Even Without Internet Access, Prisoners Are Trying to Benefit From A.I.

Fascinating piece on the demands for and challenges of access to AI in American prisons.

The EU's Age Verification Fix Creates More Problems Than it Solves The European Commission's new age verification app has already drawn criticism from security researchers, reports Joana Soares.

The European Commission's new age verification app has already been found to have structural security flaws, reports Joana Soares. For critics, the tool is a symptom of a wider problem: EU policymakers are focused on who can access the internet, not on how platforms are built.

“I Have Lost Everything”: The Toll of Cities’ Homeless Sweeps Cities often take belongings — including important documents and irreplaceable mementos — when they conduct sweeps of homeless encampments. ProPublica gave notecards to people across the country so th...

We asked people who lived in homeless encampments that were cleared out in city “sweeps” to write about what object was the hardest for them to lose.

“They took my baby pictures and my moms obituaries,” a man in California wrote.

(Published Dec. 2024)

Peter Thiel is building a parallel justice system — Powered by AI - Coda Story His investment in Objection.ai points to a new model: private investigations, AI verdicts, and accountability mechanisms that operate outside democratic institutions.

Recommended reading from @nicdawes.bsky.social.

Cook out

I'll take the under.

Trump Library Saga Takes Dark Turn: Where Did Millions in Funding Go? Four huge media conglomerates forked over $63 million in “settlements” earmarked for Trump’s presidential library. Democrats are trying to track that money—and the latest developments don’t inspire co...

SCOOP --> Paramount, Meta, and X are refusing to say what happened to their huge contributions to Trump's presidential library after Sen Elizabeth Warren raised questions about its fund getting dissolved. Ds say tens of millions remain unaccounted for.

Details here:
newrepublic.com/article/2092...

Chef's kiss bsky.app/profile/esqu...

Quite the turn of events.

Every family dinner is officially on the ricotta.

the penne opticon

Orbán’s Hungary Defeat Shows Disinformation is Not a Political Magic Trick Counter-disinformation work should be supported continually, not to prevent certain election outcomes but to give voters the chance to make an informed choice.

Hungary’s April election ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year run. Zsófia Fülöp & Szilárd Teczár write that disinformation isn’t a magic trick that reliably sways voters. The takeaway is to dial down election-only focus and support information integrity year-round.

Chicago's Amusement Tax Asks Big Tech to Start Paying Its Fair Share Jack Bandy examines Chicago’s social media tax and how Big Tech is seeking to overturn the city's effort.

Big Tech has long claimed to be “neutral infrastructure,” not a publisher with a viewpoint argues Jack Bandy. Now, facing Chicago’s social media tax, it’s invoking press freedom to avoid paying its fair share.

Why Palantir's ImmigrationOS Endangers Democracy and the Rule of Law A conversation with Fordham Law School's Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler, authors of a new law review article, "Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries."

Palantir's ImmigrationOS endangers democracy and the rule of law, according to a new law review paper from Fordham Law School’s Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler. In this week’s Tech Policy Press podcast, they break down the risks of AI-powered surveillance in immigration enforcement.

How the United States Used Tariff Deals to Weaken Tech Regulation Around the World At least ten countries signed off on deals or frameworks that benefit American tech companies in 2025, according to an investigation led by Agência Pública.

The Trump administration used tariff threats to pressure countries into gutting their own tech regulations. From Indonesia to Brazil, Big Tech's wish list became US trade policy, according to an investigation led by Agência Pública as part of the series The Invisible Hand of Big Tech.

French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over allegations of abuse images, deepfakes on X Elon Musk has been summoned to Paris as part of an investigation into alleged misconduct on the social media platform X

"Elon Musk has been summoned to Paris on Monday, where investigators are looking into allegations of misconduct related to the social media platform X, including the spread of child sexual abuse material and deepfake content... It remains unclear whether Musk and Yaccarino will travel to Paris."

With his penchant for suits, ties and sweater vests, Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh doesn’t share the rumpled look of many of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs he calls friends. But they still count him as one of their own. “You wouldn’t be hanging out with us if you were as normal as you claim to be,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp told Warsh on a podcast in 2022. If confirmed by the Senate, Warsh wouldn’t just be the wealthiest Fed chair in history, he would also be the most tech-savvy and the closest to the tech-bro community to ever sit in the office. Warsh’s connection to Karp and other titans of Silicon Valley such as reclusive PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen go back decades — to college at Stanford and to investments made alongside some of them beginning soon after Warsh resigned as a Fed governor in 2011.

Kevin Warsh ran a tech-focused VC fund for 15 years and counts Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Alex Karp among his friends. No wonder he's an AI evangelist.

@steveliesman.bsky.social and I wrote on what it would mean to have the first tech bro Fed chair. www.cnbc.com/2026/04/20/f...

Opinion | Live Nation. Amazon. Americans Are Standing Up to Corporate Lawbreaking.

"The jury box is one of the most direct channels through which ordinary people can hold concentrated power accountable. Corporations may choose to behave differently, knowing that everyday citizens, rather than specialized elites, may judge their conduct." - Lina Khan and Doha Mekki

Why Palantir's ImmigrationOS Endangers Democracy and the Rule of Law A conversation with Fordham Law School's Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler, authors of a new law review article, "Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries."

Palantir's ImmigrationOS endangers democracy and the rule of law, according to a new law review paper from Fordham Law School’s Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler. In this week’s podcast, they break down the risks of AI-powered surveillance in immigration enforcement.

Judge sides with creators of banned ICE trackers who allege DHS and DOJ violated their First Amendment rights The Trump administration coerced platforms into removing ICE monitoring projects such as ICE Sightings - Chicagoland and the Eyes Up app, the lawsuit alleges.

"A judge has granted the makers of the 'ICE Sightings - Chicagoland' Facebook group and the Eyes Up app a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump administration from coercing platforms to take these projects down."

I never had a favorite volleyball player before today

Chart from Mother Jones showing the net worth of seven billionaires from 2020 to 2026. A large chart at the top tracks Elon Musk, whose wealth climbs from near $0 in 2020 to roughly $220 billion by 2022, dips slightly through 2024, then surges sharply to $830 billion in 2026. Six smaller charts below show the same 2020–2026 span with more modest upward trends: Larry Page ($249 billion), Sergey Brin ($230 billion), Jeff Bezos ($223 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($218 billion), Larry Ellison ($193 billion), and Jensen Huang ($156 billion). All charts use red shaded area graphs.

"Since 2020, the net worths of America’s tech moguls have skyrocketed. But in the race to the first trillion, there’s one clear leader." www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Honored and excited to have joined @justinhendrix.bsky.social’s podcast for @techpolicypress.bsky.social to discuss my new paper with @samadler.bsky.social about the way the new privatized automated immigration apparatus threatens core rule of law values and sidelines the democratic process.

It was a pleasure to discuss Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries w/ @justinhendrix.bsky.social. If you want to keep abreast with these issues, make sure to follow @sambiddle.bsky.social, @josephcox.bsky.social, @jmbooyah.bsky.social, @georgetownprivacy.bsky.social & @techpolicypress.bsky.social.

Their new paper is recommended reading: "Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries," forthcoming in BYU Law Review. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Why Palantir's ImmigrationOS Endangers Democracy and the Rule of Law A conversation with Fordham Law School's Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler, authors of a new law review article, "Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries."

Palantir's ImmigrationOS endangers democracy and the rule of law, according to a new law review paper from Fordham Law School’s Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler. In this week’s podcast, they break down the risks of AI-powered surveillance in immigration enforcement.

Rümeysa Öztürk, Tufts University grad arrested by ICE agents last year, returns to Turkey - The Boston Globe The government and Öztürk’s legal team have jointly moved to dismiss her immigration proceedings.

“That Rümeysa felt she had to return to Turkey to escape the shadow of state violence says everything you need to know about the state of free speech and academic freedom in this country,” said Ramya Krishnan, an attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/17/m...

Widow's Plans for Her Final Years Upended as Proposed Data Center Leads to 28 Evictions in One Neighborhood (Exclusive) Residents of Meadowland Village Mobile Home Park in Kentucky, many of them elderly, disabled, retired, or on fixed incomes, are opening up to PEOPLE about being told they had roughly 90 days to vacate...

"Rural Kentucky residents are unexpectedly facing homelessness and financial hardship after their mobile home park was sold for a proposed 2,000-acre data center."

Anthropic Code Crisis Creates Copyright Contradiction For publishers, authors, and other creators, the schadenfreude might feel well-earned, writes James Ball. But is it justified?

Anthropic has been scrambling to prevent unauthorised copies of its code circulating online being used to improve rivals' AI models.

That's quite the irony, given its own use of pirated books to train its own early models. I dug into it for @techpolicypress.bsky.social: