create a surveillance mesh of live footage.This ad landed with a resounding thud,, as to many people it felt more menacing than heartwarming, the new feature overtly raising the potential that government agencies, including ICE, could tap into it to surveil and track their neighbors. The response was so negative that Ring quickly issued a statement saying that it was no longer moving forward with its Flock partnership, attempting to reassure its customers that “integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever send to Flock Safety.”This result is notable in part because it's a rare instance of a major tech company backtracking on a major feature decision due to public backlash, but also because it suggests backlash against ICE is reverberating through other aspects of life and interconnected industries.Ring device users mostly buy these things for their surveillance capabilities, but the increasing, and increasingly hostile and violent acts committed by members of ICE seem to have nudged the conversation so that folks are more worried about these agents than about the porch pirates and other criminals that these devices and this partnership could ostensibly help them identify.It's too early to say what this might mean for the burgeoning patriot stack of tech companies and government agencies, but it does suggest there are limits to what people will put up with, even when those in charge are adhering to a playbook that has typically worked well for them, in the past, and the devices and services they're using to build their surveillance network are otherwise beloved by those who use them.Show Noteshttps://restofworld.org/2026/big-tech-backlash-alternatives-upscrolled/https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/trumps-power-switchhttps://www.authoritarian-stack.info/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/realestate/smart-home-cameras-nest-ring-privacy.htmlhttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/platforms-bend-over-backward-to-help-dhs-censor-ice-critics-advocates-say/https://www.theverge.com/report/879320/ring-flock-partnership-breakup-does-not-fix-problemshttps://www.theverge.com/news/878447/ring-flock-partnership-canceledhttps://www.404media.co/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcementhttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/children-of-color-projected-to-be-majority-of-u-s-youth-this-yearhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(company)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safetyhttps://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-appointment-details-ice/https://www.wired.com/story/security-news-this-week-ring-kills-flock-safety-deal-after-super-bowl-ad-uproar/https://www.wired.com/story/ice-crashing-us-court-system-minnesota/https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-employee-questions-on-ice/https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-ice-forum-where-agents-complain-about-their-jobs/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Mike cover the tech news stories you might have missed. Amazon’s Ring, a creepy surveillance product, ran a creepy surveillance ad during the Superbowl that triggered a massive public backlash: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/amazons-ring-cancels-flock-partnership-amid-super-bowl-ad-backlash.html Electronic Frontier Foundation explanation of why Ring is a surveillance nightmare: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/no-one-including-our-furry-friends-will-be-safer-rings-surveillance-nightmare-0 An online community built around fitness/dance app Supernatural is purchased and destroyed by Meta [GIFT LINK]: https://www.theverge.com/tech/871250/supernatural-meta-vr-fitness-community?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6InFuZzlFUmd2VGsiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvODcxMjUwL3N1cGVybmF0dXJhbC1tZXRhLXZyLWZpdG5lc3MtY29tbXVuaXR5IiwiZXhwIjoxNzcwNDY2NTMzLCJpYXQiOjE3NzAwMzQ1MzN9.A67DLWY3HpNyI1PzxCMq4Mf96DELfg2belp-siH7vww&utm_medium=gift-link Marc Benioff 'Jokes' with his employees that ICE is watching them: https://www.404media.co/marc-benioff-jokes-ice-is-watching-salesforce-employees-who-traveled-to-the-u-s/ Salesforce Workers Circulate Open Letter Urging CEO to Denounce ICE: https://www.wired.com/story/letter-salesforce-employees-sent-after-marc-benioffs-ice-comments/ Body camera footage is being used to humiliate young women on YouTube: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/body-cam-youtube-foia-abuse.html Let us know what you think by emailing hello@tangoti.com or leaving a comment on Spotify. Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! || instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc || youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.socialSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump administration's 'Metro Surge' in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where 3,000 or more federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been deployed to terrorize residents and arrest thousands of people a day, has been met with fierce resistance both locally and through national and international solidarity. Clearing the FOG speaks with FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who lives close to the cities, about the current situation there, the illegality of the tactics used by federal agents, and the fight back against them. Then, India McKinney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation speaks about the use of facial recognition technology, the need to abolish it, and people's rights to record law enforcement. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

Ragebait, sponcon, A.I. slop — the internet of 2026 makes a lot of us nostalgic for the internet of 10 or 15 years ago.What exactly went wrong here? How did the early promise of the internet get so twisted? And what exactly is wrong here? What kinds of policies could actually make our digital lives meaningfully better?Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu have two different theories of the case, which I thought would be interesting to put in conversation together. Doctorow is a science fiction writer, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.” Wu is a law professor who worked on technology policy in the Biden White House; his latest book is “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.”In this conversation, we discuss their different frameworks, and how they connect to all kinds of issues that plague the modern internet: the feeling that we're being manipulated; the deranging of our politics; the squeezing of small businesses and creators; the deluge of spam and fraud; the constant surveillance and privacy risks; the quiet rise of algorithmic pricing; and the dehumanization of work. And they lay out the policies that they think would go furthest in making all these different aspects of our digital lives better.Mentioned:Enshittification by Cory DoctorowThe Age of Extraction by Tim Wu“Fighting Enshittification” by Josh RichmanBook Recommendations:Small Is Beautiful by E. F. SchumacherManipulation by Cass R. SunsteinThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul KennedyCareless People by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsLittle Bosses Everywhere by Bridget ReadJules, Penny & the Rooster by Daniel PinkwaterThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Michelle Harris, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Natasha Scott. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Remember when Facebook was fun and Google actually worked? Cory Doctorow coined a term for what went wrong, and he's here to explain how we fight back.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1280What We Discuss with Cory Doctorow:"Enshittification" is Cory Doctorow's term for how platforms decay. First they're good to users, then they abuse users to serve business customers, then they abuse everyone to claw back value for themselves. Facebook, Amazon, and Google all followed this playbook — and policy makers let it happen."Switching costs" are a deliberate policy choice, not an inevitability. Companies jack up the friction of leaving their platforms through design and lobbying, but regulations like phone number portability prove we can legislate friction down when we choose to.The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes fixing things you own. Security researchers who expose corporate sabotage — like the Polish train company bricking locomotives to extort customers — face harsher legal consequences than actual pirates."Algorithmic wage discrimination" is surveillance capitalism's newest trick. Apps like Uber track how desperate workers are and pay them less accordingly — the more rides you accept, the lower your future offers, turning desperation into a permanent wage ceiling.You can fight back by supporting interoperability and making strategic choices. Use alternative services (like Kagi for search), follow advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), and remember: every time you demand the right to own what you buy, you're pushing back against enshittification.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: Article: Visit article.com/jordan for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or moreBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordanBombas: Go to bombas.com/jordan to get 20% off your first orderButcherBox: Free protein for a year + $20 off first box: butcherbox.com/jordanHomes.com: Find your home: homes.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI is changing many aspects of our lives, so it's reasonable to expect that it will impact democracy, too. The question is how? Two experts in technology and politics join us to discuss how we can harness AI's power to strengthen democracy. Yes, there will be deepfakes and automated misinformation, but there can also be greater opportunities for the government to serve people and for all of us to have a greater say in our systems of self governance.In their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders describe how AI could change political communication, the legislative process, bureaucracy, the judiciary, and more. It's a more hopeful argument than you might expect. They discuss how AI's broad capabilities can augment democratic processes and help citizens build consensus, express their voice, and shake up long-standing power structures. As they say in the interview, AI is just a tool; how we use it is up to us.Schneier is a security technologist and the New York Times bestselling author of 14 books, including A Hacker's Mind. He is a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.Sanders is a data scientist focused on making policymaking more participatory. He has served in fellowships at the Massachusetts legislature and the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University.Related EpisodesThe Problem(s) with Platforms (Cory Doctorow)Building Better Bureaucracy (Jennifer Pahlka)Laboratories of Restricting Democracy (Virginia Eubanks)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the 1970s, Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, stuck his neck out–unlike members of Congress today–to take on the real deep state–the FBI and CIA carrying out LSD mind-control experiments on Americans, terrorizing activists, and committing assassinations with the mafia, including against witnesses. The Church Committee Report, based on real Congressional investigations, not just performative show trials, shows us how to confront and dismantle the lawless, mass-murdering MAGA regime.  Historians Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Brian Hochman, the Hubert J. Cloke Endowed Director of the American Studies Program at Georgetown University, are out with the definitive account, The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State. They walk us through the decades of U.S. presidents of both major parties allowing a surveillance state to expand, running dangerous operations against the American people. The most chilling legacy is not the cartoonish villainy of poison darts and imperial assassinations, but the insidious cruelty of undermining activists. So pay attention. Don't let anyone–even a well-meaning ally–weaponize purity tests to gatekeep the Fourth American Revolution. Stopping the MAGA threat requires all of us building together in coalition. Based on the Church Committee's own findings, we know exactly what tools the FBI and CIA use to dismantle movements. They have very specific, terrifyingly effective strategies to divide and conquer We the People.  Here is what they do when they want to destroy a movement from the inside out: Snitch Jacketing: This is psychological warfare. They plant false information–maybe they leave a map or a weapon in an activist's car–specifically to make you think your friend is a police informant. They leverage paranoia to make us eat our own. Fabricated Dissent: They create fake zines, fake newsletters, and fake correspondence to manufacture feuds between groups. They want the anti-war movement fighting the labor movement so neither fights the state. The "Friendly" Infiltrator: Watch out for the guy who shows up out of nowhere with coffee and too many questions. They send plainclothes agents into our resilience communities to map our networks and identify leaders and how they operate. Entrapment: They find an "easy mark" in a group, push them toward violence, then arrest everyone for a plot the FBI invented. They manufacture terrorism. The "Suicide" Strategy: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI sent a letter to Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his private life and pressuring him to kill himself. They try to break you psychologically so that you back down and disappear. According to historians Guariglia and Hochman, activists under siege were aware of the threats long before the Church Committee exposed them, and developed resilience strategies we can learn from today:  Reject the "All-Powerful" Myth: Don't give a lawless regime a bigger shadow than it actually has–that is what they want: to live inside your head. When you start believing the government is an all-knowing, all-powerful shadow monster, you are doing their work for them. Paranoia is a tool of the oppressor.  Build a Culture of Care: The only way snitch-jacketing works is if we don't know each other. Build deep, resilient relationships. When we take care of each other, their wedges don't work. Sousveillance (Watch from Below): Do not rely on police body cams; those tapes have a magical habit of being turned off when they're needed. Film everything. Control the narrative with your own evidence, eyes, and ears. Divest from Big Tech: Google, Amazon, and Apple are regime collaborators. We need to build our own infrastructure from high-tech mesh networks to low-tech zines. If you rely on the master's tools, they will shut you down, as we're seeing now with TikTok's mass-censorship under the new owners–MAGA donors, the Ellisons. Get Educated: Practice tech hygiene. Go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and use their Surveillance Self-Defense guide. Learn how to encrypt, what to carry, and how to stay safe. We're fighting a generational struggle, but we outnumber them. As Andrea's film Mr. Jones reminds us: The truth cannot be killed. Stay safe, vigilant, and united–that is how we win. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION: The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: join on Patreon. Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon. Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon. Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect: join on Patreon. Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join: join on Patreon. Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group: join on Patreon. Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community

A blackout that left one-third of San Francisco customers without power – some up to three days – was one of six outages that plagued PG&E throughout the holidays. Disabled Waymos blocked streets. The Nutcracker was cancelled. Restaurants and businesses were closed. Customers and politicians are demanding answers and calling for the end of PG&E's monopoly. We'll talk about the blackout and what it can tell us about the reliability of  our power sources and Waymo's vulnerabilities, and we'll  hear how it affected you. Guests: Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist, Mission Local Jeffrey Tumlin, former Director of Transportation, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Brad Templeton, entrepreneur, writer; Templeton is the chairman emeritus of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and previously worked at Waymo Bilal Mahmood, supervisor, District 5, Board of Supervisors San Francisco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode, we dig into the Electronic Frontier Foundation's annual Breachies, highlighting some of the year's most avoidable, eye-opening, and sometimes head-shaking data breaches. From companies collecting far more data than they need to third-party missteps and quiet misconfigurations, the Breachies offer a revealing look at how familiar privacy failures keep repeating—and why they matter for users. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Today's we have a CyberWire holiday favorite: The 12 Days of Malware — with Dave and a lineup of cybersecurity friends gleefully rewriting The 12 Days of Christmas to celebrate malware, mishaps, and life online, one verse at a time. Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices