Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, some of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
Raskin rebukes Apple over ICE app
Rep. Jamie Raskin is demanding answers from Apple over the removal of ICEBlock from its App Store — at the Trump administration’s urging. The Maryland Democrat has been looking into Apple’s handling of the app, which allowed users to monitor where Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity was taking place. In a letter dated Monday, Raskin denounced the company’s acceptance of the Justice Department’s rationale that the app posed a threat to federal agents, writing:
In courthouses across the country, federal judges from across the ideological spectrum have raised the alarm about this Administration’s pattern of lying about facts and evidence. Whatever DOJ told Apple about ICEBlock and other similar apps, you would be well advised to interrogate and verify their claims.
Read the letter here.
Moore data center defiance
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has signed an executive order establishing a panel that will grade large data center projects according to whether they meet the necessary benchmarks to protect surrounding communities.
Read more at Baltimore’s WMAR-TV.
Trump hosts AI execs
President Donald Trump, whose financial disclosure forms have shown massive investments in artificial intelligence companies, hosted several AI executives at a ritzy state dinner for Chinese leader Xi Jinping — an event that came amid the president’s ongoing push to prevent regulation of the industry.
Read more at The New York Times.
Degree data
The Trump administration has finalized a rule that will allow the use of IRS data to assess whether earnings for graduates with certain college degrees should prevent students from taking out federal loans to receive them. As The New Republic reported:
Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music, and cosmetic certification programs will be hit the hardest. For-profit programs will also be hit particularly hard.
Read more at The New Republic.
Support for reining in AI
According to a new YouGov poll, a majority of Americans would support giving the federal government the power to shut down an advanced AI system at any time. The poll underscores the broad bipartisan concerns about AI’s impacts on society.
Read more at YouGov.
Running app’s revelation
MS NOW host Chris Hayes aired a great breakdown of how data from the running app Strava appears to have exposed Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn’s extended stays in Kansas, fueling questions about the Republican’s residency.
Watch the segment at MS NOW.
Beware the White House app
The official White House app — which the Trump administration used to spread its political propaganda while denying press access to MS NOW and other outlets — is reportedly fraught with data trackers that experts say could be used to target users for immigration enforcement or campaign messaging.
Read more at The Washington Sun.
Trump’s government chatbot
Trump announced Tuesday that his administration was launching an AI chatbot that will supposedly help people find government services and other information. Noting the tendency for AI chatbots to offer up false information, TechCrunch writer Amanda Silberling warned that someone receiving faulty info from America.gov, “it probably won’t trigger nuclear warfare, but a mistake can still have serious consequences” for everyday Americans.
Read more at TechCrunch.
Jackson’s dissent in SAVE case
My colleague Jordan Rubin highlighted Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent from a high court ruling that authorizes the Trump administration to use a flawed citizenship database — one that Republicans have eyed to promote their baseless allegations of widespread election fraud.
Read more at MS NOW.
Palantir’s eyebrow-raising partner
Palantir, the AI company in which Trump has personally invested and used to wage his racist anti-immigrant crackdown, was listed as a “top supporter” at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference.
Read more at HuffPost.
The post Jamie Raskin pushes Apple over its removal of ICEBlock from App Store appeared first on MS NOW.
