Amnesty International on Thursday condemned US authorities’ usage of Palantir and Babel Street Artificial Intelligence-powered surveillance tools to monitor immigrants and conduct indiscriminate targeting of non-citizens at pro-Palestinian protests occurring throughout the country. Upon reviewing documentation acquired from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) public records and previously disclosed procurement and privacy assessment documents, Amnesty [...]
US immigration officers must now weigh applicants’ support for “anti-American ideologies and activities” when deciding whether to grant certain immigration benefits, under new policy guidance released Tuesday by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The updated policy, effective immediately, instructs officers to assign “overwhelmingly negative” weight to cases where applicants have “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise [...]
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen on Tuesday announced the opening of a new immigration detention center in the southwest corner of the state. National Guard Major General Craig Strong called the move a step in supporting “the president’s initiatives for homeland security.” The present McCook Work Camp will be transformed from a minimum-security facility, and its [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday blocked a lower court’s decision to uphold a ban on drag shows at West Texas A&M University. The appeals court stated that the plaintiffs had shown sufficient evidence that there would be harm to their First Amendment rights as a result of the ban, [...]
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Monday on X (formerly Twitter) that the UK has agreed to drop its mandate that Apple provide a “back door” to access encrypted data from American users. The controversial Technical Capability Notice (TCN) was issued to Apple in January under Section 253 of the UK’s 2016 Investigatory [...]
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday that his office has launched an investigation into Meta Platforms Inc. and Character.AI, probing whether their AI-chatbot services have misled children into believing they were receiving legitimate mental health support. The charge has raised concerns under Texas consumer protection laws over false therapeutic representations, privacy, and data [...]
US President Donald Trump announced via social media on Monday plans to issue an executive order eliminating mail-in voting and electronic voting machines, calling instead for paper ballots and hand counts. Trump wrote that “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated on Monday that law enforcement officers used “excessive force and deliberate brutality” in response to protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, California, from June 6 to 14. According to HRW, while the protests had largely been peaceful, the law enforcement officers frequently used a range of “less lethal” weapons, [...]
Newsmax has agreed to pay $67 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims about the 2020 election, the conservative cable network announced Monday. Dominion was one of several voting machine and election technology companies that helped facilitate voting in 2020, a year when in-person voting was limited by [...]
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a split decision Friday held that the US government’s mass layoffs of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) employees are within its executive powers, vacating a preliminary injunction. In the majority opinion, District of Columbia Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas held that all claims by the [...]
