This stance: "we know it's the law, we can't do it, and we're deploying anyway," is all-too-common from tech companies, and one that governments should be swift and heavy-handed to correct.

#digitalpolitik

We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following 404 Media reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.

Update to the Pagliacci joke

Could anything be more American in 2026?

Surveillance vendors caught abusing access to telcos to track people's phone locations, researchers say | TechCrunch The Citizen Lab found two separate surveillance vendors abusing the backbone of cellular networks to spy on several victims across the world.

NEW: At least two surveillance vendors are believed to be abusing access to at least three telecommunication companies in an effort to tap people's location data on behalf of their government customers.

The phone companies include one in Israel, one in the U.K., and one in Jersey (Channel Island).

Just a brief slow clap to @davekarpf.bsky.social for closing with a “woe to” line in 2026 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The wildest part of articles like this (to me) is that they never consider that these tools don't have to "work" technologically in order to "work" as tools of oppression and fear.

Facial recognition and ICE databases are notoriously flawed, but still deployed and used to justify arrests.

#digitalpolitik

BALDWIN: Do you think NIH should fund less cancer research?

RFK Jr: No, they should fund more, & one of the few agencies that got a raise in the budget was NCI

B: That increase is less than $1m for an institute with a $7b budget. That's a .01% increase. It wouldn't even cover one additional grant

So disarming to remember what joyful, committed, connected public leadership looks like.

This Isn't Trading. It's Theft from Your Retirement. Someone keeps making perfectly-timed bets right before the President speaks. The victims are your pension, your 401(k), and the country I took an oath to defend.

Fifteen minutes before the President announced he was pausing strikes on Iran, somebody moved $500 million in oil futures. Somebody knew. Somebody told them. Or somebody is them.
New piece ↓
open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...

US Supreme Court Records and Briefs. Available for free. Digitized from thousands and thousands of Microfiche pages.

archive.org/details/us-s...

Americans seeing leadership willing to lead.

Yeah. "I disagree with the Court's legal analysis" is one thing, but "the Court isn't using legal analysis to decide cases" is another. The latter is no longer in the realm of law and should not be treated as if it is.

I agree - I think of it as an invasive species.

www.digitalpublic.io/ai-invasive-...

Procurement remains a rights-based workaround in digital transformation - whether it's police buying (historically protected) data from brokers, vendors side-stepping diligence by offering free/low-price/lock-in services, or just buying tools that change or infringe upon known legal protections.

Is that bad? Seems bad

A Forbes article about a father who killed eight children, with an embedded prediction widget inviting people to speculate on whether "Congress will pass new gun safety legislation before 31st December 2026"

ghoulish

Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):

NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2

Power without accountability: The Palantir manifesto The problems with our tech philosopher kings

New, from me: Take the Palantir manifesto seriously, if not literally.
It reveals that our tech philosopher kings want public money, but without public accountability. This creates a dilemma for governments unaligned with its techno-fascist vision. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...

A relational approach statistics production (now do use!)

Public involvement and engagement in official statistics: A toolkit for statistics producers Public involvement and engagement in official statistics: A toolkit for statistics producers

Public involvement and engagement in official statistics: a toolkit for statistics producers osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/guidance/pub...

👀

EU: The European Union will require sale of mobile phones with “user-replaceable and longer-lasting batteries” starting in 2027.

The regulation demands “availability of spare parts and manuals for 10 years to curb planned obsolescence”.

We often talk about the “quality” of a service like this as a technical or objective measure - but, by far, the more important thing is that a therapist is acting in your interests - something AI can’t know or do.

www.cigionline.org/articles/a-c...

More of this please

How India’s New Free Trade Agreement with the EU Limits AI Governance Shweta Kushe explains how the India–EU FTA limits proactive AI governance and widens the algorithmic accountability gap for India.

The India–EU Free Trade Agreement limits regulators’ ability to examine how powerful digital systems work, restricting oversight to after harm occurs and constraining meaningful accountability for high-risk algorithmic systems, writes Shweta Kushe.

Possibly the only thing he does “quietly”

I’m sorry but the Lego videos?

Well done