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Happy Tuesday. Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week's top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-inclusive world of technology.
Surveillance nightmare
The frightening consequences of Monday’s conservative Supreme Court decision granting Donald Trump and future presidents partial immunity for crimes committed as part of “official acts” are far-reaching. My first thought was about how this ruling concerning Trump’s assault on our democratic system appears to have legalized similar attacks in the future.
My second thought — and one I’d love to see more discussion about — concerns the potential surveillance implications. University of Chicago law professor Aziz Huq is one of the few sources I’ve seen discussing this. He’s quoted in Politico saying the ruling “licenses the misuse of … the surveillance and intrusive powers of the national security state.”
Over the past couple of years here on the ReidOut Blog, I’ve been writing about emerging technologies and their potential uses by bad actors who could deploy them to infringe on civil rights — everything from geofence warrants and other tools that can track potential abortion-seekers to robot police dogs that can surveil and attack at a moment’s notice. Presidents have already been given broad latitude to snoop on Americans without the new concept of presidential immunity that conservatives on the Supreme Court just invented. If Trump is elected in November and conservatives execute their plan to pack the government with pro-Trump loyalists, he will be armed with the most powerful surveillance technologies ever invented. It’s easy to see his Department of Justice devising purportedly “official” reasons to use them with impunity.
Here are some other stories I've had on my mind:
ChatGPT goes MAGA
OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, two generative AI chatbots frequently used to surface information from the internet, were found to have fed their users right-wing propaganda about CNN’s debate setup last week. It’s yet another example of generative AI tools like ChatGPT being used to spread misinformation or propaganda.
Read more at NBC News.
China flexing its space skills
Officials in China’s government are boasting that their country has carried out a first-in-the-world mission to collect samples from the far side of the moon. It’s the latest development in an ongoing space race between the U.S. and China, with both countries looking to ramp up their scientific research and military capabilities.
Read more at The Washington Post.
OnlyFans exposé
A new report from Reuters highlights the spread of sexual content involving minors on the popular video platform OnlyFans. Reuters cited dozens of complaints made to authorities over the last five years, in which the filers said they found the disturbing content on OnlyFans. And Reuters says this is likely to be an undercount. OnlyFans says it’s “proud of the work we do to aggressively target, report, and support the investigations and prosecutions of anyone who seeks to abuse our platform in this way.”
Read more at Reuters.
Biden admin boosts tech investment outside the coasts
In an effort to promote technological investment and research outside typical major metropolitan centers such as New York and San Francisco, the Biden administration announced it’s investing $504 million to fund 12 technology hubs throughout the country, in states such as Ohio, Montana, Nevada and Florida.
Read more at The Associated Press.
That’s the ticket!
A federal jury determined the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” television package violates antitrust laws. With its decision in the class-action lawsuit, the jury awarded millions of plaintiffs and thousands of businesses an amount exceeding $4.7 billion. The NFL has said it will appeal the decision.
Read more at ESPN.