Policy – Page 7

OpenAI will stop saving most ChatGPT users’ deleted chats

AI, Policy / Rejus Almole / October 11, 2025

Moving forward, all of the deleted and temporary chats that were previously saved under the preservation order will continue to be accessible to news plaintiffs, who are looking for examples of outputs infringing their articles or attributing misinformation to their publications.

Additionally, OpenAI will continue monitoring certain ChatGPT accounts, saving deleted and temporary chats of any users whose domains have been flagged by news organizations since they began searching through the data. If news plaintiffs flag additional domains during future meetings with OpenAI, more accounts could be roped in.

Ars could not immediately reach OpenAI or the Times’ legal team for comment.

The dispute with news plaintiffs continues to heat up beyond the battle over user logs, most recently with co-defendant Microsoft pushing to keep its AI companion Copilot out of the litigation.

The stakes remain high for both sides. News organizations have alleged that ChatGPT and other allegedly copyright-infringing tools threaten to replace them in their market while potentially damaging their reputations by attributing false information to them.

OpenAI may be increasingly pressured to settle the lawsuit, and not by news organizations but by insurance companies that won’t provide comprehensive coverage for their AI products with multiple potentially multibillion-dollar lawsuits pending.

OpenAI will stop saving most ChatGPT users’ deleted chats Read More »

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

boring company, elon musk, Policy, syndication, Tesla / Mike M. / October 11, 2025

Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills, and burns. The Boring Co. has contested the violations. Just last month, a construction worker suffered a “crush injury” after being pinned between two 4,000-foot pipes, according to police records. Firefighters used a crane to extract him from the tunnel opening.

After ProPublica and City Cast Las Vegas published their January story, both the CEO and the chairman of the LVCVA board criticized the reporting, arguing the project is well-regulated. As an example, LVCVA CEO Steve Hill cited the delayed opening of a Loop station by local officials who were concerned that fire safety requirements weren’t adequate. Board chair Jim Gibson, who is also a Clark County commissioner, agreed the project is appropriately regulated.

“We wouldn’t have given approvals if we determined things weren’t the way they ought to be and what it needs to be for public safety reasons,” Gibson said, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. “Our sense is we’ve done what we need to do to protect the public.”

Asked for a response to the new proposed fines, an LVCVA spokesperson said, “We won’t be participating in this story.”

The repeated allegations that the company is violating regulations—including the bespoke regulatory arrangement agreed to by the company—indicates that officials aren’t keeping the public safe, said Ben Leffel, an assistant public policy professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“Not if they’re recommitting almost the exact violation,” Leffel said.

Leffel questioned whether a $250,000 penalty would be significant enough to change operations at The Boring Co., which was valued at $7 billion in 2023. Studies show that fines that don’t put a significant dent in a company’s profit don’t deter companies from future violations, Leffel said.

A state spokesperson disagreed that regulators aren’t keeping the public safe and said the agency believes its penalties will deter “future non-compliance.”

“NDEP is actively monitoring and inspecting the projects,” the spokesperson said.

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas Read More »

“Extremely angry” Trump threatens “massive” tariff on all Chinese exports

china tariffs, Donald Trump, Policy, rare earth, rare earth magnets, trump tariffs, us-china trade war / Paul Patrick / October 10, 2025

The chairman of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), issued a statement, suggesting that, unlike Trump, he’d seen China’s rare earths move coming. He pushed Trump to interpret China’s export controls as “an economic declaration of war against the United States and a slap in the face to President Trump.”

“China has fired a loaded gun at the American economy, seeking to cut off critical minerals used to make the semiconductors that power the American military, economy, and devices we use every day including cars, phones, computers, and TVs,” Moolenaar said. “Every American will be negatively affected by China’s action, and that’s why we must address America’s vulnerabilities and build our own leverage against China.”

To strike back forcefully, Moolenaar suggested passing a law he sponsored that he said would “end preferential trade treatment for China, build a resilient resource reserve of critical minerals, secure American research and campuses from Chinese influence, and strangle China’s technology sector with export controls instead of selling it advanced chips.”

Moolenaar also emphasized steps he recommended back in September that he claimed Trump could take to “create real leverage with China” in the face of its stranglehold on rare earths.

Those included “restricting or suspending Chinese airline landing rights in the US,” “reviewing export control policies governing the sale of commercial aircraft, parts, and maintenance services to China,” and “restricting outbound investment in China’s aviation sector in coordination with key allies.”

“These steps would send a clear message to Beijing that it cannot choke off critical supplies to our defense industries without consequences to its own strategic sectors,” Moolenaar wrote in his September letter to Trump. “By acting together, the US and its allies can strengthen our resilience, reinforce solidarity, and create real leverage with China.”

“Extremely angry” Trump threatens “massive” tariff on all Chinese exports Read More »

Apple and Google reluctantly comply with Texas age verification law

App Store, Apple, Google, Policy, texas / Paul Patrick / October 9, 2025

Apple yesterday announced a plan to comply with a Texas age verification law and warned that changes required by the law will reduce privacy for app users.

“Beginning January 1, 2026, a new state law in Texas—SB2420—introduces age assurance requirements for app marketplaces and developers,” Apple said yesterday in a post for developers. “While we share the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety, we are concerned that SB2420 impacts the privacy of users by requiring the collection of sensitive, personally identifiable information to download any app, even if a user simply wants to check the weather or sports scores.”

The Texas App Store Accountability Act requires app stores to verify users’ ages and imposes restrictions on those under 18. Apple said that developers will have “to adopt new capabilities and modify behavior within their apps to meet their obligations under the law.”

Apple’s post noted that similar laws will take effect later in 2026 in Utah and Louisiana. Google also recently announced plans for complying with the three state laws and said the new requirements reduce user privacy.

“While we have user privacy and trust concerns with these new verification laws, Google Play is designing APIs, systems, and tools to help you meet your obligations,” Google told developers in an undated post.

The Utah law is scheduled to take effect May 7, 2026, while the Louisiana law will take effect July 1, 2026. The Texas, Utah, and Louisiana “laws impose significant new requirements on many apps that may need to provide age appropriate experiences to users in these states,” Google said. “These requirements include ingesting users’ age ranges and parental approval status for significant changes from app stores and notifying app stores of significant changes.”

New features for Texas

Apple and Google both announced new features to help developers comply.

“Once this law goes into effect, users located in Texas who create a new Apple Account will be required to confirm whether they are 18 years or older,” Apple said. “All new Apple Accounts for users under the age of 18 will be required to join a Family Sharing group, and parents or guardians will need to provide consent for all App Store downloads, app purchases, and transactions using Apple’s In-App Purchase system by the minor.”

Apple and Google reluctantly comply with Texas age verification law Read More »

Musk’s X posts on ketamine, Putin spur release of his security clearances

department of government efficiency, doge, elon musk, Policy, spacex, starlink, Twitter, vladimir putin, X / Mike M. / October 9, 2025

“A disclosure, even with redactions, will reveal whether a security clearance was granted with or without conditions or a waiver,” DCSA argued.

Ultimately, DCSA failed to prove that Musk risked “embarrassment or humiliation” not only if the public learned what specific conditions or waivers applied to Musk’s clearances but also if there were any conditions or waivers at all, Cote wrote.

Three cases that DCSA cited to support this position—including a case where victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking scheme had a substantial privacy interest in non-disclosure of detailed records—do not support the government’s logic, Cote said. The judge explained that the disclosures would not have affected the privacy rights of any third parties, emphasizing that “Musk’s diminished privacy interest is underscored by the limited information plaintiffs sought in their FOIA request.”

Musk’s X posts discussing his occasional use of prescription ketamine and his disclosure on a podcast that smoking marijuana prompted NASA requirements for random drug testing, Cote wrote, “only enhance” the public’s interest in how Musk’s security clearances were vetted. Additionally, Musk has posted about speaking with Vladimir Putin, prompting substantial public interest in how his foreign contacts may or may not restrict his security clearances. More than 2 million people viewed Musk’s X posts on these subjects, the judge wrote, noting that:

It is undisputed that drug use and foreign contacts are two factors DCSA considers when determining whether to impose conditions or waivers on a security clearance grant. DCSA fails to explain why, given Musk’s own, extensive disclosures, the mere disclosure that a condition or waiver exists (or that no condition or waiver exists) would subject him to ’embarrassment or humiliation.’

Rather, for the public, “the list of Musk’s security clearances, including any conditions or waivers, could provide meaningful insight into DCSA’s performance of that duty and responses to Musk’s admissions, if any,” Cote wrote.

In a footnote, Cote said that this substantial public interest existed before Musk became a special government employee, ruling that DCSA was wrong to block the disclosures seeking information on Musk as a major government contractor. Her ruling likely paves the way for the NYT or other news organizations to submit FOIA requests for a list of Musk’s clearances while he helmed DOGE.

It’s not immediately clear when the NYT will receive the list they requested in 2024, but the government has until October 17 to request redactions before it’s publicized.

“The Times brought this case because the public has a right to know about how the government conducts itself,” Charlie Stadtlander, an NYT spokesperson, said. “The decision reaffirms that fundamental principle and we look forward to receiving the document at issue.”

Musk’s X posts on ketamine, Putin spur release of his security clearances Read More »

ISPs created so many fees that FCC will kill requirement to list them all

brendan carr, FCC, Policy / Rejus Almole / October 8, 2025

The FCC was required by Congress to implement broadband-label rules, but the Carr FCC says the law doesn’t “require itemizing pass through fees that vary by location.”

“Commenters state that itemizing such fees requires providers to produce multiple labels for identical services,” the FCC plan says, with a footnote to comments from industry groups such as USTelecom and NCTA. “We believe, consistent with commenters in the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding, that itemizing can lead to a proliferation of labels and of labels so lengthy that the fees overwhelm other important elements of the label.”

In a blog post Monday, Carr said his plan is part of a “focus on consumer protection.” He said the FCC “will vote on a notice that would reexamine broadband nutrition labels so that we can separate the wheat from the chaff. We want consumers to get quick and easy access to the information they want and need to compare broadband plans (as Congress has provided) without imposing unnecessary burdens.”

ISPs would still be required to provide the labels, but with less information. The NPRM said that eliminating the rules targeted for deletion will not “change the core label requirements to display a broadband consumer label containing critical information about the provider’s service offerings, including information about pricing, introductory rates, data allowances, and performance metrics.”

ISPs said listing fees was too hard

In 2023, five major trade groups representing US broadband providers petitioned the FCC to scrap the list-every-fee requirement before it took effect. Comcast told the commission that the rule “impose[s] significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the broadband label requirements.”

Rejecting the industry complaints, then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that “every consumer needs transparent information when making decisions about what Internet service offering makes the most sense for their family or household. No one wants to be hit with charges they didn’t ask for or they did not expect.”

The Rosenworcel FCC’s order denying the industry petition pointedly said that ISPs could simplify pricing instead of charging loads of fees. “ISPs could alternatively roll such discretionary fees into the base monthly price, thereby eliminating the need to itemize them on the label,” the order said.

ISPs created so many fees that FCC will kill requirement to list them all Read More »

Vandals deface ads for AI necklaces that listen to all your conversations

AI, ai companions, ai friends, ai wearables, Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, companion bots, Policy / Kris Guyer / October 8, 2025

In addition to backlash over feared surveillance capitalism, critics have accused Schiffman of taking advantage of the loneliness epidemic. Conducting a survey last year, researchers with Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common found that people between “30-44 years of age were the loneliest group.” Overall, 73 percent of those surveyed “selected technology as contributing to loneliness in the country.”

But Schiffman rejects these criticisms, telling the NYT that his AI Friend pendant is intended to supplement human friends, not replace them, supposedly helping to raise the “average emotional intelligence” of users “significantly.”

“I don’t view this as dystopian,” Schiffman said, suggesting that “the AI friend is a new category of companionship, one that will coexist alongside traditional friends rather than replace them,” the NYT reported. “We have a cat and a dog and a child and an adult in the same room,” the Friend founder said. “Why not an AI?”

The MTA has not commented on the controversy, but Victoria Mottesheard—a vice president at Outfront Media, which manages MTA advertising—told the NYT that the Friend campaign blew up because AI “is the conversation of 2025.”

Website lets anyone deface Friend ads

So far, the Friend ads have not yielded significant sales, Schiffman confirmed, telling the NYT that only 3,100 have sold. He expects that society isn’t ready for AI companions to be promoted at such a large scale and that his ad campaign will help normalize AI friends.

In the meantime, critics have rushed to attack Friend on social media, inspiring a website where anyone can vandalize a Friend ad and share it online. That website has received close to 6,000 submissions so far, its creator, Marc Mueller, told the NYT, and visitors can take a tour of these submissions by choosing “ride train to see more” after creating their own vandalized version.

For visitors to Mueller’s site, riding the train displays a carousel documenting backlash to Friend, as well as “performance art” by visitors poking fun at the ads in less serious ways. One example showed a vandalized ad changing “Friend” to “Fries,” with a crude illustration of McDonald’s French fries, while another transformed the ad into a campaign for “fried chicken.”

Others were seemingly more serious about turning the ad into a warning. One vandal drew a bunch of arrows pointing to the “end” in Friend while turning the pendant into a cry-face emoji, seemingly drawing attention to research on the mental health risks of relying on AI companions—including the alleged suicide risks of products like Character.AI and ChatGPT, which have spawned lawsuits and prompted a Senate hearing.

Vandals deface ads for AI necklaces that listen to all your conversations Read More »

Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to understand Wikipedia, lawyer for Wikimedia says

Policy, ted cruz, Wikimedia Foundation, wikipedia / Mike M. / October 7, 2025

A Wikipedia primer for Ted Cruz

Wikipedia host’s lawyer wants to help Ted Cruz understand how the platform works.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) uses his phone during a joint meeting of Congress on May 17, 2022. Credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg

The letter from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accusing Wikipedia of left-wing bias seems to be based on fundamental misunderstandings of how the platform works, according to a lawyer for the nonprofit foundation that operates the online encyclopedia.

“The foundation is very much taking the approach that Wikipedia is actually pretty great and a lot of what’s in this letter is actually misunderstandings,” Jacob Rogers, associate general counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, told Ars in an interview. “And so we are more than happy, despite the pressure that comes from these things, to help people better understand how Wikipedia works.”

Cruz’s letter to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander expressed concern “about ideological bias on the Wikipedia platform and at the Wikimedia Foundation.” Cruz alleged that Wikipedia articles “often reflect a left-wing bias.” He asked the foundation for “documents sufficient to show what supervision, oversight, or influence, if any, the Wikimedia Foundation has over the editing community,” and “documents sufficient to show how the Wikimedia Foundation addresses political or ideological bias.”

As many people know, Wikipedia is edited by volunteers through a collaborative process.

“We’re not deciding what the editorial policies are for what is on Wikipedia,” Rogers said, describing the Wikimedia Foundation’s hands-off approach. “All of that, both the writing of the content and the determining of the editorial policies, is done through the volunteer editors” through “public conversation and discussion and trying to come to a consensus. They make all of that visible in various ways to the reader. So you go and you read a Wikipedia article, you can see what the sources are, what someone has written, you can follow the links yourselves.”

“They’re worried about something that is just not present at all”

Cruz’s letter raised concerns about “the influence of large donors on Wikipedia’s content creation or editing practices.” But Rogers said that “people who donate to Wikipedia don’t have any influence over content and we don’t even have that many large donors to begin with. It is primarily funded by people donating through the website fundraisers, so I think they’re worried about something that is just not present at all.”

Anyone unhappy with Wikipedia content can participate in the writing and editing, he said. “It’s still open for everybody to participate. If someone doesn’t like what it says, they can go on and say, ‘Hey, I don’t like the sources that are being used, or I think a different source should be used that isn’t there,'” Rogers said. “Other people might disagree with them, but they can have that conversation and try to figure it out and make it better.”

Rogers said that some people wrongly assume there is central control over Wikipedia editing. “I feel like people are asking questions assuming that there is something more central that is controlling all of this that doesn’t actually exist,” he said. “I would love to see it a little better understood about how this sort of public model works and the fact that people can come judge it for themselves and participate for themselves. And maybe that will have it sort of die down as a source of government pressure, government questioning, and go onto something else.”

Cruz’s letter accused Wikipedia of pushing antisemitic narratives. He described the Wikimedia Foundation as “intervening in editorial decisions” in an apparent reference to an incident in which the platform’s Arbitration Committee responded to editing conflicts on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by banning eight editors.

“The Wikimedia Foundation has said it is taking steps to combat this editing campaign, raising further questions about the extent to which it is intervening in editorial decisions and to what end,” Cruz wrote.

Explaining the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee for the English-language edition of Wikipedia consists of volunteers who “are elected by the rest of the English Wikipedia editors,” Rogers said. The group is a “dispute resolution body when people can’t otherwise resolve their disputes.” The committee made “a ruling on Israel/Palestine because it is such a controversial subject and it’s not just banning eight editors, it’s also how contributions are made in that topic area and sort of limiting it to more experienced editors,” he said.

The members of the committee “do not control content,” Rogers said. “The arbitration committee is not a content dispute body. They’re like a behavior conduct dispute body, but they try to set things up so that fights will not break out subsequently.”

As with other topics, people can participate if they believe articles are antisemitic. “That is sort of squarely in the user editorial processes,” Rogers said. “If someone thinks that something on Wikipedia is antisemitic, they should change it or propose to people working on it that they change it or change sources. I do think the editorial community, especially on topics related to antisemitism and related to Israel/Palestine, has a lot of various safeguards in place. That particular topic is probably the most controversial topic in the world, but there’s still a lot of editorial safeguards in place where people can discuss things. They can get help with dispute resolution from bringing in other editors if there’s a behavioral problem, they can ask for help from Wikipedia administrators, and all the way up to the English Wikipedia arbitration committee.”

Cruz’s letter called out Wikipedia’s goal of “knowledge equity,” and accused the foundation of favoring “ideology over neutrality.” Cruz also pointed to a Daily Caller report that the foundation donated “to activist groups seeking to bring the online encyclopedia more in line with traditionally left-of-center points of view.”

Rogers countered that “the theory behind that is sort of misunderstood by the letter where it’s not about equity like the DEI equity, it is about the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation to have the world’s knowledge, to prepare educational content and to have all the different knowledge in the world to the extent possible.” In topic areas where people with expertise haven’t contributed much to Wikipedia, “we are looking to write grants to help fill in those gaps in knowledge and have a more broad range of information and sources,” he said.

What happens next

Rogers is familiar with the workings of Senate investigations from personal experience. He joined the Wikimedia Foundation in 2014 after working for the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under the late Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

While Cruz demanded a trove of documents, Rogers said the foundation doesn’t necessarily have to provide them. A subpoena could be issued to Wikimedia, but that hasn’t happened.

“What Cruz has sent us is just a letter,” Rogers said. “There is no legal proceeding whatsoever. There’s no formal authority behind this letter. It’s just a letter from a person in the legislative branch who cares about the topic, so there is nothing compelling us to give him anything. I think we are probably going to answer the letter, but there’s no sort of legal requirement to actually fully provide everything that answers every question.” Assuming it responds, the foundation would try to answer Cruz’s questions “to the extent that we can, and without violating any of our company policies,” and without giving out nonpublic information, he said.

A letter responding to Cruz wouldn’t necessarily be made public. In April, the foundation received a letter from 23 lawmakers about alleged antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. The foundation’s response to that letter is not public.

Cruz is seeking changes at Wikipedia just a couple weeks after criticizing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for threatening ABC with station license revocations over political content on Jimmy Kimmel’s show. While the pressure tactics used by Cruz and Carr have similarities, Rogers said there are also key differences between the legislative and executive branches.

“Congressional committees, they are investigating something to determine what laws to make, and so they have a little bit more freedom to just look into the state of the world to try to decide what laws they want to write or what laws they want to change,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that they can’t use their authority in a way that might ultimately go down a path of violating the First Amendment or something like that. They have a little bit more runway to get there versus an executive branch agency which, if it is pressuring someone, it is doing so for a very immediate decision usually.”

What does Cruz want? It’s unclear

Rogers said it’s not clear whether Cruz’s inquiry is the first step toward changing the law. “The questions in the letter don’t really say why they want the information they want other than the sort of immediacy of their concerns,” he said.

Cruz chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, which “does have lawmaking authority over the Internet writ large,” Rogers said. “So they may be thinking about changes to the law.”

One potential target is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives online platforms immunity from lawsuits over how they moderate user-submitted content.

“From the perspective of the foundation, we’re staunch defenders of Section 230,” Rogers said, adding that Wikimedia supports “broad laws around intellectual property and privacy and other things that allow a large amount of material to be appropriately in the public domain, to be written about on a free encyclopedia like Wikipedia, but that also protect the privacy of editors who are contributing to Wikipedia.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to understand Wikipedia, lawyer for Wikimedia says Read More »

Ted Cruz picks a fight with Wikipedia, accusing platform of left-wing bias

Policy, ted cruz, Wikimedia Foundation, wikipedia / Tim Belzer / October 6, 2025

Cruz pressures Wikipedia after criticizing FCC chair

Cruz sent the letter about two weeks after criticizing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for threatening ABC with station license revocations over political content on Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Cruz said that using the government to dictate what the media can say “will end up bad for conservatives” because when Democrats are back in power, “they will silence us, they will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.” Cruz said that Carr threatening ABC was like “a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.'”

Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, doesn’t mind using his authority to pressure Wikipedia’s operator, however. “The Standing Rules of the Senate grant the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation jurisdiction over communications, including online information platforms,” he wrote to the Wikimedia Foundation. “As the Chairman of the Committee, I request that you provide written responses to the questions below, as well as requested documents, no later than October 17, 2025, and in accordance with the attached instructions.”

We asked Cruz’s office to explain why a senator pressuring Wikipedia is appropriate while an FCC chair pressuring ABC is not and will update this article if we get a response.

Among other requests, Cruz asked for “documents sufficient to show what supervision, oversight, or influence, if any, the Wikimedia Foundation has over the editing community,” and “documents sufficient to show how the Wikimedia Foundation addresses political or ideological bias.”

Cruz has separately been launching investigations into the Biden administration for alleged censorship. He issued a report allegedly “revealing how the Biden administration transformed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) into an agent of censorship pressuring Big Tech to police speech,” and scheduled a hearing for Wednesday titled, “Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans.”

Cruz’s letter to Wikimedia seeks evidence that could figure into his ongoing investigations into the Biden administration. “Provide any and all documents and communications—including emails, texts, or other digital messages—between any officer, employee, or agent of the Wikimedia Foundation and any officer, employee, or agent of the federal government since January 1, 2020,” the letter said.

Ted Cruz picks a fight with Wikipedia, accusing platform of left-wing bias Read More »

Trump’s EPA sued for axing $7 billion solar energy program

clean energy, Donald Trump, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Policy, Solar energy / Rejus Almole / October 6, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency was sued Wednesday over an allegedly politically motivated decision to end a program that Congress intended to help low-income and disadvantaged communities across the US save money on electricity bills through rooftop and community solar programs.

In their complaint, a group of plaintiffs who would have benefited from the EPA’s “Solar for All” program—including a labor union, several businesses, and a homeowner who cannot afford her electricity bills without it—accused the EPA of violating federal law and the Constitution by unlawfully terminating the program.

Solar for All was “expected to save an estimated $350 million annually on energy bills during and after the five-year program, providing energy bill relief for more than 900,000 low-income and disadvantaged households,” plaintiffs noted. Additionally, it was “expected to secure 4,000 megawatts of new solar energy over five years and generate 200,000 new jobs.”

According to plaintiffs, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin illegally squashed the program after Congress repealed a statute in July that had sparked the program’s creation. However, lawmakers were clear when repealing the statute that only “unobligated” funds could be rescinded, plaintiffs argued, citing lawmakers who “repeatedly” stated that the repeal would not impact funding that had already been awarded.

In 2024, Congress obligated the EPA to award $7 billion in grants to recipients behind projects that would have created “hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs” and spared the average low-income family “about $400 each year on their electricity bills,” plaintiffs argued.

Allegedly Zeldin “arbitrarily” decided to ignore the “plain language” of the statute, plaintiffs alleged, waiting a month after the statute’s repeal to terminate the Solar for All program in August.

Plaintiffs noted that because Zeldin was distributing funds for weeks after the statute’s repeal, this indicated he understood the funding had not been rescinded. They accused Donald Trump’s EPA of violating the separation of powers by interfering to block congressionally awarded funds due to Trump’s disdain for solar energy—pointing to a Zeldin social media post that claimed that the “EPA no longer has the authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive.”

Trump’s EPA sued for axing $7 billion solar energy program Read More »

Elon Musk tries to make Apple and mobile carriers regret choosing Starlink rivals

Apple, ast spacemobile, AT&T, Features, globalstar, IPhone, Policy, Space, spacex, starlink, T-Mobile, verizon / Tim Belzer / October 6, 2025

SpaceX holds spectrum licenses for the Starlink fixed Internet service for homes and businesses. Adding the EchoStar spectrum will make its holdings suitable for mobile service.

“SpaceX currently holds no terrestrial spectrum authorizations and no license to use spectrum allocated on a primary basis to MSS,” the company’s FCC filing said. “Its only authorization to provide any form of mobile service is an authorization for secondary SCS [Supplemental Coverage from Space] operations in spectrum licensed to T-Mobile.”

Starlink unlikely to dethrone major carriers

SpaceX’s spectrum purchase doesn’t make it likely that Starlink will become a fourth major carrier. Grand claims of that sort are “complete nonsense,” wrote industry analyst Dean Bubley. “Apart from anything else, there’s one very obvious physical obstacle: walls and roofs,” he wrote. “Space-based wireless, even if it’s at frequencies supported in normal smartphones, won’t work properly indoors. And uplink from devices to satellites will be even worse.”

When you’re indoors, “there’s more attenuation of the signal,” resulting in lower data rates, Farrar said. “You might not even get megabits per second indoors, unless you are going to go onto a home Starlink broadband network,” he said. “You might only be able to get hundreds of kilobits per second in an obstructed area.”

The Mach33 analyst firm is more bullish than others regarding Starlink’s potential cellular capabilities. “With AWS-4/H-block and V3 [satellites], Starlink DTC is no longer niche, it’s a path to genuine MNO competition. Watch for retail mobile bundles, handset support, and urban hardware as the signals of that pivot,” the firm said.

Mach33’s optimism is based in part on the expectation that SpaceX will make more deals. “DTC isn’t just a coverage filler, it’s a springboard. It enables alternative growth routes; M&A, spectrum deals, subleasing capacity in denser markets, or technical solutions like mini-towers that extend Starlink into neighborhoods,” the group’s analysis said.

The amount of spectrum SpaceX is buying from EchoStar is just a fraction of what the national carriers control. There is “about 1.1 GHz of licensed spectrum currently allocated to mobile operators,” wireless lobby group CTIA said in a January 2025 report. The group also says the cellular industry has over 432,000 active cell sites around the US.

What Starlink can offer cellular users “is nothing compared to the capacity of today’s 5G networks,” but it would be useful “in less populated areas or where you cannot get coverage,” Rysavy said.

Starlink has about 8,500 satellites in orbit. Rysavy estimated in a July 2025 report that about 280 of them are over the United States at any given time. These satellites are mostly providing fixed Internet service in which an antenna is placed outside a building so that people can use Wi-Fi indoors.

SpaceX’s FCC filing said the EchoStar spectrum’s mix of terrestrial and satellite frequencies will be ideal for Starlink.

“By acquiring EchoStar’s market-access authorization for 2 GHz MSS as well as its terrestrial AWS-4 licenses, SpaceX will be able to deploy a hybrid satellite and terrestrial network, just as the Commission envisioned EchoStar would do,” SpaceX said. “Consistent with the Commission’s finding that potential interference between MSS and terrestrial mobile service can best be managed by enabling a single licensee to control both networks, assignment of the AWS-4 spectrum is critical to enable SpaceX to deploy robust MSS service in this band.”

Elon Musk tries to make Apple and mobile carriers regret choosing Starlink rivals Read More »

ICE wants to build a 24/7 social media surveillance team

Biz & IT, digital surveillance, federal surveillance, Government surveillance, immigration, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy, Security, syndication / Kris Guyer / October 4, 2025

Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests.

The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok. Analysts may also be tasked with checking more obscure or foreign-based sites, such as Russia’s VKontakte.

They would also be armed with powerful commercial databases such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, which knit together property records, phone bills, utilities, vehicle registrations, and other personal details into searchable files.

The plan calls for strict turnaround times. Urgent cases, such as suspected national security threats or people on ICE’s Top Ten Most Wanted list, must be researched within 30 minutes. High-priority cases get one hour; lower-priority leads must be completed within the workday. ICE expects at least three-quarters of all cases to meet those deadlines, with top contractors hitting closer to 95 percent.

The plan goes beyond staffing. ICE also wants algorithms, asking contractors to spell out how they might weave artificial intelligence into the hunt—a solicitation that mirrors other recent proposals. The agency has also set aside more than a million dollars a year to arm analysts with the latest surveillance tools.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year, The Intercept revealed that ICE had floated plans for a system that could automatically scan social media for “negative sentiment” toward the agency and flag users thought to show a “proclivity for violence.” Procurement records previously reviewed by 404 Media identified software used by the agency to build dossiers on flagged individuals, compiling personal details, family links, and even using facial recognition to connect images across the web. Observers warned it was unclear how such technology could distinguish genuine threats from political speech.

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