Cops in Laredo were tired of Priscilla Villarreal reporting stories they did not like. In 2017, they arrested her for texting two questions to a source in the police department. She sued, but a lower court gave the cops qualified immunity. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal this week.

The early responses to Wolf Worm are hatching! Highlights include “What is wrong with you?!?” “WHY?!” and “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KINGFISHER!”

Hunter Biden's laptop is truly the Vince Foster of our age.

There can be a fair amount of factual nuance in nominative fair use cases. This could be a fun survey.

It must be *infuriating* to TSA agents, who are NOT getting paid, to see lazy ICE agents, who ARE getting paid, lounging about the airport and doing nothing to help either them or passengers.

"The pragmatism and administrability of its ideas are appealing and worthy of consideration in every context. But a Fourth Amendment law capable of addressing the complex questions posed by modern technology requires more." @mtokson.bsky.social reviews “The Digital Fourth Amendment" by Orin Kerr.

Reminder that the FTC’s annual budget was under 430 million in 2024.

He’s so close to getting the point.

they literally renamed the entire company after this

Signal boosting this. Potentially relevant facts: This would violate current Northwestern and UChicago policies (and those policies are good ones). It was over 20 years ago, when he was about 25-26.

Facebook marketplace is wild. It’s half people selling overpriced collectibles and half “here’s my son’s entire childhood. $10.”

It is wild to live in a district with a contested race. I’ve had canvassers for @danielbiss.bsky.social and @katmabu.bsky.social, some particularly well done pro-Kat mailings, and an absolute ton of anti mailings directed at both of them from PACs. Many trees died for this nomination.

For an upcoming story, I'd like to hear from people who have had an encounter with a stranger recording them on Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. If that's you or you can pass along this request to someone else who has experienced this, I'm at [email protected] or millionbear.44 on Signal. Thanks!

Looking forward to discussing my paper with @thelior.bsky.social and @ineffablicious.bsky.social on the power of Dark Patterns in the privacy context at the @futureofprivacy.bsky.social event this Wednesday (noon Eastern)! www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-16...

"you fucked up a perfectly good monkey is what you did. look at it. it’s got anxiety" Truly, we have become gods over a new creation :P

Did you know that Section 230 was passed in 1996, and that 1996 was 30 years ago? Because that second part was a rude surprise to me.

Also, consider “what is gender affirming care?” You’ll get different responses if people are thinking about talk therapy v hormones v surgery. This is so not my area, but I’m itching to unpack the nuances here empirically.

The war on science goes to the judiciary. More than two dozen contributors to the manual criticized the deletion of a chapter on climate science by the Federal Judicial Center.

There are many things Trump could plausibly say tonight that might impact the midterms. For example: “Five minutes ago I bombed Iran/Mexico/Greenland/Minneapolis/SCOTUS.” Short of that, he’s right and it won’t matter :)

Yesterday a colleague was telling me that AI would "replace us." He meant is that it would save him an incredible amount of grunt work extracting information from company filings. My research doesn't involve that, but it has greatly benefited from the fact that I don't have to do stats by hand.

We need a statutory bivens cause of action. Let them sue and get this on the record.

Zero women in my life have given me any indication this is true, and I know some really nerdy women. Now if you tried “…they want craft supplies” I think you’d be onto something. :)

Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones. Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.

idk how widely this article has been shared, but it is extremely irresponsible and inaccurate in many different ways. it states as fact and with no reporting that things *are happening now* that *may eventually be possible*. it is shocking that this was published newrepublic.com/article/2059...

Ring tried making a heart-warming ad about finding lost pets that unleashed a social media deluge of "...did they just advertise how great they are at building a massive suburban surveillance network???" (The Ring blowback is warming my little privacy heart.)

I’ve been trying to use ChatGPT to identify my old Transformers. It has been comically bad at it. It has also repeatedly insisted that certain old LEGO pieces don’t exist. Specialized models are obviously better, but I worry when a leading general model can’t tell Topspin from Slingshot.

i know everybody on bluesky is way too smart to believe thing is, if you don't believe, tinkerbell dies it's on all of us

The rhythms of the academic year are very strange. Law review submission season is upon us, and I spent the week getting two pieces out the door. Last night I was up until 11 doing edits for another journal. Now things are quiet and I'm not sure what to do with myself.

If I ever think that commenting on a student's appearance will help them land a job with a particular employer, my response will be to advise them (and everyone else) against applying to that employer. The arrogance to, first, do it and, second, do it in writing, is insane.

That it works over there was always proof that all it would take over here was money and political will. Both have been too present of late.

Well worth a look!

*sigh* here we go again. Your phone is not listening to everything around you 24/7 for advertising purposes. *If* you have voice activation on for the assistant, the mic is listening for the activation phrase: the processing power for listening for a single specific phrase is much lower.

Gift Article - New: bipartisan group of DHS general counsels call out use of administrative warrants www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/o...

Trump's antisemitism envoy: "It is utterly inappropriate to compare Anne Frank to children hiding from ICE. This demeans the experience of those who died in the Holocaust." Actual Holocaust survivors in Florida: "This reminds us of Anne Frank."

Congrats to @zclopton.bsky.social! Hopefully this will mark the beginning of a long and stable period at the law school.

I’m not sure I have anything add to this. I’ve spent the better part of a year debunking most of the arguments here. The only new-ish thing is an argument about safe conduct that is flatly contradicted by the very sources which he cites and it is impossible to believe that he doesn’t know it.

Ilan Wurman's anti-birthright citizenship Supreme Court amicus. I won't mince words. He bastardizes the common law. It is a methodologically bankrupt approach to the history of Anglo-American constitutionalism. It is little more than preening to gain someone's favor, but certainly not a scholar's.

Excited that our paper with @thelior.bsky.social @mbkugler.bsky.social , “Can Consumers Protect Themselves Against Privacy Dark Patterns?” is a winner of the (@futureofprivacy’s or @futureofprivacy.bsky.social’s) 16th Annual Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award! Read more: fpf.org/press-releas...

Excellent commentary on why conduct that might give rise to liability in the private context definitely does not in the government context (however troubling that might be).

Excellent as always. Now, if the government would please chill, Orin is supposed to be writing about curtilage this week. :P

The Administration has threatened investigation and charges under the FACE Act for protestors - and Don Lemon — for a protest at a St. Paul church where one of the pastors is an ICE official. There are stupid responses to this, which get on my last fucking nerve, and arguable responses to this.

Semi-relatedly, Ilan teaches in Minnesota. Here, he makes claims about what’s happening in Minneapolis, and suggests the President could legitimately invoke the Insurrection Act. If he has set foot in Minneapolis recently or written anything substantial about the Insurrection Act, I’m unaware.

If only Denmark had allied with a superpower to guarantee its territorial security. Wait, I’m being told that they did. I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning to do good. How does he get out of bed to be this dumb?

Also keep in mind that provocateurs are a thing. That person publicly calling for violence? They're either crazy or a federal agent. It is not helpful to listen to them regardless. I found @laurajedeed.bsky.social's piece on this quite useful: www.firewalledmedia.com/p/cointelpro...

Keep in mind that that people have been fleeing these positions all year. For six to leave *now* implies that this is worse than everything they've been asked to do thus far. Also, we will be years rebuilding the talent and credibility that have been lost over the last few months.

I sadly think this is right. It is worth trying very hard to investigate and prosecute this case, and doing so in a way that can actually result in a conviction is going to be slow.

Those in California can now go here to request that data brokers delete their data: privacy.ca.gov/drop/ This is a good thing, however, it’s far from a complete solution. 🧵 1/

Grading this afternoon is the hardest I’ve worked all year.

That last storm was a killer. The decapitated body is in the garage.