Distributions and Operating Systems

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ AAEON Opens Preorders for UP Squared Pro 710H Edge Mini PC

    AAEON recently unveiled the UP Squared Pro 710H Edge, a mini PC featuring the Hailo-8 edge AI processor and a range of Intel processors, including the Intel Atom x7000 RE Series, Intel Processor N Series, and Intel Core i3-N305. This device is designed to enhance edge computing with its robust processing power and advanced AI capabilities.

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ Teaching a generation of AI innovators in Malaysia with Experience AI

    Experience AI marks an exciting start to integrating AI education within Malaysia, for both students and teachers.

Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ 2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: The Winners Are In

  Home automation is huge right now in consumer electronics, but despite the wide availability of products on the market, hackers and makers are still spinning up their own solutions. It could be because their situations are unique enough that commercial offerings wouldn’t cut it, or perhaps they know how cheaply many automation tasks can be implemented with today’s microcontrollers. Still others go the DIY route because they’re worried about the privacy implications of pushing such a system into the cloud.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ FDA Finally Moves to Scrutinize Specialized Health Screenings

    The Food and Drug Administration issued a rule on Monday that brings new scrutiny to a vast array of critical lab tests, including some popular prenatal genetic screenings, that reach patients without any federal agency checking to ensure they work the way their makers claim.

    “This is a significant step forward,” said Peter Lurie, president and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner. These tests have “always been one of the remaining gaping holes in the FDA regulatory structure. And it’s great to see that the agency has taken concrete steps to close it.”

  • Pro Publica ☛ Philips Agrees to Pay $1 Billion to Settle Breathing Machine Lawsuits

    After years of legal battles, Philips has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle lawsuits waged by thousands of people who say they were injured by breathing machines capable of releasing toxic particles and fumes into their noses, mouths and lungs.

    The proposed settlement unveiled Monday between the global manufacturer and plaintiffs’ lawyers will effectively end more than 700 lawsuits filed after the 2021 recall of millions of the company’s widely used sleep apnea devices and ventilators.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • La Quadature Du Net ☛ Surveillance and Hadopi: EU Court buries online anonymity a little further

      In its 30 April 2024 ruling, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) shared its assessment of the legality of Hadopi’s massive surveillance system. The ruling is disappointing. The CJEU has considerably watered down its previous case law, with impacts beyond the Hadopi case. With this new ruling, access to IP addresses is no longer considered a serious interference with fundamental rights by default. As a result, the Court allows the possibility of mass surveillance of the Internet.

• Defence/Aggression

  • JURIST ☛ EU releases data revealing that nearly a quarter of first-time asylum applicants in 2023 were minors

    The European Commission released statistics on first-time asylum applicants for 2023 on Monday showing that minors (individuals under 18 years old) constituted 24.3 percent of these applicants, excluding data from France, Poland, and Cyprus.

  • The Nation ☛ Trump Is the Ultimate Gang Leader

    Trump and those backing him hope to disable enough of the political infrastructure to create the space for non-state actors to do his work for him.

  • New York Times ☛ Mali Claims Death of Islamic State Terrorist Who Helped Lead Ambush in Niger

    The U.S. State Department had put a $5 million bounty on the head of the commander, Abu Huzeifa — a member of an affiliate of the Islamic State — after his participation in an attack in Tongo Tongo, Niger, on American Green Berets and their Nigerien comrades.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Islamic State-Central versus Islamic State-Khurasan

    On the contrary, the IS-Khurasan enjoys wider range to plot and kill, since they see Shia as the worst apostates, allowing themselves to slaughter as many as they are willing to slay. Meanwhile the IS-K’s battle is not all about seizing territory, rather the group is interested in taking the battle wherever it may go. Wherever there is a secular government and even religious governments not aligned with Salafist ideology, therefore that has taken them against the Taliban, which they think are a bunch of horses.

  • VOA News ☛ Malian forces kill Islamic State commander

    The killing comes several weeks after Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger formed a joint force to fight the insurgent groups. The three West African nations are battling terror threats and attacks by groups affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

    Experts say the killing of a terror group leader rarely changes the attacks against civilians and security forces.

  • The Register UK ☛ World leaders call for ban on 'killer robots,' AI weapons

    "Autonomous weapons systems will soon fill the world's battlefields. We already see this with AI enabled drones and AI based target selection,” he said. You can watch the full session below.

    Schallenberg’s comments come just weeks after the US Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) detailed efforts to put AI in control of tanks and even an F-16 fighter jet. As we've previously reported, efforts to expand the autonomy of weapons platforms has been under way for years.

  • El País ☛ Is the US really going to ban TikTok?

    The United States has sent a message to TikTok: either sell the company or shut down. The threat is now official. ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, has nine months to decide what to do. Here are the main questions about what could happen.

  • Security Week ☛ How TikTok Grew From a Fun App for Teens Into a Potential National Security Threat

    Starting in 2017, when the Chinese social video app merged with its competitor Musical.ly, TikTok has grown from a niche teen app into a global trendsetter. While, of course, also emerging as a potential national security threat, according to U.S. officials.

    On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to sell to a U.S. owner within a year or to shut down. It’s not clear whether that law will survive an expected legal challenge or that ByteDance would agree to sell.

    Here’s how TikTok came to this juncture: [...]

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • AntiWar ☛ ‘Ukraine Today Is Not a Democracy’: An Interview with Former Ambassador Jack Matlock

      Jack F. Matlock, Jr. served from 1987 until 1991 as the US ambassador in the Soviet Union and from 1981 until 1983 in Czechoslovakia. Es served in the National Security Council under President Reagan and participated in several arms control summits, including in Reykjavik in 1986.

    • AntiWar ☛ Despite Media Cheerleading, $61 Billion Won’t Beat Russia

      The United States continues to be the world’s banker for war. Last week, the U.S. invested $95 billion more in war. $61 billion of that is headed to Ukraine.

    • France24 ☛ Grandad’s army: Ukraine’s over-60s unit fighting Russia for free

      Oleksandr Taran, 68, who goes by the callsign "Grandpa", leads a volunteer Ukrainian unit of men aged 60 and above and are therefore considered too old for the army. At a time when Kyiv is lowering the draft age as enthusiasm for signing up is waning after two years of war, these men are fighting the invading Russian forces for free.

    • LRT ☛ Visible but not influential? 20 years of Baltic states in the EU

      Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, along with seven other countries, joined the EU on this day in 2004. Initially underdogs, now the Balts feel their voice is heard much louder in Brussels, especially when it comes to Ukraine policies, but does it signify the EU’s centre of gravity moving eastward?

    • RFA ☛ Did a Ukrainian-American congresswoman oppose Ukraine support?

      Verdict: Misleading

    • RFERL ☛ Three Killed By Russian Missile Strike In Odesa

      Three civilians were killed in a Russian missile strike against the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa overnight on May 1, local authorities said. Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration, said three others were injured in the attack, which damaged civilian infrastructure. Russia has repeatedly attacked Odesa in recent days, including an April 29 attack using an Iskandr missile. Five civilians died in that attack, officials said, and 23 were injured.

    • RFERL ☛ Kyiv Dismantles Monument Honoring Centuries-Old Russian-Ukrainian Agreement

      Kyiv authorities on April 30 started dismantling a monument honoring the Pereyaslav Agreement signed in 1654 at talks organized for the Ukrainian Cossack state’s ceremonial pledge of alliance to the Russian tsar.

    • RFERL ☛ 5 Russians Suspected Of Arson Attack On Helicopter Arrested

      A Moscow court on April 30 ordered pretrial detention for at least two months for five young people suspected of an arson attack on a Ka-32 helicopter in the Russian capital's outskirts.

    • RFERL ☛ Austin Calls On Countries That Have Patriot Air Defense Systems To Transfer Them To Ukraine

      U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on April 30 appealed to the partners of the United States to transfer Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, which has repeatedly requested more of the air defense systems to help protect Ukrainian cities and infrastructure from Russian attacks.

    • RFERL ☛ 2 Killed In Russian Strike On Ukraine's Kharkiv

      Two people were killed and six wounded in a Russian strike on Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, early on April 30, regional head Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram as an air-raid alert was announced for most of Ukraine.

    • New York Times ☛ Deadly Russian Strikes Hit Civilian Center and Other Targets in Odesa

      Ukraine accused Russia of using a cluster weapon in a civilian area on Monday, killing five people. A strike on Wednesday killed three others, an official said.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘These people are trapped’: How Ukrainian refugees are ending up homeless in Russia — Meduza

    • LRT ☛ Russia’s GPS interference could lead to aviation disaster, Baltic FMs warn

      After two Finnair aircraft were forced to turn around due to interference with GPS signals from Russia, the Baltic foreign ministers warned this could lead to an aviation disaster.

    • RFERL ☛ Estonia Says Russia Violating International Rules With GPS Interference

      Estonia accused Russia of violating international airspace regulations by interfering with GPS signals.

    • RFERL ☛ Some 400 Naturalized Russians Stripped Of Citizenship Under New Law

      Interior Ministry officials are quoted as saying on April 30 that 398 naturalized Russian citizens had been stripped of their passports after Russia adopted a law in October that allows for the move against those convicted of certain crimes.

    • New York Times ☛ Georgia Bill Targeting ‘Foreign Interests’ Draws Protests

      Opponents of the measure, which resembles a Russian law that Moscow has used to crack down on dissidents, say it could undermine efforts for Georgia to join the European Union.

    • New York Times ☛ Ex-N.S.A. Employee Who Tried to Sell U.S. Secrets to Russia Gets 22 Years

      The Colorado man, who held a top security clearance, told an undercover F.B.I. employee posing as a Russian agent that he needed to pay nearly $84,000 in student loan and credit card debt.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Reason ☛ Los Angeles Undermines Freedom of Information In Suit Over Police Photos

    In 2022, the City of Los Angeles Office of the City Attorney settled a public records lawsuit filed by Ben Camacho, a local journalist, under the California Public Records Act. That law grants members of the public access to government records upon request. Camacho had requested headshots of all the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) officers. He was investigating the LAPD after officers allegedly refused to identify themselves to the public in many instances.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Australian Bonza Airlines ends

      Australia is a weird market for aviation. On the one hand, we have a vast country that even high-speed train advocates like me have to concede wouldn’t work for most city or town pairs. It’s significantly emptier than Europe, mainland China, or North America, so routes are thin and far apart. But while we have a tiny population, we also have the Melbourne-Sydney corridor, one of the most travelled and profitable routes in the world.

    • ABC ☛ Bonza airline's administrator Hall Chadwick says fleet grounded for coming days

      Bonza's aircraft fleet is grounded until at least Friday as administrators discuss the future of the embattled airline and about 150 employees.

      The announcement comes one day after the regional carrier, based out of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, went into voluntary administration and appointed an external administrator.

    • Vox ☛ Why are cars in the US so big? The policies that ruined American cars, explained.

      Car bloat also threatens the planet. Because heavier vehicles require more energy to move, they tend to gulp rather than sip the gasoline or electricity that powers them, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Extra weight also accelerates the erosion of roadways and tires, straining highway maintenance budgets and releasing microplastics that damage ecosystems.

      What lies behind this shift? Some Americans prefer bigger cars, especially when gas prices are low, for their ample storage space, ability to see over other vehicles on the road, and perceived safety benefits (more on that later). But shifting consumer demands tell only part of the story.

      For half a century, a litany of federal policies has favored large SUVs and trucks, pushing automakers and American buyers toward larger models. Instead of counteracting car bloat through regulation, policymakers have subtly encouraged it. That has been a boon for car companies, but a disaster for everyone else.

    • H2 View ☛ EU awards €720m in renewable hydrogen subsidies to seven projects at less than €0.5/kg | Policy | H2 View

      The European Hydrogen Bank (EHB) has awarded seven renewable hydrogen projects with almost €720m ($772m) in subsidies with projects set to gain less than €0.5/kg of hydrogen.

    • International Business Times ☛ Elon Sorry For Calling Asana CEO 'R*tard': 'I Meant He's a Pompous *diot With Head Up His A*s'

      In a social media post on Wednesday, Moskovitz acknowledged the seriousness of his accusations against Tesla. Moskovitz said he understands this might sound extreme to those unfamiliar with Tesla's recent developments, further noting the dire situation. "This is Enron now, folks," he wrote.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Security Week ☛ Tech CEOs Altman, Nadella, Pichai and Others Join Government AI Safety Board Led by DHS’ Mayorkas

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the new board Friday which includes key corporate leaders in AI development such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Australia to Police Internet Porn, Spend $600 Million on Domestic Violence Victims

    A A$6.5 million pilot will test ways to stop children accessing inappropriate content online with the results informing new rules for internet companies being developed by the online safety regulator.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ US spy agencies to share intelligence on critical infrastructure in policy revamp

    “The threat environment has changed significantly since PPD-21 was issued in 2013, shifting from counter-terrorism to strategic competition, advances in technology like artificial intelligence and malicious cyber activity from nation-state actors,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said during the press call.

  • CPJ ☛ Cuban journalist questioned about social media posts, jailed  

    On April 26, Tan was arrested in the Cuban capital of Havana and has since been detained in the Villa Marista prison, according to several media reports. The journalist confirmed his arrest and detention in a phone call to local activist Yamilka Lafita, according to La Hora de Cuba, an independent media outlet in Tan’s hometown of Camagüey.

  • CPJ ☛ Iraqi Kurdish journalist Guhdar Zebari is free from prison, but not from threats

    Zebari is one the so-called “Badinan prisoners” – a group of journalists and activists from the ethnic Badinani group who were arrested in the wake of 2020 anti-government protests and tried in court processes that observers called flawed and politically motivated. Two of these journalists, Sherwan Sherwani and Qaraman Shukri, are still in prison. Together, they have become icons of the freedom of expression movement in Iraqi Kurdistan after their imprisonment sparked international outrage.

    In an interview with CPJ after his release, Zebari described the charges he faced, his experience in detention, and the state of press freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan.

  • Daniel Pocock ☛ Daniel Pocock, Nomination for Ireland, Midlands-North-West, European Parliament Elections 2024

    The returning officer has published my nomination to represent the district of Midlands-North-West, Ireland in the European Parliament.

    Polling day in Ireland is Friday, 7 June 2024.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • JURIST ☛ EU starts assessment of Meta for potential violations of Digital Services Act

      The European Commission began investigating Tuesday whether Meta, the provider of Facebook and Instagram, violated the Digital Services Act (DSA). The goal of the investigation is to prevent disturbances to voting in the June European elections.

      In the investigation, the Commission will focus on the four areas. The first is non-compliance with DSA obligations by providing deceptive advertisements and disinformation. Secondly, the Commission raised concerns about the transparency of political content involving the obligations to provide relief for users. The third assessment regards the availability of civic discourse and its election-monitoring system for the coming European elections. Finally, the mechanism Meta uses to flag illegal content is problematic because the current system is not deemed user-friendly. All in all, the main issues are not only the defect of consumer protection but also the interference with fair electoral procedures, especially with the first three suspects.

    • [Old] The Washington Post ☛ Opinion | The danger of Russian disinformation

      Partly because the U.S. media market is so vast, there is still little understanding of how disinformation campaigns work here either. There is certainly no public analytical database of what Russia says, when and where. Nobody — even in the Western intelligence community — compiles transcripts. Nor do we know which elements of the Russian message are effective, who believes them and why. It’s high time we learned, because other countries, notably China, are beginning to use some of the same techniques. Fifteen years ago, the free press seemed unchallengeable; 15 years from now, we may find ourselves, as Ukraine did two years ago, the targets of disinformation campaigns we are unprepared to fight.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ EU opens probe into Meta over response to disinformation on Facebook and Instagram

      The focus is on whether the company may have run afoul of DSA requirements that pertain to the handling of social media disinformation. The probe also covers a number of other areas. One focus for EU officials will be the question of whether Meta shares adequate information about election-related posts on its platforms, while the company’s content recommendation algorithms are set to draw scrutiny as well.

    • [Old] NIH ☛ Interdisciplinary Lessons Learned While Researching Fake News

      Pomerantsev and Weiss (2014) identified five goals of disinformation, of which fake news is a subset, these goals include paralysis, demoralization, confusion, blackmail, and subversion. Disinformation campaigns will seek any and all of these goals each of the five goals represents a strategy to use against a targeted group of people. For example, credible news stories that report opposite stories on the same event can, if both are professionally done, confuse a person who is new to the story and environment, rather than simply sway the person to one side or another.

    • The Hill ☛ Meta faces EU probe over spread of political disinformation 

      The probe into the California-based parent company of Facebook and Instagram will focus on how some of Meta’s policies related to political and election content may be in violation of the EU’s Digital Services Act, a wide-ranging set of tech regulations that went into effect in February.

      Part of the inquiry will focus on Meta’s “deceptive advertisements and disinformation,” which could pose risks to consumers and civic discourse, the commission said in the announcement.

    • New York Times ☛ Meta Faces EU Investigation Over Election Disinformation

      Meta, the American tech giant, is being investigated by European Union regulators for the spread of disinformation on its platforms Facebook and Instagram, poor oversight of deceptive advertisements and potential failure to protect the integrity of elections.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ EU probes Facebook, Instagram over election disinformation

      EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said the probe sought "to make sure that effective actions are taken in particular to prevent that Instagram's and Facebook's vulnerabilities are exploited by foreign interference."

      "We suspect that Meta's moderation is insufficient, that it lacks transparency of advertisements and content moderation procedures," commission executive vice president Margrethe Vestager said.

      The Meta platforms' reach across the 450-million-strong European Union has focused the Commission's attention as it seeks to battle Russian propaganda.

    • The Hindu ☛ Amit Shah: Share information on disseminator of fake video, will take action

      Union Home Minister Amit Shah has appealed for information about people who are disseminating the doctored video of his April 23 speech regarding reservations.

    • India Times ☛ EU to probe Meta over handling of Russian disinformation: report

      European Union regulators are expected to open a probe into Meta Platforms over concerns that the company is failing to do enough to counter disinformation from Russia and other countries, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

      Regulators suspect that Meta's content moderation does not go far enough to stop the dissemination of political advertising that risks undermining the electoral process, the report said, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.

    • VOA News ☛ Russia targets South Africa with disinformation to discredit US aid to Ukraine

      In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Russian Embassy in South Africa omitted the war context and Russia’s own record, cherry-picking from the report and misleadingly tying Ukraine’s issues to the military aid the U.S. is providing Kyiv.

    • NPR ☛ How do you counter misinformation? Critical thinking is step one

      There was, however, just one issue with these audio clips: They were completely fake.

      The International Press Institute has called this episode in Slovakia the first time that AI deepfakes — fake audio clips, images, or videos generated by artificial intelligence — have played a prominent role in a national election. While it's unclear whether these bogus audio clips were decisive in Slovakia's electoral contest, the fact is Šimečka's party lost the election, and a pro-Kremlin populist now leads Slovakia.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • 404 Media ☛ Russia Clones Wikipedia, Censors It, Bans Original

    Russia has replaced Wikipedia with a state-sponsored encyclopedia that is a clone of the original Russian Wikipedia but which conveniently has been edited to omit things that could cast the Russian government in poor light. Real Russian Wikipedia editors used to refer to the real Wikipedia as Ruwiki; the new one is called Ruviki, has “ruwiki” in its url, and has copied all Russian-language Wikipedia articles and strictly edited them to comply with Russian laws.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Who are the UK national newspaper editors? Full list for 2024

    Press Gazette has put together a round-up of the UK’s national newspaper editors as they stand (in no particular order). We will keep this list updated.

  • Reason ☛ Journalism Is Not a Crime, Even When It Offends the Government

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned in London for five years, while Texas journalist Priscilla Villarreal was only briefly detained at the Webb County Jail. But both were arrested for publishing information that government officials wanted to conceal.

    Assange and Villarreal argue that criminalizing such conduct violates the First Amendment. In both cases, the merits of that claim have been obscured by the constitutionally irrelevant question of who qualifies as a "real" journalist.

  • VOA News ☛ Biden calls on Putin to release journalists Gershkovich, Kurmasheva jailed in Russia

    “Journalism is clearly not a crime,” Biden said. “Putin should release Evan and Alsu immediately.”

    Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. Earlier this month, his pretrial detention was re-extended until late June.

  • RTL ☛ Freedom of speech concerns: Abu Dhabi-backed group ends Telegraph takeover bid

    An Abu Dhabi-backed group planning to take over Britain's Telegraph Media Group (TMG) said Tuesday it will withdraw and sell on the business after the UK government moved to block the deal.

    RedBird IMI, a joint venture between US firm RedBird Capital and Abu Dhabi's International Media Investments, struck a £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) deal with TMG's previous owners, the Barclay family, in November.

    The agreement, which has faced opposition over its potential impact on freedom of speech given Abu Dhabi's press censorship record, saw RedBird IMI pay off bank debts in exchange for control of the media group.

  • VOA News ☛ Renowned Peruvian investigative reporter battles criminalized smear campaign, cancer

    In an illustrious career, Gustavo Gorriti has endured death threats from drug traffickers, survived Peru's harrowing Shining Path insurgency and a kidnapping by silencer-toting military intelligence agents during a 1992 presidential power grab.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Rolling Stone ☛ FKA Twigs Made Deepfake AI of Herself, Calls for More Tech Regulation

    “Our careers and livelihoods are in jeopardy, and so potentially are the wider image-related rights of others in society. You have the power to change this and safeguard the future,” FKA Twigs wrote. “That the very essence of our being at its most human level can be violated by the unscrupulous use of AI to create a digital facsimile that purports to be us, and our work, is inherently wrong. It is therefore vital that as an industry and as legislators we work together to ensure we do all we can to protect our creative and intellectual rights as well as the very basis of who we are.”

  • CBC ☛ More stores are ditching self-checkout amid theft and customer complaints

    But the pilot project didn't quite catch on. Walmart tells CBC News that, currently, there's just one such location across Canada and the U.S. — in Sainte-Agathe-des-monts, a small town in Quebec.

    Meanwhile, over the past eight months, the retail giant has removed all its self-checkout machines at six U.S. locations, joining several other big box chains that have ditched the machines in certain stores, including, recently, a Giant Tiger in Stratford, Ont.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Sweden’s Unions Need to Wake Up to New Forms of Exploitation

    A key reason for this rare show of resolve by the LO unions’ leadership is that the conflict is about a basic principle. In an affront to the Swedish model, Tesla is refusing IF Metall the right to collective bargaining on behalf of mechanics at the firm’s service centers. But the resulting clash of the titans is only the tip of the iceberg.

  • Reason ☛ Alabama Woman Arrested for Refusing To Give a Cop Her I.D.

    In February, police officer John Barton arrested Twyla Stallworth in Andalusia, Alabama, because she refused to give him her photo identification. The only problem? Barton had no legal basis to demand Stallworth fork over her I.D.

    Stallworth's arrest is just the latest in a series of false arrests in Alabama that have stemmed from a misinterpretation of the state's 2006 "stop and identify law," which allows police, when they have reasonable suspicion that a crime is taking place, to demand individuals provide their name, address, and an explanation of their actions—but not their photo I.D.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Left Unions Were Repressed Because They Threatened Capital

    Across the 20th century’s two red scares in the US and Canada, the Wobblies and Communist-aligned unions faced fierce repression from employers and government. They were targeted because they were seen as posing a real threat to the capitalist social order.

  • The Local SE ☛ What do we know so far about Sweden's police leaks?

    According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

  • Pro Publica ☛ NY Lags Other States in Guardianship Reforms

    Across the country, states are reexamining their approaches to guardianship, overhauling decades-old laws to better protect vulnerable adults who, because of their age or ailment, can no longer care for themselves.

    In Pennsylvania, legislators recently passed a sweeping bill requiring professional guardians to pass a certification exam in order to serve, among other changes. And in Illinois, lawmakers are seeking to make it harder for private guardians to profit off of vulnerable wards who have nobody else to look after them.

  • FAIR ☛ ‘This Is a Choice Companies Are Making to Raise Fees’: CounterSpin interview with Sally Dworak-Fisher on delivery workers

    Janine Jackson interviewed the National Employment Law Project’s Sally Dworak-Fisher about delivery workers for the April 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ There’s One Last Shot To Save A Low Income Broadband Program Republicans Are Trying To Kill

    The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided 23+ million low-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. But the roughly 60 million Americans benefiting from the program are poised to soon lose the discount because key Republicans — who routinely dole out billions of dollars on far dumber fare — refuse to fund a $4-$7 billion extension.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Cloudflare reports submarine and terrestrial cable damages lead recent [Internet] disruptions

    That damage to submarine cables led the pack for [Internet] disruptions in the quarter comes as no surprise given the attack by Houthi Rebels on major cables carrying data in the Red Sea, the waterway between Northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula that connects Europe with Asia, in February. The Houthi attacks saw the Seacom/Tata cable, Asia Africa Europe-1 and Europe India Gateway cut. The report noted that they were likely taken out intentionally by a cargo ship’s anchor.

    The subsea cable damage in the Red Sea was not the only cable disruption in the quarter. Multiple cables, including the Africa Coast to Europe, Submarine Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable, West Africa Cable System and MainOne, were also damaged by underwater rock falls in the quarter, affecting [Internet] connectivity across several African countries.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Wouter Groeneveld ☛ ISP Router Design Mistakes

    Proximus/Scarlet modems/routers (integrated) are aptly called B-Box routers appended with a revision number. Our previous one was B-Box 3: a basic but functional router with crappy Wi-Fi capabilities. With our new installation came a revision upgrade: welcome, B-Box 4 also known as the Internet Box! That alias raised serious suspicions that were confirmed as soon as the technician started the installation: you can no longer configure your modem locally.

    Wait. What?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• India Times ☛ antitrust regulation: Big Tech says ex-ante antitrust regulations will hurt innovation

  The ex-ante regulations proposed in the draft Digital Competition Bill to pre-empt certain practices is a significant departure from the current system and will come with trade-offs that have an impact on user experience and innovation like the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) had with its rigid rules, executives at a Big Tech company told ET.

  No matter how carefully crafted an ex-ante regime is, it will still have these negative impacts, they said, even as the government extended the deadline for submitting comments on the draft Bill to May 15.