With no serious debate, including on proposed amendments, Canada is blazing full speed ahead with Bill C-22, which would threaten encryption and increase surveillance. Also known as the Lawful Access Bill, Bill C-22 is currently moving forward quickly to a vote despite the many, many criticisms civil liberty groups and the tech industry have hurled at it.

As we’ve discussed before, Bill C-22 is dangerous on multiple levels. It pushes for requirements for metadata retention, expands information sharing with foreign governments, and establishes a mechanism that allows Canada’s Ministry of Public Safety to demand that companies create backdoors, effectively breaking encryption. That mechanism was a key facet of Part 2 in Bill C-22, and the government prevented it from being independently debated.

In a deep analysis of the bill, Citizen Lab and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association detail every one of flaws of this proposal, concluding that most elements are unsalvageable.

A wide range of tech companies agree. Signal, Apple, Google, and several VPN providers oppose the bill, and some have said they’d likely be forced to either cut Canadians off from certain features or shut down services in Canada altogether.

The Canadian government wants this dangerous, complicated, overreaching bill passed before June 19. Bill C-22 is riddled with privacy problems that affect millions of people. It should be debated and studied fully, not jammed through on an arbitrary deadline.

OpenMedia is offering a tool for Canadians to contact their elected representatives about the bill. Actions taken on OpenMedia’s website are governed by OpenMedia’s privacy policy, not EFF’s.

Since August of last year, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been building and operating a fleet of gas-fired combustion turbines in Memphis-area Black neighborhoods, in order to power a massive data center called Colossus. Each turbine is the size of a single-family home.

As of five weeks ago, xAI has installed at least 57 of these turbines at the Colossus Gas Plant in Southaven, Mississippi, about 15 minutes south of Memphis. Combined, they have the potential to spew over 5,300 tons of nitrogen oxides and 430 tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere every year, among other hazardous air pollutants.

Even short-term exposure to nitrogen oxides or particulate matter can cause hospitalization and premature death. And some communities are especially vulnerable: Scientific evidence shows that children, older adults, and people of color—especially Black people—face heightened health risks. Nearly 160,000 people live within a six-mile radius of the Colossus Gas Plant. Around 22 percent of them are children or older adults, and 77 percent are people of color. U.S. Census Bureau data further shows that many neighborhoods near the plant have a higher percentage of people of color and children than 95 percent of other census tracts.

In short, xAI is releasing a staggering amount of pollutants into the environment, precisely where it can do the most harm.

…

So, two months ago, the NAACP sued xAI and its subsidiaries, aiming to shut down xAI’s Colossus Gas Plant “unless and until they obtain the required permits.” In May, the organization also asked a federal district court for an order prohibiting operation of the plant while the case is pending. The NAACP’s filings highlight that Musk has publicly griped about how environmental regulations require polluters to get “permission in advance” rather than just “paying a penalty” later, and urge the court to stop him from treating Black people like “just one more natural resource the companies can buy and exploit in pursuit of their business goals.”

…

Now, the Trump administration is trying to come to Musk’s aid. The Clean Air Act’s provision allowing citizen enforcement also allows the EPA administrator to “intervene as a matter of right at any time in the proceeding.” And on Monday, Trump’s Department of Justice filed a motion to intervene in the NAACP’s lawsuit as the plaintiff—and to dismiss the NAACP’s suit with prejudice.

In the memo accompanying its motion, the DOJ characterizes the NAACP’s lawsuit as a national security threat—Colossus powers Grok, an AI model that the Department of Defense uses in military operations—and contends that enforcing the Clean Air Act against xAI is not “consistent with federal policy and the public interest.” This ignores the fact that the Clean Air Act is a federal policy, enacted by Congress based on its assessment of the public interest. The DOJ further argues that the NAACP may not enforce the Clean Air Act “over the United States’ objection,” because the government’s “express and unconditional right to intervene” in a citizen suit “necessarily includes the right to unilaterally dismiss the case in its entirety.”

…

Congress created the EPA and the Clean Air Act to protect people from big companies that might steamroll them and destroy the environment. And Congress provided for citizen enforcement so that people could protect themselves. In attempting to dismiss the NAACP’s lawsuit against xAI, the Trump administration is simultaneously retreating from its legal duty to enforce Black people’s right to a livable environment, and declaring that Black people have no rights under the Clean Air Act that xAI is bound to respect.

I wonder if I will use whisper like everything else stt

Well, I feel better about the batteries.

I have much bigger anxiety with exploding batteries, poor safety standards, and surveillance.

That’s, not a good thing. Privacy should be a human right.

Check out mullvad as an example of a company gathering zero data on customers and legally providing law enforcement with zero data.

Re-read my above comment to see the most recent controversy.

If a company has no data on its customers then they can be in full compliance with law enforcement and still share nothing.

Again, the choice is your to ignore the issues and keep using it.

Company “accidentally” gave money to the far-right French YouTuber Vincent Lapierre.

They seem to keep being pro far right and then when they are called out on it, they back track.

But from a purely security standpoint, proton is not a good product either, if court documents and FBI collaboration are any indication.

This seems like a bullshit article using old data. But let’s take it at face value for the sake of argument.

Perhaps we should prioritize water given to humans (which they require to live).

Data centers have contaminated local water supplies, and often have a priority for access to free water.

The question isn’t exactly the amount of water it takes to power “ai”. The real question is if we are actually aware of the cost for something which is not actually required to solve the problems of the world.

No

I think there will still be an air show…just a bit different than what is expected.

Anyone else notice that recently once in a century events happen every season?

There are plenty of other options which haven’t actively supported the American Regime or white supremacists.

You can either switch to one of those and have peace of mind with the biggest downside of not haveing a suite of apps in one location (which is probably bad from a privacy perspective anyway). Or you can deny and ignore the issues that continue to come.

One small thump for Glenda, one giant hop for plan9.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

The Fediverse

Don’t forget the child pornography generator

Realistically, they emailed out the Schutzstaffel to everyone but those in germany.

What is a Nazi stuff if not the insignia for the SS?

Balsamic Leftist