As part of its deportation efforts, the Trump administration has ordered states to hand over personal data from voter rolls, driver’s license records and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

At the same time, the administration is trying to consolidate the bits of personal data held across federal agencies, creating a single trove of information on people who live in the United States.

Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the immigration crackdown. But a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies, such as automated license plate readers, that can be used to identify and track people.

The surveillance machine is spreading its net further. It is now nearly all encompassing. They'll continue to expand it to totality but there is some hope, there is some pushback from communities and we can also act as individuals. Here's what I did in 2025.

There is nothing more despicable and dangerous than a mercenary. When you join ICE, you become a threat to your community and a traitor to humanity. Once people see you with ICE, you’re going to have to wear that mask every day for the rest of your life...

Those who know the history of fascism know how this story goes. They begin by locking undocumented children in cages—and end by locking your children in cages.

Together, we can create a world in which no one has to live in fear of mercenaries. No politician or political party will do this for us. It’s up to us.

Share!

FEDERAL PROSECUTORS HAVE filed a new indictment in response to a July 4 noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, during which a police officer was shot.

There are numerous problems with the indictment, but perhaps the most glaring is its inclusion of charges against a Dallas artist who wasn’t even at the protest. Daniel “Des” Sanchez is accused of transporting a box that contained “Antifa materials” after the incident, supposedly to conceal evidence against his wife, Maricela Rueda, who was there.

But the boxed materials aren’t Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, or whatever MAGA officials claim “Antifa” uses to wage its imaginary war on America. As prosecutors laid out in the July criminal complaint that led to the indictment, they were zines and pamphlets. Some contain controversial ideas — one was titled “Insurrectionary Anarchy” — but they’re fully constitutionally protected free speech.

In late July 2025, deep within the Pentagon’s bureaucratic machinery, the U.S. Army quietly signed away a piece of its sovereignty.

A ten-billion-dollar contract with Palantir Technologies—one of the largest in the Department of Defense’s history—was framed as a move toward “efficiency.”

It consolidated seventy-five procurement agreements into a single contract.

An excellent look at the details of the many connections in the most recent developments of the authoritarian tech network. It seems to me like the first network/map on the page is a bit disorganized or, just not clear to me. But the rest of it is excellent. Worth a look if you're interested in understanding what is going on right now in the US military, intelligence and the intersection between surveillance capitalism and the state.

🔗 Inside Fog Data Science, the Secretive Company Selling Mass Surveillance to Local Police

A data broker has been selling raw location data about individual people to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, EFF has learned. This personal data isn’t gathered from cell phone towers or tech giants like Google — it’s obtained by the broker via thousands of different apps on Android and iOS app stores as part of the larger location data marketplace.

The company, Fog Data Science, has claimed in marketing materials that it has “billions” of data points about “over 250 million” devices and that its data can be used to learn about where its subjects work, live, and associate. Fog sells access to this data via a web application, called Fog Reveal, that lets customers point and click to access detailed histories of regular people’s lives. This panoptic surveillance apparatus is offered to state highway patrols, local police departments, and county sheriffs across the country for less than $10,000 per year.

Surveillence Capitalism and the state are taking advantage of mobile phones and apps to track your location throughout the day. This article lays out just one part of the tracking. My new practice in defense of my privacy is to keep my carrier eSIM OFF and to keep airplane mode on full time. I've turned off location services for everything. If I need to make a call I turn off airplane mode and use a third party eSIM for data to make a VOIP call. More here.

The recent espionage case via WhatsApp that involved some Italian journalists, including the director of Fanpage Francesco Cancellato and the founder of the NGO Mediterranean Saving Humans Luca Casarinipaid attention to the ability of advanced spyware tools like Graphite – the much talked about software developed by the Israeli company Paragon Solutions – to penetrate mobile devices without the user doing anything. This type of attack, known as zero-clickis particularly insidious because it does not require any interaction from the victim: You don’t have to click on suspicious links or download compromised attachments to be infected. Once installed, the software guarantees total access to messages, photos, videos, contacts and can even transform the phone into an environmental microphone to listen to the conversations of others remotely. The company has terminated the contract with the Italian government, but defending itself from these IT attacks is not at all simple, but some security measures can be implemented.

In recent months, an alarming number of journalists and activists have been stopped at borders, pressured to hand over their devices, or subjected to other forms of surveillance. Some have faced heightened scrutiny from state actors eager to access their data. Increasingly, governments and spies want to know what journalists are working on, who their sources are, and what stories they are uncovering. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we journalists take digital security seriously. Protecting our data isn’t just about personal privacy, it is about protecting the very foundation of democracy.

Protecting yourself also protects those around you. If an attacker compromises your email for example, they can send convincing phishing emails to your colleagues. Hackers who gain access to an account within a major media organization can often move deeper into the system, potentially spying on colleagues and causing even greater widespread harm.

As a result, the data of Canadians who use Microsoft or other products from US-based corporations could have their data provided to the United States government, and there is nothing they nor the Government of Canada can do.

Microsoft France’s response has been that they have strong, rigid legal processes to contest unfounded or potentially illegal or unconstitutional requests by the United States government.

However, this response to France’s concern amounts to little more than, “Trust us.” This removes the autonomy and sovereignty of France, Canada, and all other countries, allowing them to control the data used in their respective countries according to their practices and laws.

Relying on US big tech for cloud services at this point is just asking for security invasion. No nation, organization or individual should continue using Microsoft, Apple, Google or Amazon for cloud or any service. Unless they're just willing to give up all pretense of privacy and security. Get out now.

And that goes for Americans as well.

"An average of 28 children have been killed each day, the equivalent of an entire classroom. Consider that for a moment: a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years."
- Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF

US and Israel are mass murdering children and have been for nearly two years. Far too many US citizens have supported it, far too many have done too little to protest it.

In a scene that an immigrants-rights group spokesman described as “barbaric,” some two dozen children with their hands chained were videotaped shuffling single file in the parking garage of the 300 North Los Angeles Federal Building late Friday, July 11, apparently in federal custody.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, said in an interview Saturday that its attorneys had confirmed details posted with the video describing when and where it was recorded.

The attorneys contacted the children and planned to represent them, Cabrera said, adding the children were not accompanied by their parents and were from Ventura County.

Given the history of the US it's not suprising that we would end up here in 2025. Founded in genocide, slavery and the priviledge of male white supremacy, we are still that.

The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said it’s granting contract awards of up to $200 million for artificial intelligence development at Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI.

The DoD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said the awards will help the agency accelerate its adoption of “advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges.” The companies will work to develop AI agents across several mission areas at the agency.

There's no denying that US tech companies are now full-on military contractors. So, when you think of Google, don't think tech company, think, military contractor.

In the episode, Brian and Paris dig into Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey’s scary vision for the future of warfare — and how he plans to profit off the whole thing. Arming countries to the teeth with automated weapons, to the degree they’re considered “porcupines,” might sound bad to some people, but to Luckey it’s the obvious goal of the Western “warrior class.”

Palmer Luckey is a sociopath war profiteer. Disgusting. One person like this brings down the whole of humanity and the US is producing one after another of this kind of person. A disgrace.

Is a moment of horror, really, to live through as the extent to which the expenditures are being routed towards killing technologies, essentially, and surveillance ones, rather than those that could actually benefit us all is really to all of our shame.

And it is also a complete and utter crystallization of the extent to which democratic control over the development of these kinds of technologies has been lost.

Because I think if some accountability was possible as a whole, a public that is paying attention, probably wouldn't want to have, its taxes going towards the killing, this kind of an unadulterated, unsupervised killing machine.

At a time when humanity should be working together cooperatively the US leads the way in the opposite direction. Very dark days.

But what is a popular assembly, exactly? In Providence, assemblies have been held every other Saturday in a downtown Methodist church since November of last year. These gatherings offer a space for anti-fascist and progressive forces to coordinate, strategize, and make decisions together to build power that can be leveraged against the U.S. government. “We need regularly scheduled radically-democratic meetings to organize, coordinate, mobilize in active defense of our friends, neighbors, and loved ones,” the Providence General Assembly (PGA) writes in its mission statement, “and to fight to create the type of communities and world we want through our collective actions.”

Yes, more of this. We need to build our own democratic institutions based in our communities. Neighborhoods and towns with networks of assemblies. Even if they have no initial power can serve as a place and process for citizen consultation.

Giving up on the idea that truth matters is not just cynicism, it’s surrender.

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I’ve come to expect these words in my social media replies to my own work, and elsewhere in response to other journalists doing critical reporting on the abuses of the Trump regime.

Explain the clear corruption exemplified by Donald Trump’s growing list of cryptocurrency businesses? “Nobody cares.” Expose the pseudonymous individuals spending millions of dollars to buy influence with the president via his personal memecoin? “It doesn’t matter, he’s never going to face consequences.” Document apparently illegal campaign contributions by the largest American cryptocurrency exchange? “What does it matter, no one’s going to do anything about it.”

And these aren’t just a few social media responses, they’re expressions of a much broader resignation I’m seeing on- and offline: That caring is somehow naive. That documenting the truth is pointless. That hope is for fools.

Molly White is one of the good ones. And she's correct. We can't stop caring. The struggle for freedom is nothing new, it is ongoing. It is always ongoing. Much of our current situation in the US is because we've not been doing our job as citizens for decades. Our lack of care and action is exactly how we got here. Yes, we've made the problem much worse. but doing nothing, not fighting will only send us further towards oblivion. White middle class comfort has always been a problem in the US because it's a couch of comfort and security. It's privilege. Sitting back in that safety got us here, staying on the couch, watching it as a bystander makes you complicit. Find a way to act. And then act. Find a way to resist and then resist. Find a way to offer aid and offer aid.

I want my data to be mine. I want my data to be portable. I want my data to be private, and I want my computers to do what I want the way I want it to. If I can get all that and also not have to worry about developers abandoning or shutting down software I’m using, I think I can be a lot happier in my technology life.

So what do I mean by wanting my data to be mine? Let’s look at an example. I have an Android phone. My phone comes with an app for taking notes. Because it’s Android, those notes live in Google Keep, a web service run by Google that synchronizes your notes to the cloud, allows you to share them with others, and collaborate on them. All useful features to be sure, but who owns those notes? They don’t even exist on my phone. They’re on a web server somewhere controlled by a corporation that has so many fingers into the proverbial information pie that the pie is more fingers than filling at this point. If google decides to kill Keep like they have with so many other services, those notes are just… gone and I’ll need to find a new way to take and share notes. In this way, my notes aren’t mine. Whether they survive or not is just up to someone else. The same can be said of music, movies, video games, calendars, instant messaging, search, online file storage, and so many more types of data. I want to claw back whatever I can, even if it means investing time and energy into providing those things for myself.

This post echos my thinking a couple months ago when I began my transition to Linux and away from Apple. In this post he explores four key points, all worth thinking about: Personal ownership of data, data portability, data privacy, and the full freedom to customize how a computer works. As of this morning he's got two other posts written in the series.

In Los Angeles, mass street protests have broken out in response to immigration raids. Local police and Border Patrol are cracking down on protesters, while the Trump administration has called in the California National Guard. “They shot thousands of rounds of tear gas, flashbang grenades, all kinds of repressive instruments,” says Ron Gochez, community organizer with Unión del Barrio who helped organize some of the protests. He notes many of the protests have also been successful at turning back immigration agents, preventing ICE arrests and detention. “If we organize ourselves, if we resist, we can defend our communities from ICE terror, from the Border Patrol or from any federal agency that wishes to separate our families.”

Solidarity to my fellow humans in LA as they resist and fight for their freedom and right to exist. It seems clear that we are at the beginning of many long and violent days and nights.

Elon Musk’s massive xAI data center is poisoning Memphis. It's burning enough gas to power a small city, with no permits and no pollution controls. Residents tell us they can’t breathe and they’re getting sicker.

I'm finding it hard to come up with words to discuss this. The wealthiest oligarch in the world, obviously also a murderous psychopath willing to poison entire communities. The string of obsceneties that I want to type would only begin to express the rage. How are these people allowed to become such monsters? Why do we tolerate their violence, their cruelty?

It is with deep concern that we note the latest actions announced by the Government of the United States against [4] elected officials of the International Criminal Court. These new actions, in addition to an earlier designation of an elected official, are regrettable attempts to impede the Court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions.

We firmly and unequivocally reject these unilateral measures. They represent a regrettable affront to the independence of the Court and the integrity of the Rome Statute system. Such actions risk undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community and erode the shared commitment to the rule of law, the fight against impunity, and the preservation of a rules-based international order.

The International Criminal Court is a cornerstone of international justice. It functions as an independent and impartial judicial body, operating in full accordance with its founding treaty, the Rome Statute.

It should be clear by now that the US does not respect international justice or international law. Not only that, but it has blatantly worked against any semblance of global justice in this case and many, many others. The US is on its own side and that of the US-based corporations it represents. And, frankly, it's long past the time that it be held to accoutn as a nation with a long record opposing human rights and democracy.

Much has been made of the distinction between charity and mutual aid. Charity is top-down and unidirectional, while mutual aid is supposed to be horizontal, reciprocal, and participatory. In practice, however, the majority of today’s self-described mutual aid projects remain more or less unidirectional efforts to provide goods and services to those in need.

This has contributed to a situation in which conventional non-profit organizations are rebranding themselves with the language of “mutual aid,” while some anarchists have given up on the concept entirely, fed up with a rhetoric that some say amounts to “mutual aid being good and radical, and charity being bad and conservative.”

Is there more to the distinction than this? How could we unlock the revolutionary potential of mutual aid?

For anyone interested in the ideas and practice of anarchism. I found it a worthwhile read.

The administration of Donald Trump is arrogantly seeking to topple the house of cards that supports the international trade order. As critics of this system, we see in it** opportunities and challenges to rethink tri-national relations and overcome neoliberal dogmas. However, the chaos and impacts that these measures cause to workers and farmers throughout North America is a matter of concern. The peoples of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada share their vulnerability to capricious trade policy changes.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements introduced rules to allow companies to operate transnationally and gave them new powers to sue governments for any regulations benefiting communities that hinder their profits. Free trade agreements (FTAs) are about allowing goods and services to be generated where labor, regulatory and fiscal costs are lower and sold where there is greater purchasing power.

Trump, however, blames workers from other countries and migrants to the U.S. for the economic difficulties and the massive increase in inequality in that country since NAFTA went into effect. We reject this nationalistic and distorted view of reality. Workers in all three countries have been harmed by corporations that circumvent national regulations through trade and investment treaties.

I clearly remember the early 1990s when many of us were protesting and actively working against NAFTA. The Zapatistas in Chiapas set a solid path focused on building a deeply democratic civil society and that movement continues today through grass roots projects in communities throughout the Americas. Projects like the Schools for Chiapas show the way.

A humanitarian flotilla led by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) set sail from Sicilian port on Sunday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza and deliver needed aid while drawing global attention to what organisers call a deepening humanitarian catastrophe.

The 20-metre vessel Madleen—named after a Palestinian fisher—carries a “limited amount, though symbolic” cargo of relief supplies and a dozen international volunteers.

Greta Thunberg continues to inspire with her relentless and righteous activism.

The most insidious thing about Big Tech’s takeover of the internet isn’t the concentration of power—it’s how it’s trained us to beg for scraps from our digital overlords.

Every week brings a new chorus of voices demanding that [insert tech giant] must “do better” or that [insert government agency] needs to “crack down” or that [insert billionaire] should swoop in to save us. We’ve become digital peasants, petitioning various lords and kings to please, please fix the internet for us.

100% this. Though I would add, this problem is not specific to our computing and the internet. The same can be applied to our learned helplessness across the board. Another important one is climate. Most admit that the political process in the US is badly broken and corrupted. We've watched for decades as lawmakers did far too little to address what is now a full blown climate emergency. We blame government, we blame corporations, we blame billionaires. We blame everyone but ourselves. This pretend helplessness is degrading our lives and the lives of future humans. As Masnick says, it's pathetic. And I would add, in the case of climate, it's criminal negligence.

A government of, by and for the people. We are failing ourselves simply because we refuse to make an effort.

It finally dawned on me that I've been foolishly comparing my expectations with a bygone era, without realising the close connection between a degrading quality of modern technology and the objective descent of Western societies towards something that can only be defined with the term fascism.

It's been a steady progression, started with leaving mainstream social media, quitting certain services, decoupling things that I had learned to think as inextricably interconnected. It's been at the same time a liberating thought process, and enjoyable practical steps.

In a nutshell, I found myself trapped within a kind of self-inflicted jail, where the warden was a collective entity made of rich white men. These mercurial figures come from a foreign country that I was conditioned to think as an ally.

A fantastic post by Simone. A perfect description of what I've been feeling for the past few months and exactly what motivated me to drop Apple and migrate away from US-based tech giants.

We do not have to remain their subjects. That is a choice. We can all step away.

Host Cory Doctorow coined the word "enshittification" to describe the state of the modern internet: a broken down, decaying place, once full of promise, now overrun with intrusive ads, hateful trolls, aggressive algorithms, zero privacy, and AI-generated slop, with every billionaire tech titan in a race to the bottom to bleed their users and their customers alike...

Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its changes are all about benefiting users. Critics say it’s all part of a bigger pattern — one that host Cory Doctorow calls enshittification: the slow, deliberate decay of platforms in the name of profit.

An excellent 4 part series that ends with a solid solution. It doesn't have to be this way.

I was catching up with some tech news yesterday and while I was listening to a discussion about the latest updates coming from Google and their potential impact on the web I had a sudden realization: when tech reporters say “the web” they don’t mean the web. When these people talk about the web they’re talking about the web they’re part of: they talk about the web that is powered by advertising and by tracking, the web that needs traffic to sustain itself. The commercial web is what they talk about.

If you love the small, indy web you're probably already reading Manuel's blog. If not, you should subscribe to his RSS. The rest of the post is short but such a good reminder about the heart of the web we love.

Israeli forces opened fire “directly and heavily” toward a diplomatic delegation representing over 20 countries on an official visit to Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, as numerous countries have ratcheted up pressure on Israel amid an escalation of its genocide in Gaza...

The incident has drawn international condemnation. Several countries, including France, Spain and Italy have said that they plan to summon their respective Israeli ambassadors to demand an explanation for the incident...

UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese said that the shooting is typical from the Israeli army.

“The astonishment of so many upon realizing that the Israeli army makes no exceptions even for international diplomats and politicians, suggests they may not yet fully grasp the nature of both the Israeli army and the context in the oPt [occupied Palestinian Territories],” she said.

People need to start viewing Israel as the embodiment of Trump. No one should be surprised at the complete disregard for norms and international law. This is and has been ongoing genocide and war crimes. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES. IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Oswald Spengler, the author of The Decline of the West, described Western Europe as a Faustian culture, constantly striving to overcome limits. The term 'sigma male' – which originated in masculinist subcultures, as a way to describe a self-reliant man who often operates outside traditional social norms – embodies this Faustian spirit, in a moniker that combines a constellation of figures: the rebel, the explorer, the visionary, the nerd, the outcast. Together, they came to represent the intersection between the manosphere, Silicon Valley and the new far right.

Another essay from the folks at error 417 expectation fail. Glad I discovered this project as these first two essays are illuminating, thoughtful explorations of aspects of the emergence of tech fascism.

"We are only at the very beginning of conceptualizing anti-fascist tech, but the task is more urgent than ever." The tech sector has always sold its gadgets with narratives of a future that would manifest only by purchasing the right devices. However, there has been a gradual shift toward the claim that this future can only be brought about through the unhindered development of the right technologies. It’s no longer "In the future we’ll have hoverboards," but rather "You need to let us do whatever we want in order for the future to come." Nowhere does that become more explicit than in what is called 'AI'. All existing rules and legislation, understandings of consent, copyright, or the right not to become the subject of automated biometric data processing, go down the drain because without all the data, AI supposedly won’t become smarter than us humans, won’t emerge as our new machine god. And we need that magic AGI to solve all our problems and maybe even rule us. Nobody was asked for their input on that vision. A few technologists just made their secular religion the only acceptable way to think about the future...

Tech Fascism emerges when a select few have the power to structure the world according to their very limited ideals of efficiency and 'rationality'. These ideals, which leave little room for dignity or the richness of human experience, bring fascist logics into every aspect of even liberal governments, into every aspect of our digitally mediated lives, in an essentially totalitarian manner.

Seems to fit what I'm seeing.

Staffers and allies of the ICC said the sanctions have made it increasingly difficult for the tribunal to conduct basic tasks, let alone seek justice for victims of war crimes or genocide.

A spokesperson for the ICC and for Khan declined to comment. In February, ICC President Judge Tomoko Akane said that the sanctions “constitute serious attacks against the Court’s States Parties, the rule of law based international order and millions of victims.”

... One reason the the court has been hamstrung is that it relies heavily on contractors and non-governmental organizations. Those businesses and groups have curtailed work on behalf of the court because they were concerned about being targeted by U.S. authorities, according to current and former ICC staffers.

Microsoft, for example, cancelled Khan’s email address, forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider, ICC staffers said. His bank accounts in his home country of the U.K. have been blocked.

Microsoft is blocking the ICC prosecutor from accessing his email. Fucked up but not too suprising. Europe needs to extract itself from US-based technology. Fuck Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple. But again, not surprising that they would take this action. Microsoft and Google both actively support Israel and its systematic apartheid and genocide.

US-based corps are not to be trusted. It was just a couple weeks ago that Microsoft tried to assure the EU that they could be trusted. They cannot be trusted and this is the perfect example. The solution for other nations lies in readily available free and open source solutions or those they have themselves built and are hosting.

The term low-tech intuitively makes us feel an opposition to technological excess (high tech) while avoiding technophobic extremism. A term that is enthusiastic, but which I think it is important to explain and for which I propose the following definition.

Know how to understand. Be able to understand. Two essential elements (and difficult to distinguish for the Belgian that I am).

Since my migration from Apple and iCloud in mid Februrary I've been thinking a lot more about the notion of low-tech, understanding the computer tech I use and having more control over it. Of course, when it comes to "low-tech" computing, well, certainly what I'm using is not really low-tech at all. There are levels of understanding. I understand my bike to the degree I can repair most things with the proper tools. I understand the principle of how my car works but could not repair much though I can find locals who could.

But a computer, it's internal hardware and OS? Even as a fairly "advanced" user my understanding of the various layers is minimal. I know how to troubleshoot and fix quite a bit in terms of the OS. I know how to learn about using apps and can become an "advanced" user of most apps I need to use. But there is a hard limit in terms of what I'm willing and likely able to learn about the underpinnings of the code under it all. And, likewise, the internals of the hardware. I love the idea of the repairable Framework computer. Or any other, older computer than can be taken apart, and the battery replaced. Some repairs would be doable. But even then, there is a reliance on access to those parts.

I don't have any particular answer, just a greater awarness of the fragility of my relationship to my computing tech.

Missouri Senate Republicans invoked a rarely used rule Wednesday to shut down a Democratic filibuster blocking a vote on a measure overturning the abortion rights amendment passed by voters in November.

That action was immediately followed by another use of the rule, this time to get a bill passed repealing the paid sick leave law that was also approved by voters.

At this point I'm no longer surprised by the Republican Party's complete disregard of democracy at any level of government. They don't even pretend.

Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies – taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API – was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit. Weak APIs would be replaced with muscular, unofficial APIs built out of unstoppable scrapers running on headless machines in some data-center. Every time some tech company erected a 10-foot enshittifying fence, someone would show up with an 11-foot disenshittifying ladder.

How we fight back and why Trump's tarrifs present new incentives.

Twelve-year-old Rahaf Ayad is so malnourished she can barely speak. Her hair is falling out. Her ribs protrude. She can hardly move her limbs. She blinks slowly, her eyelids heavy.

Originally from Al-Shuja’iya in eastern Gaza City, Rahaf now lives with her seven family members in a single room in a relative’s house in the city’s Al-Rimal neighborhood.

Shurooq, Rahaf’s mother, explained that her daughter’s health began deteriorating rapidly due to the lack of food. “If anyone touches her, or she tries to move her arms or legs, she just cries out in pain,” she told +972. “She says it feels like her body is burning from the inside. She asks for chicken, meat, or eggs — but there’s nothing in the markets.”

The US continues it's partnership in genocide.

In the early hours of Monday morning, two massive Hyundai excavators and two Caterpillar bulldozers roared out of the gates of the Ma’on settlement in the South Hebron Hills — illegally built on Palestinian land belonging to the village of At-Tuwani. For residents living in the area, the sight of these “yellow monsters,” as they call them, is an omen: the day will be filled with destruction, and families will lose homes they woke up in just hours earlier.

The genocide continues in Palestine.

In a world increasingly dominated by planned obsolescence and disposable technology, the idea of a general-purpose computing machine designed to last a century feels both radical and necessary. Drawing inspiration from Sci-Fi, retro computing, and a deep frustration with modern constraints, we can imagine a machine that prioritizes repairability, self-containment, and the ability to modify and replicate itself.

Such a computer would embrace simplicity over excess, durability over convenience, and openness over restriction. It would rely on robust commodity hardware, energy efficiency, and a software ecosystem without proprietary constraints. The challenges of power sources, bit-rot, and simplified communication protocols all need thoughtful solutions, but the goal remains the same: a machine that endures, adapts, and continues to function even in the face of technological, economic, or societal collapse.

Whether this vision takes form as a movement, a niche project, or a future necessity, the idea remains compelling. As technology continues to cycle between openness and controlled, thick and thin clients, repairability and disposability, we may yet see a return to computing that values longevity and resilience over profit-driven impermanence. The hundred-year computer isn't just a dream — it’s a challenge to rethink the way we build and use technology in an uncertain future.

I love everything about this. FOSS and Linux-based computing is a step towards this goal but even this is still too complicated for the 100 year computing platform laid out in the article. The 100 year platform is for a very different kind of world and future but it seems to be the world and future we're heading for. Of course, this applies to all of our current technology, our household devices and transport.

The Free Software movement has been mostly killed by the corporate Open Source. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its founder, Richard Stallman (RMS), have been decried for the last twenty years, including by my 25-year-old self, as being outdated and inadequate.

I’ve spent the last 6 years teaching Free Software and Open Source at École Polytechnique de Louvain, being forced to investigate the subject and the history more than I anticipated in order to answer students’ questions. I’ve read many historical books on the subject, including RMS’s biography and many older writings.

And something struck me.

RMS was right since the very beginning. Every warning, every prophecy realised. And, worst of all, he had the solution since the start. The problem is not RMS or FSF. The problem is us. The problem is that we didn’t listen.

A lot here to think about. I wish I'd begun thinking about and advocating for this kind of computing 20 years ago.

We speak with two brothers who are fighting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, used to run its chatbot Grok. The facility is next to historically Black neighborhoods and is powered by 35 pollution-spewing methane gas turbines the company is using without legal permits. Musk says he wants to continue expanding the project.

“What’s happening in Memphis is a human rights violation,” says KeShaun Pearson, executive director of the environmental justice organization Memphis Community Against Pollution. “Elon Musk and xAI are violating our human right to clean air and a clean, healthy environment.” His brother Justin J. Pearson, a Tennessee state representative for Memphis, says Musk is “perpetuating environmental racism” by ignoring the wishes of local residents: “They are abusing our community, and they’re exploiting us.”

Elon Musk is white supremacist trash.

It is tempting to call this moment a new and shocking low. To say that something has gone terribly wrong in America. That we are becoming unrecognizable. That this is not who we are.

But it is exactly who we are.

The fascism is not imported. It is not creeping in through some rift in the social contract. It’s homegrown. It’s legacy software. It’s foundational.

America has always been a fascist state—for some. For Black people. For Indigenous people. For the poor. For the disposable. What is happening now is not a deviation. It is an expansion. The tools were always there. The tools were always sharpened on Black bodies. They are merely being used more broadly now, and with less pretense.

Yep. 100% this.

There is a proverbial elephant in the room that few dare to identify openly. Revoking visas, arresting students on the streets, detaining them in staunchly Republican jurisdictions, banning protests, cutting federal funding to universities, and forcing institutions to censor their faculty and curricula—all of these actions, and more, violate academic freedom, civil liberties, and both U.S. and international law. This sweeping assault on democracy in the United States and other Western countries is in some ways a revival of the themes and methods of the settler colonial state, exemplified nowadays by Israel and promoted by its extremist partisans.

A helpful reminder of the historical context of what we see happening in 2025. The genocide being carried out by Israel is a continuation of white settler colonialism that is foundational to the white supremacy and violence of modern America.

What is happening is, quite simply, annihilation. Yet our politicians keep funding it and media outlets normalize it.

Where do I even start? In recent weeks I’ve sat down to try and write about Gaza and, every time I steel myself to write about one atrocity, another atrocity is committed. Palestinian journalists have been burned alive, babies have frozen to death, medics have been executed and buried in mass graves, kids are being killed in their sleep. Meanwhile, in the US and Germany, speaking out about dead Palestinian babies can land you on a deportation list. Arguing that international human rights law should be respected can put you at risk of being snatched off the street and stuck in a detention centre.

One atrocity after another after another. Fully endorsed, supported and paid for by the US, itself a nation built on genocide, white settler colonialism and slavery.

Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new report

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency – and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres – could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.

American Rivers’ annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management – all of which Trump’s regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse.

My response: Full Spectrum Resistance, Volume One: "A guide to direct action for those disillusioned with the posturing of liberal “activism.”

The radical left is losing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here is the radical’s guide to activist work—the manual we need at this crucial moment to organize for universal human rights, a habitable earth, and a more egalitarian society.

California’s national forests are on the chopping block — literally — in the wake of the Trump administration’s April 5 order to immediately expand timber production in the United States.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued an emergency declaration that ordered the U.S. Forest Service to open up some 112.5 million acres of national forestland to logging.

The announcement included a grainy map of affected forests, which did not specify forest names or the amount of impacted acreage in each.

However, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have confirmed to The Times that the order will touch all 18 of the Golden State’s national forests, which collectively span more than 20 million acres.

“The USDA Forest Service stands ready to fulfill the Secretary’s vision of productive and resilient national forests outlined in the memorandum,” the agency said in a written statement.

My thoughts? Full Spectrum Resistance, Volume One: "A guide to direct action for those disillusioned with the posturing of liberal “activism.”

The radical left is losing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here is the radical’s guide to activist work—the manual we need at this crucial moment to organize for universal human rights, a habitable earth, and a more egalitarian society.

In his meeting with President Nayib Bukele today in the White House, President Donald Trump told his Salvadoran counterpart that “home-growns are next” and that El Salvador would “need to be build about five more places” to hold American citizens.

So the president of the United States proposes, on camera, to deport Americans to foreign concentration camps.

It's what he's been saying he would do all along. And here we are. This is the point of no return.

On the night of Saturday, March 15, three planes touched down in El Salvador, carrying 261 men deported from the United States. A few dozen were Salvadoran, but most of the men were Venezuelans the Trump Administration had designated as gang members and deported, with little or no due process. I was there to document their arrival.

It's one thing to know that these deportations are happening. It's another thing to take the time to read about the details.

There must be consequences. Countries must form new alliances and end their dependence on US tech in response to Trump’s trade war.

The United States has declared an imperialist trade war against its neighbors and some of its closest partners: Canada and Mexico. President Donald Trump hit the two countries with 25% tariffs on almost all goods, along with 10% on energy and mineral exports. More tariffs could follow in the coming weeks, and he’s justifying them all by saying they’re necessary to force his neighbors to do more to combat the trade of fentanyl. But that’s not the real reason underlying Trump’s tariff policy.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau addressed that claim in a news conference after the tariffs were imposed, explaining that the flow of fentanyl from Canada to the United States is virtually non-existent and fell by 97% in January 2025 compared to the month before. Meanwhile, US guns heading north and south are causing immense problems for its neighbors. The real reason for Trump’s trade war is much more existential. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy,” said Trudeau, in reference to Trump, “because that will make it easier to annex us.”

In recent weeks I've been dwelling on this notion constantly. That the US is a pariah nation now. Or should be treated as such. And no, not just because of the horrid conduct of the current adminstration. We've earned it over decades. The past two years of genocide but fefore that decades of war profiteering via our foreign policy. And decades of obstruction on solving key global problems such as climate change which is now a global emergency due in large part to the US.

And to be clear, this is a problem of both US leadership AND the American public which refuses to take action. The public here have demonstrated that they do not take the responsibility of citizenship and democracy seriously. The current situation is a direct result.

This speech specifically addresses the unique opportunities for disenshittification created by Trump's rapid unscheduled midair disassembly of the international free trade system. The US used trade deals to force nearly every country in the world to adopt the IP laws that make enshittification possible, and maybe even inevitable. As Trump burns these trade deals to the ground, the rest of the world has an unprecedented opportunity to retaliate against American bullying by getting rid of these laws and producing the tools, devices and services that can protect every tech user (including Americans) from being ripped off by US Big Tech companies.

This is a helpful and informative talk. As time goes on I'm coming to appreciate and enjoy Cory more and more. Always critical but always with an underlying optimism about what we can do to defend and expand our rights and freedom.

DAWN, a D.C.-based nonprofit organization that supports democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa, is asking the International Criminal Court to investigate former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for possible complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, citing the $17.9 billion worth of U.S. weapons transfers to Israel overseen by the Biden administration. “The bombs that Israel has used to destroy schools, hospitals and homes in Gaza were American bombs that they provided. Israel’s campaign of murder and persecution was carried out with political support that they ensured,” says Reed Brody, a longtime war crimes lawyer and a board member at DAWN. Biden, Blinken and Austin were not only “aware of what was being done with their ammunition,” but also “tried to stifle criticism” of their policies. Furthermore, says Brody, U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes could extend into the Trump administration. He suggests that the ICC prosecutor “would be well within his rights” to open a probe into Trump following the administration’s sanctions on the ICC in response to arrest warrants issued against Israeli officials.

Yes. Yes. Yes. How could they not be complicit?

]]> https://beardystarstuff.net/linked.html#2025-02-24-01 https://beardystarstuff.net/linked.html#2025-02-24-01 Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:10:36 CST

The Dark Gothic MAGA oligarchs are going for everything at breakneck speed. We are playing defense and cleanup—and badly. It's time for a switch-up. Let's talk about Canada.

In January, in response to Donald Trump talking about making Canada the 51st state, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, made a counteroffer: Canada would be happy to absorb California, Oregon, and Washington.

This was (likely) meant satirically, but join me in a brief thought experiment. What if California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, New York, Maryland, and Virginia became part of Canada? It wouldn’t have to stop there, of course, but for this thought experiment I’ve chosen only the states that A) voted blue in the 2024 elections, and B) are contiguous with other such states (hence, no Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois).

Agreed.

A funny thing happens when a Snickers bar goes from whole to eaten — the wrapper transmorgifies from useful to toxic. Suddenly, this thing that was keeping germs and dirt off your chocolate sugar log is now “useless” and with this comes the heaviest burden a modern person unencumbered by genocide or famine can hold: garbage responsibility. ...

This obsession with the immediate “unburdening” of a thing you created is common in non-Japanese contexts, but I posit: The Japanese way is the correct way. Be an adult. Own your garbage. Garbage responsibility is something we’ve long since abdicated not only to faceless cans on street corners (or just all over the street, as seems to be the case in Manhattan or Paris), but also faceless developing countries around the world. Our oceans teem with the waste from generations of averted eyes. And I believe the two — local pathologies and attendant global pathologies — are not not connected.

The modern condition consists of a constant self-infantilization, of any number of “non-adulting” activities. The main being, of course, plugging into a dopamine casino right before going to sleep and right upon waking up. At least a morning cigarette habit in 1976 gave one time to look at the world in front of one’s eyes (and a gentle nicotine buzz). Other non-adulting activities include relinquishment of general attention, concentration, and critical thinking capabilities. The desire for deus ex machina style political intercession that belies the complexities of real-world systems. Easy answers, easy solutions to problems of unfathomable scale. Scientific retardation because it “feels” good. Deliverance — deliverance! — now, with as little effort as possible.

Hell yes. But really, it's so much more than garbage. None of the adults I know in my life seem bothered by their lack of complete shrugging off of responsibility in regards to the negative impact of their resource consumption and what comes after.

While democracy burns, the Democratic leadership is worried about too many phone calls from concerned citizens. In a closed-door meeting this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed frustration not with corporate America’s growing acquiescence to authoritarianism, but with grassroots organizations urging a more confrontational defense of democracy.

“What leverage do we have?” Jeffries laments, apparently forgetting that the power to resist tyranny doesn’t come from parliamentary procedure but from the moral clarity and collective will of the people.

When Jeffries asks this question, he’s revealing more than he intends about the Democratic Party’s compromised position. Their primary source of funding comes from corporations that are already signaling their willingness to accommodate authoritarian rule. Each act of corporate genuflection to Trump—whether it’s Google’s cartographic flattery or business leaders’ quiet contingency planning—further weakens the party’s ability to mount effective resistance.

I along with countless anarchists/radicals/progressives have been saying this for years. I wrote about this very problem as recently as 6 days ago after listening to Jon Stewart interview him. The Democratic Party are corporate owned neoliberals. They are bought and paid for. This is a long running problem of the two party system in the US. The best government money can buy. No one should be surprised by this in 2025.

I have come to wonder whether these expressions of despair and surrender are really masking an irrational longing for a magical way out of this nightmare. A hope that some deus ex machina will swoop down and spare us what we are facing. But this moment we find ourselves in is the result of the reckless voting of our fellow Americans in 2024, the failures of our media over decades, the critical political mistakes of our leaders, the short-sighted greed of the corporate community, and the longstanding lack of urgency about repairing the gaping cracks in our democratic infrastructure over far too many years. There is no magical way out.We are reaping what has been sown by many, many years of inattention to the eroding foundations of our democracy and we must face it.

To overcome or even slow the momentum of the forces arrayed against us will require our resolve, and an ecosystem of resistance – litigation, activism, organizing, direct action, communications, political pressure, and our voices raised to speak truth to power.

The Governments of Belize, Plurinational State of Bolivia, Republic of Colombia, Republic of Cuba, Republic of Honduras, Malaysia, Republic of Namibia, Republic of Senegal and Republic of South Africa gathered in The Hague in the Netherlands on Friday to announce the formation of “The Hague Group.” The entire document is quoted below, at the end of this posting.

They began by expressing their ongoing grief for “the lives, livelihoods, communities, and cultural heritage lost due to Israel, the occupying power’s genocidal actions in Gaza and the remainder of the Occupied Palestinian Territory against the Palestinian people.”

They quote a raft of decisions of the International Court of Justice, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the International Criminal Court holding against Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians. The very continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories (Gaza and the West Bank) has been found illegal by the ICJ. Warrants have been issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.

‘It hurts to see people go through what they’re going through.’ — Community members formed a human chain to block ICE agents from arresting a neighbor and his son.

This kind of direct action is exactly how we fight back. Neighbors working with neighbors in our communities is how we build solidarity and resistance.

A thoughtful, helpful post by Adam Tinworth on the recent events at Micro.blog but, more generally, about the differences of a healthy process of social change in a community as compared to emotionally driven mob action. That's a gross over simplification of a thoughtful post.

In the 1980s, El Salvador was ground zero for the U.S. intervention in Central America. The United States  funneled over $6 billion to El Salvador in mostly military aid and police and security training throughout the country’s 12-year civil war, which  lasted from 1980 until 1992.

The violence and the U.S. support for the country's bloody authoritarian regimes had a deadly cost, claiming the lives of and tens of thousands of innocent victims.

A quote from the transcript, begins around 26:57:

“Less than a year into the Reagan administration, Monte Rosa and his elite US trained special forces, the Atlaquat Battalion, would carry out one of the single worst massacres, not just of the Salvadorian Civil War, but of all of 1980s Central America. Between December 11th and 12th, 1981, the battalion slaughtered 986 people in the community of El Mozote. More than half of them were children.

For the half of the US freaking out about immigrants coming from countries south of the US border, this entire series should be required listening. And for the other half of the country not freaking out about immigration, it should also be required listening because almost every US citizen I know, certainly everyone in my extended family, is entirely ignorant of US foreign policy throughout Central and South America. It's a policy that goes back to the Monroe Doctrine and the result is decades of arms deals and violent interventions that we are responsible for. This is not ancient history, it's today. It's still our policy in the Americas but it's our policy across the planet. This is American Empire, American Imperialism.

And to be clear, it was never about democracy. It is about capitalism.

The perspective of time is a wonderful thing.