“With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, President Donald Trump’s reversal from opponent to supporter of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) seemed certain to guarantee renewal of the law. That’s not what happened. Instead, Section 702 of the controversial spying legislation won only a temporary extension, to April 30, as civil libertarians and surveillance-state supporters from both major parties continue to battle. Hopefully, the outcome is the long-deserved demise of surveillance practices that threaten the privacy of Americans.” (04/24/26)
“A federal judge is raising concerns about whether Donald Trump’s attempt to sue the IRS for $10 billion can proceed, signaling she could throw out the case because the president oversees the government entities he is suing. Judge Kathleen Williams raised the issue in an order on Friday denying a request to delay the case amid possible settlement talks. She noted that Trump and the defendants — the Treasury Department and IRS — may not be ‘sufficiently adverse’ to one another for the case to proceed. … Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department in January related to the unauthorized disclosure of tax information during Trump’s first term. A government contractor with the IRS pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing the tax information of Donald Trump and other wealthy Americans and leaking it to media outlets in 2019 and 2020.” (04/24/26)
“Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout and the Manhattan Institute’s John Ketcham debate the resolution, ‘Mayor Zohran Mamdani is likely to fulfill his campaign pledge to make New York City more affordable for most residents.'” (04/24/26)
“There is a deep irony in [Sohrab] Ahmari’s position. He is distressed by the American right’s hostility to Pope Leo. But he has aligned himself with the Catholic sub-group that is least able to reconcile itself to the pope’s anti-war position. Modern popes have for some time been deeply critical of militant global powers, and great powers tend to push back against those critiques. But the patriotic, pro-inclusion thinkers Ahmari despises (like Murray, Neuhaus, and Novak) warmly welcomed the Church’s move away from forms of authoritarian nationalism that repeatedly led to state oppression and war. Ahmari and the postliberals are the ones actively trying to reinvigorate those forms of political theology, despite ample empirical evidence that they tend to breed violence and hatred.” (04/24/26)
“Hegseth’s approach to the press risks lasting damage to the institution he leads. A Pentagon that shares only good news with the public, and a secretary who consistently insults the press, lose both the benefit of the doubt and an important mechanism for self-correction. Hegseth’s posture endangers more than accountability at the Pentagon. It limits the effectiveness and legitimacy of U.S. service members who are called to carry out their mission.” (04/24/26)
“A legal case in Kansas shows how surveillance technology can distort policing priorities. When authorities can monitor anyone cheaply, the temptation to target critics increases.” (04/24/26)
“Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek on Friday released a preview version of its long-awaited V4 large language model, allowing users to test its new capabilities and features. The release comes more than a year after the Hangzhou-based company introduced its R1 reasoning model, which rocked global tech markets due to its surprising performance and cost efficiency. Similar to DeepSeek’s previous model releases, the latest upgrade is open-source, allowing developers to download the code, run it locally and modify it in most cases. … DeepSeek also said that V4 has been optimized for use with popular agent tools such as Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenClaw.” (04/24/26)