#progressivepolitics

After the first hearing ever convened by the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, the judge concluded DOJ still had more work to do to make its case. Also: Law Dork on MS NOW.

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49627303 Video Source Kansas state halo act Kansas City Community Defense Training

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49626583 Immigration and Customs Enforcement has yet more blood on its hands. An employee at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, shot a protester Thursday evening, Aurora Police Department shared in a written news release. The woman was hit in her lower body but is expected to survive. The suspected shooter is Brandon Booth, a 42-year-old who works for ICE contractor GEO Group. Moments before the violent incident, Booth and other facility employees were waiting in their cars on Nome Street, reportedly unable to enter the detention center due to an anti-ICE protest, according to local law enforcement. Police say that two women broke off from the demonstration, verbally confronted Booth, took photos of his car, and walked away. But Booth wouldn’t let them. Instead, he grabbed his pistol and fired a shot at the women, striking one in the lower body, according to the police report. He then hopped back into his car and drove away before he was caught by Aurora Police. The department noted that additional officers found Booth in his car with his gun “a short distance away” after he fled the scene. Booth was booked on probable cause of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon. … The attack is the latest in a long string of domestic bloodshed by ICE and its contractors. Just this month, federal agents have shot and killed at least two people: Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was killed in Biddeford, Maine, despite having a valid work permit and Social Security number, as well as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father of three and a local small-business owner who was killed in Houston. There have now been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to office and made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second-term agenda.

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49626583 Immigration and Customs Enforcement has yet more blood on its hands. An employee at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, shot a protester Thursday evening, Aurora Police Department shared in a written news release. The woman was hit in her lower body but is expected to survive. The suspected shooter is Brandon Booth, a 42-year-old who works for ICE contractor GEO Group. Moments before the violent incident, Booth and other facility employees were waiting in their cars on Nome Street, reportedly unable to enter the detention center due to an anti-ICE protest, according to local law enforcement. Police say that two women broke off from the demonstration, verbally confronted Booth, took photos of his car, and walked away. But Booth wouldn’t let them. Instead, he grabbed his pistol and fired a shot at the women, striking one in the lower body, according to the police report. He then hopped back into his car and drove away before he was caught by Aurora Police. The department noted that additional officers found Booth in his car with his gun “a short distance away” after he fled the scene. Booth was booked on probable cause of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon. … The attack is the latest in a long string of domestic bloodshed by ICE and its contractors. Just this month, federal agents have shot and killed at least two people: Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was killed in Biddeford, Maine, despite having a valid work permit and Social Security number, as well as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father of three and a local small-business owner who was killed in Houston. There have now been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to office and made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second-term agenda.

alternative video upload: https://streamable.com/e/7g7kxh

Donald Trump thought that he was going to undermine the midterm election, but his document dump provided evidence that he colluded with Russia for election help.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a stay, lifting a lower court’s block on USPS’s mail-in ballot proposal, in a major win for Trump.  The post Appeals Court Lifts Block on USPS Mail-In Ballot Plan in Win for Trump first appeared on Mediaite.

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49613080 Source

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49560928 Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz was furious to learn that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold grant money the city uses to help prosecute rapists — all because the California city was deemed a refuge for immigrants. “Justice for victims shouldn’t be politicized. It has nothing to do with immigration enforcement,” Janz told USA TODAY. It’s the latest example of the Trump administration’s promise to withhold funding from cities it calls “sanctuary jurisdictions.” It pressures cities to sign cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials with the strongest tool at its disposal: money. There will be no federal funds for bulletproof vests for cops in Santa Cruz, California, the city alleged in a lawsuit. No ambulances for paramedics in Beaverton, Oregon. And now, no money for police departments to process rape kits in Fresno, as the administration threatens to withhold federal grants for critical services from cities that won’t sign deals to work with ICE. Cities face a hard choice: give up the federal money, sign the ICE agreements, or fight the Department of Justice in court. … Los Angeles County said it is forgoing many federal grant opportunities. Miami is facing backlash from residents after city leaders signed on to ICE’s program. And other cities, from Seattle to San Diego, are launching their own court battles. In October, the DOJ named 12 states, 18 cities, and three counties that it said “materially impede enforcement of federal immigration statutes.” In general, many of those locations refuse to share information with ICE, hold individuals for ICE, or allow agents into their jails. … Last year, the president signed an executive order directing federal agencies to suspend grants to states and cities that don’t cooperate with immigration officials. That included grants to pay for processing rape kits used to convict child sex offenders in Fresno. … DOJ grant administrators sent Fresno a note in June, noting that the city had not signed a certification saying it would cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE or risk losing the money. DOJ wanted to make sure it wasn’t an oversight. … Other cities on the West Coast have sued the administration over similar restrictions in DOJ grants related to “diversity, equity and inclusion” language and immigration enforcement. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s administrative chief Navjot Kaur, – who’s office represents 10 million residents – wrote in a legal filing that he was forced not to apply for federal funding to test rape kits because of the sanctuary jurisdiction classification. Administrators worry the county’s backlog of unsubmitted rape kits would grow, and victim services could lag. Portland, Oregon, has $8.6 million in active DOJ grants, including $2.5 million for cold cases and sexual assault kits. The city helped clear the state’s backlog of thousands of forgotten and untested kits in 2018 with federal funding. Kits continued to accumulate, and in 2024, the state’s backlog returned. Portland Police were waiting eight months for kits to be tested and have hundreds in line. Without the funding, City Administrator Raymond Lee wrote in a filing, the programs would be “significantly curtailed or eliminated.”

Trump on Thursday announced the declassification of intelligence he says shows China illegally attained 220 million U.S. voter files.

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49528067 ICE agents rushed a man detained in their custody to Brooklyn’s Brookdale University Hospital on Tuesday, claiming that “he fell from a window” and became injured — and sparking an impromptu protest from activists and elected officials. According to sources familiar with the situation, several ICE agents were seen taking a man into the facility’s emergency room after he had sustained injuries earlier on the morning of July 14. It is unclear from where the man had sustained his injuries, including whether he was injured at an ICE facility or elsewhere. The sighting of ICE agents at the facility prompted about a dozen concerned New Yorkers to gather outside, days after two high-profile shootings involving ICE agents shooting and killing men during car stops. Several vehicles parked outside Brookdale on Tuesday bore license plates known to activists as being used by ICE in previous operations around town. … A source stated that hospital staff released the injured man back into ICE custody following his treatment and slipped out of another entrance. His identity is still not clear. … Upon leaving the hospital, one of the ICE agents said to another while hiding his face with his hands, “Where did you park?” When they found their vehicle, they had discovered it had its two right-tires slashed. Nonetheless, the agents got into their vehicles and pulled away, rolling on its rims, leading some protesters to cheer at the sight of the flats. The agents had to park blocks away and quickly change their tires.

American imperialism wages war abroad to subjugate Iran. It wages the war at home against the class that must pay for it and whose opposition must be broken.

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49526716 I fought against Google’s Pentagon Al deal from the inside. Powerful people and institutions failed to keep their Al ethics promises under pressure. I learned that Google sells its Cloud services to the relevant agencies within dhs. I thought that was wrong. Federal agents should not be able to kill citizens in the street. I set out to find the most effective way to push my company to stop serving these agencies. My divestment campaign quickly broadened into an attempt to prevent Google from signing an unethical military AI deal, as the Pentagon started pressuring AI providers into military AI deals with no restrictions against use for killer robots or mass surveillance.1 I wanted AI ethics commitments to hold under pressure. In particular, I wanted Google DeepMind (gdm) to maintain its existing commitment against supporting killer robots. Over several months, I asked many people to act. I asked senior people⁠—respected people⁠—people with reputations silvered by their concern about AI ethics and safety. Nearly all declined. … Google supports the immigration enforcement supply chain After Alex Pretti’s death, I was determined to take effective action. To determine how to reduce harm from dhs, I researched Big Tech’s entanglement. Certainly, Microsoft and Amazon have larger involvement, but I was surprised to learn of Google’s exposure. … But how could I do anything about it? The stereotypical activist action is to make a petition. But Google had already ignored a large petition on this issue. Plus, Google’s executives likely hardened their company against stereotypical organizing tactics. Sit-ins, strikes, even a mass of Google engineers quitting: I deemed all of them ineffective (if I could even pull them off). … Talking to Jeff Dean I told Jeff that I respected him for speaking out, that I wanted Google to divest from the dhs supply chain. I asked if he shared these goals and, if so, how I could help. He suggested it’d be reasonable for me to email a few guys. Their names: Sundar Pichai (ceo of Google), Demis Hassabis (ceo of Google DeepMind), and Thomas Kurian (ceo of Google Cloud). I thought “sure, Jeff. No problem. I’ll just tell them what I think.” … They never replied. I returned to Jeff and asked for a lunch to discuss constructive opportunities for real change within Google. I told him: “any time, any place. I’ll drive down to Mountain View to meet with you.” At this point, I thought this was where “plan A” would fail. To my surprise, he actually accepted, for a lunch a few weeks out. A lot would happen in that time. The Pentagon tries to intimidate Anthropic The Pentagon wanted the frontier AI lab Anthropic to remove red lines from its existing contract: red lines against lethal autonomous weapons systems and AI spying / profiling. The ultimatum was essentially “give us your product or we will designate you a supply chain risk.” The government wanted the AI for “all lawful use.” There were two major problems with that kind of deal. Independent legal experts had pointed out potential war crimes committed by the Pentagon (like double-tap strikes on shipwrecked survivors), though the Pentagon insisted those actions were legal. Under that kind of “legality,” “all lawful use” potentially meant “AI enabling war crimes” and “automatically profiling dissidents with AI.” The Pentagon threatened a private company with economic destruction. Usually, the government would say “no thanks, we will find another supplier who will provide terms we want.” In this case, the government threatened to falsely4 designate an American company as a “supply chain risk,” which would force all military contractors to stop using Anthropic. I’d been following the Anthropic⁠–Pentagon standoff for weeks. That morning, I read about the ultimatum. I was attending a conference in Paris held by the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI (iaseai), which is a nonprofit founded in 2024 to be “a unified voice” for safe and ethical AI. The world-famous AI scientist Stuart Russell chairs its steering committee. Its 2026 working groups include “Red Lines for Advanced AI,” focused on “autonomous weapons and escalation.” iaseai seemed built for a moment like this. Iaseai’s venue would be full of influential AI professionals who care about ethics. I thought: we can organize a response, as a field, in support of 1) Anthropic’s right to do business without threat of destruction and 2) actual standards for whether and how to integrate AI into lethal autonomous weapons systems and surveillance apparatuses. Anthropic had two days to comply with the administration’s demands. Perhaps other companies would agree to these “all lawful use” terms before the deadline. The main question which weighed on me: can I stop Google from caving, from accepting an “all lawful use” deal? If Anthropic says “no” and Google also says “no,” now we’re getting somewhere. That seemed hard. I wanted to make it happen anyway. Google could cave at any moment, whether before the Friday deadline or after. … Stuart closes out iaseai AI company / DoD deals mattered. They marked the first public, high-profile intersection between modern generative AI and military use restrictions. Whatever compromises (or capitulations) the companies made would reverberate as precedent into the future. Iaseai attendees had a chance to take their contributions from “abstract work which might inform policymakers” to “directly influencing precedent.” Stuart was now going to mobilize them. As promised, he spoke about the issues at closing. I recorded his remarks during the Q&A, which were originally available on iaseai’s conference schedule but were later migrated and not reuploaded to @IASEAI@www.youtube.com Left on read by iaseai The Pentagon set the Friday deadline for Anthropic, not for iaseai. The Anthropic autonomous weapons issue had been in the news for weeks prior. Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Pentagon ran for weeks after. Google wouldn’t sign for two more months. Iaseai had plenty of time to act and plenty of ways to act, like filing an amicus brief, putting out a statement, or contacting senior decision-makers at Google. OpenAI did announce a deal on Friday. OpenAI claimed its deal protected the same red lines against killer robots and mass surveillance that Anthropic had insisted upon. However, some analysts concluded that OpenAI’s contract language contains wide loopholes. Google quietly signs the deal That weekend prior, I had heard rumblings. Along with over 600 other employees, I signed a letter asking Sundar to say “no” to classified AI contracts.15 I asked Jeff if there was anything I could do on an informal basis, crossing reporting lines and bureaucracy to help him get anything done that he wanted. I’d work through the weekend, no problem, on whatever he thought was wise. Alas. … I went to the field’s premier safety & ethics organization (iaseai). I asked some of the most distinguished AI scientists (Bengio and Stuart). I built a coalition and a plan for Google’s most outspoken executive (Jeff). I even cold-messaged the ceo of my company (Demis), whose lieutenants never evaluated the proposal. Besides Jeff, none took any visible action to stop the deal. And the deal contains no binding provisions, which is what I’d expect if Jeff never threatened to walk. The deal was inked. … Reflections Google DeepMind was an experiment in governance. The cofounders sold to Google on a promise never to power weapons and fought for a semi-independent governance structure. Sundar refused it. Google’s 2018 AI Principles were imposed by employee pressure but later quietly defanged by leadership. Here’s the result of gdm’s experiment: it failed. When profit and pressure met ethical commitment at Google DeepMind, pressure won and pledges lost. When profit and pressure met ethical commitment at Anthropic, ethics won. So the lesson is not “no one ever takes a stand.” The lesson is that society cannot rely on ethics-motivated people standing firm. I know the other options don’t look great. Congress remains a potted plant in the corner. But we should at least stop telling ourselves that a seat at the table works. … Breaking free of roles I know what broke my bounds in this instance. I have a regular reminder in my phone which shows me a picture of Alex Pretti. In one January moment, my anger flared so hot that its only outlet was to find a plan which could actually work. A mere tweet would do nothing and would count for nothing. Only a good plan would satiate. The anger burned through my bounds and broke them. When I got scared⁠—and I did⁠—I’d think about Minneapolis. I’d think about ice shooting people in the street and dragging people from their homes. Why I left Google DeepMind … In February, I realized that Google would probably sign the deal, which made me think about the door. I realized maybe I should leave and maybe I could do better AI safety work elsewhere. But I think I would have stayed a few more months if they hadn’t signed the deal. When Google signed, I just couldn’t do any more work. My brain said “no.”

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49516314 Source

cross-posted from: infosec.pub/post/49457282 Source

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reopened a diplomatic campaign on Monday aimed at dismantling the ICC by combining sanctions, putting pressure on member states and seeking allies among major powers hostile to the institution.

A proposed legal settlement with the US government would require the Keystone pipeline system’s operator to pay a $26.9m civil penalty over a large oil spill in Kansas in December 2022 and spend about $40m more to prevent future accidents. The agreement would resolve allegations from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kansas that South Bow, based in Canada, violated US and state clean water laws. The rupture dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a creek running through a rural pasture in Washington county, Kansas, about 150 miles (241km) north-west of Kansas City. The accident was the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in the US in nine years and surpassed all 22 previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to a 2021 report from the US Government Accountability Office. The total amount of oil spilled would have nearly filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool.