Technology
The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI
LUKE O’BRIEN
Mother Jones
Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left. Now their digital dragnet is in the hands of the Trump administration.
Published On: 04/10/2025
Technology
Meet the Tech Billionaire Just as Dangerous as Elon Musk
TAYLOR LORENZ
zeteo.com
As CEO of Palantir, which he co-founded with Thiel more than two decades ago, Alex Karp is part of a new breed of Valley billionaires integrating their businesses with America's military-industrial complex.
Published On: 04/01/2025
Economy • Technology
The Tesla Secret That Exposes Elon Musk’s Whole Game
J. Dylan Sandifer
The New Republic
Musk loves to sneer at working-class people who rely on food stamps or unemployment benefits, claiming they’re lazy or entitled. But what’s more entitled than using regulatory credits to boost your company’s stock price and then leveraging that stock for loans to keep your cash flow steady?
Published On: 03/21/2025
Democracy • Technology
Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’
BY MAKENA KELLY, DAVID GILBERT, VITTORIA ELLIOTT, KATE KNIBBS, DHRUV MEHROTRA, DELL CAMERON, TIM MARCHMAN, LEAH FEIGER, AND ZOË SCHIFFER
wired.com
Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI.
Published On: 03/13/2025
Technology • Threat Management
Hegseth halts cyber operations against Russia, adding to an ugly pattern
Steve Benen
Maddow Blog
Late last week, a publication called The Record, which focuses on news related to cybersecurity, published a report that seemed hard to believe. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the outlet reported, “ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.”
Published On: 03/10/2025
Democracy • Technology
‘Startup Nation’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’
CAROLINE HASKINS AND VITTORIA ELLIOTT
Wired
Trey Goff, the chief of staff of the startup nation known as Próspera, tells WIRED that he and other Próspera representatives working under an advocacy group called the Freedom Cities Coalition have been meeting with the Trump administration about the idea in recent weeks. He claims the administration has been very receptive. In 2023, Trump floated the idea of creating 10 freedom cities. Now, Goff says that Próspera’s vision is to create “not just 10, but as many as the market can handle.”
Published On: 03/07/2025
Democracy • Technology • Threat Management
Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats
Stephanie Kirchgaessner
The Guardian
Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’
Published On: 03/01/2025
Legal • Technology
DOGE Sparks Surveillance Fear Across the US Government
Paresh Dave, Dell Cameron, Alexa O'Brien
Wired
A federal law enforcement source warns that monitoring could theoretically be used to gather political intelligence on federal employees, while the administration looks for more palatable reasons to terminate them later; similar to how law enforcement may obtain evidence that's inadmissible in the course of a criminal investigation, but then search for another evidentiary basis to file charges.
Published On: 02/21/2025
Economy • Technology
The Wide Angle: Elon Musk and the American Endgame
Dave Troy
The Washington Spectator
...Congress is baffled as to why Musk is doing all of this, and what he possibly wants from access to sensitive data including US Treasury records on social security numbers, bank routing and account numbers, healthcare data, and Department of Energy information on nuclear weapons. He has given free rein to a group of 20-ish boys — tech enthusiasts with no training or relevant experience — so they can “improve” things and harvest information.
Published On: 02/12/2025
Democracy • Technology
The Plot Against America
Mike Brock
notesfromthecircus.com
Teams of young tech operatives are systematically dismantling democratic institutions and replacing them with proprietary artificial intelligence systems. Civil servants who raise legal objections are being removed. Government databases are being migrated to private servers. Decision-making power is being transferred from elected officials and career bureaucrats to algorithms controlled by a small network of Silicon Valley elites.
Published On: 02/08/2025
Global • Technology
New report on Russian media in exile: RSF calls for increased support amid unprecedented digital repression
Reporters Without Borders
rsf.org
Independent Russian media in exile are a vital line of defence against the Kremlin’s massive digital censorship project, which has an estimated budget of nearly 630 million euros, according to the latest report by The Fix and the JX Fund. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges European states, international donors, and tech giants to step up their support for these media outlets as they face unprecedented repression and major logistical, financial, and security challenges.
Published On: 11/20/2024
Recommended
- 08/29/2025
Gavin Newsom on Why He’ll Keep Trolling Trump
"It’s humiliating, it’s embarrassing. So this is a mirror, and it’s a mirror not just to Trump himself, but to these networks. These are the chatbots for the administration. And it’s not just Fox, it’s One America News, it’s Newsmax, and it’s all the folks in the right-wing media."