It is the destruction of rare books to the cult of AI that I find horrifying. We may be destroying the last copies of works.
Eli Valley@elivalley.bsky.social · last wk.Dystopia www.news.com.au/technology/o...
Leslie Street
@lesliestreet.bsky.social
librarian; lawyer; professor; obsessed with trying to teach information literacy in a world that barely seems to care; lover of dogs, tennis, beaches, swimming, long hikes that cause my muscles to ache, the search for a perfect book, and my two boys.
Eli Valley@elivalley.bsky.social · last wk.
The constitutional remedy for a federal judge who is found to have abused the authority of the state and concealed it before he was appointed is impeachment, removal, disqualification, a civil cause of action, and criminal prosecution.
emptywheel@emptywheel.bsky.social · last wk.The chances are quite good that the "number three" at DOJ who ordered Jim Comey to be illegally surveilled was Third Circuit judge Emil Bove. (He was nominated days later.) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
![6. The following morning, the Secret Service submitted an emergency request to
Verizon in which an agent represented that such surveillance “relate[d] to an emergency involving
danger of death or serious physical injury to a person, necessitating disclosure without delay of
information relating to that emergency.” Ex. E. [013475-77] The Secret Service agent who
completed the form signed an attestation stating: “I certify that the foregoing is true and correct
and understand that Verizon may rely upon this form to make an emergency disclosure to my law
enforcement agency … pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2702(b)(8) or 2702(c)(4).” Id. The declarant
advised the ATSAIC that he “was asked by the SAIC to ping the cellphone of James Comey via
exigency.” Ex. D. [013417] He further added that he did so “with hesitation.” Id. The same
document indicates that an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (“ASAIC”) reported that “the # 3
guy at DOJ ‘wanted to ping the cellphone via an exigency request.’”3
Id.
7. Secret Service case records provided in discovery show that Mr. Comey’s cell
phone was electronically tracked that day as he and his wife drove north on Interstate 95 (“I-95”)
from North Carolina toward his Virginia home. The Comeys were also physically surveilled
during the trip, but trailing agents lost contact when the Comeys exited I-95 at one point to drive
toward the cemetery where the Comeys’ son is buried. The electronic surveillance captured the
trip to the cemetery. (The Government later seized—pursuant to the challenged March 2026](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bbp2b224lro3bfnzcqwwnkfo/bafkreieobn5egqgq6vjid4fyzhfkbfdq7wbtqkelblvctdqwqaywzgeova)
This is why they’re going after Dr Fauci: he impeded grifters
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.Peter Navarro: "I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses as the defense policy coordinator that I was trying to distribute to hospitals. And Fauci got the FDA stop me from doing that."
Dumping people in dangerous countries, sometimes on continents they've never ever visited, is one of the most vile policies of the Trump administration. It's a horrific extrajudicial punishment.
Raider@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · last wk.A couple that had been deported to Guatemala by ICE was found bound and shot to death in a sugarcane field. Their 14-month-old daughter, Giovanni, was found crying beside her mother's body.
“Later we did legal research”? LATER? LEGAL RESEARCH??
Inner City Press@innercitypress.bsky.social · 2w agoJudge: You didn't tell the judge that the subpoena was about reporters, about the New York Times? Sullivan: We did not. It was an oversight. Later we did legal research. Judge: Wouldn't it have been relevant to know there had been public reporting? A: Yes
Another item for my "a commercial legal database platform is not a substitute for a library" file. Also, insert an additional plug for @sarahlamdan.bsky.social's fabulous book Data Cartels: The Companies that Control and Monopolize Our Information.
404 Media@404media.co · 3w agoNEW: DHS plans to pay Thomson Reuters $125 million for access to its databases which includes peoples’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, ethnicity, social media posts, and geolocation information — to help ICE investigate “voter fraud”, according to documents reviewed by 404 Media.
How pathetic is Sen. Thom Tillis? Tillis: Because of my deep respect for the survivors, I won’t vote for Blanche unless he meets with them. The survivors: Well, we had a meeting and Blanche was totally unhelpful, dismissive, and disrespectful, Tillis: I’m good.
1983 I paid the University of London Library to do an electronic search of The Philosopher’s Index for every philosophy paper with ‘Exploitation’ in title or abstract for my MPhil thesis. It was done over phone lines to California, in the middle of the night, when phone charges were cheaper.
sjvn@sjvn.bsky.social · 3w agoMy first search engine.
This speech is quite literally an impeachable offense. The President is trying to undermine faith in US elections and to delegitimize the elections of public officials.
Why won't anyone ask Blanche about Trump appointing him to be the Acting Librarian of Congress? I want some answers about that travesty, too. Come on, Senators.
Our media's addiction to "both sides are equivalent, serious alternatives" framing means we are forced to pretend this dullard has Serious Thoughts. We're in the business of habitually lying to ourselves, and like all forms of gaslighting, the bill is coming due.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w agoFOX NEWS: Will these strikes continue? TRUMP: They'll continue until I say that's enough. They have fight. It's like a great boxer you think you have them beat and then all of the sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot. They have some fight left.
📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.
Jesse Locker@jessemlocker.bsky.social · 3w agoGiving myself a headache in the archives
As a law librarian, I get to declare this an even worse crime against books than all those book haters who display their books page side out on bookshelves.
Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · last mo.The custom-designed luxurious interior of Trump's new AF-1, which will be his property after he leaves the White House, is filled with fake books—they're blank, but have spines stamped with things like "library," "jewelry" and "art." Trump is well known for not reading books, ever.
this is absolutely wild. where does roberts think these agencies come from?!? who invested them with authority to act? whose mandate are they designed to execute? the president is the chief EXECUTive. his job is executing the will of Congress as it spells out in its duly-passed laws!
Aubrey Gilleran@aubreygilleran.bsky.social · last mo.Yes, Congress should be able to do these things. A court this contemptuous of Congress deserves to be packed by Congress, not only to correct these disastrous precedents but also because Congress needs to show both Article II and Article III who’s boss.
This is so utterly fucking stupid. Basically we have a monarchy except when the king tries to fuck with the money, then the bankers get to say no. Unprincipled garbage by a bunch of robed imbeciles
Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · last mo.Last two #SCOTUS rulings are Slaughter and Cook, both by Chief Justice Roberts. As expected, Court sides *with* Trump (the usual 6-3 majority) in Slaughter: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p... 5-4 majority (with Kavanaugh and the Chief joining the Dems) rules *against* Trump in Cook:
Government surveillance is a greater danger than so-called surveillance capitalism (aka cookies). Government is not your privacy protector. ‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears
The National Design Studio, staffed by Doge veterans, installed visitor-tracking software on vital federal websites
theguardian.com
Thank you to the @oif.bsky.social for the most amazing Law for Librarians symposium yesterday! It was so encouraging to be in the room with so many engaged on topics related to intellectual freedom in libraries and the right to read.
No one assimilates less into what America is in 2026 than white men like the one below. These are the ones who won’t eat food originating in nonwhite cultures, whine if whites aren’t the leads in a film or nonwhites appear in commercials, and use terms like “assimilation” without understanding them.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.Tom Emmer: "Minnesotans are so afraid that you're gonna call us a racist, you're gonna call us an Islamophobe. You know what? I'm done being even the least bit careful. Somalis don't assimilate. And if they don't assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from."
There's so much tension these days, for one who tries to be evidence-based and whose default temperament is moderate, between simply stating things as you see them and holding back because calling it like it is SOUNDS INSANE.
TL;DR of the Supreme Court's 6-3 majority today: Guns and poisonous chemicals - OK! Immigration - NOT OK!
Nothing will ever count as racist to this court except affirmative action.
David Noll@david.noll.org · last mo.Left: Justice Alito's description of the record in the TPS case Right: Former Secretary Noem
Supreme Court coup rolls on - consolidating dictatorial presidential power.
John Roberts' Constitution forbids any attempt to proactively ameliorate racial discrimination and racial inequality, but permits open racial discrimination as long as there is a facially neutral explanation available, even if it isn't remotely plausible. This, my friends, is "Colorblindness."
AI models are not dangerous because they can think— they cannot— but deeply worrying because poor thinkers posing as historians and legal experts can flood the field and get LLMs to spit out their distortions, provided they’re just loud enough and persistent enough.
Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts
Blanche v. Lau is devastating for green card holders. It means that if they leave the U.S. then return, a border officer can claim they committed a crime at some point, revoke their lawful status, and confiscate their green card without meaningful evidence of wrongdoing. It's really, really bad.
The Trump regime has killed at least 210 people by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since last September. Remember: no judge or jury has found these boats were trafficking drugs. We're simply taking Trump's word for it. This is a danger to us all.
U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat kills 2, leaves 6 survivors in the eastern Pacific Ocean
Boat strikes by the U.S. military have killed more than 210 people since the Trump administration began targeting those
nbcnews.com
We have a deal. It’s very strong. But you don’t know it. I met it at summer camp. It goes to a different school.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo agoTrump on his Iran deal: "It's a very strong deal. Nobody knows what it is, but it's very strong."