Lawmakers passed legislation early Saturday reauthorizing and expanding a controversial U.S. surveillance law shortly after the powers expired at midnight, rejecting opposition by privacy advocates and lawmakers.
Critics, including lawmakers who voted against the reauthorization, say FISA also sweeps up the communications of Americans while spying on its foreign targets.
Following the passage in the early hours of today, Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that FISA was “indispensable” to the U.S. intelligence community.
FISA requires the government to seek an annual certification from the secretive FISA Court, which oversees and approves the government’s surveillance programs.
The FISA Court last certified the government’s surveillance program under Section 702 in early April, allowing the government to use its lapsed authority until at least April 2025.
CesiumAstro alleges in a newly filed lawsuit that a former executive disclosed trade secrets and confidential information about sensitive tech, investors, and customers to a competing startup.
Austin-based Cesium develops active phased array and software-defined radio systems for spacecraft, missiles, and drones.
But the suit says that Luther maintained “personal connections” with AnySignal’s cofounders, having worked with AnySignal CEO John Malsbury previously at a different company.
This resulted in AnySignal “recruiting and inducing Luther … to improperly disclose” the confidential and trade secret information, the suit says.
The suit was filed in Western District of Texas under no.
Hackers are threatening to publish a huge stolen sanctions and financial crimes watchlist The stolen World-Check database contains 5.3 million recordsA financially motivated hacking group says it has stolen a confidential database containing millions of records that companies use for screening potential customers for links to sanctions and financial crime.
The hackers, which call themselves GhostR, said they stole 5.3 million records from the World-Check screening database in March and are threatening to publish the data online.
A portion of the stolen data, which the hackers shared with TechCrunch, includes individuals who were sanctioned as recently as this year.
The incident involves a third party’s data set, which includes a copy of the World-Check data file.
Banking giant HSBC shut down bank accounts belonging to several prominent British Muslims after the World-Check database branded them with “terrorism” tags.
Humans have cast metal parts in basically the same way for thousands of years: by pouring molten metal into a mold, often made of compacted sand and clay.
To make those parts, Magnus Metals borrows elements of sand casting and 3D printing to perform what it calls digital casting.
Magnus Metals plans to sell its machines to customers as well as the proprietary ceramic that’s used to produce the bases.
And unlike 3D printing, which usually requires specific feedstocks, Magnus Metals said its system can use customer specified materials.
The method doesn’t require expensive tooling to create the bases, unlike molds for sand casting, according to the Magnus Metals.
Building owners are often in the dark about their carbon pollution.
A new algorithm could shed light on itStarting this year, thousands of buildings in New York City will have to start reducing their carbon emissions.
There are plenty of tools out there that can convert an electric bill into estimated carbon emissions, but many are based on rough estimates.
It’s why Nzero, a carbon-tracking startup, developed a new algorithm, giving building owners reports that estimate carbon pollution down to the hour.
From there, the company’s software helps building owners identify upgrades and retrofits that will reduce emissions while also being the most cost effective.
Seven Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic moving onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., according to video of the incident posted to Reddit and confirmation from Waymo.
California regulators recently approved Waymo to operate its autonomous robotaxi service on San Francisco freeways without a human driver, but the company is still only testing on freeways with a human driver in the front seat.
After hitting the road closure, the first Waymo vehicle in the lineup then pulled over out of the traffic lane that was blocked by cones, followed by six other Waymo robotaxis.
It’s not the first time Waymo vehicles have caused a road blockage, but this is the first documented incident involving a freeway.
In San Francisco, there must be a driver in the car in order to issue a citation.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published new guidance which has major implications for adtech giants like Meta and other large platforms.
The guidance, which was confirmed incoming Wednesday as we reported earlier, will steer how privacy regulators interpret the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in a critical area.
The full opinion of the EDPB on so-called “consent or pay” runs to 42-pages.
However a market leader imposing that kind of binary choice looks unviable, per the EDPB, an expert body made up of representatives of data protection authorities from around the EU.
“Online platforms should give users a real choice when employing ‘consent or pay’ models,” Talu wrote.
After its IPO, the platform is planning a slew of product features for the year ahead, and — spoiler alert — most of them are powered by AI.
“I think the IPO was an important milestone, but we’re just focused on building for our users,” Reddit Chief Product Officer Pali Baht told TechCrunch.
Reddit’s product roadmap includes faster loading times, more tools for moderators and developers, and an AI-powered language translation feature to bring Reddit to a more global audience.
According to Reddit’s IPO filing, in December 2023, 50% of Reddit’s daily active unique users were from non-U.S. countries.
The company will build on those updates with other new tools, like an LLM that’s trained on moderators’ past decisions and actions.
The EU’s latest concerns about TikTok’s DSA compliance center on the launch of TikTok Lite.
TikTok has been given 24 hours to provide the risk assessment for TikTok Lite.
It’s not clear whether TikTok conducted a DSA risk assessment for the new reward program ahead of launching TikTok Lite in the two EU markets.
But the regulation’s focus on systemic risk essentially makes such a step obligatory for features that are likely to appeal to minors.
TikTok did tell us it requires TikTok Lite users to verify that they are 18 or older in order to collect points through their use of the app.
Yet a binary choice (aka “consent or pay”) is exactly what Meta is currently forcing on users in the region.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has been meeting this week to discuss adopting an opinion on so-called “consent or pay”, following a request made back in February by a trio of concerned data protection authorities.
A spokeswoman for the EDPB confirmed to TechCrunch that it adopted an opinion on “consent or pay” on Wednesday morning, saying it will be published later today.
However the choice Meta gives EU users is a binary one: Either consent to its use of personal data for targeted advertisng or pay a monthly fee to access ad-free versions of its social networks.
But on the core issue of whether Meta’s mechanism complies with the EU’s long-standing data protection framework the Board’s opinion is key.
