national security

openai-declares-ai-race-“over”-if-training-on-copyrighted-works-isn’t-fair-use

OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use

OpenAI is hoping that Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan, due out this July, will settle copyright debates by declaring AI training fair use—paving the way for AI companies’ unfettered access to training data that OpenAI claims is critical to defeat China in the AI race.

Currently, courts are mulling whether AI training is fair use, as rights holders say that AI models trained on creative works threaten to replace them in markets and water down humanity’s creative output overall.

OpenAI is just one AI company fighting with rights holders in several dozen lawsuits, arguing that AI transforms copyrighted works it trains on and alleging that AI outputs aren’t substitutes for original works.

So far, one landmark ruling favored rights holders, with a judge declaring AI training is not fair use, as AI outputs clearly threatened to replace Thomson-Reuters’ legal research firm Westlaw in the market, Wired reported. But OpenAI now appears to be looking to Trump to avoid a similar outcome in its lawsuits, including a major suit brought by The New York Times.

“OpenAI’s models are trained to not replicate works for consumption by the public. Instead, they learn from the works and extract patterns, linguistic structures, and contextual insights,” OpenAI claimed. “This means our AI model training aligns with the core objectives of copyright and the fair use doctrine, using existing works to create something wholly new and different without eroding the commercial value of those existing works.”

Providing “freedom-focused” recommendations on Trump’s plan during a public comment period ending Saturday, OpenAI suggested Thursday that the US should end these court fights by shifting its copyright strategy to promote the AI industry’s “freedom to learn.” Otherwise, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will likely continue accessing copyrighted data that US companies cannot access, supposedly giving China a leg up “while gaining little in the way of protections for the original IP creators,” OpenAI argued.

OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use Read More »

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Google tells Trump’s DOJ that forcing a Chrome sale would harm national security

Close-up of Google Chrome Web Browser web page on the web browser. Chrome is widely used web browser developed by Google.

Credit: Getty Images

The government’s 2024 request also sought to have Google’s investment in AI firms curtailed even though this isn’t directly related to search. If, like Google, you believe leadership in AI is important to the future of the world, limiting its investments could also affect national security. But in November, Mehta suggested he was open to considering AI remedies because “the recent emergence of AI products that are intended to mimic the functionality of search engines” is rapidly shifting the search market.

This perspective could be more likely to find supporters in the newly AI-obsessed US government with a rapidly changing Department of Justice. However, the DOJ has thus far opposed allowing AI firm Anthropic to participate in the case after it recently tried to intervene. Anthropic has received $3 billion worth of investments from Google, including $1 billion in January.

New year, new Justice Department

Google naturally opposed the government’s early remedy proposal, but this happened in November, months before the incoming Trump administration began remaking the DOJ. Since taking office, the new administration has routinely criticized the harsh treatment of US tech giants, taking aim at European Union laws like the Digital Markets Act, which tries to ensure user privacy and competition among so-called “gatekeeper” tech companies like Google.

We may get a better idea of how the DOJ wants to proceed later this week when both sides file their final proposals with Mehta. Google already announced its preferred remedy at the tail end of 2024. It’s unlikely Google’s final version will be any different, but everything is up in the air for the government.

Even if current political realities don’t affect the DOJ’s approach, the department’s staffing changes could. Many of the people handling Google’s case today are different than they were just a few months ago, so arguments that fell on deaf ears in 2024 could move the needle. Perhaps emphasizing the national security angle will resonate with the newly restaffed DOJ.

After both sides have had their say, it will be up to the judge to eventually rule on how Google must adapt its business. This remedy phase should get fully underway in April.

Google tells Trump’s DOJ that forcing a Chrome sale would harm national security Read More »

trump-should-block-biden’s-ai-“gift”-to-china,-microsoft-argues

Trump should block Biden’s AI “gift” to China, Microsoft argues

“Countries including Brazil, India, Israel, and the UAE are eminently capable of ramping up investments aimed at securing new ways to access increased computing capacity,” the Brookings Institute said. “Preventing companies in middle-tier countries from relying on the US to supply computing chips is a surefire way to push them into building non-US alliances that include stronger technology ties with China.”

The rule could also complicate the global AI landscape in ways the US may not anticipate, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization, forecast last week. It could “breed resentment, not cooperation” in tier-two countries that will likely “bristle at the fact that their AI ambitions depend on Washington’s goodwill and that they are being deliberately kept a generation behind the frontier,” CSIS wrote. And it could drive more open source AI like DeepSeek to be key to development in tier-two nations, perhaps further endangering US global leadership in AI, CSIS suggested.

“Ironically, the AI Diffusion Framework, meant to lock in American advantage, may instead midwife the very outcome it sought to prevent—an alternate AI stack and increased open-source development where China, as its most prolific contributor, emerges as the de facto leader,” CSIS reported.

China wooing countries targeted by rule, Microsoft says

But according to Smith, some parts of the rule should be preserved, like datacenter restrictions, including “qualitative provisions” that “ensure that AI technology components are deployed in certified, secure, and trusted datacenters.” That part of the rule, Smith suggested, “helps reduce the risk of chip diversion to China.”

And other parts of the rule can be strengthened, Smith wrote, such as ensuring the Commerce Department has resources to enforce it and “expedite approvals” for any countries in the middle tier who may appeal to either move into the top tier or limit tier-two restrictions.

Trump should block Biden’s AI “gift” to China, Microsoft argues Read More »

trump’s-reported-plans-to-save-tiktok-may-violate-scotus-backed-law

Trump’s reported plans to save TikTok may violate SCOTUS-backed law


Everything insiders are saying about Trump’s plan to save TikTok.

It was apparently a busy weekend for key players involved in Donald Trump’s efforts to make a deal to save TikTok.

Perhaps the most appealing option for ByteDance could be if Trump blessed a merger between TikTok and Perplexity AI—a San Francisco-based AI search company worth about $9 billion that appears to view a TikTok video content acquisition as a path to compete with major players like Google and OpenAI.

On Sunday, Perplexity AI submitted a revised merger proposal to TikTok-owner ByteDance, reviewed by CNBC, which sources told AP News included feedback from the Trump administration.

If the plan is approved, Perplexity AI and TikTok US would be merged into a new entity. And once TikTok reaches an initial public offering of at least $300 billion, the US government could own up to 50 percent of that new company, CNBC reported. In the proposal, Perplexity AI suggested that a “fair price” would be “well north of $50 billion,” but the final price will likely depend on how many of TikTok’s existing investors decide to cash out following the merger.

ByteDance has maintained a strong resistance to selling off TikTok, especially a sale including its recommendation algorithm. Not only would this option allow ByteDance to maintain a minority stake in TikTok, but it also would leave TikTok’s recommendation algorithm under ByteDance’s control, CNBC reported. The deal would also “allow for most of ByteDance’s existing investors to retain their equity stakes,” CNBC reported.

But ByteDance may not like one potential part of the deal. An insider source told AP News that ByteDance would be required to allow “full US board control.”

According to AP News, US government ownership of a large stake in TikTok would include checks to ensure the app doesn’t become state controlled. The government’s potential stake would apparently not grant the US voting power or a seat on the merged company’s board.

A source familiar with Perplexity AI’s proposal confirmed to Ars that the reporting from CNBC and AP News is accurate.

Trump denied Oracle’s involvement in talks

Over the weekend, there was also a lot of speculation about Oracle’s involvement in negotiations. NPR reported that two sources with direct knowledge claimed that Trump was considering “tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to effectively take control of the app’s global operations.”

That would be a seemingly bigger grab for the US than forcing ByteDance to divest only TikTok’s US operations.

“The goal is for Oracle to effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok,” one source told NPR. “ByteDance wouldn’t completely go away, but it would minimize Chinese ownership.”

Oracle apparently met with the Trump administration on Friday and has another meeting scheduled this week to discuss Oracle buying a TikTok stake “in the tens of billions,” NPR reported.

But Trump has disputed that, saying this past weekend that he “never” spoke to Oracle about buying TikTok, AP News reported.

“Numerous people are talking to me. Very substantial people,” Trump said, confirming that he would only make a deal to save TikTok “if the United States benefits.”

All sources seemed to suggest that no deal was close to being finalized yet. Other potential Big Tech buyers include Microsoft or even possibly Elon Musk (can you imagine TikTok merged with X?). On Saturday, Trump suggested that he would likely announce his decision on TikTok’s future in the next 30 days.

Meanwhile, TikTok access has become spotty in the US. Google and Apple dropped TikTok from their app stores when the divest-or-ban law kicked in, partly because of the legal limbo threatening hundreds of billions in fines if Trump changes his mind about enforcement. That means ByteDance currently can’t push updates to US users, and anyone who offloads TikTok or purchases a new device can’t download the app in popular distribution channels.

“If we can save TikTok, I think it would be a good thing,” Trump said.

Could Trump’s plan violate divest-or-ban law?

The divest-or-ban law is formally called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. For months, TikTok was told in court that the law required either a sale of TikTok US operations or a US ban, but now ByteDance seems to believe there’s another option to keep TikTok in the US without forcing a sale.

It remains unclear if lawmakers will approve Trump’s plan if it doesn’t force a sale of TikTok. US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who co-sponsored the law, issued a statement last week insisting that “ByteDance divesting remains the only real solution to protect our national security and guarantee Americans access to TikTok.”

Krishnamoorthi declined Ars’ request to comment on whether leaked details of Trump’s potential deal to save TikTok could potentially violate the divest-or-ban law. But debate will likely turn on how the law defines “qualified divestiture.”

Under the law, qualified divestiture could be either a “divestiture or similar transaction” that meets two conditions. First, the transaction is one that Trump “determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.” Second, the deal blocks any foreign adversary-controlled entity or affiliate from interfering in TikTok US operations, “including any cooperation” with foreign adversaries “with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.”

That last bit seems to suggest that lawmakers might clash with Trump over ByteDance controlling TikTok’s algorithm, even if a company like Oracle or Perplexity serves as a gatekeeper to Americans’ data safeguarding US national security interests.

Experts told NPR that ByteDance could feasibly maintain a minority stake in TikTok US under the law, with Trump seeming to have “wide latitude to interpret” what is or is not a qualified divestiture. One congressional staffer told NPR that lawmakers might be won over if the Trump administration secured binding legal agreements “ensuring ByteDance cannot covertly manipulate the app.”

The US has tried to strike just such a national security agreement with ByteDance before, though, and it ended in lawmakers passing the divest-or-ban law. During the government’s court battle with TikTok over the law, the government repeatedly argued that prior agreement—also known as “Project Texas,” which ensured TikTok’s US recommendation engine was stored in the Oracle cloud and deployed in the US by a TikTok US subsidiary—was not enough to block Chinese influence. Proposed in 2022, the agreement was abruptly ended in 2023 when the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) determined only divestiture would resolve US concerns.

CFIUS did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

The key problem at that point was ByteDance maintaining control of the algorithm, the government successfully argued in a case that ended in a Supreme Court victory.

“Even under TikTok’s proposed national security agreement, the source code for the recommendation engine would originate in China,” the government warned.

That seemingly leaves a vulnerability that any Trump deal allowing ByteDance to maintain control of the algorithm would likely have to reconcile.

“Under Chinese national-security laws, the Chinese government can require a China-based company to ‘surrender all its data,'” the US argued. That ultimately turned TikTok into “an espionage tool” for the Chinese Communist Party.

There’s no telling yet if Trump’s plan can set up a better version of Project Texas or convince China to sign off on a TikTok sale. Analysts have suggested that China may agree to a TikTok sale if Trump backs down on tariff threats.

ByteDance did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Trump’s reported plans to save TikTok may violate SCOTUS-backed law Read More »

court-rules-fbi’s-warrantless-searches-violated-fourth-amendment

Court rules FBI’s warrantless searches violated Fourth Amendment

“Certainly, the Court can imagine situations where obtaining a warrant might frustrate the purpose of querying, particularly where exigency requires immediate querying,” DeArcy Hall wrote. “This is why the Court does not hold that querying Section 702-acquired information always requires a warrant.”

Ruling renews calls for 702 reforms

While digital rights groups like the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) cheered the ruling as providing much-needed clarity, they also suggested that the ruling should prompt lawmakers to go back to the drawing board and reform Section 702.

Section 702 is set to expire on April 15, 2026. Over the years, Congress has repeatedly voted to renew 702 protections, but the EFF is hoping that DeArcy Hall’s ruling will perhaps spark a sea change.

“In light of this ruling, we ask Congress to uphold its responsibility to protect civil rights and civil liberties by refusing to renew Section 702 absent a number of necessary reforms, including an official warrant requirement for querying US persons data and increased transparency,” the EFF wrote in a blog.

A warrant requirement could help truly end backdoor searches, the EFF suggested, and ensure “that the intelligence community does not continue to trample on the constitutionally protected rights to private communications.”

The ACLU warned that reforms are especially critical now, considering that unconstitutional backdoor searches have been “used by the government to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans, including protesters, members of Congress, and journalists.”

Patrick Toomey, the deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, dubbed 702 “one of the most abused provisions of FISA.”

“As the court recognized, the FBI’s rampant digital searches of Americans are an immense invasion of privacy and trigger the bedrock protections of the Fourth Amendment,” Toomey said. “Section 702 is long overdue for reform by Congress, and this opinion shows why.”

Court rules FBI’s warrantless searches violated Fourth Amendment Read More »

tiktok-loses-supreme-court-fight,-prepares-to-shut-down-sunday

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday


TikTok has said it’s preparing to shut down Sunday.

A TikTok influencer holds a sign that reads “Keep TikTok” outside the US Supreme Court Building as the court hears oral arguments on whether to overturn or delay a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok in the U.S., on January 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Kayla Bartkowski / Stringer | Getty Images News

TikTok has lost its Supreme Court appeal in a 9–0 decision and will likely shut down on January 19, a day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, unless the app can be sold before the deadline, which TikTok has said is impossible.

During the trial last Friday, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco warned SCOTUS that upholding the Biden administration’s divest-or-sell law would likely cause TikTok to “go dark—essentially the platform shuts down” and “essentially… stop operating.” On Wednesday, TikTok reportedly began preparing to shut down the app for all US users, anticipating the loss.

But TikTok’s claims that the divest-or-sell law violated Americans’ free speech rights did not supersede the government’s compelling national security interest in blocking a foreign adversary like China from potentially using the app to spy on or influence Americans, SCOTUS ruled.

“We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the SCOTUS opinion said, while acknowledging that “there is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community.”

Late last year, TikTok and its owner, the Chinese-owned company ByteDance, urgently pushed SCOTUS to intervene before the law’s January 19 enforcement date. Ahead of SCOTUS’ decision, TikTok warned it would have no choice but to abruptly shut down a thriving platform where many Americans get their news, express their views, and make a living.

The US had argued the law was necessary to protect national security interests as the US-China trade war intensifies, alleging that China could use the app to track and influence TikTok’s 170 million American users. A lower court had agreed that the US had a compelling national security interest and rejected arguments that the law violated the First Amendment, triggering TikTok’s appeal to SCOTUS. Today, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

According to SCOTUS, the divest-or-sell law is “content-neutral” and only triggers intermediate scrutiny. That requires that the law doesn’t burden “substantially more speech than necessary” to serve the government’s national security interests, rather than strict scrutiny which would force the government to protect those interests through the least restrictive means.

Further, the government was right to single TikTok out, SCOTUS wrote, due to its “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects.”

“Preventing China from collecting vast amounts of sensitive data from 170 million US TikTok users” is a “decidedly content agnostic” rationale, justices wrote.

“The Government had good reason to single out TikTok for special treatment,” the opinion said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a statement on TikTok reacting to the ruling, thanking Trump for committing to “work with TikTok” to avoid a shut down and telling users to “rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives” in the US.

Momentum to ban TikTok has shifted

First Amendment advocates condemned the SCOTUS ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union called it a “major blow to freedom of expression online,” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties director David Greene accused justices of sweeping “past the undisputed content-based justification for the law” to “rule only based on the shaky data privacy concerns.”

While the SCOTUS ruling was unanimous, justice Sonia Sotomayor said that  “precedent leaves no doubt” that the law implicated the First Amendment and “plainly” imposed a burden on any US company that distributes TikTok’s speech and any content creator who preferred TikTok as a publisher of their speech.

Similarly concerned was justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote in his concurring opinion that he harbors “serious reservations about whether the law before us is ‘content neutral’ and thus escapes ‘strict scrutiny.'” Gorsuch also said he didn’t know “whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends.”

“But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality,” Gorsuch wrote. “Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us. All I can say is that, at this time and under these constraints, the problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional.”

For TikTok and content creators defending the app, the stakes were incredibly high. TikTok repeatedly denied there was any evidence of spying and warned that enforcing the law would allow the government to unlawfully impose “a massive and unprecedented speech restriction.”

But the Supreme Court declined to order a preliminary injunction to block the law until Trump took office, instead deciding to rush through oral arguments and reach a decision prior to the law’s enforcement deadline. Now TikTok has little recourse if it wishes to maintain US operations, as justices suggested during the trial that even if a president chose to not enforce the law, providing access to TikTok or enabling updates could be viewed as too risky for app stores or other distributors.

The law at the center of the case—the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act—had strong bipartisan support under the Biden administration.

But President-elect Donald Trump said he opposed a TikTok ban, despite agreeing that US national security interests in preventing TikTok spying on or manipulating Americans were compelling. And this week, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and “keep TikTok from going dark,” the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, “is considering ways to keep TikTok available,” sources told NBC News.

“What might happen next to TikTok remains unclear,” Gorsuch noted in the opinion.

Will Trump save TikTok?

It will likely soon be clear whether Trump will intervene. Trump filed a brief in December, requesting that the Supreme Court stay enforcement of the law until after he takes office because allegedly only he could make a deal to save TikTok. He criticized SCOTUS for rushing the decision and suggested that Congress’ passage of the law may have been “legislative encroachment” that potentially “binds his hands” as president.

“As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means,” Trump’s brief said.

TikTok’s CEO Chew signaled to users that Trump is expected to step in.

“On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew’s statement said.

Chew also reminded Trump that he has 60 billion views of his content on TikTok and perhaps stands to lose a major platform through the ban.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives,” Chew said.

Trump seemingly has limited options to save TikTok, Forbes suggested. At trial, justices disagreed on whether Trump could legally decide to simply not enforce the law. And efforts to pause enforcement or claim compliance without evidence that ByteDance is working on selling off TikTok could be blocked by the court, analysts said. And while ByteDance has repeatedly said it’s unwilling to sell TikTok US, it’s possible, one analyst suggested to Forbes, that ByteDance might be more willing to divest “in exchange for Trump backing off his threat of high tariffs on Chinese imports.”

On Tuesday, a Bloomberg report suggested that China was considering whether selling TikTok to Elon Musk might be a good bargaining chip to de-escalate Trump’s attacks in the US-China trade war.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday Read More »

tiktok’s-two-paths-to-avoid-us-ban:-beg-scotus-or-woo-trump

TikTok’s two paths to avoid US ban: Beg SCOTUS or woo Trump

“What the Act targets is the PRC’s ability to manipulate that content covertly,” the ruling said. “Understood in that way, the Government’s justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment.”

TikTok likely to appeal to Supreme Court

TikTok is unsurprisingly frustrated by the ruling. In a statement provided to Ars, TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes confirmed that TikTok intended to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” Hughes said.

Throughout the litigation, ByteDance had emphasized that divesting TikTok in the time that the law required was not possible. But the court disagreed that ByteDance being unable to spin off TikTok by January turned the US law into a de facto TikTok ban. Instead, the court suggested that TikTok could temporarily become unavailable until it’s sold off, only facing a ban if ByteDance dragged its feet or resisted divestiture.

There’s no indication yet that ByteDance would ever be willing to part with its most popular product. And if there’s no sale and SCOTUS declines the case, that would likely mean that TikTok would not be available in the US, as providing access to TikTok would risk heavy fines. Hughes warned that millions of TikTokers will be silenced next year if the appeals court ruling stands.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. “The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”

TikTok’s two paths to avoid US ban: Beg SCOTUS or woo Trump Read More »

discord-admin-gets-15-years-for-“one-of-the-most-significant-leaks”-in-us-history

Discord admin gets 15 years for “one of the most significant leaks” in US history

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that his sentence should serve as “a stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: betray that trust, and you will be held accountable.”

FBI vows to watch for more leaks

After Teixeira’s crimes were exposed, the now-22-year-old’s former classmates came out, suggesting that Teixeira had always had an “unnerving” fixation with guns and the military. They claimed he would do “crazy stuff” to get attention in school, and that impulse seemingly spilled over into Discord, where he found a community hungry for military insights that could potentially fuel conspiracy theories.

The DOJ noted that Teixeira was twice warned to stop doing “deep dives” of confidential information at his base, but that didn’t stop him from taking top-secret documents home. Sometimes, he would even retype the documents into Discord to try to cover his tracks, but other times, he uploaded the documents themselves, many of which were clearly marked “top-secret.”

Although Teixeira asked Discord members not to share the documents, an investigative journalism group, Bellingcat, found that Teixeira’s friends spread the documents widely, first to other Discord servers, then to Telegram, 4Chan, and Twitter (now called X).

When he ultimately lost control over the documents spreading, Teixeira “took steps to conceal his disclosures by destroying and disposing of his electronic devices, deleting his online accounts, and encouraging his online acquaintances to do the same,” the DOJ said.

The DOJ is hoping that Teixeira’s 15-year sentence will deter future leaks after the incident raised questions about who gets access to the US government’s most sensitive documents. Teixeira had access to the Pentagon’s confidential documents—including top-secret information on troop movements on particular dates—since he became a low-level computer tech at his base at 19 years old, the FBI found. Business Insider estimated that more than 2 million workers have similar clearance.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Teixeira’s sentence “demonstrates the seriousness of the obligation to protect our country’s secrets and the safety of the American people,” while Wray promised that the FBI would keep monitoring for leaks.

“Jack Teixeira’s criminal conduct placed our nation, our troops, and our allies at great risk,” Wray said. “The FBI will continue to work diligently with our partners to protect classified information and ensure that those who turn their backs on their country face justice.”

Discord admin gets 15 years for “one of the most significant leaks” in US history Read More »

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Biden administration curtails controls on some space-related exports

The US Commerce Department announced Thursday it is easing restrictions on exports of space-related technology, answering a yearslong call from space companies to reform regulations governing international trade.

This is the most significant update to space-related export regulations in a decade and opens more opportunities for US companies to sell their satellite hardware abroad.

“We are very excited about this rollout,” a senior Commerce official said during a background call with reporters. “It’s been a long time coming, and I think it’s going to be very meaningful for our national security and foreign policy interests and certainly facilitate secure trade with our partners.”

Overdue reform

One of the changes will allow US companies to export more products related to electro-optical and radar remote sensing, as well as space-based logistics, assembly, or servicing spacecraft destined for Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

“They’re easing restrictions on some of the less sensitive space-related technologies and on spacecraft-related items going to our closest allies, like Australia, Canada, and the UK,” the senior Commerce official said. “These changes will offer relief to US companies and they’ll increase innovation without comprising the critical technologies that keep our nation safe.”

Another update to the Commerce Department’s regulations will remove license requirements for exports of “certain spacecraft components” to more than 40 allied nations, including NATO and European Union member states, Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan. This will also create more license exceptions to support NASA’s cooperative programs with other nations, officials said.

A third change, which hasn’t been finalized and must go through a public comment period, proposes to transfer some space-related item—spacecraft capable of in-space docking, grappling, and refueling, autonomous collision avoidance, and autonomous detection of ground vehicles and aircraft—from the highly restrictive State Department’s US Munitions List to the more flexible Commerce Control List.

Biden administration curtails controls on some space-related exports Read More »

us-can’t-ban-tiktok-for-security-reasons-while-ignoring-temu,-other-apps

US can’t ban TikTok for security reasons while ignoring Temu, other apps

Andrew J. Pincus, attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman US Court House with members of his legal team as the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in the case <em>TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland</em> on September 16 in Washington, DC. ” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GettyImages-2172424134-800×620.jpg”></img><figcaption>
<p><a data-height=Enlarge / Andrew J. Pincus, attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman US Court House with members of his legal team as the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in the case TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland on September 16 in Washington, DC.

The fight to keep TikTok operating unchanged in the US reached an appeals court Monday, where TikTok and US-based creators teamed up to defend one of the world’s most popular apps from a potential US ban.

TikTok lawyer Andrew Pincus kicked things off by warning a three-judge panel that a law targeting foreign adversaries that requires TikTok to divest from its allegedly China-controlled owner, ByteDance, is “unprecedented” and could have “staggering” effects on “the speech of 170 million Americans.”

Pincus argued that the US government was “for the first time in history” attempting to ban speech by a specific US speaker—namely, TikTok US, the US-based entity that allegedly curates the content that Americans see on the app.

The government justified the law by claiming that TikTok may in the future pose a national security risk because updates to the app’s source code occur in China. Essentially, the US is concerned that TikTok collecting data in the US makes it possible for the Chinese government to both spy on Americans and influence Americans by manipulating TikTok content.

But Pincus argued that there’s no evidence of that, only the FBI warning “about the potential that the Chinese Communist Party could use TikTok to threaten US homeland security, censor dissidents, and spread its malign influence on US soil.” And because the law carves out China-owned and controlled e-commerce apps like Temu and Shein—which a US commission deemed a possible danger and allegedly process even more sensitive data than TikTok—the national security justification for targeting TikTok is seemingly so under-inclusive as to be fatal to the government’s argument, Pincus argued.

Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer for TikTok creators, agreed, warning the panel that “what the Supreme Court tells us when it comes to under-inclusive arguments is” that they “often” are “a signal that something else is at play.”

Daniel Tenny, a lawyer representing the US government, defended Congress’ motivations for passing the law, explaining that the data TikTok collects is “extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security” of the US. He further argued that a foreign adversary controlling “what content is shown to Americans” is just as problematic.

Rather than targeting Americans’ expression on the app, Tenny argued that because ByteDance controls TikTok’s source code, the speech on TikTok is not American speech but “expression by Chinese engineers in China.” This is the “core point” that the US hopes the appeals court will embrace, that as long as ByteDance oversees TikTok’s source code, the US will have justified concerns about TikTok data security and content manipulation. The only solution, the US government argues, is divestment.

TikTok has long argued that divestment isn’t an option and that the law will force a ban. Pincus told the court that the “critical issue” with the US government’s case is that the US does not have any evidence that TikTok US is under Chinese control. Because the US is only concerned about some “future Chinese control,” the burden that the law places on speech must meet the highest standard of constitutional scrutiny. Any finding otherwise, Pincus warned the court, risked turning the First Amendment “on its head,” potentially allowing the government to point to foreign ownership to justify regulating US speech on any platform.

But as the panel explained, the US government had tried for two years to negotiate with ByteDance and find through Project Texas a way to maintain TikTok in the US while avoiding national security concerns. Because every attempt to find a suitable national security arrangement has seemingly failed, Congress was potentially justified in passing the law, the panel suggested, especially if the court rules that the law is really just trying to address foreign ownership—not regulate content. And even though the law currently only targets TikTok directly, the government could argue that’s seemingly because TikTok is so far the only foreign adversary-controlled company flagged as a potential national security risk, the panel suggested.

TikTok insisted that divestment is not the answer and that Congress has made no effort to find a better solution. Pincus argued that the US did not consider less restrictive means for achieving the law’s objectives without burdening speech on TikTok, such as a disclosure mechanism that could prevent covert influence on the app by a foreign adversary.

But US circuit judge Neomi Rao pushed back on this, suggesting that disclosure maybe isn’t “always” the only appropriate mechanism to block propaganda in the US—especially when the US government has no way to quickly assess constantly updated TikTok source code developed in China. Pincus had confirmed that any covert content manipulation uncovered on the app would only be discovered after users were exposed.

“They say it would take three years to just review the existing code,” Rao said. “How are you supposed to have disclosure in that circumstance?”

“I think disclosure has been the historic answer for covert content manipulation,” Pincus told the court, branding the current law as “unusual” for targeting TikTok and asking the court to overturn the alleged ban.

The government has given ByteDance until mid-January to sell TikTok, or else the app risks being banned in the US. The appeals court is expected to rule by early December.

US can’t ban TikTok for security reasons while ignoring Temu, other apps Read More »