Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Forced To Rehire Columnist Fired For Quoting Deceased Bigot Charlie Kirk

 

at 8/26/26 6:26am

Jeff Bezos Washington Post simply isnt what it used to be. During the Trump era Bezos and his lackeys have fired all of the paper’s black columnists, turned the op-ed section into pro-corporatist agitprop, censored cartoonists that criticized Jeff, and generally shifted the paper’s journalistic tone in a more right wing, corporate/autocrat-friendly direction. You know, like the majority of other U.S. corporate media outlets owned by rich, tone-deaf assholes. Last fall you might remember that WaPos management fired opinion columnist Karen Attiah. Her crime? According to a letter sent by Post leadership obtained by Oliver Darcy, Attiah had made “unacceptable Bluesky posts” that criticized “white men,” including this one that simply quoted deceased right wing bigot Charlie Kirk’s own racist and sexist words: Even before Trumpism, major papers just didnt really like it when their writers (journalists or opinion columnists) expressed human opinions on social media. They feel it reflects poorly on the reputation and impartiality of the paper; that columnists and journalists somehow cant separate their own beliefs from factual reality and should, in effect, display no meaningful personality while using social media. Its a very dated and silly idea; long-since made irrelevant by autocracys industrialized racism (why would a human journalist not be allowed to express an honest opinion on systemic, racist evil?), and the WaPos ownerships clear goal of destroying the papers reputation all by themselves. In this case it was clear Attiah, who hired Saudi-murdered columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 and was central in shaping the former WaPo’s opinion pages, was fired for the cardinal sin of upsetting thin-skinned Republicans and rich people. Unfortunately for the latter, Attiah took her complaint to binding arbitration and recently won, forcing WaPo to immediately reinstate her. BREAKING: After the Washington Post fired me last year for speaking the truth in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, I fought back. And Im happy to announce: I won my case against the Washington Post. They have been ordered to reinstate me immediately. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/b — Karen Attiah (@karenattiah.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T11:12:05.503Z The arbitrator ruled that WaPo managements decision wasnt based on any actual, meaningful offense: Sarah Miller Espinosa, the arbitrator, said in a written decision Thursday that The Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” to terminate Ms. Attiah and “violated” its labor agreement, according to a copy of the decision shared with The New York Times by Ms. Attiah’s lawyers. “The Washington Post failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” Ms. Espinosa wrote. Thats a real bummer for Bezos, who has tried to reshape the Posts opinion columns so they focus exclusively on personal liberties and free markets (again thats code for coddling Republicans, rich people, and corporations). Amusingly Attiah outlasted Adam ONeill and Will Lewis, the two WaPo leaders who fired her for expressing human opinions about insufferable bigots.

[Category: 1, washington post, arbitration, bigots, cancel culture, charlie kirk, jeff bezos, karen attiah, media, opinion]

— Pentagon Fires Chief Editor Of ‘Stars & Stripes’ For Promising To Do Independent Journalism

 

at 8/25/26 9:08pm

To say that Donald Trump has been waging an ideological war against the American free press would be an understatement in the extreme. Even attempting to list out the many, many ways in which he has attempted to threaten, sue, undermine, stifle, chill, attack, and hamstring media outlets would be a waste of time. No thinking person fails to understand that he hates any media outlets that dont behave like full sycophants and no reasonable person thinks that his actions are a positive for the country. But sometimes his administration really does endeavor to show just how corrupt and against the First Amendment it is, in the starkest possible terms. Stars & Stripes is a news outlet partially funded by the Pentagon. It is under congressional mandate to operate on 1st Amendment principles and describes its work like this: Stars and Stripes provides independent news and information to the U.S. military community, including active-duty servicemembers, DoD civilians, veterans, contractors, and their families. Stars and Stripes retains its editorial independence and is congressionally mandated to be governed by First Amendment principles, but it is part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity. The Pentagon funding that makes up roughly half of Stars and Stripes’ annual budget is primarily used to print and distribute the newspaper to troops scattered across the globe, including in warzones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The remainder of the news organizations funding comes from advertising and subscriptions. Earlier this year, however, a Pentagon spokesman said the administration planned to overhaul Stars & Stripes, with a specific aim to remove content it considered to be woke distractions that siphon morale and instead, presumably, force in content that does the opposite. If any of that sounds like an encroachment on editorial independence, congratulations, you have a working prefrontal cortex. Erik Slavin has worked at Stars & Stripes for over two decades and was named Editor in Chief in 2025. He recently sat for an interview with CBS and was asked about the Pentagons stated aim to interfere in the editorial content of the paper. While noting that he had no idea what woke content the Pentagon was objecting to and what the standard for that would be, because nobody at the Pentagon bothered to tell him, he indicated that any attempt to censor the paper by the Pentagon would be his red line and counter to both the law and Pentagon policy that the paper be independent. So of course Pete Hegseth fired him. The Pentagon on Friday fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence. It was the latest move by an administration that has grown increasingly aggressive toward the news media. Slavin said he was being fired “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” Korte participated in the same interview. “I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies,” Slavin said. This is a newspaper with a long, long history. It has been publishing since the American Civil War. It has endured despite the ire of military men far greater than its current whiskey-soaked Secretary of Defense/War/Whatever. General George Patton once tried to ban the paper over cartoons depicting American soldiers in a way he didnt like, only to have General Eisenhower tell him to calm the hell down and not interfere. The skin of people like Trump and Hegseth is apparently as thin as the paper upon which Stars & Stripes is printed. To so perfectly encapsulate their own anti-speech desires by firing someone simply for saying he wouldnt bow to government censorship is significant, though unsurprising. Meanwhile, American military members appear to be losing a news outlet that focuses on them.

[Category: 1, stars & stripes, dod, donald trump, free press, free speech, journalism, pete hegseth]

— Patent Troll SLAPPs Lawyer For Saying His Shell Companies Never Pay Up, Loses, Now Owes Her Money

 

at 8/25/26 4:19pm

With everything else going on in the world, its been a while since weve dug into a good old-fashioned patent troll story or a bogus defamation SLAPP. Today weve got a two-for-one. Leigh Rothschild is a patent troll of some renown — his entities have been connected to over 1,300 patent lawsuits — who regularly sues companies over questionable patents and plays the standard patent troll shakedown game of offering to settle for less than it will cost to defend the lawsuit. Weve mentioned Rothschild in the past on Techdirt for his patent trolling ways. Like many patent trolls, Rothschild is known for setting up a number of separate companies that control the various patents he holds or controls. Rothschilds trolling is covered widely all over the internet, and its not difficult to find one of dozens of people calling out his trolling techniques: The Rothschild Modus Operandi is to obtain a fairly bogus patent (in this case, patent 9,936,086), form a limited liability corporation (LLC) that only holds the one patent and then sue a load of companies with vaguely related businesses for infringement. A key element of the attack is to offer a settlement licensing the patent for a sum less than it would cost even to mount an initial defence (usually around US$50k), which is how the Troll makes money: since the cost to file is fairly low, as long as there’s no court appearance, the amount gained is close to US$50k if the target accepts the settlement offer and, since most targets know how much any defence of the patent would cost, they do. Anyway, back in 2022 Rothschild apparently acquired a very sketchy patent, US Patent 8,799,083, on a system and method for managing restaurant customer data elements. The patent describes a series of blatantly obvious methods of letting a restaurant customer share some information about their preferences and track their orders. Plenty of prior art exists showing that this patent never should have been granted. Rothschild took the patent he claimed he acquired and (as described above) put it into a dedicated shell company, Analytical Technologies, then sued at least twenty food-ordering businesses in Marshall, Texas (because, of course). The playbook worked about as well as it usually does: Subway, Darden, Dennys, Cracker Barrel, Five Guys, and Dairy Queen all settled or stipulated to dismissal within a few months. Starbucks did not. Suing Starbucks was perhaps a strategic error, because rather than fold and settle, Starbucks hit back hard, accusing Rothschild, personally, of fraud, claiming that Analytical Technologies was a sham shell entity to shield himself from personal liability and claiming that theres a pattern and practice of [Rothschild] underfunding (or not funding) his shell entities with the implication being that doing so was to avoid having to pay out legal fees if he lost the lawsuit. It also pointed out that records show that the original named inventor on the patent, Andrew Silver, who had supposedly sold the patent to Rothschild had already sold the patent earlier and engaged in other sketchy behavior, such that he probably no longer retained the rights to the patent when he sold it to Rothschild: On April 14, 2008, Table Top Media (“TTM”) purchased the application that would mature into the parent ’007 Patent and said patent’s progeny, including the application that would mature into the Asserted ’083 Patent. During the prosecution of the parent ’007 Patent, the application was abandoned because Silver failed to respond to an office action (a Notice of Abandonment dated 04/13/2010 stated that there was no reply to the Final Rejection mailed on 02/04/2009). Silver and Gostanian revived the abandoned ’007 Patent by telling the USPTO that Silver’s former patent agent, Steven McDonald, had “unexpectedly passed away”. ’007 PxHx, 11/9/2010. But Steven McDonald was still alive and assisting Silver with the ’007 prosecution when the patent went abandoned as the privilege logs on the TTM litigation demonstrate Theres a lot more in the filing regarding the supposed death of McDonald who somehow kept helping Silver with his patents. But more importantly, theres the issue of who actually owned this particular patent: On February 19, 2014, Gostanian told the USPTO that Silver was the “100% owner” of the Asserted Patent in order to file a terminal disclaimer and obtain issuance, even though Gostanian and Silver understood that TTM had an “existing contract” and was the owner of the ’083 Patent application. At the same time that Gostanian submitted the terminal disclaimer to the USPTO stating that Silver owns 100% of the ’083 Patent, Silver and Gostanian were preparing a lawsuit to sue TTM for specific performance because Silver sold the Asserted ’083 Patent family to TTM in 2008. Mr. Silver submitted a sworn declaration in his lawsuit against TTM stating unequivocally that TTM bought the ’083 Patent family in 2008: It then shows a bunch of documents, including ones signed by Silver showing that he knows that TTM owns the patent that he later claimed to sell to Rothschild. Oops! If that wasnt enough, there was the fact that the patent had expired before Rothschild ever filed. And because the asserted claims were method claims describing things a customer does — ordering, paying at the table — Starbucks couldnt be a direct infringer at all. The only theory left was indirect infringement, which requires that Starbucks knew about the patent while it was still alive. Which is why Rothschild needed a pre-suit notice date, and why his lawyers explanation for the one they used is such a problem. Because it turns out they didnt actually notify Starbucks while the patent was still valid: Neither AT nor its counsel has provided to Starbucks or its counsel any support for AT’s Actual Notice Allegation. On August 2, 2024, counsel for AT emailed counsel for Starbucks and stated, “We can agree to remove that statement [the Actual Notice Allegation] if we cannot provide you proof on Monday [August 5, 2024].” But counsel for AT did not provide proof of AT’s Actual Notice Allegation on August 5, 2024. And counsel for AT did not remove the Actual Notice Allegation. On September 5, 2024, counsel for AT admitted in an email that the Actual Notice Allegation was a “misrepresentation” and the result of a “typo/cut and paste problem” That seems like quite an admission! So the patent expired in November of 2023. The troll claimed that it had notified Starbucks of its alleged infringement in March of 2023. Starbucks claimed they heard nothing until June of 2024. And when Starbucks asked for proof of the supposed notice, Rothschilds lawyers promised it, didnt produce it, didnt withdraw the load-bearing allegation, and eventually admitted it was a misrepresentation due to a cut and paste problem. Yikes. And yet, all those other fast food joints settled. The filing from Starbucks resulted in an article on Bloomberg Law, entitled, Starbucks Levels Fraud Claim in New Tactic to Fight Patent Suit. In it, lawyer Rachael Lamkin, who is one of Starbucks lawyers and a long-term fighter against patent trolls, is quoted calling out Rothschilds shell games: Lamkin said she’s tussled with the prolific inventor for years and has been particularly frustrated by the early settlement offers from Rothschild, which she called “obnoxiously low.” “The settlement amounts are so low that companies aren’t going to pay attorneys the thousands of hours it takes to catch him at his game,” she said in an interview. “And with Leigh Rothschild, we never get the money because the shells go bankrupt.” This claim appeared to particularly annoy Rothschild, who turned around and sued Lamkin and Starbucks for defamation. In Florida. The complaint goes on for a while about what an amazing inventor Rothschild is and how important his various patents are and also about how hes involved in various charities, claiming that the statement about shell companies and bankruptcies was defamatory. Also, Rothschild claimed that this one quote in a random Bloomberg article caused him — a guy who has been involved in over 1,000 lawsuits — to require special new medication for high blood pressure. Really? Neither LMR nor any of the companies he is involved with, however, has ever owed any of the Defendants any money for them to “get.” Moreover, none of the companies LMR is involved with is a “shell” (i.e., a company with no significant assets or operations); instead, each of the companies is a lawful corporate entity with assets, bank accounts, and operations appropriate for its purpose, which in most cases is to own and license valuable U.S. patents. Further, none of the patent companies LMR is involved with has ever “go[ne] bankrupt.” Acknowledging this fact, Defendant Lamkin stated recently to LMR directly that “before I’m done with you I’m going to bankrupt you,” which evidences her own knowledge contrary to any “bankrupt” entities, and evidences her own bad faith and malevolent intent. Be careful who you tussle with, however. Lamkins answer to the complaint (which includes counterclaims against Rothschild) has some fun statements: Attorney Lamkin denies that Rothschild “has been an inventor his entire life.” The answer also argues that the final paragraph above in which Rothschild claimed Lamkin had told him she would bankrupt him was a fabrication. Attorney Lamkin denies that she has told Rothschild, “before I’m done with you I’m gong to bankrupt you.” That allegation is a fabrication. Attorney Lamkin denies the assertion that no patent company owned or managed by Rothschild has ever “go[ne] bankrupt.” Attorney Lamkin denies that she has knowingly made a false statement in connection with the facts at issue in this lawsuit or that she has exhibited “bad faith and malevolent intent.” Later, in the counterclaims, Lamkin points out the factual basis for her original claims to Bloomberg, detailing multiple cases in which Lamkin represented a company sued by a company controlled by Leigh Rothschild, where, during discovery, it came out that the company had basically no working capital or funding, including examples where Rothschild was ordered to pay fees to the companies Lamkin represented and did not do so. The most telling is the last one, of a shell company that only had $5 in its bank account: Similarly, in RCDI, RCDI responded to post-judgment discovery admitting it only had “five dollars ($5.00)” in its bank account. In short, by Rothschild’s own averred admissions based on his personal knowledge, multiple entities owned and/or controlled by him had little to no assets to satisfy judgments against them. This matches the definition of a “shell” entity that this Court has routinely applied. The filing also highlights how this defamation lawsuit was clearly ridiculous, given that it included Starbucks as a defendant, even though the only statements mentioned were from Lamkin: As further evidence of Plaintiffs’ improper motive in using this matter as leverage to settle the E.D. Tex. Litigation, Plaintiffs have sued Starbucks even though the statements at issue cannot be attributed to Starbucks. The case was handed over to a magistrate judge, who recommended ruling against Rothschild on the defamation claim, finding that the statements by Lamkin were clearly not defamatory. As framed within the context of the Bloomberg article, the statement is consistent with Rothschild’s reputation within the relevant PAE community. The undisputed facts show that, according to other online publications, Rothschild was described as a “patent troll” who asserted patent litigation lawsuits through his numerous shell companies, and that he utilized shell companies for the purpose of evading fees and penalties. It is also undisputed that numerous articles, other internet posts, and judicial documents referred to Rothschild’s companies as “shells.” Based on the undisputed facts, Rothschild’s reputation before Lamkin made her statement was that he created “shell” companies and that he was a “patent troll.” The Court agrees with Lamkin that her statement was consistent with Rothschild’s reputation, so Lamkin’s statement concerning Rothschild’s conduct with respect to PAE litigation does not support a defamation claim. Imagine being such a patent troll that a court has to say, in effect, dude, come on, everyone knows youre a patent troll with shell companies for your trolling and also your reputation is such shit already that calling you a troll couldnt make it worse. The court also rejected the argument that saying his companies go bankrupt was defamatory, in part because theres nothing inherently disgraceful about bankruptcy: The Court must determine whether Lamkin’s statement concerning Rothschild’s company “tends to” subject Rothschild to “hatred, distrust, ridicule, contempt, or disgrace.” This Court finds that it does not. Bankruptcy is viewed as a helpful, oft-used tool for individuals or entities experiencing financial difficulty. And even if both of those rulings were wrong, the court found, Lamkins statements were still protected under the First Amendment as rhetorical hyperbole, because you have to read the quote in the context of the whole article it appeared in. Rothschild wants to separate out specific minor inaccuracies (such as whether any of his companies was technically a shell or technically declared bankruptcy). But as the magistrate judge points out, thats not how any of this works: the Court cannot disregard the context in which Lamkin’s statement was made in determining whether Lamkin’s statement was one of fact or one of opinion or hyperbole. The broader context of Lamkin’s statement within Lamkin’s interview—which was subsequently republished in the Bloomberg article—is that Lamkin and Rothschild (and the entities connected with Rothschild) have long been engaged in PAE legal struggles and that Rothschild’s entities have failed to pay attorneys’ fees in PAE lawsuits. Lamkin and Rothschild have a history of litigation, and Lamkin’s statement that “we never get the money because the shells go bankrupt” stems from Lamkin’s experience in litigating cases against Rothschild, resulting in frustration from the low settlement offers and the inability to collect fees. These facts are included in Lamkin’s quotes to the Bloomberg reporter. It is clear from the context of the Bloomberg article as a whole, as well as from the context of Lamkin and Rothschild’s litigation history and related experience with each other, that the statement is an opinion and hyperbole Indeed, the magistrates recommendations were for finding that Rothschild ran afoul of Floridas anti-SLAPP law and that he should have to pay Lamkins legal fees: In sum, Rothschild’s defamation claim was without merit and arose out of Lamkin’s free speech in connection with public issues. Moreover, Rothschild did not shoulder his burden to show that the defamation claim was not primarily based on First Amendment rights and was not without merit. Thus, Lamkin is entitled to an award of attorneys’ fees and costs against Rothschild under Florida’s Anti-SLAPP statute Lamkins own counterclaim, for abuse of process, didnt survive either — the court found it barred by Floridas litigation privilege, and noted that simply filing a harassing lawsuit isnt abuse of process without something more. So the scorecard is technically split, but the part that mattered went Lamkins way, along with the fees. The Article III judge on the case has now accepted the magistrates recommendation and thus ordered Rothschild to pay the legal fees (still to be determined). Under patent law, a judge can award reasonable fees in exceptional cases. Indeed, Rothschild was hit with such fees in the past for his trolling. But if you follow that link, youll see that the entity in question was RCDI, the company mentioned above that claimed it only had $5 in its bank account. A fee award against an entity that claims to only have $5 is worthless. Thats what Starbucks was trying to route around by going after Rothschild personally for fraudulent transfer. Well never find out if it would have worked: the Texas case ended almost exactly a year ago, with both sides stipulating to dismissal and each eating its own costs. Rothschild then kept the Florida defamation case going for another full year after the fight that produced it was over. Which means the one thing in this entire mess that looks likely to actually cost Rothschild money is the lawsuit he chose, entirely voluntarily, to file himself.

[Category: starbucks, defamation, florida, leigh rothschild, patent trolls, rachael lamkin, slapp suit, texas]

— ClownAss DOJ Reduced To Quoting James Comey’s Novel As Evidence In ‘8647’ Case

 

at 8/25/26 2:01pm

The first attempted revenge prosecution of former FBI director James Comey has gone nowhere. Whatever the DOJ didnt botch directly was undone by Trumps persistent refusal to adhere to the rules of political appointments. The second attempted prosecution of James Comey isnt going any better. The Trump DOJ willfully pretended an Instagram photo taken by Comey of seashells arranged to read 8647 was a true threat. As everyone but the deliberately ignorant knows, 86 generally means getting rid of something. In bar parlance, this means cutting someone off or kicking them out of the bar. In restaurant parlance, it means a menu option is no longer available. This prosecution is even more shaky than the last one the one where the administration pretended being misleading during congressional testimony was a criminal act worthy of indictment, even though everybody (and especially Trump appointees) do it all the time. Since the government couldnt find a universal definition of 86 that meant kill, it had to rely on anything from AI prompts to motherfucking Mafia hitman/rat Sammy The Bull Gravano to press its case. Now that its floundering again, the DOJ has decided it should double-down on the floundering. Comey is still fighting to have the case dismissed, while also seeking to hold the government accountable for its vindictive prosecution. The DOJ is hoping to hold this together long enough that everyone involved wont be immediately dismissed for failing to accomplish the impossible. The end result is that the DOJs arguments are more desperate and less minimally coherent. In its latest filing, the DOJ has decided to throw the First Amendment along with any remaining logic under the bus. You read that headline correctly. The DOJ is now seriously (and while under oath) quoting Comeys 2025 legal thriller in a last-ditch attempt to connect seashells with inciting violence against Trump. It has to be read to be believed. I wont make you suffer through Comeys sub-Grisham writing. But the DOJ will! Heres the DOJ Vengeance Squad [PDF] attempting to turn protected expression into evidence of criminal activity: On May 15, 2025, Comey was staying at a beachfront residence in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. Comey’s novel “FDR Drive” was only five days from public release. As Publisher’s Weekly described the novel, and as posted on Comey’s Instagram, the protagonist is a federal prosecutor “trying to take down Samuel Buchanan, a far-right media personality with a popular podcast.” FDR Drive, Publisher’s Weekly, https://perma.cc/6V82-HQ9A4. [Exhibit 1] The prosecutor “believes Buchanan went far beyond the protection of the First Amendment when he singled out his enemies by name and suggested ‘something should be done’ about them. His fans have obliged, killing or grievously injuring some of his foes.” Id. The novel itself describes the “stochastic terrorism” theory of Buchanan’s offense at length: Sean nodded. “It’s where a charismatic leader jacks people up but, through the wonder of the internet, avoids a direct connection to what comes next. Stochastic is a term from statistics that means you can estimate the likelihood of something happening, even if you can’t predict who will do it and when and where.” The words in bold are quoted directly from Comeys novel. This is only part of it. The DOJ filing quotes Comeys novel at length. If you want to read more, you can. But considering the argument being made by the DOJ, combined with what I assume is general disinterest in reading Comeys fictional works, this is the part that matters at least to the DOJ. Several paragraphs of subpar political thriller later, the DOJ attempts to connect the dots or at least the seashells and its pull quote from a book that was published only days later. 2+2=CRIME! says the DOJ: On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey, through the wonder of the internet, posted a coded message to his followers meaning “kill” or “get rid of” (a euphemism for “kill”) President Trump. Stupid and dangerous: thats the DOJ we have now. But this is deliberate stupidity prosecutors closing themselves in hopes of scoring a pair of poorly fitting Florsheims or landing a spot on Trumps personal legal team post-2028, where anyone sufficiently devoid of personal morality or professional ethics will be rewarded with hundreds of billable hours. From there, the DOJ continues with its conspiracy theory concoction, claiming theres no way anyone but Comey could have arranged the 8647 seashells, even though it happened four miles away from Comeys beachfront residence. The filing then cites evidence it has had for awhile, hoping that the court will draw inferences that cant plausibly be implied by the DOJ: In any event, at 3:12 pm, Comey’s wife sent him a screenshot including what appeared to have been a cropped definition of “U.S. English slang” indicating that “86” means “to get rid of or refuse service.” [Exhibit 5]. Two minutes later, at 3:14 pm, Comey posted a picture of the seashells on his Instagram account with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” If that hurt your head, prepare to bleed out: There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean “Kill President Trump.” If that were true, the DOJ wouldnt be in court hoping to salvage its case by suffering through Comey novels and trying to turn a hasty seashell-based joke into a federal crime. But probably the stupidest thing about this is that the citation of Comeys novel ignores the context. That section is about the government dreaming up a way to punish someone for something that on its own isnt actually a criminal act. The main characters (government prosecutors) discuss the assassination of Thomas Becket in 1170 AD at the (inferred) urging of King Henry II. Then they arrive at this conclusion/miscarriage of justice: The room was quiet for a moment before Nora said, “But that’s okay. I don’t think we need to base his intent on the perfect-attack-record thing. I think we just argue that he had to know his words would result in the attacks. He may not have known the identity of his knights, but he knew they were out there and would act on his words. So he just shouted that they were—what were the king’s words? ‘Miserable drones and traitors’?—if they didn’t get rid of the people he named. He knew what his knights would do. That should be enough to prove he intended it to happen. Comeys novel is a similarly unconcerned with First Amendment rights as Trumps DOJ. If this hadnt been written by a former prosecutor and FBI director, someone might have stepped in to shut this shit down. The incredible irony is that the DOJ is doing exactly what the characters in Comeys book did while simultaneously insisting the man who wrote this book was trying to pull a King Henry II against Donald Trump even though stuff Comey wrote himself made it clear doing so might give the government a path to convict him of threatening the president. Whats most amazing about all of this is that DOJ prosecutors apparently have the time and discretion to actually read James Comeys fictional works and parse them for possible evidence. I cant imagine doing this for free. And I think I might even have a problem doing this for pay. But here we are, watching the DOJ claim that Comey knew what he was doing because this one time a bunch of people who never existed said words that Comey put in their mouths. Ridiculous.

[Category: 1, 8647, doj, donald trump, james comey, true threats, trump admininstration, vindictive prosecution]

— Trump Told Asylum Seekers To Do It “The Legal Way.” Now He’s Revoking 200,000 Of Their Visas.

 

at 8/25/26 12:19pm

Many Trump supporters keep insisting that his immigration purges are justified because the people swept up in them came here illegally, so who cares if they get kicked out (or shipped off to some random war-torn country). When asked what people seeking asylum should do, the answer is often do it the legal way. That the US government has spent years making the legal way harder and harder — and, as were about to see, has now started punishing the people who actually took it — never seems to enter the conversation. But here we have a really clear example of people doing it the legal way, as instructed by Trump himself who are about to get kicked out of the US. The AP is reporting that the administration is about to pull out on the order of 200,000 visas from those who came to the US legally under B1 or B2 visas, and then sought asylum, just as Trump said they should. This would be the largest mass revocation of visas in US history. The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges. Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security. “We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott. Go back to 2018, when the first Trump administration proclaimed that anyone crossing the southern border anywhere other than an official port of entry would be ineligible for asylum. The whole framing was that there was a legal way to seek asylum and an illegal way, and only the legal way was going to count. In remarks about this executive order, Trump said that those who wished to seek asylum would have to lawfully present themselves at a port of entry, at which point they could seek asylum. Under this plan, the illegal aliens will no longer get a free pass into our country by lodging meritless claims in seeking asylum. Instead, migrants seeking asylum will have to present themselves lawfully at a port of entry. So they’re going to have to lawfully present themselves at a port of entry. A few months later, in his State of the Union, he claimed he wanted immigrants to enter the country legally (in large numbers!): I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally, he declared Note that these are two separate demands: show up at a port of entry rather than sneaking across, and get into the country through legal channels in the first place. The people about to lose their visas satisfied both, and then some. They applied for a visa, got vetted and approved by the State Department, walked in through the front door, and filed an asylum claim through the official process. If theres a more legal way available, nobody has described it. That demand, that people come legally and then make their asylum claims at a port of entry (though the courts later deemed this asylum only counts at port of entry to be wildly against the law) still resulted in a ton of people getting legal visas to the US, and then seeking asylum when they entered. It now appears that (unsurprisingly) the Trump administration was full of shit when they claimed they wanted asylum seekers to come the legal way. There was nothing in what Trump said initially that said they had to get other types of visas to seek asylum. It just said get here legally and then make your case. Which is exactly what all of these people did, and Trump and Marco Rubio are about to pull their visas, even though they literally did things the legal way that Trump himself had encouraged. While this wont necessarily mean immediate deportations, it will likely mean that people with live, pending asylum claims lose their lawful status while those claims are still being adjudicated — which is precisely how you end up removable. And with bands of roving ICE thugs looking for anyone without legal status to deport, you know these people are likely to be added to the target list. So once again, doing things the legal way turns out to protect you from exactly nothing. Follow the instructions the president himself gave you and on the visa the State Department itself issued you, file the paperwork the process demands, and the reward is having that visa pulled while your claim is still pending. What good is doing things the legal way when, with the stroke of a pen, Trump and Rubio will make that legal way illegal? The New Colossus poem on the Statue of Liberty reads: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free To which the Trump administration responds: get the fuck out of here.

[Category: 1, asylum, deportation, donald trump, immigration, marco rubio, trump administratin, visa revocation, visas]

— Daily Deal: Headway Premium

 

at 8/25/26 12:14pm

Unlock a world of knowledge with a Headway Premium subscription. This exclusive deal gives you unlimited access to Headways massive library of 1500+ book summaries, with 30-50 new ones added monthly. Cover any topic you can imagine, from personal development and business strategies to health and wellness. Its usually on sale for $60 for new users only, but for a very limited time you can get it for $50. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— Flock Once Tried To Turn Every Ride Share Driver Into Part Of Its ALPR Network

 

at 8/25/26 10:32am

Until just recently, Flock never felt it needed to rehabilitate its image, even when several cities were dumping contracts and cameras over persistent surveillance concerns. When cities shut down systems, Flock just kept running. In some cases, it even installed cameras that without proper permits or any other legal authorization. Whats hurting Flock now is that its biggest user base US law enforcement agencies are filled with people who see the Flock camera network as a cool and easy way to stalk their exes, their exes friends, families, and new significant others, or aid in harassment of critics, protesters, or anyone else a bored cop might want to track. While Flock is only now introducing limits that might deter misuse (but that wholly rely on law enforcement agencies implementing the changes), its latest effort to polish its ALPR turd needs to be weighed against its entire history, especially the stuff that happened not that long before the company decided it might be best to engage with the general publics concerns, rather than just do whatever seemed immediately pleasurable to cop shops. Joseph Cox brings us the unsettling news that Flock attempted to turn a nation of underpaid gig workers into an extension of its massive, persistent surveillance network: Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media. The document provides more details on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam company. 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching this partnership, and its use of Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers right around the time 404 Media reported on it. Following this leak and 404 Medias subsequent reporting, Flock went on the record to claim that the reported partnership never materialized. Flock didnt specify why it chose to drop the pursuit of this extension of its surveillance network, however. It left it up to 404 Media to suss out what had failed, but without the ability to explain why this never came to fruition. The documents 404 Media obtained showed Flock pitching a Lyft/Uber dashcam partnership to the Georgia Attorney Generals Office. That pitch stated the obvious: a network of cameras already voluntarily enabled by rideshare drivers would be added/infected by Flocks ALPR system, increasing coverage anywhere ridesharing services were available. Not included in the presentation or documents: any notification of drivers that they were now part of a law enforcement surveillance network. Also not explained in the documents was how any of this was legal. What Flock was proposing was the hijacking of cameras operated by individuals in their private vehicles. It seems Flock was relying on the simple addition of more boilerplate to already lengthy end user agreements governing ridesharing services to obtain the consent necessary to turn these cameras into government surveillance options. Its also not clear that Flock has completely abandoned this project. None of the involved parties Lyft, Uber, Flock, or third-party linkage apparatus Nexar have responded with an official statement or even a direct no comment. So, while my headline suggests this was a failed attempt to expand Flocks surveillance reach, theres really nothing on the record that indicates this has been taken completely off the table. Were looking at allegations dismissed without prejudice, to borrow a judicial term. Just because Flock might think its a bad idea to pursue this now doesnt mean it wont make another attempt in the future. And rest assured that the cop shops that loved the proposal wont lose any sleep during this negative press-provoked pause. All they have to do is wait until Flock tries again and help themselves to whatever this network gathers with or without the explicit permission of the cameras owners.

[Category: flock, flock safety, lyft, uber, 4th amendment, alpr, license plate readers, rights abritrage, surveillance state]

— More Details Emerge On How Trump Cronyism Ruined The Attempt To Break Up Ticketmaster

 

at 8/25/26 6:25am

Last March it was revealed that the Trump DOJ stabbed its antitrust lawsuit state partners in the back and struck a terrible settlement with Ticketmaster, scuttling a generational opportunity to break up one of the more glaring examples of modern monopoly power. Quite a curious choice for a Trump-addled party that spent all last election season insisting it was now serious about antitrust reform. The states would go on to amazingly win their own lawsuit against Ticketmaster and LiveNation, though were still waiting to see if the remedies actually accomplish anything. A follow up Wall Street Journal report (paywalled) this week offers some additional insight into the process that let Ticketmaster of the hook. Not too surprisingly, the story details how Trump demanded the DOJ settle the investigation just days before it was set to go to trial, which seemingly surprised (however credible that is) DOJ people already use to such ham-fisted interventions: White House involvement in law-enforcement matters, once taboo, is a regular feature of Trump’s second term. But many DOJ officials regarded the political interference in the Live Nation case as extreme even for an administration in which the president has openly pressured law-enforcement officials to pursue perceived enemies and pardoned allies. The settlement comes despite oodles of Trump promises that he was going to meaningfully crack down on Ticketmaster. It was one of several 2024 election-season campaign promises designed to pretend that corrupt authoritarianism was a genuine populist movement interested in antitrust reform (I did my very best to warn people as frequently as I could how this was bullshit). From the story, it appears that Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, leveraging a connection to former Sinclair Broadcasting weirdo Boris Epshteyn (you might recall him from Sinclairs must run propaganda segments) simply asked for the favor, and received it shortly thereafter. In exchange for some help booking guests at the then-Trump-controlled Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: On Friday, Feb. 27, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino met with Trump in the Oval Office. Trump had called the meeting to discuss how to improve bookings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, according to people familiar with the conversation. He also wanted to know why the company hadn’t reached a deal over its lawsuit, the people said. Ticketmaster also simply had to hire Sullivan & Cromwell to take over settlement negotiations, because they knew the firms close ties to Trump would help. So basically, the backstory is every bit as corrupt and stupid as one would imagine, though perhaps slightly dumber. Its consistent in some ways, such as Trumps promises being meaningless, and his policies once again being easily influenced by whoever was last whispering in his hear and promising him personal favors. This was going on simultaneously alongside efforts to purge the folks in MAGA, like Gail Slater, that actually did occasionally seem semi-interested in antitrust reform. And even those folks werent really what youd call consistent when it comes to standing up to consolidated corporate power. In reality MAGA was always about one thing: Donald Trump’s power and wealth. These sorts of egomaniacal autocrats exploit existing corruption and institutional failure to ride into office on the back of fake populism pretending they alone can fix it, then, once entrenched, introduce something far worse. The administration’s “anti-war,” “anti-corporate,” “anti-corruption” rhetoric are all part of the same lie. In the Ticketmaster case its worth repeating that the states were completely blindsided by this settlement, which involved a relatively tiny (compared to Ticketmaster revenues) $280 million payout, and some pinky swearing related to ending exclusive booking at around 13 amphitheaters. The states still managed to win their lawsuit last April, and were now simply left waiting to see if the finalized remedies actually accomplish anything, or include an actual physical breakup of the monopoly (fairly necessary when it comes to actually policing consolidated corporate power).

[Category: 1, live nation, ticketmaster, antitrust, antitrust reform, boris epshteyn, breakup, competition, concert tickets, corruption, crony capitalism, donald trump, lawsuit, michael rapino]

— Sony Keeps Getting Punched In The Face Over Going Disc-less In Unrelated Places

 

at 8/24/26 9:00pm

If Sony thought that the outrage over its decision to make the next PlayStation entirely disc-less was going to dissipate quickly, it was wrong. There are actually multiple organic campaigns to protest Sonys decision to ditch physical media now. We already talked about the plans for a purchase and usage blackout of all things PlayStation in late August. Now we can add to that a social media campaign of sorts going around, called No disc, no buy. While the name is self-explanatory as to its purpose, whats interesting is how this mantra and pushback using it are appearing everywhere. An example of that can be found in the most recent State of Play showcase Sony held for Phantom Blade Zero, during which Sony decided to keep the chat associated with the stream live. You already know what happened from there. Choosing to leave chat open for this particular State of Play was a curious move from Sony, given how the forthcoming action-RPG from Chinese team S-Game has already courted controversy when it was revealed its pre-orders are entirely digital, with no disc-based version being touted. That led to much speculation that the October 29, 2026 game may be releasing without a physical version at all, leaping to the front of the pack ahead of Sony’s plan to eliminate discs entirely by 2028. And given there’s nothing PlayStation-related of late that isn’t inundated with furious remarks from those fighting for physical media, you can be sure they were out in force throughout the presentation. The comments relating to bringing back physical media, or simply repeating the NO DISC NO BUY mantra, went on and on and on. Sony since attempted to play hide and seek with all of this by disallowing chat replay on the video, but the damage had already been done. And this isnt a one-off. In other game showcases Sony has likewise been inundated with fury over its decision to end physical media for its next console. And, as Kotaku rightfully points out, while digital purchases dominate the American market, that isnt the case internationally. In other words, the anger overseas is far greater than here in the States. It’s tempting to write off these respondents, given the reality that now only 15 percent of PlayStation games are ever bought on disc. However, what often goes forgotten is that the 15-percent stat represents the United States, and doesn’t reflect the game-buying habits of players in many other countries. According to a recently published report from Germany, Germans still buy 58 percent of their games on physical discs. In France, disc buyers are also still in the majority at 55 percent. Even Sony’s homeland of Japan sat at 51-percent physical when it came to Resident Evil Requiem. Meanwhile in the UK, reports suggest 40 to 45 percent of games are still sold on real, plastic discs. The end of discs is going to disproportionately affect many countries, and there’s a good chance these people are letting their voices be heard! Will Sony listen to this sizable percentage of its customers? I doubt it. Surely the company knew this would be a controversial decision and has likely already steeled itself in preparation for all of this anger. Digital games mean more margin for Sony and theyve done whatever math which has led them to believe that this is the more profitable decision. This means that game preservation will become much harder. It also means the stories we currently hear about people having their digitally bought games ripped away from them are likely to increase exponentially.

[Category: 1, sony, disc, discless, ownership, video games]

— Don’t Trust The Name On The PAC

 

at 8/24/26 4:13pm

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Political action committees are responsible for nearly two-thirds of all federal election funding, with about US$6.3 billion raised and $4.8 billion spent since January 2025. But their outsized political influence does not just come from their wallets. It’s also generated from their names. Political strategists are adopting PAC names that signal the opposite political goals from what those organizations truly intend. They hope to taint voter perception of the candidates or ballot initiatives to which they donate. And, as our research shows, the strategy is working. The history of deceptive PAC naming Typically, PAC names borrow expressions from the party they wish to help, like ActBlue or WinRed, which raised the most money in the 2024 federal election cycle. Many of those names have been ridiculed for their overreliance on throwaway clichés. In 2012, comedian Stephen Colbert created the PAC Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow to prove the point. But a more sinister custom has emerged. Our research has shown that for the past decade or so, PACs have engaged in what we call “tactical naming,” the practice of giving laws and PACs names designed to manipulate voter perception. One tactic is to choose a name derived from slogans of the opposing party, falsely signaling ideological kinship to gain the trust of voters from the other side. In 2014, for example, the PAC Americans for Progressive Action provided no support for Democratic candidates. Instead, it gave over $1.3 million to Republican Gabriel Gomez’s 2014 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts. Examples can be found on both sides of the aisle. The PAC Patriot Majority USA, which sports a gun-toting minuteman logo and foregrounds the word “patriot,” a term that recent research indicates is a strong marker of conservative political identity, ran ads in support of Democratic candidates. It also opposed Republican candidates in multiple states for years. The PAC Protect Women Ohio Action, Inc. contributed to conservative ads opposing a ballot initiative that limited Ohio’s authority to restrict abortion. Deceptive PAC naming today Tactical naming continues in current primaries. Earlier in this primary cycle, the PACs Real Change and Lead Left ran television ads and mailers in competitive congressional districts attacking Democratic candidates, ostensibly from the left. The ads accused candidates of standing with President Donald Trump, opposing Medicare for all and “cashing in on Trump’s terror.” To any casual observer, Real Change and Lead Left look like progressive groups holding Democrats accountable. But closer scrutiny reveals something else. When people subscribed to Real Change’s email list, they received emails confirming their subscriptions that routed through cavalryllc.com. That’s the domain of Cavalry LLC, one of Washington’s premier Republican communications firms, founded by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff. Cavalry has received more than $10 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership. And investigative reports revealed that Caleb Crosby, the treasurer of the Congressional Leadership Fund, founded a political compliance firm that supported personnel at two conservative PACs that used the same unusual address as Lead Left: a Staples store in Tallahassee, Florida. The science behind the names It’s tempting to think that this tactic won’t work on the politically savvy people who pay attention to PAC names. But our research shows otherwise. To test the effects of deceptive PAC names, we conducted a controlled online experiment involving more than 650 participants recruited through Prolific, an online academic research studies platform. The sample was balanced by gender and diverse in age, though participants were somewhat more educated than the general U.S. population. Participants evaluated four proposed laws before and after learning that each law was sponsored by a PAC. The PAC’s name was manipulated to be either congruent with the law’s ideological direction, incongruent with it or politically neutral. For example, a left-leaning environmental proposal might be sponsored by a PAC called Save the Earth, Americans for Oil or Smith. By comparing participants’ ratings before and after exposure to those names, we measured the extent to which naming alone could alter attitudes toward otherwise identical proposals. We found that misleading PAC names significantly shifted voter opinion. We also found that PAC names were most effective when they were deceptive. When participants who supported a particular law were told that an incongruently named PAC was sponsoring it, their support for that law dropped sharply, even when the law’s text sat right in front of them. For example, when people who identified as left-leaning already favored a law that expedited refugee worker rights, their favorability ratings dropped sharply when they learned that the sponsoring PAC had a right-signaling name, Building the Wall. By contrast, learning that an aptly named PAC, Humane Treatment of Migrants, had sponsored the same law did not significantly affect the ratings of left-leaning people and barely affected the ratings of right-leaning people. Our research also found that stronger partisans are more susceptible to this tactic. The more firmly someone identified with a political party, the greater the swing in their opinion when an inapt PAC name was introduced. Sophisticated voters are not automatically inoculated – if anything, their stronger priors make them more vulnerable to cues that appear to confirm or threaten their political identity. What makes this especially troubling is where tactical names appear. Federal regulations require that PACs disclose their names “in a clear and conspicuous manner” in their political advertisements. One might wonder whether tactical naming is just everyday politics. But weaponizing names introduces a hazard that goes far beyond ordinary negative campaigning. A Republican group running ads against Democrats is unremarkable. A Republican group pretending to be a Democratic group to run those same ads is something different: It is a deliberate attempt to corrupt the informational environment in which voters decide whom to support. Can anything be done? Our research addressed this question, and our conclusions are sobering. An outright ban on deceptive PAC names would face serious First Amendment obstacles. Naming a PAC is a form of expression that receives constitutional protection. Courts have been reluctant to allow the government to dictate how political organizations present themselves. In Doctors for a Healthy Montana v. Fox in 2020, a federal district court struck down a Montana law requiring PACs to name themselves in a way that clearly identified the economic or special interest of a majority of their contributors. The court found that the statute did more than require disclosure of factual information; it unconstitutionally dictated “how that information must be packaged to the public.” Required disclaimers, such as warnings to voters not to treat a PAC’s name as reliable evidence of its political identity, would probably be the most legally viable intervention. Even their constitutionality is uncertain, however. That leaves two other remedies: transparency journalism and voter skepticism. The reporting on Real Change PAC, which followed money through shell companies, traced email domains and mapped connections to the Congressional Leadership Fund, is the kind of investigative work that gives voters a fighting chance. Voters can also follow a simple rule of thumb: When you see a PAC name, don’t treat it as gospel. Ask who is paying for it and who benefits. Be mindful when the PAC is critical of a person or position that is supported by the very party that the PAC appears to serve. And remember that the most dangerous political actors don’t always attack your political allies. Sometimes, they just steal their names. Brian Sheppard is Professor of Law at Seton Hall University. Andrew Moshirnia is Associate Professor & Director of Education Business Law & Taxation at Monash University.

[Category: 1, campaign finance, campaigning, elections, misrepresentation, pacs, political funding, superpacs]

— Trump Threatens Think Tank With Libel Lawsuit For Telling The Truth About National Guard Deployments

 

at 8/24/26 2:04pm

Whenever Trump doesnt like the facts, he calls it fake news or does what hes doing here: tries to shoot the messenger by threatening them with a lawsuit. The administration has been sending National Guard troops to various US cities ever since it became clear its mass deportation efforts werent nearly as popular with US residents (or the troops themselves!) as they were with the bigoted ghouls who infested the White House. Trump claimed the National Guard deployments were necessary because the cities they were sent to (Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, etc.) were so gutted by violent crime that the only solution was one that pushes up against the edges of martial law. Most of the early deployments targeted states or cities where Trump had failed to secure a majority of the popular vote. Later deployments to Tennessee and Louisiana were actually welcomed by state reps who were more closely aligned with MAGA ideals than the rights and liberties of their states residents. But no matter where the National Guard went, the promised reduction in violent crime failed to materialize. Its an assumption anyone could make, given that it was more a show of force meant to force more cities and states to bend the knee, rather than a well-designed plan to address alleged crime epidemics. The Center for American Progress released a report early last month, one that showed National Guard deployments werent doing much in terms of crime. Instead, the administration was spending more than a billion dollars ($1.7 billion at last count) in an attempt to take credit for the status quo: a long, sharp decline in violent crime rates that long proceeded either of Trumps two presidential terms. In an effort to falsely claim his policies have reduced crime, the president is exploiting the fact that violent crime and murder were already declining in the cities his administration targeted with these extreme interventions. On average, the 11 cities where the National Guard was deployed or threatened to be deployed saw a 14 percent decrease in their 12-month rolling violent crime rate and a 22 percent decrease in their 12-month rolling murder rate from June 2024 to June 2025, before the National Guard was first deployed to Los Angeles. These recent violent crime trends, predating even Trump’s second inauguration, suggest that, more than likely, violent crime would have continued trending downward in these cities by the end of 2025, regardless of any additional interventions. However, the Trump administration has ignored this fact when reporting year-over-year crime statistics to claim these extreme tactics have made Americans safer. Trump is the real lagging indicator here. The report was released July 10. It took until a few days ago for Trump to threaten the left-leaning think tank with a bogus libel lawsuit. This threat was delivered by someone in Trumps personal employ, rather than any of the dozens (or hundreds) of lawyers employed by the federal government, for obvious reasons. On Monday, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Alejandro Brito, wrote a letter to the center warning that he would file the suit if the group did not fully retract the report, which was published on its website on July 13. The letter, viewed by The New York Times, was addressed to the group’s president and chief executive, Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic official who served as a senior adviser to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and to several of its board members. Mr. Brito claimed that the report about the National Guard was full of malicious and false statements. He gave Ms. Tanden and members of her board until 5 p.m. on Friday to retract it and apologize to Mr. Trump. Libel lawsuits are personal causes of action. The federal government cannot file a defamation lawsuit on its own behalf. Hence, the need to portray this criticism of the administrations policies and claims are being portrayed as defaming Trump personally for the sole purpose of silencing critics of this iteration of the federal government. The New York Times report doesnt contain anything specific Trumps lawyer claimed was defamatory in the threat letter he issued on behalf of his boss. Its safe to assume Brito provided no specifics, but relied on intentional vagueness in hopes of making the legal threat stick. And because its an obviously bogus legal threat, the letter concludes with a phrase almost always deployed by people who know they have no legitimate case to make: The letter ended: “PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY.” No problem, said the Center for American Progress lawyers. We are governed accordingly: “This is utterly absurd,” the lawyer, Kevin H. Metz, wrote to Mr. Brito. “Truth is not and cannot be defamation.” Mr. Metz went on to say that the center welcomed the opportunity to make its case in court and receive more information on the National Guard deployments through the process of discovery. Well see if Trump tries to press this case or whether hell wander off to yell at the next thing that momentarily makes him angry. But even if he moves off of this particular provocation, hes still got a year to let this simmer on the back burner. Its performative but it still serves a purpose: to deter others who might publish facts Trump doesnt like but may not have the money, time, or legal acumen to fight back when the president decides he wants to sue in his personal capacity. And while we all know this is meaningless and unjustified, the fact is that Trump has pretty much unlimited amounts of time and money and, apparently, enough lawyers on hand willing to jeopardize their careers and reputations for a guy who ultimately may stiff them when its time to collect their legal fees.

[Category: center for american progress, 1st amendment, alejandro brito, bogus defamation lawsuit, chilling effect, donald trump, free speech, mass deportation, national guard, trump administration]

— Even Some Of The Loudest Kids’ Online Safety Advocates Are Now Warning Against Social Media Bans

 

at 8/24/26 12:12pm

Weve been talking for a while now about how the rush (much of it driven by politicians obsession with Jonathan Haidts mostly debunked book) to ban kids from social media is dangerously stupid. It misdiagnoses the problem and creates a solution that both does not work and makes actual problems worse. Previous reporting has already shown that a massive number of kids easily get around the bans, and among those who havent were those who actually relied on these services for community. Given the obvious failures and the clear damage already done in Australia, its bizarre that so many other countries are still rushing to copy it. But with Frances Constitutional Council recently blocking Emmanuel Macrons version (shoved into law almost immediately after he sat down with Haidt), some sense is finally creeping into the conversation, with a growing number of experts speaking out against blanket blocks: The rash of new laws and the subsequent backlash is prompting people to ask if social media bans are going too far, too fast — and whether there may be a smarter way to protect kids online than forcing them off. Lorena Giuberti Coutinho, an online safety commissioner for Brazil’s independent data protection authority, told POLITICO that social media bans increasingly appear “quite hard to impose,” and questioned whether global momentum for that approach would persist. “The incentives for teenagers to continue on social media are quite strong because this is where they communicate,” said Coutinho. This matters, because for the last year or so its felt almost inevitable that social media bans would become the global default — despite the science not supporting them, and despite nobody having any real evidence about what the bans themselves would do to kids. Indeed, for all the people running around screaming about how this needs to be done to stop companies from experimenting on children, cutting kids off from their communities online is, itself, an experiment on the mental health and psyche of children without any understanding of what it might do. Its especially notable that this skepticism is coming from Brazils online safety commissioner, because, as we discussed recently on Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Brazil has been going through yet another social media moral panic, one that has forced Discord to disable livestreaming, after a horrific case in which a 13-year-old girl was allegedly coerced by other users into taking her own life (Discord disputes that the death itself was broadcast live). Everything about that story is horrifying. But blaming it on the existence of livestreaming on one particular platform — when the exact same tech exists on nearly every other platform — mostly guarantees that the next tragedy happens somewhere the regulators arent looking. But whatever you make of that particular mess, the pushback isnt limited to Brazil. Its showing up more or less everywhere these bans have been tried. In the United States, protecting children from social media is a priority among politicians of all partisan stripes — from Texas Senator Ted Cruz to California Governor Gavin Newsom. But no legislative ban for teen users has moved forward at either the state or federal level. There are broad concerns that bans could violate children’s free speech rights by restricting their ability to engage with lawful speech online, as well as pushback from activists, like those in the LGBTQ+ community, who say that social media can also be a place where otherwise isolated youth can stay informed and connect with peers. Surprisingly, even the activist groups responsible for some of the worst anti-internet bills of the last half decade — like 5Rights, whose founder has been drafting Californias censorship laws — are now calling out the dangers of blanket bans: A report by a group of youth behavioral experts, delivered ahead of an expected EU-wide proposal this fall, appeared doubtful that age restrictions alone are the solution. One pointed to “circumvention” around Australia’s solution. The experts make a point of anticipating changing user habits: They recommend that solutions are aimed at all the online places where young people will be spending their time, which increasingly includes AI chatbots. Several experts who consulted the European Commission on the proposed measures, including Leanda Barrington-Leach of the 5Rights Foundation and the London School of Economics’ Sonia Livingstone, wrote a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to warn against blanket measures. Total bans are not in line with protecting childrens fundamental rights because they cut off their access to information, which may lead them to more dangerous, unregulated online spaces, the letter says. This might be the one and only thing Ive ever agreed with 5Rights on, even if the global rush to ban social media is the entirely predictable end result of years of their own misleading advocacy. Right now the activists who pushed these bans look a lot like the dog who caught the car. They got the laws they wanted and now the evidence suggests that these laws dont actually benefit kids and may, in fact, harm them. Theres a real cost to putting in place these superficial something must be done, this is something, we will do this kinds of solutions, rather than dealing with the actual underlying root causes. So instead of funding real mental health support, or building better tools that let people protect themselves, we got a pile of headline-grabbing laws that make politicians look busy while leaving every underlying problem exactly where it was.

[Category: 5rights, australia, kids, moral panic, social media bans]

— Daily Deal: The Ultimate Microsoft Office 2021/365 Training Bundle

 

at 8/24/26 12:07pm

StreamSkill has combined seven of their best Office 2021/365 courses to create this awesome Ultimate Microsoft Office 2021/365 Bundle. Whether youre a student, an office professional, a business owner, a freelancer, or just someone who wants to get started with the most widely used Microsoft programs, this course bundle is for you. Join now and gain a thorough understanding of Microsoft Office 2021/365. Its on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— Border Czar Tom Homan Says The Glove Tasering Will Continue Until Morale Improves

 

at 8/24/26 10:36am

Weve moved into a new era where the administrations constant cruelty, violence, and actual murders simply arent enough to keep Trump appeased or entertained. ICE is now goosing its arrest numbers by arresting holders of expired visas at domestic airports. Now were being treated to additional abject cruelty in the places where boots are on the ground. An option only rarely secured by agencies that oversee jails confined areas filled with convicted criminals that might need more immediate response alternatives is now the subject of a $20 million no-bid contract. Once fulfilled, this will outfit any number of federal immigration officers with gloves capable of standing in for Tasers. And while the company selling these G.L.O.V.Es (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters) has draped itself with CYA fine print to offload any eventual deaths/maiming on owner/operators, its really just giving them all they need to joy buzzer people into submission/death while absolving themselves of their contributory actions. Hell, the owners manual even pretends Excited Delirium is an actual medical condition, even when the AMA (and others) refuse to recognize a syndrome that somehow is only witnessed by cops who have restrained someone to death. It rephrases this as an Agitated Chaotic Event (ACE), which would suggest that agitation and chaos are things cops bring the restraint party while simultaneously suggesting agitation and chaos are things in need of additional force deployment. Managing chaos in a prison might call for some immediate incapacitation options. But ICE et al are operating out in the open. Any situation thats uncontrollable is largely the fault of officers whove never been properly trained to do the job theyre now doing. CBP historically has handled illegal border crossings, patrolling southern deserts and/or pitching in with Border Patrol operations at border crossing points. Prior to Trumps revamp of ICE to focus entirely on any migrant anywhere in the nation, ICE spent most of its time handling the customs side of its purview. Now, every DHS agency (and plenty of voluntolds from the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals Service, etc.) is a masked jump-out squad participating in open-air ambushes and kidnappings. Unsurprisingly, theyre so bad at it that they routinely murder people literally any other law enforcement agency would arrest peacefully, if not ignore completely. Having realized no one is up for the task especially since ICE has drastically cut back its training regime while simultaneously loosening entry requirements the government must now rely on increased violence to meet its arrest goals. Enter the G.L.O.V.E. And enter Tom Homan, who just sees this as the next step in the truth, justice, and the American way continuum: White House border czar Tom Homan defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers gloves that deliver painful electric shocks, calling them a tool to help officers end confrontations without using deadly force. “It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not,” Homan said Thursday in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.” “You can’t just go from 0 to 100, right, and the first thing you go for is lethal force.” Well, whats wrong with whips? I mean, thats a historic method that was used to great effect to make non-whites fall in line while slavery was still the operative policy, as well as for years after the slaves had been freed. How about fire hoses? That takes us all the way up to the mid-60s, where meeting 0 to 100 midway meant pinning people to the wall with water pressure meant to subdue industrial fires. Why is shocking people with electrified gloves suddenly a smart option when ICE, CBP, etc. have never had to rely on this tech prior to this point? Homan pretends its about compliance when its really about subjugation and maximum pain infliction. He says the gloves are something that sits between the 0 to 100 scale of law enforcement violence, deliberately ignoring the fact that ICE officers will choose the option closest to 100 no matter where on the 0-100 scale the threat level actually is. If we could trust immigration officers to not murder people simply because theyre (1) inconvenient or (2) driving vehicles, we might be able to accept a compliance tool in limited situations, like detention centers or border crossings. But Homan and the agencies he (sort of) represents want to see these used everywhere, all the time. Why limit yourself to punching someone when you can immobilize them before handing out a beating? Why consider de-escalation when everything you wear and everything you hear from your supervisors says do unto others first. A nation that has still managed to raise its voice against Trump despite being beaten, shot, stripped of due process rights, and depicted as garbage from shithole countries is going to be silenced, immobilized, and violated by officers who now get to add stealth stun options to the roving death squad loadout theyve preferred ever since Trump took office again. Homan is just here to blame the victims for their own injuries or deaths.

[Category: compliant technologies, asshats, cruelty, dhs, gloves, ice, mass deportation, rights violations, taser, tom homan, trump administration]

— Telecom Experts Say Elon Musk’s Wireless Plan Is Historically Stupid

 

at 8/24/26 6:32am

Earlier this month I noted that Elon Musks Starlink is giving very unsubtle indications that the company wants to jump into the wireless business. I also noted that theres a very long list of reasons why this isnt likely to go well for him, ranging from the extremely high cost of network build-outs, to the fact that entrenched giants like AT&T and Verizon are very good at crushing insurgents. As a launch gets closer weve seen more details into how Starlink actually hopes to try and make a wireless phone service work. Experts have already noted that the low-Earth-orbit Starlink satellite network is generally too congested to scale in the way the SpaceX IPO claims it can. The IPO projects a jump from 10 million to 300+ million in just a few years; an impossible feat. Some had speculated that Starlink would accomplish this by buying a company like T-Mobile. The company also is poised to buy around $17 billion in AWS-4 and H-block wireless spectrum licenses from Echostar after Brendan Carr specifically launched an investigation into Echostar making it possible. But instead of buying T-Mobile, Musk seems convinced that he can launch a nationwide wireless phone service by simply plunking down thousands of meshed femtocells installed on customer rooftops alongside existing LEO satellite dishes. Such femtocells would eat up backhaul capacity shared with the already capacity-constrained satellite-delivered broadband. Even normally staid analysts at industry trade mags have called the idea incredibly stupid: This ranks as one of the top three dumbest ideas in my four decades of being in this industry, said Earl Lum, the founder of analyst company EJL Wireless Research. Whats currently unclear is SpaceXs precise definition of a small cell, but a typical outdoor small cell would come with power output of 5 watts per channel, in Lums book, and be difficult to install at residential properties. You need a real antenna in three sectors. To deploy this, it means you have to have a pole on a roof thats good enough to hang three radios and three antennas, which is going to be hard, he said. You would have to go through the standard permitting for any macro cell site, and at that point why do you want a small cell? Keep in mind that Musks companies (especially Starlink and Tesla solar) dont really have, or believe in, functional customer service. So the idea that existing Starlink customers are going to make all this work without coherent support is another wrinkle. Theres very little indication this would work; and its near impossible to make it scale up in urban areas where theyd compete with AT&T and Verizon. Musk and friends may belatedly realize the unworkable nature of the idea later, at which point they just gobble up T-Mobile, which has steadily become shittier and shittier in the wake of the Sprint merger (precisely as deal critics predicted). Though even that would be very expensive and include lengthy, cumbersome integration, with no guarantee of meaningful success.

[Category: 1, spacex, starlink, xai, elon musk, mvno, phone service, spectrum]

— Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

 

at 8/23/26 1:00pm

This week, MrWilson takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, its a comment about opportunistic ICE arrests: ICE keeps trying to find more victims to prove the false narrative of how many undocumented immigrants there are in the country, so individual agents probably want to make their own abductions to show dear leader that their jackboots are loyal rather than hand it off to someone else. In second place, its a response to our post about the MAGA GOP warning about communism while taking ownership stakes in private companies: Another angle is seeing it as just more fascism. The Nazi government in Germany was deep in it with corporations and seized assets and controlled factories and controlled how they did business Trump isn’t seizing or nationalizing the means of production for the benefit of the people or the workers. He’s getting more power and money for his corruption machine. We’re not seeing all of what’s happening in the background, but you know he’s personally benefiting from these moves. And when a Democrat gets into the White House, watch for Fox News and GOP politicians to decry the “communism” that Democrats are perpetuating and they’ll ignore Trump’s moves entirely or our local propaganda repeater will stop by to tell us it was legal under Trump and completely different but any Democrats doing 5% of the same thing are dirty commies. For editors choice on the insightful side, weve got a pair of comments about the federal court ruling that said recommendation algorithms arent protected speech. First, its Stephen T. Stone with a reply to a commenter who asserted that the government needs the power to control what companies recommend: No. No, it does not. As the article asks, do you really want the Trump administration in control of what content social media services can/will recommend? Because that seems like a surefire way to privilege TRASH speech over all other kinds. But feel free to point out how that wouldn’t be the case! Next, its an anonymous comment about the line in the ruling saying the social media companies had not shown that their feeds constitute fully protected speech: Uh… Protected speech is assumed. The court needs to fully explain how something is not protected. They have utterly failed to do this so far. Not that i don’t think plenty of these companies, and plenty of algorithms, pretty much suck to one degree or another. However, one is free to search or refresh or better train how the algorithm serves them, at least to a point. And one is free to leave. One is also free to educate one’s children in media literacy. Over on the funny side, our first place winner is MrWilson yet again, this time with another reply to that same commenter: No. No, it does not. As the article asks, do you really want the Trump administration in control of what content social media services can/will recommend? Because that seems like a surefire way to privilege TRASH speech over all other kinds. But feel free to point out how that wouldn’t be the case! In second place, its an anonymous comment from last weeks comments post, in which I lamented that there were no more Star Trek jokes for me to highlight: Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! (Though several commenters associated this far and no further even more strongly with the iconic final episode of the initial run of Columbo, another greatest-show-of-all-time. Techdirt readers have great taste!) For editors choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from PB&J about MAGAs fearmongering about communism: obligatory meme: “If Those Kids Could Read They’d Be Very Upset” We all know that 50% of Americans don’t know what communism is — like, they literally cannot define it — and another 49% think it means “The Democrats”. Finally, its one more anonymous reaction to the ruling that algorithms arent protected speech because they just reflect what people want back to them: Today I learned that portrait photography is not protected under the Constitution because it is merely a mirror held up to that person. Thats all for this week, folks!

— This Week In Techdirt History: August 16th – 22nd

 

at 8/22/26 1:00pm

This Week in 2016 Snowden Docs Show NSA, New Zealand Spied On Pro-Democracy Activists Which Crazy Copyright Holder Took Down Katie Ledecky/Carlos Santana Smooth Mashup First? Billionaire Backer Of Palantir & Facebook Insists Hes Bankrupting Journalists To Protect Your Privacy Donald Trump Says Hell Turn Off The Internet For Terrorists Twitter Suspends Hundreds Of Thousands Of Terrorist Accounts, Gives Everyone Its Quality Filter Recording Industry Whines That Its Too Costly To Keep Copyright Terms At Life Plus 50, Instead Of Life Plus 70 This Week in 2011 Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter? Dear Musicians: The RIAA Is About To Totally Screw You Over (Again!) Waffle House Says Rap Song Called Waffle House Violates Its Trademark Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft MPAA Calls MPAA Intellectually Dishonest For Claiming That Infringement Is Inevitable As Expected, Backpage Is Not Liable For Prostitution Ads This Week in 2006 Oh Look, The More Hollywood Attacks, The Further Underground File Sharing Goes Cabbies Dont Need No Stinkin Navigation Systems Captain Copyright Gets A Rewrite? Ignoring Obsolete Analog Technology Is Now Considered Circumventing Copy Protection? There Ought To Be A Law… Any Law… To Protect The Children Wheres The Checkbox For New FBI Computer System Is So Bad I Plan To Go On A Crime Spree?

[Category: 1, history, look back]

— RFK Jr. Loses It Over CNN Host Doing The Math On Meal Costs From His Cooking Show

 

at 8/21/26 8:39pm

As youll recall, RFK Jr., who is totally not checked out of his job at HHS, has managed to sneak in hosting a government sponsored cooking show in between not doing anything about the countrys problems with measles, cyclosporiasis, whooping cough, and so on. Well, two episodes are now out, and the reviews are not great. Some have referred the episodes as mere long, boring political ads, while others have simply pointed out that the meals so far taste like shit. But while those particular reviews may rely heavily on subjective matters of opinion, the main thrust of Kennedys show does not. And that thrust is the promise that American families can feed themselves fresh, wholesome meals for less than $5 a plate. CNNs Tom Foreman appeared on Erin Burnetts show and walked viewers through what buying ingredients at the grocery store to make one of Kennedys meals would actually cost. When we started buying ingredients used in the show, even going for the lowest prices at a big competitive chain, the cost heated up fast. This was the cheapest frozen wild-caught sockeye salmon we could find. The closest to what they are using. They priced theirs at $8.99. The cheapest we could find, even with the deal from the store, was more than $24. Now the greens mix, that was about the same cost. So were the eggs on a per egg basis. But that’s the trick here, because they’re only pricing that one egg out of the carton. And that gets worse with other things. For example, this red onion, they say they only spent eight cents on this because that’s how much they used. Getting the whole onion cost us more than a dollar. And look at this. This is the avocado mayonnaise. They priced this at 40 cents, because they were only using a couple of tablespoons to buy. The whole thing cost us more than $11. They’re only pricing parts of it. And grocery stores don’t sell things that way. In other words, you cant associate the cost of buying a meal by portioning out what ingredients you use and how much of it. The total cost of the ingredients has still left your bank account. Were not talking about restaurants, where marginal costs per plate make all the sense in the world. Those are businesses that buy in bulk and have to calculate a profit into their pricing. These are families. Hungry families and the only profit theyre looking for is healthy caloric intake. Well, Kennedy lost his shit on the internet over the segment, all because Burnett and Foreman refused to play his particular version of make believe. And, after accusing Burnett of having Trump Derangement Syndrome (does that come from vaccines and chemtrails too?), he did so in a way that perfectly illuminated the fact that he doesnt understand that homes are not restaurants. After the report aired, Kennedy hit back on X, trashing the host and accusing her of having abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic. CNN wants us to incorporate the full package price of every ingredient, regardless of what is used in the recipe. If you put a squirt of ketchup on your burger, would you be surprised if the restaurant charged you for the whole bottle? Kennedy wrote. Kennedy argued his show uses standard recipe costing, saying we count what the recipe actually uses, while the rest of each purchased ingredient stays in the kitchen. First off, this is a mostly misleading bit of pushback. While Foremans segment did tally up the grocery bill needed in order to make Kennedys meal, because thats how shopping works, that wasnt the only cost discrepancy he uncovered. For some items, the cost difference was in the marginal quantity of the ingredient used in each meal, that wasnt the case with every ingredient, such as the fish itself. So Kennedys claims in his show, like most everything he claims, are built on funny math and lies. Its simply not how grocery shopping for a family works. Its not how meal planning works. What could be interesting would be for the show to demonstrate from start to finish how to plan out a familys meals for a week, shop for the ingredients for those meals in a way that you can double up on them to make full use of their cost, and build a recipe list around that and then see what the per-meal cost is. But that would be way too much work for Kennedy and would place him way outside the cushy, entitled, wealthy experience he has had his entire life as a Kennedy.

[Category: 1, cooking show, groceries, health & human services, rfk jr., shopping, tom foreman]

— Bricks & Minifigs Settles With The Mansells — Gutting Its Own RICO Case Against ‘Reckless’ Ben

 

at 8/21/26 4:27pm

Were not going to do a full rehash of the whole Reckless Ben / Bryan Mansell / Bricks & Minifigs saga here. Weve already got a bunch of stories on it, and there are many other sources. But there is some news in the form of Bricks & Minifigs (BAM) settling with Mansell — and theres a lot more to the story, including that Mansell has assigned whatever claims he might have against the former franchisees to BAM, though its unclear who actually has those rights, since early on in this saga it was reported that Mansell had given them to Reckless Ben. Theres also the fact that Ben himself is still facing civil claims and criminal charges, neither of which seem legit. Especially on the civil side, given that BAM admitting that it did in fact owe Mansell money completely undercuts their civil claims against Schneider that he was running a shakedown scheme. First a very, very condensed and incomplete summary: The short version is that Mansell asked a local BAM franchise to do consignment sales of his fathers vast Lego collection, and somewhere in the middle of everything, BAM corporate kicked out the previous owners of that franchise (Chrystal Law Gorman & Ben Gorman), promised that they were taking control over the consignment deal, and then insisted that they legally now owned the remaining Mansell Lego sets and that the consignment thing wasnt real or wasnt allowed. There was a lot more nonsense as well, involving multiple police departments doing shady shit. But a fairly thorough accounting by the investigative YouTuber known as Coffeezilla suggested (yet again) that just about everyone here bears some of the blame. It showed it was quite likely that BAM corporate and the two friends they handed the franchise to (Josh Johnson & Brandon Best) had misled everyone regarding which of Mansells Lego sets were still in their possession. But also that the Gormans likely owed the Mansells money for sets that had already sold. The Gormans have suggested that they couldnt pay Mansell what was owed because the receipts were taken over by Johnson/Best/BAM corporate. Oh, and also, the Lego sets in question probably werent worth quite as much as everyone made them out to be. Also, as we detailed, everyone started suing everyone. The Gormans sued BAM corporate. BAM sued everyone, alleging RICO. Theres also a criminal case against Reckless Ben, whose main crime seems to be the somewhat bumbling way he actually brought attention to all of this (though bumbling around to bring attention to injustices seems to be his entire oeuvre). The news from earlier this week is that BAM corporate has settled with the Mansells. This is a good step, and one that should have happened ages ago. We found it bizarre that BAM corporates CEO Ammon McNeff kept claiming he wanted to make Mansell whole at the very same time he filed a RICO lawsuit against Mansell. Eventually settling was always the most sensible move. That it took this long — while doing nothing but damage to the Bricks & Minifigs brand — is pretty much entirely on McNeffs stubbornness, and thinking he could talk his way out of the hole he had dug previously. The details here matter though: Bricks & Minifigs (BAM) today announced that it has reached a comprehensive and amicable resolution with the Mansell family regarding the dispute surrounding a LEGO Star Wars collection originally consigned to a former franchise owner of the Bricks & Minifigs Salem/Keizer, Oregon store. The agreement resolves the disputes between BAM, its leadership and the Mansell family and follows an extensive legal and mediation process in which the parties exchanged records and information that provided a more complete understanding of the circumstances surrounding the original consignment arrangement. Again, all of this could have (and really should have) been sorted out as soon as BAM took over the franchise. The fact that they refused to do so and made a bunch of false and misleading claims, and then stuck to their guns when called on it, means the damage to BAMs brand is entirely self-inflicted. But the larger mess continues. First, part of the agreement is that Mansell has apparently transferred any claims he has for his sets to BAM corporate: As part of the resolution, the Mansell family has been made whole by BAM for the losses associated with their consignment arrangement with the former franchise store owner, including an assignment to BAM of Mansell’s claims arising from the original consignment contract, and the Mansells have agreed to provide relevant records should BAM elect to pursue those claims against those responsible. So this is pretty clearly signaling that BAM intends to use those claims against the Gormans, who are the other party to the original consignment contract. The Gormans own lawsuit against BAM was recently upgraded to include RICO claims of their own — so now everyone in this dispute is accusing everyone else of racketeering. But, as is almost always the case, the RICO claims seem incredibly weak. As much as people want it to be RICO, its almost certainly not RICO, even if BAM did do other sketchy things. But now BAM can (in theory) use Mansells claims against the Gormans as part of any counterclaim they may file. There is a separate issue that I havent seen much coverage of, which is that in some of the Reckless Ben videos, it was clearly stated that Bryan had sold off his interest in these claims to Ben, for the sake of Ben trying to use his ownership of the claims in some of his many stunts to try to get the money back. Its possible that Ben returned the claims to Bryan, but if thats not the case, its not clear if Bryan has any claims to give to BAM. I imagine that if the case moves forward, time will be spent determining who actually holds what claims. The bigger issue, though, is that BAM still has its silly RICO case going against Schneider. Theres a decent chance that will settle as well (most lawsuits end in settlement, because its too expensive and too wasteful not to have them end that way). But if BAM were actually serious about fixing its very tarnished reputation, it should have tried to settle all these cases in one shot. Instead, it looks like they paid the Mansells (though the amount remains secret) and are dropping Bryan from their case. But their legal fights with the Gormans and Ben Schneider remain. But the settlement alone also undermines their case against Schneider. After all, BAM has insisted they wanted to pay Mansell what they owed all along, but theres documentation showing otherwise, including an email to Mansell saying that Best and Johnson have no legal obligation to return any of the LEGO product and We consider this matter closed and will not be returning any LEGO products to you. Yet, now they have agreed to pay Mansell. And the only thing that changed in the interim was the widespread negative attention BAM got via Schneider. So its a bit rich for them to still be claiming that Schneiders actions were a conspiracy to shake down BAM: As evidenced in the 5/21/26 YouTube Video and Publications, beginning in early 2025 and continuing to the date hereof (i.e., over a substantial period of time) and with the direct and indirect support and encouragement of Bryan, Chrystal and Benjamin, Schneider and the Schneider Group began targeting the Baker Salem store, and BAM, to unlawfully shake them down and extort monies demanded. Now theyre admitting directly that they did, in fact, owe Mansell money, which they have now paid off. And which they absolutely said they werent going to do until Schneider drove attention to the whole thing. So its good that Mansell has been paid and dropped from the lawsuit. But it seems unlikely that Bricks & Minifigs reputation gets much better so long as its still engaged in this questionable lawsuit against Schneider. Hopefully the settling of the Mansell portion means that theyre equally willing to and in the process of working out a deal with Schneider as well. BAMs press release does note that separate mediation efforts between BAM and Ben Schneider regarding related pending matters remains ongoing which is both expected and good. But if youre already at the table with him, and youve now conceded that you did, in fact, own Mansell money for his sets, what exactly is there left to be negotiating with Schneider about? Youve already admitted that the main shake down claims are largely bogus, because you did, in fact, owe Mansell money that you later denied. Assuming they do eventually settle, for transparencys sake, it would be better if the terms of such a deal were public, rather than kept under wraps like the Mansell settlement.

[Category: bricks & minifigs, bricks and minifigs, ammon mcneff, ben schneider, bryan mansell, chrystal law, consignment, legos]

— Ctrl-Alt-Speech: School Of Hard Blocks

 

at 8/21/26 2:04pm

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on Patreon. In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by Chris Messina, inventor of the #hashtag in social media, who has worked on internet and social media efforts for decades. Together they discuss: Oakland Unified Announces New Cell Phone Policy Now in Effect; Policy is Based on New State Law Requiring Cell Phone-Free School Days (Oakland Unified School District) In conversation with Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness’ (Left to Their Own Devices) French court blocks social media ban for under 15s (Politico) Whistleblower Arturo Béjar leads testimony in landmark trial against Meta (NPR) Discord halts livestreams in Brazil after watchdog cites child safety failures (ABC News) And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover: AI Companion Legislation in the United States (Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law) In China, treatment for mental-health problems is a luxury (The Economist) I Don’t Trust A.I. But I Told it Everything (NY Times) Our fun links this week include Berd, the open source anthropomorphic agent management tool from Jack Dorsey and Block, and Dopamine Shop, Fake Eats, and other places to shop without shopping. If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

[Category: 1, discord, meta, ai, artificial intelligence, child safety, china, content moderation, social media, trust and safety]

— Zero Knowledge Proofs Aren’t Age Verification Silver Bullets

 

at 8/21/26 12:11pm

Age verification (laws and regulations requiring platforms and websites to assure or estimate that a user seeking to use an online service is of a certain age) is everywhere. At the time of writing, about half the states in the US have some internet age verification law in place, and dangerous proposals, from the KIDS Act to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), have been advancing at the federal level. European Union member states are moving toward having age verification in a centralized app by the end of this year. Australia famously now has one extremely broad restriction in place. Most age verification laws tend to fail at their primary goal of barring kids from being online or from entering only specially designated zones, not to mention they pose a significant threat to everyone’s privacy. Some proponents of these age-based internet restrictions think theyve found the silver bullet: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). We wrote about ZKP’s when they were first rolled out in the age verification context last year. However, more recent examples show our concerns weren’t just conjecture; ZKP-focused AV schemes are gameable, hackable, and not the cure-all some may claim. ZKPs in Age Verification Would Only Centralize Power and Create More Harms Before we jump into how these systems work, it must be said: creating a single point of failure for internet access contradicts the very idea of a free and open internet.  The mechanisms underlying ZKPs pose an existential threat to everyone’s digital rights, not just kids. The idea behind ZKPs is that you are issued a “token” that vouches for your age every time you log in, creating a constant link back to the entity that verified you. The issuer of the tokens these AV schemes rely on could track every time that credential is used, creating a dangerous trail of metadata on any user they wanted to target. The issuer itself could be pressured by authoritarian governments to remove a users access to a service, essentially removing that person’s access to the internet entirely. Without oversight of who has authority to implement and operate these systems, this approach centralizes critical internet infrastructure in the hands of very few actors.  How ZKPs Work ZKPs are mathematically impressive cryptographic tools—but they weren’t developed with age verification in mind. Essentially, they let a computer quickly attest to the validity of a given question asked by another computer without divulging any underlying private data.  Computer A (such as the device operated by a person trying to access a website) is able to prove to Computer B (such as the server for the website that person is trying to access) that something is true without actually sharing the contents of that information itself. Computer A locks in a commitment to the information it needs to convey. Computer B, which wants to verify that information, generates mathematical challenges that can be answered correctly only if the information is true. Traditionally, this happens over many different “challenges until there is no room for doubt that Computer A’s commitment is true. Since that kind of lengthy back-and-forth process would drastically slow things down over the internet, theres a shortened version of this exchange thats non-interactive.” In that case, the ZKP is verified instantly. The answer itself is hashed (mathematically converted into a fixed, shorter string of characters), and the resulting hash is theoretically unpredictable and tamper-resistant. This shortened version of the ZKP exchange is called zk-SNARK, which is the current preferred method for age verification. In the ideal scenario, this means that ZKP’s are able to attest to a person’s status as an adult or a child without actually giving away any other private information about that person. In other words, only one entity would collect that private information, typically on the user’s device, instead of every website or app that needs the user’s age attested to. Unfortunately, recent real-world testing of these systems prove that ZKP’s aren’t the silver bullet that proponents of AV laws were hoping for. EU’s AV Rollout Reveals How Broken It Is By the end of 2026, the 27 states within the European Union are expected to have infrastructure in place to do age verification within a mini-wallet app that will live inside the EUDI (European Digital Identity) Wallet. This is being met with plenty of warranted criticism from digital rights experts. The mini-wallet version is already being rolled out, with promises that the ZKPs are in working order. But recent insights show that the ZKP features arent yet turned on except for the closed demo/prototype build (not the version of the app people are using “out of the box”), which the vast majority of everyday users can’t access.  Worse still, a security researcher found they could bypass the apps system using a quickly built Chrome extension that tricked the app into repeatedly accepting the same over-18 token. It did so without ever asking for fresh verification.  Over 400 security researchers signed an open letter stating that age assurance checkpoints, even if implemented with privacy in mind, would cause more harm than good. A primary focus of their concern, which we share, is the fact that a centralized identity verification system creates a single point of failure that is extremely vulnerable to both cyberattack and authoritarian overreach. Once the mini-wallet version of this is fully integrated into the EUDI Wallet, it will replicate these same failures, perhaps more, but at a much larger scale. At that point, the failures will involve many more pieces of sensitive information that the EUDI Wallet contains: passports, drivers licenses, travel information, financial information, to name a few. ZKP’s Aren’t The Magic Bullet As we’ve said time and time again, no method of online age verification is privacy-protective, fully accurate, and capable of guaranteeing universal coverage without introducing severe security risks.  Lawmakers concerned about the privacy failures of age verification mandates must understand that ZKPs are not a magic bullet. They do not solve the age verification paradox; they simply push the burden of trust down the road, relying on technical ignorance and magical thinking about how the internet actually functions.   Mandatory online age verification of any kind is a dangerously flawed idea. Tell your lawmakers we said so. Republished from the EFFs Deeplinks blog.

[Category: 1, age verification, centralization, cryptography, tokens, zero knowledge proofs]

As of 8/26/26 11:45am. Last new 8/26/26 7:31am.