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theguardian.com/us-news/2024/a
"The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on ."

nature.com/articles/d41586-024 I think this article over-simplifies what could be done at the end, as it's really not that simple, particularly when you know more about how the Internet works (censorship can be extremely troublesome).

That said, it's a good takedown of a social media moral panic.

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abc.net.au/news/2024-04-12/inq
"A Queensland parliamentary inquiry has supported new laws to decriminalise sex work. "

"University of Queensland researcher Rachel Brennan said decriminalisation would improve health and safety outcomes for sex workers.

"There's a strong evidence base that supports decriminalisation as the best public health framework for sex workers and for communities," Ms Brennan said."

defendonlineprivacy.com/ca/act Apparently, a so-called bill has passed out of committee in , so this one is worth taking time to oppose too.

act.eff.org/action/tell-the-u- Another call to action against the Section 702 expansion, this one is a bit broader than the other one.

I think it's less that it's dumb and more that this technology is being used in a way that it is clearly inappropriate for.

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As fun as it is to fly around in my trusty UFO, snatch random cattle, and scare the hell out of random people, and watch people make up excuses as to how none of this is possible, I think it's time to move onto another planet, lol.

Apparently, the House has passed the is Not For Sale Act.
QT: techpolicy.social/@CenDemTech/

CenDemTech  
GOOD FIRST STEP: The House just passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, a massive victory for #CivilRights & #CivilLiberties. This bil...
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GOOD FIRST STEP: The House just passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, a massive victory for #CivilRights & #CivilLiberties. This bill will ensure the government cannot use cash to avoid warrants and #privacy rules protecting Americans’ sensitive data.

edri.org/our-work/open-letter-
"Today, 17 April, EDRi in a coalition of 50* civil society organisations and 26 individual experts, call on Member State representatives not to agree to the proposed EU Council position on the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Regulation whilst so many critical issues remain.

The fundamental flaws of the Commission’s draft law and previous Council texts – including of mass surveillance and serious threats to encryption – have not been resolved by the latest texts from the Belgian Presidency."

Of course, there are those who think otherwise, what can be done is to try to push for reps who are more in favor of liberty where ever possible in Europe.

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Looks like it isn't a new power, but still, using a tragedy to use powers to bypass any sort of warrant requirement is still troublesome.

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Using a tragedy to push through draconian powers. A classic.

theguardian.com/us-news/2024/a
"The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on ."

theguardian.com/media/2024/apr So many loopholes in these "assurances", and they might try to wash their hands of it, by saying that it was the DoJ which did it, not them.

Worth mentioning that Sam Altman personally stands to make a lot of money from playing "AI" up as a super revolutionary thing.

Alexandra out there with an "AI" panic piece, even though we should have moved past these... So, she takes vague statistics, which likely contain false positives (even if they weren't, the numbers are actually fairly small), as a "sign" that the end is here and we have to "save the children". She also appears to conflate pure prompting which is not necessarily done with malicious intent with acting maliciously.

I think the main problem is that she looks at it through the lens of censorship. There is nothing which precludes someone being arrested for sexual harassment or other similar such anti-social behavior towards others.

If it's about privacy, something like APRA might be a more fruitful path forward than censorship (which tends to be harmful).

In a way, the politician claiming an expanded Section 702 is not Stasi-like is right. It is much worse than the Stasi.

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