Source: The Verge
by Emma Roth

“As Immigration and Customs Enforcement carries out raids across the country, the agency is working rapidly to expand an online surveillance system that could potentially track millions of users on the web. Federal records uncovered by The Lever reveal that ICE is paying $5.7 million to use an AI-powered social media monitoring platform called Zignal Labs, something Will Owen, the communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), calls an ‘assault’ on democracy and free speech. The ‘real-time intelligence’ platform is capable of ingesting and analyzing vast amounts of publicly available data, like social media posts, according to its website. In a pamphlet shared by The Lever, Zignal Labs says it uses machine learning, computer vision, and optical character recognition to analyze more than 8 billion posts per day in over 100 languages.” (10/25/25)

https://archive.is/aLM84

Source: Bitcoin.com
by Robin Burns

“I’ve been watching how jurisdictional rules affect digital platforms for some time now, and it’s remarkable how much geography still determines access. What once depended purely on internet availability now hinges on where you live — and what laws apply there. From my perspective, regulation has become a defining factor in the online experience. Some users adapt comfortably within their country’s framework, while others seek flexibility by exploring international platforms. The balance between compliance and choice is more complicated than ever.” (10/25/25)

https://news.bitcoin.com/user-choice-and-jurisdiction-how-regulation-shapes-platform-preferences/

Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon

“I do wonder at what point churches will realize that there can’t possibly be room in their pews for both Jesus — that is, for the prisoner and the sick and the stranger and the outcast — and also room for people who belong to a militarized hate group like the Republican Party, who are actively engaged in excluding and terrorizing and killing all those other sorts of people, or (more likely) in hiring people to do it for them, so they can feel safe while they wait for heaven. Whenever I express this belief, I’m reminded by well-meaning Christians that the revolutionary and the tax-collecting Roman collaborator both ran with Jesus in unity and harmony, but I also recall the tax collector left his corrupt and collaborationist business behind.” (10/25/25)

https://www.the-reframe.com/america-haters/

Source: Town Hall
by William Marshall

“The daily headlines have this column almost writing itself. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, we have the recent revelations of Democratic candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, sending text messages to a colleague in 2022 wishing that someone would put ‘two bullets’ in the head of then-Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates, Todd Gilbert. … Then, in the state of New Jersey, we have Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Michelle ‘Mikie’ Sherrill facing questions over the circumstances of the discipline she received while a Naval Academy midshipman, which reportedly prevented her from walking with her class at graduation.” (10/25/25)

https://townhall.com/columnists/williammarshall/2025/10/25/democrats-scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-for-candidates-n2665469

Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer

“Social Security (SS) was created in 1935 with noble intentions. The idea was that current working Americans would pay into a shared public fund, providing income for retirees who could no longer earn a paycheck, while collecting their own retirement in the future from the next generation. It was meant to be a safety net — a collective insurance policy that ensured no elderly person would be left destitute. Politicians such as Franklin Roosevelt sold it as a stabilizing force befitting of a moral society. … But the SS system has quietly made Americans poorer. By removing trillions of dollars from private investment and placing them in the hands of a slow, bureaucratic system that earns virtually no return, the program has robbed the average worker of what could have been generational wealth.” (10/24/25)

https://www.independent.org/article/2025/10/24/how-social-security-makes-us-poorer/