The Year States Chose Surveillance Over Safety: 2025 in Review

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/year-states-chose-surveillance-over-safety-2025-review

#FreeSpeech

The "TRUMP AMIERICA [𝘴𝘪𝘤] AI Act" (or The Republic Unifying Meritocratic Performance Advancing Machine Intelligence by Eliminating Regulatory Interstate Chaos Across American Industry Act). You can't make this up.

https://reason.com/2025/12/29/the-trump-america-ai-act-is-every-bit-as-bad-as-you-would-expect-maybe-worse/

#AI #Amierica #copyright #freeMarket #freeSpeech #internet #legislation #MarshaBlackburn #section230 #socialMedia #technology #USCongress #USSenate #wordSalad

Trump’s Attempts to Control Higher Education Follow a Familiar Fascist Playbook

https://murica.website/2026/01/trumps-attempts-to-control-higher-education-follow-a-familiar-fascist-playbook/

The science of how (and when) we decide to speak out—or self-censor

Freedom of speech is a foundational principle of healthy #democracies and hence a primary target for aspiring #authoritarians , who typically try to squash #dissent. There is a point where the threat from authorities is sufficiently severe that a population will self-censor rather than risk punishment.
#censorship #authoritarianism #authoritarian #freespeech #selfcensorship

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/the-science-of-how-and-when-we-decide-to-speak-out-or-self-censor/

Today in Labor History January 1, 1879: Ben Reitman was born. Reitman was a comrade and one-time lover of Emma Goldman, a doctor to hobos and prostitutes, and an anarchist organizer. He wrote the novel, “Boxcar Bertha.” Scorsese later made a film based on this book. Reitman became a hobo at the age of ten, but returned to Chicago and got a job in a lab. In 1900, he started medical school. His first daughter founded the nudist Out-of-Door Club at Highland, New York. As a physician, Reitman performed many abortions when they were still illegal. In 1907 he founded the Hobo College for migrant education, political organizing and social services. The during San Diego Free Speech Fight in 1912-1913, vigilantes tarred and feathered him, burned “IWW” into his skin and raped him with a broom. In 1916, he served six-month in prison for breaking the Comstock Law by disseminating information on birth control.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #benreitman #emmagoldman #IWW #freespeech #prostitution #sexwork #abortion #immigration #birthcontrol #prison #writer #author #books #novels #fiction @bookstadon

Everyone should be watching this case.

It's a big deal for #journalism, and protecting both #journalists & #firstamendment rights. Excerpt is from today's Tampa Bay Times:

"A judge this fall dismissed half the charges against Tampa media consultant Tim Burke. But an appeal of that ruling has put the case on hold.

Burke is accused of intruding into a private video streaming service and taking footage that he later published online and sold to a news outlet. The videos included unaired portions of an interview between ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in which the Ye made antisemitic statements.

The government has said Burke used compromised computer credentials to access and take the videos. Burke’s defense says the credentials were publicly accessible and that his collection and publication of them was journalism, thus protected by the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle agreed that some of the charges ran up against free speech protections. Prosecutors sought a review of that decision in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

What that court decides could carry important implications for the free press."

#uspol #freespeech #freepress #tampa #florida #timburke #tuckercarlson #ye #fucktuckercarlsonlikesohard #yeisacuckandanazi

Congress's Crusade to Age Gate the Internet: 2025 in Review

In the name of 'protecting kids online,' Congress pushed forward legislation this year that could have severely undermined our #privacy and stifled free speech. These bills would have mandated invasive age-verification checks for everyone online—adults and kids alike—handing unprecedented control to tech companies and government authorities.
#security #ageverification #freespeech #censorship

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/congresss-crusade-age-gate-internet-2025-review