Fentanyl Fear Factor: White House Leverages Drug Scare to Push for Controversial Surveillance Powers

Reclaim the Net reported:

In a recent public appeal, the Biden administration has urged the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before it expires on April 19. Bill Burns, the CIA Director, issued a statement, alleging the significant role of the FISA powers in fighting threats against national security, especially the illicit trafficking of fentanyl into the United States.

Burns highlighted the gravity of the fentanyl threat, saying, “The threat to the U.S. posed by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids is real. Section 702 is an essential tool in the CIA’s mission to protect the American people from a range of threats, including illicit fentanyl trafficking. Without this vital program, the CIA simply would not be able to defend our country as effectively in as many dangerous corners of the world.”

This tactic of using big, scary problems to justify sweeping surveillance powers is quite common in debates about national security. While it’s understandable to want strong measures to combat real threats, this approach raises big red flags about personal privacy and government overreach.

Clearly, not needing a warrant to snoop on people’s communications could easily be abused. Without these safeguards, there’s too much room for the government to overstep. Plus, by framing the surveillance as essential for stopping things like drug trafficking, the government sort of makes these issues the scapegoats. This simplifies complex issues and makes it seem okay to sacrifice our privacy for security.

Zuckerberg Isn’t on the Hook for Kids’ Instagram Addiction, a Judge Just Ruled

Insider reported:

A judge has granted Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s motion to dismiss 25 cases that alleged he was personally responsible for Instagram and Facebook fuelling social media addiction.

U.S. district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling on Monday excused Zuckerberg from being held personally liable while the case against Meta still stands.

The cases filed sought to hold Zuckerberg personally responsible for keeping children hooked on Meta products. They alleged that the Meta CEO has control over design decisions that targeted higher user engagement and accused him of ignoring warnings that his platforms were unsafe for kids.

The judge said that Zuckerberg couldn’t be held liable just because he has a public-facing role at Meta. The ruling aligns with the legal approach that sees executives typically shielded from personal liability.

Illinois Woman Hits Target With Class Action Lawsuit for Collecting Biometric Data Without Her Consent

FOXBusiness reported:

An Illinois woman filed a class action lawsuit against Target, accusing the retail giant of collecting and storing her biometric data, including face and fingerprint scans, without her consent in violation of state law.

Arnetta Dean, who filed the lawsuit with the intention of preventing Target from further violating the privacy rights of state residents, is also pursuing statutory damages for the company’s alleged collection, storage and use of customers’ biometric data, according to the lawsuit obtained by FOX 32 Chicago.

The lawsuit, filed last month in Cook County, claims Target’s surveillance systems, including cameras with facial recognition technology installed in Illinois stores, “surreptitiously” collect biometric data on customers without their knowledge or consent.

Novavax Availability Dooms Christian Workers’ COVID Vaccine Suit

Bloomberg Law reported:

Two Christian healthcare workers in Virginia lost their claims that Inova Health Systems’ denial of their requests for exemption from its COVID-19 vaccination mandate violated federal religious bias law.

The plaintiffs had refused to be injected with vaccines developed or tested by using human fetal-derived cell lines. But they were unable to establish that Novavax, a vaccine authorized by the U.S. for emergency use before their exemption requests were denied, was derived from those processes.

A jury, therefore, couldn’t find the workers’ religious objections to being vaccinated against COVID conflicted with their employer’s COVID vaccination requirement.

The U.S. Isn’t Just Reauthorizing Its Surveillance Laws — It’s Vastly Expanding Them

The Guardian reported:

The U.S. 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 free speech.

Section 702 in its current form allows the government to compel communications giants like Google and Verizon to turn over information. An amendment to the bill approved by the House vastly increases the law’s scope. The Turner-Himes amendment — so named for its champions Representatives Mike Turner and Jim Himes — would permit federal law enforcement to also force “any other service provider” with access to communications equipment to hand over data. That means anyone with access to a wifi router, server or even phone — anyone from a landlord to a laundromat — could be required to help the government spy.

The Senate is expected to vote on the House bill as soon as this week, and if it passes there, Joe Biden is likely to sign it. All Americans should be terrified by that prospect.

Biden Administration Announces New Partnership With 50 Countries to Stifle Future Pandemics

Associated Press reported:

President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020.

U.S. government officials will offer support in the countries, most of them located in Africa and Asia, to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries.

The announcement about the strategy comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, the prospects of a pandemic treaty signed by all 194 of the World Health Organization’s members are flailing.

The Biden administration plans to move forward with its new strategy to prepare the world for the next pandemic, regardless of whether a treaty is hammered out or not, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.

Major Psychology Group Says Infinite Scrolling, Other Social Media Features Are ‘Particularly Risky’ to Youth Mental Health

NBC News reported:

A top psychology group is urging technology companies and legislators to take greater steps to protect adolescents’ mental health, arguing that social media platforms are built for adults and are “not inherently suitable for youth.”

Social media features such as endless scrolling and push notifications are “particularly risky” to young people, whose developing brains are less able to disengage from addictive experiences and are more sensitive to distractions, the American Psychological Association wrote in a report released Tuesday.

But age restrictions on social media platforms alone don’t fully address the dangers, especially since many kids easily find workarounds to such limits. Instead, social media companies need to make fundamental design changes, the group said in its report.

Hackers Start Leaking Stolen Change Healthcare Data

Axios reported:

The RansomHub hacking group is starting to share snippets of the data stolen from Change Healthcare’s networks during a recent attack.

Why it matters: Initial screenshots published Monday and seen by Axios suggest that hackers have stolen a trove of sensitive information, including patients’ hospital bills, financial documents and company contracts.

There’s currently a countdown on RansomHub’s dark-web leak site threatening to publish the data on Friday.

Last month, Wired reported that the company appeared to have paid the BlackCat ransomware group a hefty $22 million to prevent a data leak and unlock its systems.

Chatbots’ Flaws Aren’t Stopping Tech Giants From Putting Them Everywhere

The Washington Post reported:

The risk of chatbots going awry doesn’t seem to be slowing tech giants‘ march to integrate them into the world’s largest online platforms.

Meta has recently begun rolling out its Meta AI chatbot more broadly, including in WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger across India and parts of Africa, bringing the tool to markets where it serves hundreds of millions of people. And on Monday, the New York Times reported that the company is approaching Instagram influencers in the United States on a project called “Creator AI” that would let an AI avatar trained on their voice interact with their fans on their behalf.

For a company that has prided itself on AI research but fallen behind rivals Microsoft, Google and OpenAI on commercialization of the latest language and image models, the moves represent an ambitious leap toward integrating AI into people’s everyday interactions. Meta envisions people asking its chatbots questions, using it to create images or just chatting with it, the company said when it announced Meta AI in September.

AI chatbots can dazzle with their ability to converse on a wide range of topics and generate images of whatever people dream up (with some limits). But what the industry calls “hallucinations” — responses that aren’t grounded in reality — have come to seem more like a feature than a bug. Lately, companies including Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and now Meta have tried to patch the problem by connecting AI models to the web and letting them search for information and cite their sources, with mixed results. Meanwhile, attempts to train chatbots to shed offensive biases picked up from their training data often fall short or go too far.

Biden Quietly Revokes COVID Executive Order Requiring Masks in Federal Buildings

New York Post reported:

President Biden retracted several COVID-19 executive orders Friday — including one imposed on his first day in office to require people to wear masks in federal facilities.

Biden’s Executive Order 13991 — titled “Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing” — was issued after the wearing of face masks became heavily polarized, with outgoing President Donald Trump and his aides rarely wearing them and focusing on “reopening” from lockdowns. The order is “hereby revoked,” the White House said in a Friday afternoon announcement more than four years after the virus brought mobile morgues to New York and shut down schools and businesses across the country.

The enforcement of mask requirements long ago subsided, with the White House lifting its own internal mask requirements more than two years ago in March 2022 after the CDC adjusted its mask recommendations to account for local risk reflected by hospitalization rates.

Biden on Friday also retracted Executive Order 13998, adopted on Jan. 21, 2021, that sought to impose mask mandates on flights, trains and buses, and Executive Order 13910, adopted by Trump on March 23, 2020, to forbid the hoarding of medical supplies.

The announcement additionally terminated federal positions created to manage the pandemic. “The positions of COVID-19 Response Coordinator [vacant since June 2023] and Deputy Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response … are hereby terminated,” Biden decreed.

Big Brother in Training? How Proposed Legislation Might Pave the Way for Online Age Verification and Digital ID

Reclaim the Net reported:

Bipartisan legislative efforts are underway in the U.S. House of Representatives to adopt new versions of two laws originally drawn up to deal with the safety of youth online.

But the fear is that the bills introduced now — H.R.7891, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and H.R. 7890, the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0 — will facilitate implementation of a future sweeping age verification and digital ID push.

These concerns are raised because KOSA is directing the secretary of commerce, together with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct a study “evaluating the most technologically feasible methods and options for developing systems to verify age at the device or operating system level.”

At this stage of the proceedings, the study will not be used to mandate that platforms implement “an age gating or age verification functionality” — however, once the authorities have at their disposal the technical solutions to do it, some observers expect it could be used for a more aggressive legislative push at the federal level later on.

Regarding the way COPPA’s new version could pave the way for more expansive age verification online, it seeks to impose new forms of data collection restrictions concerning minors, and also shield them from targeted advertising.

WHO Official Testifies That Advice Against Vaccine Passports Was Ignored to Continue Digital Rollout

Reclaim the Net reported:

Dr. Hanna Nohynek, a World Health Organization (WHO) official, has told a court that her recommendation to Finland’s government during the pandemic was that the so-called “vaccine passport” was not necessary.

Nohynek, who is also the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare’s chief physician, testified that as the controversial schemes were being announced, her stance was that COVID vaccines were not effective in stopping the transmission of the virus, and therefore “vaccine passports,” designed to prove somebody’s vaccination status and create a checkpoint society, were superfluous.

But despite Nohynek’s stance and her role at WHO — where she chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and is also a member of the Vaccines Together and the International Vaccine Institute boards — the government ignored her.

At about the same time, the UN health agency was going ahead with plans to set up its Global Digital Health Certification Network, enabling the proliferation of digital vaccine passports, while the EU came out with its Digital COVID Certificate Regulation.

McCaughey: Biden & Co. Not Ready for Next Pandemic

Boston Herald reported:

The H5N1 virus, which for 30 years affected mostly birds, is rapidly evolving and spreading globally. The Biden administration is dangerously unready. Over the last two years, H5N1 has jumped from birds to mammals, infecting at least 26 species.

South American scientists publishing in the prestigious journal Nature Communications report massive “sea lion die-offs” and warn about avian influenza viruses “potentially evolving into the next global pandemic.”

Like H5N1, COVID-19 was full of unknowns. The federal government’s biggest mistake was to aim for an illusion of consensus rather than welcoming debate. The feds silenced anyone, including scientists, who disagreed. The result was a long string of deadly mistakes, from shuttering businesses to mandatory masking and school closures.

Worse, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security conspired with major social media platforms such as YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) to keep the public from hearing from the government’s critics.

Censored scientists sued. The case, Murthy v. Missouri, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Sadly, the Biden administration is taking the wrong side, claiming censorship protects the nation from “disinformation.” That’s a sign the administration cannot be trusted to tell us the truth during the next health scare.

Government Spyware Is Another Reason to Use an Ad Blocker

TechCrunch reported:

Ad blockers might seem like an unlikely defense in the fight against spyware, but new reporting casts fresh light on how spyware makers are weaponizing online ads to allow governments to conduct surveillance.

Spyware makers are reportedly capable of locating and stealthily infecting specific targets with spyware using banner ads.

One of the startups that worked on an ad-based spyware infection system is Intellexa, a European company that develops the Predator spyware. Predator is able to access the full contents of a target’s phone in real-time.

While no phone or computer can ever be completely unhackable, ad blockers can be effective in stopping malvertising and ad-based malware before it ever hits the browser. Ad blockers — as the name suggests — prevent ads from displaying in web browsers. Ad blockers don’t just hide the ads but also block the underlying website from loading the ads to begin with. That’s also good for privacy since it means ad exchanges cannot use tracking code to see which sites users visit as they browse the web. Ad-blocking software is available for phones, as well.

The U.S. Government Has a Microsoft Problem

WIRED reported:

When Microsoft revealed in January that foreign government hackers had once again breached its systems, the news prompted another round of recriminations about the security posture of the world’s largest tech company.

Despite the angst among policymakers, security experts, and competitors, Microsoft faced no consequences for its latest embarrassing failure. The United States government kept buying and using Microsoft products, and senior officials refused to publicly rebuke the tech giant. It was another reminder of how insulated Microsoft has become from virtually any government accountability, even as the Biden administration vows to make powerful tech firms take more responsibility for America’s cyber defense.

That state of affairs is unlikely to change even in the wake of a new report by the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), a group of government and industry experts, which lambasts Microsoft for failing to prevent one of the worst hacking incidents in the company’s recent history. The report says Microsoft’s “security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul.”

Meta’s ‘Consent or Pay’ Tactic Must Not Prevail Over Privacy, EU Rights Groups Warn

TechCrunch reported:

Nearly two dozen civil society groups and non-profits have written an open letter to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), urging it not to endorse a strategy used by Meta that they say is intended to bypass the EU’s privacy protections for commercial gain.

The letter comes ahead of a meeting of the EDPB this week that is expected to produce guidance on a controversial tactic used by Meta that forces Facebook and Instagram users to consent to its tracking.

Many of the signatories, which include the likes of EDRi, Access Now, noyb and Wikimedia Europe, signed a similar open letter to the EDPB in February. But the Board is expected to adopt an opinion on so-called “consent or pay” (A.K.A. “pay or okay”) as soon as this Wednesday, so this is likely the last chance for rights groups to sway hearts and minds on an issue they warn is “pivotal” for the future of data protection and privacy in Europe.

UK Plans Facial Recognition Expansion, Empowering Cops to Scan Faces in the Street

Reclaim the Net reported:

In the U.K., the government has presented its plans for a large-scale increase of the use of facial recognition technology which the police want to deploy in a number of ways and across a range of locations.

According to Big Brother Watch, taxpayers in that country will foot the bill amounting to a total of £230 million (some $288 million). In return for financing this expansion of what the rights group calls Orwellian tech, citizens will be subjected to even more intense mass surveillance.

A government press release said £55.5 million would be spent on facial recognition tools over the next four years specifically to address the problem of retail crime (also euphemistically referred to as “shoplifting”). That’s a good place to “tuck in” that information, given that the public is likely to look favorably at any attempt to tackle the problem.

However, if “shoplifting” is a major reason behind them, the plans look like killing a fly with an elephant gun. There will be a convoy of live facial recognition vans — “mobile units” — in crowded areas of high streets and elsewhere in cities.

What the Evidence Really Says About Social Media’s Impact on Teens’ Mental Health

Vox reported:

The kids are not all right — and the device you are probably reading this on is to blame.

So argues the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Haidt insists that smartphones and social media are fueling a “surge of suffering” that’s inundating teens all across the Western world.

By Haidt’s account, smartphones and the addicting social media apps we download onto them have lured the world’s youths away from those activities that are indispensable to healthy child development — such as outdoor play, face-to-face conversation with friends, and sleep — and trapped them in a digital realm that saps their self-esteem, drains their attention spans, and forces them to put on a perpetual, high-stakes performance of their own personalities.

Smartphones have even hurt kids who don’t use them much, according to Haidt, because they’ve restructured communal life in harmful ways. Teenagers’ rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed as a result.

House Passes FISA Reauthorization Bill After Previous GOP Setback

ABC News reported:

The House on Friday voted to reauthorize a key U.S. spy program considered crucial to national security.

In a 273 to 147 vote, lawmakers renewed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on April 19, through 2026. It now heads to the Senate.

Section 702 allows the U.S. government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans located outside the country without a warrant. It came under scrutiny among some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and civil liberties groups because it sometimes results in the collection of data on Americans who are in contact with those surveilled individuals.

An amendment was offered to add a warrant requirement to see data from Americans, but it narrowly failed in a 212 to 212 vote.

Settlement Reached in Lawsuit Against UT-Battelle Over COVID Vaccine Requirement

WATE 6 reported:

At least one of the plaintiffs has reached a settlement with UT-Battelle in a lawsuit over how UT-Battelle handled exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, according to court documents.

An order filed on Thursday, April 11 states that UT-Battelle, the management contractor for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, reached a settlement with plaintiff Jessica Bilyeu. The stipulations of the settlement are required to be filed by April 18 or the case will be dismissed, according to the order.

A previously filed memorandum states that Bilyeu was an employee of UT-Battelle when the organization announced on August 26, 2021, that all employees would be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccination by October 15 of that year. Allegedly, when requests were made for religious accommodations, UT-Battelle provided the accommodation that those who raised religious objections to the vaccine could go on unpaid leave.

Three days before the scheduled start of the unpaid leave, a lawsuit was filed and the court issued a temporary restraining order to stop UT-Battelle from placing employees on unpaid leave until the court could rule on a motion for a preliminary injunction. The court later denied the plaintiff’s motion, reinstating the organization’s vaccination policies.

Meta Criticized After Lowering WhatsApp Minimum Age From 16 to 13

Sky News reported:

Meta has lowered the minimum age to use the popular messaging platform WhatsApp. The move, which came into effect on Thursday, reduces the age limit from 16 down to 13 in the U.K. and EU.

It has been criticized by a number of campaign groups who have urged the company to reverse the decision.

Smartphone Free Childhood told Sky News that it was an example of “a tech giant putting shareholder profits first and children’s safety second.”

A spokesperson for the group said: “Reducing their age of use from 16 to 13 sends a message to parents that WhatsApp is safe for children, but the stories we’re hearing from our community of parents paint a very different picture.”

Social Media Fact Checkers Claim Their Work Isn’t Censorship. Here’s Why It Is.

Reclaim the Net reported:

There’s good news, and bad: first, the fact that “fact-checkers” masquerading as unbiased and accurate moderators of content — while actually unreliable and bias-prone tools of censorship — are now recognized widely enough as just that, to trigger a reaction from some prominent actors.

But then — these “fact-checkers” are reacting in order to double down on their role as something positive, and justified.

Because there are no facts to support this attitude, one of the key “fact-checkers” is hiding behind an opinion piece. But the claim is there: “Fact-checking is not censorship,” a post on Poynter wants you to believe.

According to Facebook (Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posts that get fact-checked experience a 95% drop in clicks. In other words, even if this content is not outright removed, it is made virtually invisible. That’s censorship by any other name.

Former CU School of Medicine Research Director Sues Over COVID Vaccine Mandate

9News reported:

A former research director at the University of Colorado School of Medicine has filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging religious discrimination after being terminated for refusing to comply with the institution’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.

Alyse Brennecke, who served as the director of clinical research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Division of Gynecological Oncology for six years, was fired in October 2021 amidst a dispute over the vaccine mandate. “It was jab or job,” said Brad Bergford, Brennecke’s attorney, who emphasized the alleged ultimatum faced by his client.

Despite Brennecke’s religious exemption request, the university swiftly denied it and notified Brennecke that failure to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination would result in further action, potentially leading to termination.

In a lawsuit filed on April 2, she argues the university’s denial violated rights outlined in Title VII, emphasizing that employers are required to seek accommodations for sincerely held religious beliefs.

Brennecke is seeking monetary damages for loss of pay, emotional suffering and other losses. While she is the sole plaintiff in her lawsuit, another lawsuit against the university involves at least 11 unnamed plaintiffs, including physicians, nurses and other administrative roles within the Anschutz Medical Campus.

The Future of AI Will Run on Amazon, Company CEO Says

The Washington Post reported:

Less than two weeks after rolling back one of its most ambitious artificial intelligence projects — a cashierless checkout technology called Just Walk Out — Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in an annual shareholder letter published Thursday that he’s confident the future of the company’s biggest breakthroughs for customers will come from generative AI.

While Amazon has widely been viewed by consumers and the market as falling behind on AI, Jassy said in his letter that he’s “optimistic that much of this world-changing AI will be built on top of AWS,” or Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing business that many of the world’s digital businesses already rely on to run.

In the letter, Jassy lays out the company’s strategy on generative AI, describing how it is less focused on building consumer-facing applications to compete directly with popular tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but on building the underlying “foundational” AI models and selling them to enterprise customers, which Jassy said already include Delta Air Lines, Siemens and Pfizer.

JP Morgan Chase Cashes In on Customer Data

Reclaim the Net reported:

The largest U.S. bank, and the world’s largest by capitalization, JP Morgan Chase, is going forward with another way to monetize their clients — by giving access to their spending data to be used for targeted ads.

One would have thought that something of the kind was already in full swing. But given the glacial speed at which giant financial institutions move when it comes to introducing any new features, it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that only now, Chase is allowing businesses to make ad money directly off of the data belonging to the bank’s 80 million customers.

To make this possible, a platform called Chase Media Solutions is now available to brands who want to utilize transaction data the bank harvests from customers, to “fine-tune” campaigns, such as “personalized” offers and incentives.

House Republicans Revolt Against Spy Agency Bill, Signaling Trouble for Johnson

The Washington Post reported:

A small faction of House Republicans is once again blocking key legislation and posing a critical test of Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to hold on to his gavel.

And their actions threw the House once more into chaos, as Republicans sniped among themselves and some far-right members threatened to let funding for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — a post-9/11 measure that strengthened the surveillance powers of U.S. intelligence services — expire on April 19.

Hard-liners had telegraphed that they would sink the procedural vote if the House Rules Committee did not include a change to the legislation to reshape how those services surveil malicious foreign actors, by ensuring that they don’t spy on U.S. citizens swept up in the communications-gathering without a warrant.

Privacy Talks Are Heating Up in Congress. Here’s What to Watch For.

The Washington Post reported:

Congressional negotiations over data privacy and children’s online safety took a notable step forward this week as House and Senate leaders unveiled bipartisan proposals and started ramping up their consideration of the measures.

Most notably, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers(R-Wash.) struck a deal on a comprehensive privacy bill, and House lawmakers unveiled a companion to the Kids Online Safety Act, raising the prospects that both could still move this Congress.

The House is scheduled to debate those and other tech measures at a hearing next week, and the Senate could soon follow suit. But just like in years past, the same pesky friction points that have bogged down talks for years may surface again.

House and Senate lawmakers for years have tussled over whether to prioritize broader privacy legislation or protections for kids, since taking up both has at times appeared unachievable.

One issue to watch: The House’s new version of the Kids Online Safety Act includes key changes that could complicate negotiations with the Senate.

DuckDuckGo Is Taking Its Privacy Fight to Data Brokers

WIRED reported:

For more than a decade, DuckDuckGo has rallied against Google’s extensive online tracking. Now the privacy-focused web search and browser company has another target in its sights: the sprawling, messy web of data brokers that collect and sell your data every single day.

Today, DuckDuckGo is launching a new browser-based tool that automatically scans data broker websites for your name and address and requests that they be removed. Gabriel Weinberg, the company’s founder and CEO, says the personal-information-removal product is the first of its kind where users don’t have to submit any of their details to the tool’s owners.

The service will make the requests for information to be removed and then continually check if new records have been added, Weinberg says. “We’ve been doing it to automate it completely end-to-end, so you don’t have to do anything.

An OpenAI Investor Says TikTok Is China’s ‘Programmable Fentanyl,’ a CCP-Controlled Tool Used to Manipulate U.S. Citizens

Insider reported:

Billionaire and early OpenAI backer Vinod Khosla says he supports the forced divestiture of the social media platform TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. In March, Congress passed a bill to ban TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance didn’t sell its U.S. operations to non-Chinese owners.

“Neither I nor my firm stands to gain or lose anything on the back of this bill’s outcome, but I can see how TikTok can be weaponized by a foreign adversary,” Khosla wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times on Tuesday.

In the op-ed, Khosla accused China of perpetuating double standards since Chinese consumers use TikTok’s Chinese variant, Douyin. And unlike TikTok, Douyin users aged 14 and below can only be on the platform for just 40 minutes a day.

“Spinach for Chinese kids, fentanyl — another chief export of China’s — for ours,” Khosla said. “Worse still, TikTok is a programmable fentanyl whose effects are under the control of the CCP.”

Morrison’s COVID Measures a ‘Grotesque Overreaction’ to a ‘Relatively Mild Pandemic,’ Tony Abbott Says

The Guardian reported:

The former prime minister Tony Abbott has described the Morrison government’s COVID response as a “grotesque overreaction” to a “relatively mild pandemic”, adding he reluctantly got vaccinated because he “didn’t want anyone to have an excuse for keeping us locked up any longer than was absolutely necessary.”

Abbott, who also served as a health minister under the Howard government, clarified he was not opposed to vaccinations but used a feminist slogan — “my body, my choice” — to voice his opposition to vaccine mandates in a podcast hosted by Graham Hood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine mandate movement.

“And yet, that certainly wasn’t the approach that health authorities adopted at the time.” It is not the first time Abbott has criticized Australia’s response to the global pandemic.