If AI systems are trained to tell users what they want to hear, what happens when those users are cops and prosecutors? My latest @techpolicypress.bsky.social piece begins a three part series on Perils of AI in Policing, starting with risk of AI sycophancy contaminating law enforcement

Will AI Sycophancy Contaminate Law Enforcement?

AI sycophancy in high risk domains like law enforcement are under-analyzed, argues Tech Policy Press fellow Jake Laperruque.

techpolicy.press

The assumption here is that no one could have considered Stevens a good candidate worth voting for/the better of two liked candidates - the only possible reason for supporting her is some deep dislike of El-Sayed Reality is that El-Sayed has a 40+ favorability rating with MI Democrats

Kerr Avon ♨️@kerravon.bsky.social · 3h ago

The margin being this close suggests a lot of Democratic primary voters in Michigan *did not* see AES as "like most Democrats." This is cope.

Great piece on an incredibly alarming and important privacy issue. @cdt.org has several resources on the border search exception, notably how... 1) the legal landscape is currently a mess (cdt.org/insights/no-...) 2) AI is going to make this loophole much more dangerous (cdt.org/insights/the...)

No Warrants and Half a Dozen Different Rules: The Convoluted and Dangerous Status of the Border Search Exception

This is the second in a series of blog posts regarding Customs and Border Protection searches of digital devices. Imagine you live in the western United States and are planning a vacation to Europe, r...

cdt.org

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · 1h ago

Wrote about the border search exception: a massive loophole in the Fourth Amendment that allows border officials to search through your phone without a warrant, the exception provides an easy pretext for the Trump administration to target its political enemies. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Feels like ancient history at this point, but as HPSCI Chair Rogers was one of the most vocal defenders of the nationwide bulk collection program that grabbed every Americans' call records, saying it would be disastrous to shut down The past decade has proven how wrong that fear-mongering was.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · 4h ago

When he was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers (the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan) publicly took the position that "you can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated." Colbert had some fun with that: crooksandliars.com/cltv/2013/10...

Privacy just made prime time. Watch John Oliver highlight Andrew Ferguson's Your Data Will Be Used Against You. youtu.be/lnBPhelCdWE?... www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against its Critics

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against its Critics

Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.

wsj.com

Bringing back this meme from several months ago

Micah@rincewind.run · 2d ago

good talks everyone we'll see you next sunday night for our next round of fake negotiations

It’s a fully remote work month for August which means … it’s the for the return of food tour week, looking for the best version of a food in DC. 🍔 I’m going back to burgers, and exploring the city for a bunch of burgers I’ve never tried (already in my top tier: Dukes, Lucky Buns, Minetta Tavern) 🍔

Google is learning that you don’t have to add AI to every feature. It rolled back the ability to add AI generated images to satellite imagery in Google Earth after people used it to generate misinformation. I’m confused. What did they expect the use case for using AI to modify satellite images was?

Google nixes its Earth AI feature one day after launch, amid criticism it would spread misinformation | TechCrunch

A tool that allowed anyone to generate fake AI-generated imagery and superimpose it over real Google Earth maps quickly spurred backlash.

techcrunch.com

Did a bottle of Jack Daniels write this?

The hilarious meta aspect of this story about used EV prices in the US rising is how long they take to reach the obvious (but repugnant to The Discourse) conclusion, that people really like the EVs that US carmakers don’t want to sell them www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/u...

EV prices aren't following the 'law of used cars,' analyst says — what it means for buyers and sellers

The prices for used electric vehicles have risen this year, which is unusual, experts said. Affordability and high gas prices help explain why, they said.

cnbc.com

It's useful to think of MSM news in PR terms. PR people fight to get as many column inches for their client as possible and as few inches that make them look bad. This week, the big Fox stories were Fauci and DSA. Iran war? What Iran war?

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 5d ago

Some data points on the right-wing obsession with Fauci. He was: *mentioned 687 on Fox News and 740 times on Newsmax in a four day period. *compared to Hitler and Epstein, and declared a mass murderer by multiple prominent right wing media stars who called for his imprisonment.

is it good that you can just put anything you want into Google Earth with AI now: www.404media.co/google-earth...

Just as big over this period: the tanking support for Reform UK amid Farage scandal. And we'll see if there's a rally-against-the-far-right effect similar to what's happened in Germany and France as the risk of a national takeover loomed in recent years

Owen Winter@owenwntr.bsky.social · 5d ago

With today's poll from BMG, it looks like Labour's poll bounce under Burnham has been on average ~4.7 points. A 2 point bounce when Starmer resigned and a further 2.7 points when Burnham became PM

The effective interest rate on all mortgage debt outstanding rose to 4.33% in Q2, up 5bps from Q1, up 22bps YoY, highest level since Q3 2011. Every quarter it inches a little bit higher.

Quite telling how every argument for AI data centers is transparent bullshit. It creates no lasting jobs or population movement at all. Literally no reason for any place to allow it unless the community extracts massive perpetual cash payments in return.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."

Following OpenAI’s disclosure, Anthropic discloses that its AI models have also hacked public websites (thrice) during test runs of their hacking ability. I appreciate that this is framed properly as misconfigured environments and poor instruction following by AI not burgeoning super-intellligence.

Investigating three real-world incidents in our cybersecurity evaluations

In a review of our cybersecurity evaluation transcripts, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environmen...

anthropic.com

No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...

Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation

PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...

theonion.com

Reading about UEFA and now CONCACAF fighting with FIFA

something something Green New Deal something something Take Away Your Cheeseburgers

FactPost@factpostnews.bsky.social · 6d ago

RFK Jr. suggests Americans can more easily afford groceries if they start eating liver instead of beef: "Most of the cheap cuts of meat are very inexpensive. ... You can buy liver"

This is happening in just over 30 minutes!!! At 1PM ET We're going to show you how to pry records from the government. This one is especially focused on city councils. Subscribers get the link here: www.404media.co/our-new-foia... Not a sub? Sign up now to get in

Our New FOIA Forum! 7/30, 1PM ET

Join us for our latest FOIA Forum where we teach you how to pry records from the government.

404media.co

Oh, it's bad. He doesn't say Blanche is pulled, but, he does. I think the only fair reading of this is that Trump is not willing to let Blanche back down on the audit immunity.

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 7d ago

NYT on the Blanche vote delay that’s the result of Cornyn and Tillis not being on board due to where things stand with the IRS audit immunity provision. “‘I can see why he wants it, because it provides immunity from audits no other taxpayer would get,’ Mr. Cornyn added. “

At some point I'll write about this, but there is a legitimate case in a few (not many, but a few!) states that these and other recording wearables violate the state anti-wiretapping law

Brian Barrett@brbarrett.bsky.social · 6d ago

Thrilled to report that most inexplicable and annoying AI gadget so far has now become even more inexplicable and annoying. from @boone.bsky.social

Thrilled to report that most inexplicable and annoying AI gadget so far has now become even more inexplicable and annoying. from @boone.bsky.social

The New Friend AI Pendant Can Now Talk Back to You

Avi Schiffmann has a new version of his controversial AI companion. It’s more expensive, and you can’t change its personality.

wired.com

there's a weird charade-like quality to the whole blanche thing: a) he can likely continue in the role even if he's not confirmed (as trump says here); b) any future president could simply disregard the immunity agreement anyway

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 6d ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump says he may pull Blanche's nomination for attorney general, looking to avoid concessions to holdout Republicans.

“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

This tech fundamentally alters the way people are able to express their basic human rights, and is incompatible with any society that claims to be free. As people understand the capabilities of the tech and how widespread it is, the backlash is entirely understandable.

Why Flock surveillance cameras are drawing fierce backlash across Massachusetts - The Boston Globe

People tolerate Ring cameras, cellphones, and CCTV cameras — but Flock Safety has some filling city council meetings in protest.

bostonglobe.com

Mr President when are you going to share your views on Dungeon Crawler Carl

Barack Obama@barackobama.bsky.social · 7d ago

It’s that time of year again: here are some of the books I’ve enjoyed this summer. If you’ve read any good ones, let me know!

TikTok has incredible moderation team. Our InfoWars video about Multiple Horse Theory — the idea that there are many horses in the world and not just one — has been fully deemed misinformation and lost the formal appeals process. Confirmed by Larry Ellison: There is only one horse on Earth.