#Internet security 2016

[enfinizatics]

dear americans,

as a polish queer woman and human rights activist, i know exactly how you're feeling right now and what to expect from these elections. i lived through the 2015-2023 regime of pis, a right-wing populist party that divided families in the same way trump did. i’ve experienced the rise of fascism in poland, the influence of far-right parties like konfederacja, and their “santa’s little helpers”—ordo iuris, an ultra-conservative catholic organization (banned in many countries, mind you) that helped enforce a near-total abortion ban and runs anti-queer campaigns in public spaces. i supported the black protests in 2016 as a middle schooler when they first tried to ban abortion. as an adult, i actively participated in the 2020 women’s strike, running from police tear gas daily after they finally passed the ban. i supported friends who faced charges.

i’ve lived through intense homophobia in poland as a queer teen and adult. i survived the first pride march in my hometown, where far-right extremists threw stones and glass at us. i endured the anti-queer propaganda spread by the ruling party in state-owned media. i survived the “rainbow night,” poland’s own stonewall moment in summer 2020, when police arrested around 50 queer activists following the arrest of margo, a nonbinary activist. i survived the "lgbt-free zones," the targeted violence, the slurs from strangers on the street, and the protests i held against queerphobia. it was hard as fuck, but i survived.

but just because i survived, it doesn��t mean others did. many women died because of the abortion ban—marta, justyna, izabela, dorota, joanna, maria, and many others who didn’t survive pis’s draconian anti-abortion laws. milo, kacper, michał, zuzia (she was 12), wiktor, and other queer and trans kids and young adults took their own lives because of the relentless queerphobia.

despite all of this, our experience in poland can serve as a guide now. here are some tips for staying safe and how we, polish queers and women, organized under the regime:

safety first, always. if you know someone who’s had an abortion, no you don’t. if you know someone is trans, no you don’t. if you know people who help with safe abortions, no you don’t—at least not until you know it’s 100% safe to share. if you are queer or have had an abortion, only share this with people you trust fully. most importantly, not everyone has to be an activist just because they’re part of a minority. if it feels unsafe to share that you're queer, trans, etc., then don’t. it doesn’t make you any less queer.

use secure, encrypted messaging like signal for conversations on potentially risky topics, such as queerness, abortion, organizing counter-actions, protests—anything that might be used against you.

stay anonymous online. if you want to research or report something without surveillance, do not use regular internet. get a vpn (mullvad is affordable and reliable), download the tor browser (for both onion and standard links), and if you plan to whistleblow, consider using a riseup email account.

organize and build networks. community is everything now. support each other, foster independence, because your government won’t have your back. set up collectives, grassroots movements. create lists of trusted professionals—lawyers, doctors, etc.—who can offer support.

to lawyers and doctors: please consider pro-bono work. this is what got us through poland’s hardest times. your work will be needed now more than ever.

for protests or risky actions: always write a pro-bono lawyer’s number on your arm with a permanent marker.

get to know the anarchist black cross federation and other resources on safety culture: "Starting an anarchist black cross group: A guide"; Still We Rise - A resource pack for transgender and non-gender conforming people in prison; Safe OUTside the system by the Audre Lorde Project;

for safe abortion info or involvement: get familiar with womenhelpwomen.

stay radical, stay strong, stay informed: The Anarchist Library

if i forgot to (or didn't) include something, don't hesitate to reblog this post with other resources.

[avelera]

PSA: You should question news articles that make you not want to vote

Hey Tumblr friends, but especially young Americans in this, the year of our Lord 2024.

Unfortunately, it is an election year.

Unfortunately, a US election year becomes everyone's problem, and yes everyone else, we are very very sorry that you have to deal with our nonsense.

But in all seriousness, the level of propaganda that's going to be flung around on all sides is going to reach peak levels this year for the English-speaking internet in particular. There's going to be a lot of influence operations, on all sides, and yes including on sides you agree with but they are still influence operations.

Source: I am speaking as a cybersecurity professional who also did a great deal of work in election security.

So, here's what I am going to ask you to do. What I am going to beg you to do: be careful of any article that makes you think there's no point in voting.

That's it. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, or how to think, or that you should trust or distrust every article out there. I don't care about that. I care about whether or not it makes you think you shouldn't vote.

A lot of influence operations are about making you feel like there's no point. That both sides are just as bad as the other. The the election is falsified. That you can "protest" by not voting (false: you will simply not be counted and your voice will be ignored). All sorts of reasons not to vote.

No matter what you do, what you believe, or who you trust, you really really have to vote this year, and every year, and you need to not listen to articles that say there's no point because among those articles are in fact active foreign influence campaigns trying to promote one side or the other for their own reasons, I am deadly serious right now.

(More context, sources, and examples sources below the cut.)

In 2016, Russian influence operations were focused on tearing down Hillary in order to specifically depress voter turnout among young men of color in the belief that this would help Trump get elected.

From the article: "“Buried literally in the middle of the indictment is a paragraph that should jar every American committed to the long fight for voting rights,” Anders wrote in a statement. “The Russians allegedly masqueraded as African-American and American Muslim activists to urge minority voters to abstain from voting in the 2016 election or to vote for a third-party candidate.”

This is the flavor of influence campaign that has been proven, that does exist, and is the sort of thing that does numbers here on Tumblr.

Things like the situation in Gaza, for example, are incredibly fraught situations. Articles don't even need to lie about facts on the ground there to make people feel hopeless and angry. Again, I am not telling you who to trust or not trust when it comes to news sources. But if an article about this event, for examples, makes you think or even outright tells you, "There's no point to voting, both sides are awful, I just shouldn't bother." You need to pause and at least consider that this might be an influence operation. You need to think critically. You need to check sources. You need to think about the world you want to live in, to vote for, and who might not want that world to happen for any variety of reasons.

Protesting by failing to vote isn't a real thing.

Old politicians ignoring young voters because they famously do not bother to vote is absolutely 100% a real thing. It is why so many policies that are popular with young people are low priority for politicians: they are not afraid of losing the young vote because no one plans on having it in the first place when it's never there in big enough numbers to matter.

So please, please, read what you want. Believe what you want. Follow your heart and your brain and whatever other organ you want to think with. I'm not here to tell you who is right, wrong, trustworthy, good, or bad. I'm just here to tell you that despite all of that, whatever you read, you must vote in your elections, no matter where you are in the world and you must not listen to voices that tell you not to as a protest.

[kenyatta]

The video starts with bold red letters blaring: “2016 Democrat Primary Voter Fraud CAUGHT ON TAPE.” A series of blurry security footage follows, showing blatant instances of ballot stuffing. The only problem: The clips actually depict voter fraud in Russia. A quick Google search would have easily revealed the dubious source of the video, along with news articles debunking its claims. But when researchers from Stanford studying young people’s media literacy — the ability to accurately evaluate information in the wilds of mass media — showed the video to 3,446 high school students, only three succeeded in identifying the Russian connection. “There is this myth of the digital native, that because some people have grown up with digital devices, they are well equipped to make sense of the information that those devices provide,” says Joel Breakstone, who led the 2021 study. “The results were sobering.” It’s a startling reality about Gen Z, backed up by multiple studies and what we can all see for ourselves: The most online generation is also the worst at discerning fact from fiction on the internet.

also:

While social media may make news more accessible, there’s also little quality control to the information on the platforms. And although people of all ages are bad at detecting misinformation — which is only getting harder amid the rise of AI — members of Gen Z are particularly vulnerable to being fooled. Why? There’s a dangerous feedback loop at play. Many young people are growing deeply skeptical of institutions and more inclined toward conspiracy theories, which makes them shun mainstream news outlets and immerse themselves in narrow online communities — which then feeds them fabrications based on powerful algorithms and further deepens their distrust. It’s the kind of media consumption that differs drastically from older generations who spend far more time with mainstream media, and the consequences can be grim.

and one more bit:

Young people aren’t solely to blame for their lack of digital literacy. In school, students are taught to read closely and carefully — which misinformation researchers say has unintentionally enforced the idea that students should drill into a single video and determine its accuracy with their eyes, rather than leave the page and open Google. The technology of misinformation is advancing rapidly, and it is becoming impossible to differentiate what’s true from what’s false with mere observation. For older generations, who came to the internet later in life, there’s still at least some natural skepticism toward what they see online. For the youth, it must be taught. Gen Zers are uniquely vulnerable to misinformation compared to older age groups not just because of their social media habits, says Rakoen Maertens, a behavioral scientist at the University of Oxford, but because they have fewer lived experiences and knowledge to discern reality.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at Think Big Picture:

For years, critics of Vladimir Putin have been warning that the Russians have taken over parts of the Republican Party. They raised the alarm as Republicans defended the Russian leader, parroted clear Kremlin talking points, and became mules for disinformation campaigns. In recent weeks, that criticism has shifted to include not just Republicans who have left the party, including former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, but current GOP members. Recently, two powerful Republican chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned openly about how Russian propaganda has seeped into their party and even made its way into speeches on the House floor. Other members are now even openly questioning whether some of their fellow officials have been compromised and are being extorted. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) suggested in a recent interview that the Russian spies may possess compromising tapes of some of his colleagues. It’s unclear where he’s getting his information or how accurate it is.

And then there’s this: According to a report by Politico, a number of European politicians were recently paid by Moscow to interfere in the upcoming EU elections by Russians pretending to be a “media” outlet called “Voice of Europe.” The Kremlin-backed operation used money to influence officials to take pro-Russian stances. Authorities have conducted some money seizures and launched an investigation into which members of the European Parliament may have accepted cash bribes. This in turn raises an important question for our own politics: Are the Russians doing the same with U.S. politicians, directly or indirectly? This piece walks through the three types of compromise—disinformation, extortion, and bribery—to give a sense of what we know and what we don’t really know, and, importantly, where we should be on our guard. As this summary will show, from the 2016 election till now, there’s enough Russian smoke now to assume there is a fire, one that compromises not only the integrity of our own system of elections, but the safety and security of the free world. Duped.

Over the past year, we have witnessed two distinct kinds of Russian propaganda in action. Both use our own elected officials and intelligence processes to amplify and even weaponize disinformation. The first kind originates online through Russian-backed internet channels. Information operatives begin spreading false rumors, for example about Ukraine, that then get repeated within right-wing silos before reaching willing purveyors of it within the halls of Congress. A chief culprit in Congress is Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Among the Russian-originated false narratives she has uplifted is the patently false claim that Ukraine is waging a war against Christianity while Russia is protecting it. On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Greene even claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine is “executing priests.”

Where would Greene have gotten this wild, concocted notion? We don’t have to look far. Russian talking points have included this gaslighting narrative for some time. The twist, of course, is that, according to the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, it is the Russian army that has been torturing and executing priests and other religious figures, including 30 Ukrainian clergy killed and 26 held captive by Russian forces. The Russians have also targeted Baptists, whom they see as U.S. propagandists, according to an in-depth Time magazine piece on the violence and death directed toward evangelicals. The Congressional propaganda mouthpieces for Russia aren’t limited to the U.S. House. Over in the Senate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance was also recently accused of spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation about Ukraine, this time over spurious allegations that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy siphoned U.S. aid to purchase himself two luxury yachts.

[...]

The accusation that Russians are presently extorting and blackmailing U.S. politicians into supporting Russia’s agenda has some broad appeal. It would help explain some mysteries, including why people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suddenly is no longer as supportive of Ukraine as before and constantly kisses the ring of Donald Trump these days—after presciently saying in 2016 that the GOP would destroy itself if it nominated him. 

The problem has been that these accusations aren’t supported by much evidence. That means that political extortion by the Russians is either not a very prevalent practice, or it’s so effective that no one dares expose it. Either way, we’re left without much to go on. The Russian word kompromat came into common parlance around the time that Buzzfeed published a salacious story about another intelligence report back in early 2017. In that instance, the author, a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele, was concerned Russia had compromising data on the soon-to-be president, Donald Trump.

That report never wound up being substantiated, and its sources and funding came into question as well. But intelligence agencies are in general agreement that obtaining kompromat is standard practice by Russia, and someone like Trump could have been an easy mark considering the company that he kept (e.g. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell) and the projects he was involved with (e.g. the Miss Universe contest). Lately, the notion of kompromat emerged once again, this time not from Democratic-paid outfits but from within the GOP itself. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) is one of the more “colorful” characters within the GOP, primarily known lately for being one of the eight members who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and even for getting into public jostling and shouting matches with McCarthy.

The Republican Party (or at least its pro-MAGA faction) is compromised by Russian kompromat.

[reasonandempathy]

The weird radical/revolutionary politic larpers on this site are so allergic to political pragmatism I swear lmao. I am definitely left of the Democratic Party and I am certainly voting for Joe Biden in November. Not because I like him (I don’t). He is absolutely horrific on Gaza and that’s only the top (and priority considering there is a genocide going on there) of a list of complaints I have about him. I even voted uncommitted in my state’s presidential primary (the Pennsylvania one; I had to write it in) to protest. However, I’m still thinking pragmatically. Trump has said things that make me credibly think he will be worse on Gaza (insane that being worse on Gaza than Biden is possible but it is unfortunately), and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Project 2025, the potential for him to appoint more deeply conservative justices, more of his aggressively screwing over poor and middle class people with his tax policies. And does anyone else remember the spike in hate crimes after the race was called for him in 2016? Before he was even inaugurated? Whether people vote or not in November we will still have to deal with one of these two men in office come January unless all of the internet ancom larpers overthrow the government by then (doubt), so I’d rather deal with the one who will be marginally less bad and who didn’t try to overthrow the government. Can’t have your revolution if nobody’s alive cause you kept pushing off politically participating because there was no perfect option. 👍

Political pragmatist anon, sorry for ranting in your askbox but I feel like I lose brain cells watching these people talk. The other day I saw someone say Biden is bad because Roe v. Wade fell under his administration… even though the reason for that was Trump appointed justices. 💀 (2/2)

Fucking insane. Sincerely.

It's a completely, flatly binary choice for anyone with a brain stem and sincerity. It's distilled into the two below images:

Where all major third party candidates are even on the ballot

How many electoral votes the largest of those (green party, a.k.a. Jill Stein) would win if they won every single state they're on the ballot for.

They are literally, legally, incapable of winning the election. They are not on enough state ballots to win and Jill Stein would need to somehow win California and Texas to even "win" all the states they're on the ballot for. Which, again, would still not be enough to win the presidency and throw it to the currently existing Republican House of Representatives. Which would put Trump in office.

It's that straightforward. That simple. That BLARINGLY obvious to literally everyone except these people.

On the one hand you have:

Significant and continuous support for Israel and it's genocide

Record levels of pardons for low-level drug offenses

the gearing up of the strongest anti-trust regime since the early 20th century

the most aggressive NLRB I've seen in my lifetime, with massive wins and institutional changes to help workers

Including getting Rail strike workers a week of sick-leave that gets paid out at the end of the year, which is better than NYC and LA sick leave laws

Millions of people (not enough) getting student debt forgiveness

Some trillion dollars (not enough)of investment in renewable resources and infrastructure

Proposed taxes on unrealized capital gains (a.k.a. how billionaires never have any money but can still buy Kentucky, Iowa, and Twitter)

Effectively an end to overdraft fees

The explicit support of leftist world leaders like Lula de Silva. Who he has explicitly worked with to expand worker rights in South America.

Has capped (some, not enough, only a tiny amount really but it's something) some drug prices, including Insulin.

Reduced disability discrimination in medical treatment

Billions in additional national pre-k funding

Ending federal use of private prisons

Pushing bills to raise Social Security tax thresholds higher to help secure the General Fund

Increasing SSI benefits

and more

vs

Said Israel should just nuke Gaza and "get it over with"

Personally takes pride in and credit for getting Roe v Wade overturned

Is arguing in court that the President should be allowed to assassinate political rivals

Muslim Ban Bullshit, insistently

Actively damages our global standing and diplomatic efforts just by getting obsessed with having a Big Button

Implemented massive tax cuts on ich people, tax hikes on middle class and poor people, and actively wants to do it again

"Only wants to be a dictator for a little bit, guys, what's the big deal"

Is loudly publicly arguing that the US shouldn't honor its military alliances after-the-fact

Tore up an effective and substantial anti-nuclear-proliferation treaty with Iran

Had a DoEd that actively just refused to process student debt forgiveness applications that have been the law of the land for decades now

Has a long record of actively curtailing and weakening the NLRB and labor movement, including allowing managers to retaliate against workers, weakened workplace accommodation requirements for disabled people, and more

Rubber stamped a number of massive mergers building larger, more powerful top companies and increasing monopolistic practices

Fucking COVID Bullshit and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths

Openly supporting fascists and wannabe-bootlicks ("Very fine people" being only the beginning of it

It's really not fucking close.

[fanhackers]

Rogue Archives, by Abigail De Kosnik

In my last two posts, I revisited some aspects of De Kosnik’s dissertation,  Illegitimate Media: Race, Gender, and Censorship in Digital Remix Culture;  this week, I’d like to give an excerpt of her book Rogue Archives (MIT 2016). One of the things that I like about the book is the way in which it not only documents the voices of fandom but captures the feels of fandom; consider this section of the book subtitled “The Moment of Discovery””

One of the strongest themes that emerged in my research team’s interviews with fans was their strong and positive affective response when they first found online fan fiction archives. I will call this initial encounter, described by so many interviewees, the moment of discovery. Alexis Lothian, remembering her moment of discovery, which took place in 2003 when she stumbled upon Harry Potter fan fiction, says, “I loved it. I was incredibly—it was exciting. … Definitely it was a very visceral excitement” (Lothian 2012b). nightflier states that her moment of discovery, which was the first time she came across the Gossamer archive in the late 1990s, “was like a revelation. I’ll never forget that day” (nightflier 2012). eruthros, using similar terminology as Lothian, recalls that she “sort of stumbled into some sort of online fandom, I think it might have been Due South first, and the Due South mailing list … and archive,” and says that “thirty seconds after I found the archive I found slash fandom and decided that was pretty awesome, and I wanted to be there” (eruthros and thingswithwings 2012). oxoniensis also employs the metaphor of “stumbling” to characterize her moment of discovery, with Lord of the Rings fan fiction, in 2002: “My first contact with fan fiction was an accident. I’d never heard of fan fiction, either by word of mouth or online, so it was all rather a surprise when I first stumbled across it. … Some stories were moving, some funny, some incredibly hot, some utterly gripping. And to be able to find this all just by searching the Internet was wonderful” (oxoniensis 2012). oxoniensis says she feels “very nostalgic” about “those heady first days of discovery.” Like Lothian, eruthros, and oxoniensis, Robin Nelson remembers her moment of discovery as happening by chance. “It was pure accident,” says Nelson (2012) of finding a Usenet group dedicated to Anne Rice fan fiction in 1996 or 1997. “I didn’t know that fanfic even existed at that point. … I was actually thrilled. I was elated.”

De Kosnik connects this feeling to the idea of the archive - not just the Archive of Our Own, but any archive, any large grouping of stories.  As she explains, the very number of stories online is thrilling and validating:

The size of online fan fiction archives (which I explore in the conclusion)—the number of stories housed on these sites, and the number of authors who contributed them—gave Lothian, Nelson, Victoria P., and others a “sense of belonging,” a feeling of recognition (“I GET IT”), and the security of knowing that they were not alone. In other words, if these sites had not been archives, had not immediately given the impression of being well-stocked repositories, trafficked by many writers and readers, then they may not have not have communicated to fans the same aura of safety—safety in numbers, safety in being among “like-minded individuals, safety in standing with others.” (151)

I GET IT!

--Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

[bolognamayhem117]

I don't know how anybody is surprised about 4chan. We always figured that's how it would crash and sink. When you're best known for hosting some of the most volatile communities on the Internet in what amounts to a roiling vat in cyberspace, eventually there's gonna be some nasty splashback.

My understanding is that security on 4chan hasn't been updated since somewhere around 2016. Mods appear to be getting completely hosed, but not any specific registered users. Yet.

Huge mess.

[tzikeh]

The video starts with bold red letters blaring: “2016 Democrat Primary Voter Fraud CAUGHT ON TAPE.” A series of blurry security footage follows, showing blatant instances of ballot stuffing. The only problem: The clips actually depict voter fraud in Russia. Would you have taken the bait? A quick Google search would have easily revealed the dubious source of the video, along with news articles debunking its claims. But when researchers from Stanford studying young people’s media literacy — the ability to accurately evaluate information in the wilds of mass media — showed the video to 3,446 high school students, only three succeeded in identifying the Russian connection.

It’s a startling reality about Gen Z, backed up by multiple studies and what we can all see for ourselves: The most online generation is also the worst at discerning fact from fiction on the internet.

...These echo chambers help explain Gen Z’s growing affinity for conspiracy theories. We’ve moved beyond the stereotype of the loner in the basement with the tin-foil hat; today it’s the TikTok addict enclosed in their political cocoon who is particularly vulnerable to misinformation.

[astramachina]

Six months ago, my partner and I finally got around to cleaning out my childhood home. While a part of me insists it was because we had to sell that old place now that Dad was no longer inhabiting it, another, more insidious part whispered—what if? What if I found something everyone else had missed? But all I found were boxes of old tax documents, shopping receipts, contracts, and what I initially thought was a manuscript.

1914 — Dr. Emil Krasner is declared missing during the Shackleton Expedition. Seven days later, he is found near Mount Erebus in perfect health, alongside a man named Julian Al-Jurjani who claims to be his longtime assistant. According to the ship's logs, no one of that name was ever aboard the Endurance.

1963 — Project Blue Book hires on Dr. Verne Krasner as their resident theoretical physicist, declaring no conflict of interest in regards to the Krasner family, their unearthly prowess in weapon's manufacturing, or their involvement in the conflict in Vietnam.

1978 — Miguel "Mike" Delgado, begins his job as a security guard at The Mall, a complex that always keeps the well-being of its workers and visitors in mind.

1978 — Miguel "Mike" Delgado meets Cy, Stereo Shack's Employee of the Month three years in a row, and falls in love.

1983 — A sequence known as The Event shuts down the complex, forcing the evacuation of the nearly 15,000 American citizens that live along its perimeter. Two casualties are reported at the epicenter, one witness is alive but no longer of sound mind, and one individual remains missing.

2016 — Miguel "Mike" Delgado leaves his house in the middle of the night.

2021 — Miguel "Mike" Delgado is legally declared dead.

I am transcribing his entries both in memoriam, and as an indirect request on his behalf: “This is for Cy but I’ve no idea how to get it out to him. It ain’t like I can post it to the newspaper when I’ve no freaking idea where he at.” So, this is for you, Dad. May the internet do its thing and find “Cy”, whoever he may actually be. If not, well, may a piece of your madness remain on the unkillable world wide web—making you, technically, in some ways, immortal. — Poppy Del @ dontforgetthis.com (2022)

PROJECT SINGULARITY is an experimental writing project that samples multiple forms of media: from video, to websites, to good old fashioned prose, and ideally a video game. While entrenched in the staples of the unfiction genre, Singularity's aim is to primarily deliver a readable science fiction horror experience, with all its extra bits and bobs serving as supplemental material. (Consider it a more accessible version of an ARG.)

What else to expect? Gays. Mad scientists. Mean (hot) women. A POC MC with English as a second language. More hot women. Cults. Cosmic horrors. Liminal horrors. Digital entities. Trans characters? Duh, I'm at the helm here. Nostalgia-bait. Philosophical explorations of what makes someone human. Failed chosen-ones. The agonizing weight of inheriting your family's atrocities, and what you choose to do with that reality.

Caught your attention? Cool! Have some relevant tags ↓↓↓

General project tag: #wip: project singularity

Aesthetic/inspo tag: #singularity lore tag

Character tags: #oc: mike // #oc: verne // #oc: cy // #oc: thorne // #oc: dana

Wanna stay posted? LMK and I'll make a tag list! ♡

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

May 08, 2025

Alarm appears to be rising about how the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is consolidating data about Americans. Hannah Natanson, Joseph Menn, Lisa Rein, and Rachel Siegel wrote in the Washington Post today that DOGE is “racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents.” In the past, that information has been carefully siloed, and there are strict laws about accessing it. But under billionaire Elon Musk, who appears to direct DOGE although the White House has said he does not, operatives who may not have appropriate security clearances are removing protections and linking data.

There are currently at least eleven lawsuits underway claiming that DOGE has violated the 1974 Privacy Act regulating who can access information about American citizens stored by the federal government.

Musk and President Donald Trump, as well as other administration officials, claim that such consolidation of data is important to combat “waste, fraud, and abuse,” although so far they have not been able to confirm any such savings and their cuts are stripping ordinary Americans of programs they depend on. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told the Washington Post reporters that DOGE’s processes are protected by “some of the brightest cybersecurity minds in the nation” and that “every action taken is fully compliant with the law.”

Cybersecurity experts outside the administration disagree that a master database is secure or safe, as DOGE is bypassing normal safeguards, including neglecting to record who has accessed or changed database information. The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School explains that data can be altered or manipulated to redirect funds, for example, and that there is substantial risk that data can be hacked or leaked. It can be used to commit fraud or retaliate against individuals.

The Ash Center also explains that U.S. government data is an extraordinarily valuable treasure trove for anyone trying to train artificial intelligence systems. Most of the data currently available is from the internet and is thus messy and unreliable. Government databases are “comprehensive, verified records about the most critical areas of Americans’ lives.” Access to that data gives a company “significant advantages” in training systems and setting business strategies. Americans have not given consent for their data to be used in this way, and it leaves them open to “loss of services, harassment, discrimination, or manipulation by the government, private entities, or foreign powers.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggests Musk’s faith in his AI company is at least part of what’s behind the administration’s devastating cuts to biomedical research. Those who believe in a future centered around AI believe that it will be far more effective than human research scientists, so cutting actual research is efficient. At the same time, Marshall suggests, tech oligarchs find the years-long timelines of actual research and the demands of scientists on peer reviews and careful study frustrating, as they want to put their ideas into practice quickly.

If the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is an example of what it looks like when a tech oligarch tries to run a government agency, it’s a cautionary tale. Under Trump the FAA has become entangled with Musk’s SpaceX space technology company and its subsidiary Starlink satellite company, and it appears that the American people are being used to make Musk’s dream come true.

Musk believes that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multiplanetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. On Monday he explained to Jesse Watters of the Fox News Channel that eventually the Earth will be incinerated by an expanding sun, so humans must move to other planets to survive. In 2016, Musk predicted that humans would start landing on Mars in 2025, but in the Watters interview he revised his prediction to possibly 2029 but more likely 2031.

Critics note that while it is true the sun is expanding, the change is not expected to affect the Earth for another 5 billion years. As a frame of reference, humans evolved from their predecessors about 300,000 years ago.

But getting to Mars requires lots of leeway to experiment, and Musk turned against the head of the FAA under President Joe Biden, Mike Whitaker, after Whitaker called for Musk’s SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations. Musk complained that the FAA’s environmental and safety requirements were “unreasonable and exasperating” and that they “undercut American industry’s ability to innovate.” Musk continued: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!”

Musk endorsed an employee’s complaint on social media that Whitaker required SpaceX “to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have zero environmental impact,” reposting it with the comment: “He needs to resign.” Musk spent almost $300 million to get Trump elected, and Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office.

That same day, the administration froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to “eliminating the misuse of resources.”

Today Lori Aratani of the Washington Post reported that in February, shortly after the deadly collision of an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter in the airspace over Washington, D.C., administration officials also stopped the work of an outside panel of experts examining the country’s air traffic control system.

After President Trump blamed the crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices, career officials quit in disgust, according to Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Atlantic. As they left, an engineer from Musk’s SpaceX satellite company arrived. He had instructions from Musk to insert equipment from Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, into the FAA’s communications network. On the social media platform X, Musk warned that the existing communications system for the FAA “is breaking down very rapidly” and was “putting air traveler safety at risk.” In fact, the government had awarded a 15-year, $2.4 billion contract to Verizon in 2023 to make the necessary upgrades.

Starlink ties into Musk’s plans for Mars. In November 2024, SpaceX pitched NASA on creating Marslink, a version of Starlink that would link to Mars, and Starlink’s current terms of service specify that disputes over service on or around the planet Earth or the Moon will be governed by the laws of Texas but that “[f]or Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

In early March, debris from the explosion of one of Musk’s SpaceX starships disrupted 240 flights. On April 28, air traffic controllers lost both radio and radar contact with the pilots who were flying planes into Newark, New Jersey, Liberty International Airport, for about 90 seconds. In the aftermath of the incident, aircraft traffic in and out of Newark was halted, and four experienced controllers and one trainee took medical leave for trauma.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former Fox Business host, suggested the Biden administration was to blame for the decaying system. His predecessor as transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, dismissed the accusation as “just politics,” noting that he had launched the modernization of the systems and reversed decades of declining numbers of air traffic controllers.

On Monday the White House fired Alvin Brown, the Black vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency that investigates civilian aviation accidents. Former FAA and NTSB investigator Jeff Guzzetti told Christopher Wiggins of The Advocate: “This is the first time in modern history that the White House has removed a board member.”

Musk has the power of the United States government behind him. In December, Trump nominated Musk associate and billionaire Jared Isaacman to become the next head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Senate has not yet confirmed Isaacman, but the Republican-dominated Senate Commerce Committee advanced his nomination last week. The president’s proposed budget, released Friday, calls for cutting about 25% of NASA’s funding—about $6 billion—and giving $1 billion of the money remaining to initiatives focused on Mars.

Yesterday the FAA granted permission for SpaceX to increase the number of rocket launches it attempts from Boca Chica, Texas, from 5 to 25 per year after concluding that additional launches would have “no significant impact” on the environment near the launchpad. The first test of a SpaceX rocket launch there in 2023 caused the launchpad to explode, and the spaceship itself blew up, sending chunks of concrete into the nesting and migration site of an endangered species and starting a 3.5-acre fire. In their hurry to rebuild, SpaceX officials ignored permitting processes. According to Texas and the Environmental Protection Agency, the company then violated environmental regulations by releasing pollutants into bodies of water.

Musk is trying to make Starlink dominate the Earth’s communications, a dominance that would give him enormous power, as he suggested last month when he noted that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.” In April, Trump delayed the rural broadband program in what appeared to be an attempt to shift the program toward Starlink, and today Tom Perkins of The Guardian reported that the administration is going to end federal research into space pollution, which is building up alarmingly in the stratosphere owing in part to Musk’s satellites.

Today Jeff Stein and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post reported that the administration has been telling nations that want to talk about trade that it will consider “licensing Starlink” as a demonstration of “goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.” India, among other nations, has rushed through approvals of the satellite company. Just 1% of India’s consumer broadband market could produce almost $1 billion a year, the authors report.

In a statement, the State Department told Stein and Natanson: “Starlink is an American-made product that has been game-changing in helping remote areas around the world gain internet connectivity. Any patriotic American should want to see an American company’s success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.”

The attempt to gain control over artificial intelligence and human communication networks regardless of the cost to ordinary Americans might have a larger theme. As technology forecaster Paul Saffo points out, tech oligarchs led by technology guru Curtis Yarvin have called for a new world order that rejects the nation states around which humans have organized their societies for almost 400 years. They call instead for “network states” organized around technology that permits individuals to group around a leader in cyberspace without reference to real-world boundaries, a position Starlink’s terms of service appear to reflect.

Mastering artificial intelligence while dominating global communications would go a long way toward breaking down existing nations and setting up the conditions for a brave new world, dominated by tech oligarchs.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[coochiequeens]

This year's recipients are Vivian Salama, Margaret Brennan, Francesca Chambers, and Elisabeth Bumiller.

Written by Damare Baker and Kate Corliss | Photographed by Magdalena Papaioannou | Published on April 21, 2025

Print Journalism Vivian Salama Wall Street Journal

Vivian Salama’s two-decade career reporting on foreign policy and national security has taken her to more than 85 countries across five continents. Since relocating to Washington in 2016, she has unearthed major scoops for the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC News, and the Associated Press–from President Trump’s awkward first call with Mexico’s president in 2017 to his initial interest in buying Greenland. After a stint as a national-politics reporter, she’s returned to the White House beat to cover Trump’s second term.

Where she grew up: New York City suburbs.

How she got into journalism: “I was a biology major [at Rutgers University], but about halfway through, I took a communications class that leaned heavily into journalism. A light bulb went off and I realized this is exactly what I want to do. Then I did a series of internships at WNBC in New York, and I fell in love with broadcast journalism. Especially TV newsrooms and the cameras and the lights and the excitement and the action and the speed at which it happened.”

On her decision to attend law school: “I applied to [Georgetown’s evening program] in 2016. I never really intended to practice law. I just always believed that the disciplines of journalism and law are very similar in terms of the way you build a story or case. The writing styles are different, but the way you collect information to support your reporting is the same as gathering evidence to back up your case.”

How she’s navigated the transition between broadcast and print: “I have switched between broadcast and print my entire career, and it has shaped who I am as a journalist and how I view stories. As a print journalist, I consider myself very visual in the way that I want to tell stories and in the way that I ask for photos and videos to be paired with them. You can’t really specialize in one or the other, the way it was when I was getting into this business. Given the nature of the internet, melding print and broadcast together is just a daily occurrence.”

On managing the emotional challenges of covering war and political upheaval: “Like so many of my colleagues, I used to brush aside questions about my mental health and safety, because we really just wanted to get the stories. It’s very competitive, especially if you’re a freelancer. [At the Wall Street Journal] I have an entire news organization behind me, supporting me, helping to protect me, and giving me the logistical support that I need. In the early days of my career, I didn’t have that and we didn’t talk as much about mental health as we do now. You have to pace yourself and remember to take care of you along the way.”

Broadcast Journalism Margaret Brennan CBS News

For the past seven years on Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan has spent Sunday mornings moderating conversations with America’s most consequential political players. Brennan, who has been with CBS since 2012, has won an Emmy for her coverage of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting; done extensive global reporting as the network’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent; and moderated the 2024 vice-presidential debate. This year, she landed the first post-inauguration interview with Vice President JD Vance.

Where she grew up: Danbury, Connecticut.

Her first onscreen gig: “My first on-air pieces had to do with philanthropic giving—this segment that aired at 5 am on Fridays on a financial-news program on CNBC. I was probably terrible, but it was good experience to start doing things in front of the camera.”

Most challenging part of her job: “I think a fully informed electorate is essential to a well-functioning democracy, so it hurts my heart when I hear people say they turn off the news because they can’t stand it—because they’re taking themselves out of participating fully in our democracy.”

How she handles criticism: “You try to have a tough skin and realize that some of this is just a tactic and it’s not personal. But this moment is unique, and it’s not just like, ‘I’m gonna go do yoga and take deep breaths and I’m gonna get through.’ I think we need to talk about it more. I think we need to acknowledge that this is not the kind of environment, information-wise, where you want to raise children.”

Work she’s proudest of: “I feel it’s a great accomplishment, in the news environment we’re in, when you can get someone to really listen to what you’re trying to say and understand and empathize and, even if they don’t agree with the speaker, just understand where they’re coming from. I think we did a great job at the vice-presidential debate because we were able to have a civil, contextualized conversation around a really heated and ugly political moment.”

Best part of her job: “This is really a platform where we strive to be as informed and responsible as we possibly can in this environment. Because that is so needed in this moment, it is a great privilege. But it’s a hard job.”

Star to Watch Francesca Chambers USA Today

For more than a decade, Francesca Chambers has been reporting on the Oval Office and the race to occupy it. Since 2022, she’s been a White House correspondent at USA Today, where her work has focused on foreign policy, the 2024 election, and, lately, President Donald Trump’s transition. Before joining USA Today, Chambers covered the White House for McClatchy.

Where she grew up: Paola, Kansas.

What drew her to journalism: “When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who said that I was inquisitive and liked asking questions, and that maybe journalism was a career I should consider because I also liked to write. It really stuck with me.”

First journalism job: “Working as a web editor for the Washington Examiner, when it still had a newspaper printed every day. Now it’s a magazine, but it used to have a daily paper. There were a bunch of local newspapers, sadly, that don’t exist anymore in Washington.”

How she became a White House reporter: Daily­Mail.com “approached me when they were going to launch their DC-politics coverage. I was a young, hungry reporter who really, really wanted to cover the White House, but those jobs are so hard to get. So I asked them, ‘Is this something that you think would put me on that track?’ And because I was the first political reporter they were hiring, they essentially said, ‘You can cover whatever you want.’ ”

Most challenging part of covering the White House: “You have to be really agile. You have to be comfortable throwing out your entire plan for the day and focusing on breaking news, whatever that breaking news may be.”

How she stays sane: “I do yoga. Lots of yoga. I’m practicing every day right now.”

Work she’s proudest of: “My first trip abroad with a President was to Cuba with Barack Obama. This is my favorite part about the job: being able to be in the room where it happens, when the President is having conversations with world leaders that can change the trajectory of US history.”

Hall of Fame Elisabeth Bumiller New York Times

For almost a decade as the New York Times’ Washington bureau chief, Elisabeth Bumiller guided the paper’s coverage, much of it during the turbulent Trump and Biden presidencies, amid a global pandemic and widespread disinformation. Her nearly 30-year tenure at the paper has included stints as both a White House and Pentagon correspondent, and she recently returned to reporting as a writer-at-large focused on Trump’s second term. Before joining the Times, she reported for the Miami Herald and the Washington Post in locations ranging from DC to New Delhi.

Where she grew up: Born in Denmark but moved to Cincinnati at age three.

How she ended up in Washington: “I went to Columbia [University] for a year [after working at the Miami Herald]. As I was about to graduate, I got a note in my mailbox to call Sally Quinn. It turned out [the Washington Post was] looking for a party reporter, and they thought, ‘Let’s go find somebody young and ambitious and willing to do it, because nobody wanted to cover parties, really.’ My name was recommended because I had gone to the assistant dean to ask for money to throw a party at the beginning of the school year.”

Best journalism advice she ever received: “Reporting, reporting, reporting. It’s good to be able to write well, but reporting is what carries us. Never hesitate to make that last phone call, because the reporting is really what makes the stories.”

On covering the White House: “My first day as the New York Times White House correspondent was September 10, 2001, so I was not prepared for what happened on September 11, as none of us were. The White House beat is hard because you end up covering everything in Washington. Everything goes to the White House—national security, foreign policy, healthcare policy, congressional relations, the environment, economics, so it’s a huge beat to get your head around.”

Work she’s proudest of: “When I was on the Pentagon beat, I did a series of stories on 40 female Marines who were a part of a female engagement team. This is when it was an experiment the Marines were doing during the surge of American forces in Afghanistan. The idea was that these women would be able to go into villages where men couldn’t go and talk to women. I’d been covering policy in Washington about the war, but it was a privilege to be on the ground watching how this policy was being carried out.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Toby Davies

Published: May 14, 2024

Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.

As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

The drop in violence includes domestic violence and other violence against women. Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.

All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.

[ Data via Office for National Statistics ]

There is strong research evidence that security improvements were responsible for the drop. This is most obvious with vehicle electronic immobilisers and door deadlocks, and better household security – stronger door frames, double glazed windows and security fittings – along with an avalanche of security in shopping centres, sports stadiums, schools, businesses and elsewhere. Quite simply, it became more difficult to commit crimes.

Decreases in crimes often committed by teenagers, such as joyriding or burglary, had a multiplying effect: when teenagers could no longer commit these easy “debut crimes” they did not progress to longer criminal careers.

There are, of course, exceptions. Some places, times and crime types had a less pronounced decline or even an increase. For many years, phone theft was an exception to the general decline in theft. Cybercrime, measured by the CSEW as fraud and computer misuse, has increased and is the most prominent exception.

But this increase was not due to thwarted burglars and car thieves switching targets: the skillset, resources and rewards for cybercrime are very different. Rather, it reflects new crime opportunities facilitated by the internet. Preventive policy and practice is slowly getting better at closing off opportunities for computer misuse, but work is needed to accelerate those prevention efforts.

The perception gap

So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends? A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.

Proportion of people naming crime as a top three issue facing the country:

[ Data via YouGov ]

There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that “people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.

The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.

Most recent terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective.

Political rhetoric can also skew perceptions, particularly in the run-up to elections. During the recent local elections, the Conservatives were widely criticised for an advert portraying London as “a crime capital of the world” (using a video of New York), while Labour has also made reference to high levels of crime under the current government.

There are also some “crime drop deniers”, who have vested interests in crime not declining due to, for example, fear of budget cuts. One of us (Graham) worked with a former police chief who routinely denied the existence of declining crime.

Despite the evidence of crime rates dropping, some concerns are justified. Victims, along with their families and friends, have legitimate concerns, particularly as crime is more likely to recur against the same people and at the same places.

And, while the trend is clear, there are nevertheless localised increases in some types of offending. When these relate to harmful and emotive issues like knife crime in London, for example, it is natural that this might have a substantial influence.

We are unlikely to be able to change political agendas or journalists’ approach to reporting. But governments should be taking a more rational approach to crime that is based on evidence, not public perception.

Local governments need to keep on top of their local crime hotspots: problem bars and clubs where crime occurs, shops where shoplifting is concentrated, local road traffic offence hotspots and so on. The common theme here is how crime concentrates.

National government, meanwhile, should lead on reducing crime opportunities via national-level levers. Only national government can influence social media platforms and websites that host online crime and encourage larger businesses to improve manufacturing, retailing and service industry practices.

The positive story around crime rarely makes headlines, but this should not put us off from learning the lessons borne out in the data. We know this can work from past success, but it took decades to get car makers to improve vehicle security and to get secure-by-design ideas in building regulations. Society needs to move more quickly.

[ostensiblynone]

[Sylvia] Patterson also captures the death of a particular ideal of music journalism – and of a whole approach to music – that I think people my age may be the last to truly remember. Before the internet as both community and culture/media platform, we were atomised, connected by a music press which was hugely – unimaginably, now – important as a site of cultural discovery, debate and conflict, and for feeling as though you belonged to something bigger, something beyond yourself. This way of thinking and writing about music and culture was formative for me. It was the only thing I saw any sort of sense in or any kind of point to. I grew up wanting to do the same thing, but I grew up into a changed world where the prospect of doing so no longer existed in any stable or secure way. (I mean, I did so regardless; Clampdown is (an attempt at) exactly that kind of writing and I was lucky to find the right publisher for it – indeed, the only imaginable publisher for it.) There’s been a notable amount of 90s revisionism since that book, as though a particular generation can now see clearly enough at twenty years’ remove to try and weigh up what’s occurred as well as tell their own story. There’s a bit in this book where Patterson recalls her younger self finally recognising the NME’s transformation, round about ’98, into “the indie Heat“, and reading it made me feel, like it was yesterday, that sense of incredulity and personal betrayal that characterised the still-spectacular decline of the 90s music press. But her description is at the same time entirely aware of how absurd and inexplicable, how deeply daft it is to even care that much – about music, about bands, about magazines, about words in print, about anything that isn’t a capitalist imperative. But we did care. For me for a stretch of my formative years – far shorter in retrospect than it felt at the time, maybe no more than four years or so – this kind of thing was everything. As this book confirms and brilliantly documents, there was a definite and decisive cultural shift to the right in the 90s, in which we lost something that hasn’t really been replaced. Things still feel poorer for it.

—Review of Sylvia Patterson's book I'm Not With The Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music | Velvet Coalmine by Rhian E. Jones | Sept 23rd 2016

[presidentkamala]

Ok to that one anon who keeps sending me asks about all the ways in which trump/musk will declare martial ("marshall") law and cancel/rig all future elections:

I like cannot assure you with 100% certainty that this won't happen. There's a bunch of reasons why it likely won't, and a bunch more reasons why it would likely be unsuccessful, but it could happen and i need you to just square with that. Trump could declare martial law. He could also die within the next year. A big black piano could fall on my head tomorrow. Do you get me.

If this is causing too much extreme anxiety for you, then game it out. I'm not one to give advice about successfully coping with things, esp now, but there ARE some useful techniques to help confront a certain scenario:

- let's say it happens. Trump declares martial law/some type of emergency powers 3 weeks before midterms. Maybe he does it next month. What do you do? What do you have on-hand to support the things that are important to you? Who do you know are involved with the things you care about? Who depends on you and how far can you afford to stick your neck out? What are you willing to do (be honest)?

- also you mention the china-style internet blackouts. I kind of don't even want to give this the time of day but theres sooo many reasons outside a government blackout to like. Have your important contacts and addresses and documents and money on-hand and not just in your phone. Maybe even make a plan or invest in a landline or a ham radio - a natural disaster is likely to cut power before musk/whoever do and there's no FEMA coming to help any of us so i would honestly worry about THAT before anything else lol

3. Ok the "cancelling" of elections. Do you know your rights? Do you know who your elections officials are at different levels and do you have their phone numbers handy? Are you aware of any organizations that protect the vote and are willing to exert pressure IRL and not just online or in the courts? Honestly if we're at a point where for some reason an attempt to halt or delay free and fair elections is not only possible but successfully enforced by the gov, we're basically in the martial law scenario above and consequently those actions would apply.

4. I think its actually reasonable to be concerned about our election integrity. Many of the national agencies handling election security have been compromised and we never got a full accounting of the extent of interference in 2016, 2020, 2024 in its various forms. But for something like this the best cure is prevention. Make the 2026 elections your priority NOW. if you live in a state with less secure practices for ballot counting try and change the procedure. Get involved with precinct level election officials and train to be a judge or an observer. Make the 2026 elections your hobby NOW, because even if they do "cancel" them or w/e you will have cultivated a hyperlocal network of not just officials but other people who care about the same things we do, who can help you to ensure your community stays resilient and ready to respond to the challenges that will follow.

And again, i heard Trump's little ominous comment of wiping blue states off the map or whatever but please don't add to his power by letting him manifest his success. It never hurts to believe he will try, and to do everything you can to trump-proof our elections.

[jamtlandsarkiv]

Responding to this very kind anon who requested that I delete their ask after reading just to clarify something - I'm not planning to leave the fandom or stop drawing entirely, I'm only moving to a new account and transferring my original username there. This account was created when I was 15 in 2016, when I had much poorer internet security practices, which caused this account to build up a history of "spambot" behaviors (such as logging in with free VPNs and getting its original login credentials compromised). When Tumblr ramped up its anti-spam measures, I didn't know and continued to use "suspicious" tools, which got my side blogs shadowbanned. This history makes this blog's content very difficult to promote as it's potential spam and doesn't get recommended to new users. I'll be starting afresh on an account with a clean history and secure credentials, but before setting that up, I'm also currently working on completing my backlog of requests in this blog's ask box, so that the new blog can start with an empty ask box too.

[daisukitoo]

Wildest factual claim I have seen this year that appears to be true: the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting was not a targeted attack, just a mass shooting that happened to take place at a gay nightclub because the shooter's first few targets of choice had better security.

Cell phone records in court evidence showed that the shooter first went to a few locations at Disney World, where security and police presence were both pretty strong, including metal detectors even at the attached mall. About an hour before arriving at Pulse, he got around to Googling "downtown orlando nightclubs," got directions to the first search result, went there (again: security and police), Googled again and got directions to the second search result (Pulse), went there, drove around a bit, got directions back to the first nightclub, then went back to Pulse. And then the shooting began after he walked past security, which was apparently one dude (at that entrance?).

The shooter himself said his motive was reprisal for American bombings in the Middle East, which he put in writing and said in recorded calls to 911 during the shooting. Claims that he had been to Pulse before, that he was gay or bisexual, or that he was motivated by anti-gay animus at best had no evidence that the FBI could corroborate. Where evidence seemed possible, all the specific claims I read had direct counter-evidence, like the person who claimed to have driven them to Pulse before, but cell phone location data showed them elsewhere when that was supposed to have happened. The strongest non-disproven claim I can find was that the shooter's father said the shooter was grossed out by dudes kissing. The weakest claim I saw repeated in multiple sources was that his ex-wife's father and new fiancé said he was gay, which is not exactly credibly sourced, and meanwhile the FBI found evidence that he was cheating on both his wives with other women. The shooter was not covering his tracks on his cell phone or internet history. The Washington Post says the FBI "also added he did not make gay slurs during the shooting spree inside the club, based on witnesses."

Most of this comes from a 2018 trial of an alleged accomplice (found not guilty). The shooter, being dead, did not have a trial. I do not recall having heard much/any of this at the time, since in 2016 it seemed sufficiently obvious that a guy who shot up a gay nightclub meant to shoot up a gay nightclub. In retrospect, he was probably attempting an unrelated kind of terror attack, and his intended message was drowned out by his last minute choice of targets.