Texas Woman Jailed Under Bomb-Threat Law for Water Quality Post
791
A Texas woman was jailed on felony charges for a Facebook post about contaminated water, leading to a federal lawsuit over free speech and political retaliation.
Civil Liberties
Issues related to individual rights, freedoms, civil disobedience, and citizen resistance to government overreach.
Reading List
Google’s Broken Privacy Promise: A Case Study in Corporate-State Surveillance
1688
Google bypassed its own notification policy to hand over a student's data to ICE, prompting legal action over broken privacy promises and state surveillance.
Fedware: How Government Apps Became National Spyware
678
Federal mobile apps function as invasive surveillance tools that collect biometrics and location data to feed an interconnected government tracking ecosystem.
The Data Broker Loophole: Closing the Government's Backdoor to Warrantless Surveillance
271
Lawmakers and privacy advocates are racing to close a loophole that allows government agencies to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment by purchasing private citizen data from commercial brokers.
Ageless Linux: Challenging California's Age-Verification 'Compliance Moat'
825
Ageless Linux is a project of deliberate civil disobedience that uses a Debian-based script to challenge the legality and ethics of California's mandatory age-verification laws.
AI Facial Recognition Error Jails Innocent Woman for Six Months
261
An innocent grandmother lost her home and car after being wrongfully jailed for six months due to a facial recognition error by Fargo police.
Florida Judge Rules Red-Light Camera Law Unconstitutional
503
A Florida judge ruled red-light camera laws unconstitutional because they violate due process by requiring vehicle owners to prove they weren't driving.
DeFlock: Crowdsourcing the Map of License Plate Surveillance
620
DeFlock is a crowdsourced mapping project dedicated to identifying and tracking Automated License Plate Readers.
Choosing Digital Isolation Over Identity Verification
974
The author would rather abandon most online services and rely on self-hosting than comply with mandatory identity or age verification.
Tenth Circuit Rejects Overbroad Digital Warrants Against Protesters
640
The Tenth Circuit ruled that broad, non-specific digital search warrants against protesters violate the Fourth Amendment and do not grant officers qualified immunity.
Surveillance Sabotage: Americans Target Flock Cameras Over ICE Concerns
706
Rising anti-surveillance sentiment is driving a nationwide wave of physical sabotage against Flock license plate readers used for immigration tracking.
The Rise of the State-Corporate Panopticon
937
The fusion of consumer smart-home technology and government power has created a pervasive surveillance state that has rendered personal privacy obsolete.
Ring’s Super Bowl ‘Lost Dog’ Pitch Masks Expansion of AI Surveillance
200
Ring’s heartwarming “lost dog” Super Bowl ad masks the expansion and normalization of its AI-powered surveillance network tied to law enforcement.
Irish Man With Valid Work Permit Detained by ICE for Five Months, Facing Deportation
323
An Irish man with a valid US work permit is detained for months and faces deportation amid disputed paperwork and a broader ICE crackdown.
TikTok Upload Woes Spark Censorship Fears Amid US Ownership Shift
1495
Reports of blocked anti-ICE posts on TikTok collide with a company-claimed tech outage and a new US-led governance regime, deepening user distrust without proving censorship.
ICE Using Palantir’s ELITE With Medicaid Data, EFF Urges Congressional Action
1475
ICE is reportedly using a Palantir tool fed by Medicaid and other government data to target deportations, prompting EFF to demand urgent Congressional limits on data consolidation and misuse.
Texas Cops’ Secretive Phone-Tracking Tool Raises Big Costs, Bigger Civil Liberties Fears
382
Texas is pouring money into a secretive phone-tracking tool that may bypass warrant requirements, with scant evidence it solves crimes and mounting concerns it erodes constitutional privacy.
Life Under ICE Occupation in Minneapolis
192
A Minneapolis resident depicts a city under aggressive ICE raids that disrupt schools and daily life, urging national pressure and support to protect residents and prevent further escalation.
ICE’s Webloc Enables Warrantless Neighborhood Phone Tracking
280
ICE’s new Webloc tool enables warrantless, neighborhood-scale phone tracking using commercial data, prompting major civil liberties concerns.
ICE Facial Recognition App Mandates Scans, Keeps Photos 15 Years
601
ICE’s Mobile Fortify forces facial scans and keeps the photos for 15 years, even for U.S. citizens, according to a DHS document.
AI Misidentifies Doritos Bag as Gun, Police Detain Teen at Baltimore School
693
An AI gun detector misread a Doritos bag as a weapon, triggering an armed police response and renewing concerns about AI surveillance in schools.
ICE Expands Stingray Use As AI Policing Stumbles And Global Surveillance Grows
669
U.S. and global surveillance capabilities are expanding—often controversially and with mixed effectiveness—while privacy tools race to keep up.
Stop EU ‘Chat Control’: Mass Scanning Law Threatens Encryption and Rights—Act Now
788
EU ‘Chat Control’ would mandate mass scanning of all communications, breaking encryption and rights—act now to stop it.
19 Dead as Nepal Deploys Army amid Gen Z Protests over Social Media Ban and Corruption
568
Deadly Gen Z–led protests over Nepal’s social media ban and corruption forced army deployment and a curfew as unrest spread beyond Kathmandu.
We Already Live in Social Credit—Ours Is Just Hidden
584
Social credit already exists in the West via opaque platform and financial scoring, and the real choice is to make it transparent and accountable as it becomes more interconnected.