Moscow Accuses US of Moving Towards Complete Censorship
Russia’s Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, has sharply criticized the American government for allegedly moving towards total censorship and Political repression.
Antonov’s remarks follow a recent FBI search at the residence of Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born political analyst and commentator known for his critical stance on President Joe Biden’s administration.
Antonov compared the current climate in the US to the era of McCarthyism, a 1950s campaign led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that sought to root out suspected communists. He claimed that dissenting voices are being suppressed, with government agents conducting intrusive searches and seizing documents from those who oppose official policies.
This criticism highlights growing tensions between Washington and Moscow, with Russia alleging that the US is increasingly mirroring the oppressive tactics of historical political purges.
California’s Digital Plates Plan Raises Privacy Fears
California is one of the US states that have introduced digital license plates, amid opposition from a number of rights advocates.
Now, there is a legislative effort to have GPS location tracking embedded in these, to all intents and purposes, devices attached to the car.
Sponsored by Democrat Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, Bill 3138 is currently making its way through the state’s legislature. It refers to “License plates and registration cards: alternative devices,” and the bill has another sponsor – Reviver.
The problem with Reviver is that it has already had a security breach that allowed hackers to track those using the company’s digital plates in real-time. It doesn’t help, either, that the company is effectively a monopoly – the only one, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes, “that currently has state authorization to sell digital plates in California.”
A Hollow Victory in Fight to Bring Transparency to Cops’ Use of Facial Recognition Technology
Francisco Arteaga spent nearly four years behind bars battling an armed robbery case after police using facial recognition technology identified him as their prime suspect.
His court challenge led to a ruling that now requires police departments to reveal the algorithms of the technology in cases where the technology is used.
It’s been 14 months since the court ruling that made Arteaga famous, at least among civil rights advocates, New Jersey defense attorneys, and defendants who have found themselves in legal trouble because of facial recognition technology.
Police relied on the technology to identify Arteaga as their prime suspect in the 2019 armed robbery of a Hudson County cell phone store. He denied any involvement, police had scant other evidence, and Arteaga, a Queens native, said he’d never even been to New Jersey.
Arteaga’s experience exposes gaps in regulation and oversight that are growing as law enforcement agencies increasingly turn to new technological tools to crack cases where traditional sleuthing has failed, said Dillon Reisman, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
Google’s Best Bet to Hold on to Its Search Market Share Might Be an Ad Campaign
Google is staring down what could be the biggest threat to its search and advertising business after a US court ruled the company operates as an illegal monopoly.
Google will appeal the decision, but if the tech giant fails to overturn it, Judge Amit Mehta could require the company to give up its distribution deals with smartphone makers Apple and Samsung.
Google currently pays Apple (AAPL) and Samsung billions of dollars to make Google Search the default search engine on its devices. In exchange, Google gets its search platform in front of hundreds of millions of users around the world.
According to Mehta’s ruling, Google performed internal modeling in 2020 that found it would lose 60% to 80% of search volume on Apple’s iOS devices if its search engine was replaced as the default search option.
Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to make its Google Search the default search option on its various devices.
