Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 8h

To recap:

akemmapapa.bsky.social @akemmapapa.bsky.social · Apr 4

🇺🇸General Timothy Haugh and his civilian deputy,Wendy Noble, were fired after a meeting with President Trump.Far-right activist Laura Loomer claimed they were disloyal.Haugh,a cyber professional with over 30 years of military service, was replaced by Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman as acting director…👇🏾

National Security Agency chief ousted after far-right activist urged his removal

Gen. Timothy Haugh, the director of the NSA, the powerful wiretapping and cyberespionage service, was fired Thursday, according to U.S. officials.

www.washingtonpost.com

Reposted by Frank Bajak

Martin Matishak @martinmatishak.bsky.social · 16h

EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump has decided not to nominate Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman to be the next leader of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency.

On @therecordmedia.bsky.social

therecord.media/william-hart...

Acting US Cyber Command, NSA chief won’t be nominated for the job, sources say

Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman, the acting leader of U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA, will not be nominated to take the job permanently, sources told Recorded Future News.

therecord.media

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 8h

Breaking: Beetle Bailey to be tapped as new CyberCom chief. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en...

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Reposted by Frank Bajak

Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 14h

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 12h

Can Sam Altman be prosecuted or at least successfully sued for aiding and abetting criminal incitement with the release of Sora? A load of cases seems inevitable.

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 1d

Pope Leo laments the current “dictatorship of an economy that kills” through indifference to the poor and by encouraging avarice. He decries “ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.” In other words, Trumpism — and the JD Vance song and dance.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 2d

Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer. In his first teaching document Thursday, Leo confirms that he is in perfect lockstep with Pope Francis on matters of social injustice.

Pope Leo blasts economy that marginalizes poor while wealthy live in bubble of luxury

Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer.

bit.ly

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Reposted by Frank Bajak

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 2d

New: Apple banned an app that simply archived videos of ICE abuses. Rather than other apps that record ICE official's real-time location, Eyes Up is to "preserve evidence until it can be used in court." Videos from TikTok etc. Every submission manually reviewed

www.404media.co/apple-banned...

Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

Eyes Up's purpose is to "preserve evidence until it can be used in court." But it has been swept up in Apple's crackdown on ICE-spotting apps.

www.404media.co

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Reposted by Frank Bajak

Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 2d

We aren't on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We are in the middle of it.

But I worry people don't see the whole scheme. They just pay attention to each new daily outrage. So I went to the Senate floor to explain Trump's plan.

Here's a 🧵of the speech. It's important.

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404 Media @404media.co · 1d

A data hoarder on Reddit used AI to create a searchable database of more than 8,100 files about Jeffrey Epstein released by the House Oversight Committee, making it one of the easiest ways to search through a very messy batch of files.

🔗 www.404media.co/data-hoarder...

Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files

The open source project has been mirrored as a torrent file and represents one of the easiest ways to navigate a messy data dump.

www.404media.co

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 2d

“Antifa” street party. Coming soon to a woke city near you ….

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 2d

Gratulálok! Fun fact: Krasznahorkai and Allen Ginsberg were pals! apnews.com/article/nobe...

Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel Prize in literature

Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel Prize in literature for his "compelling and visionary oeuvre."

apnews.com

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Reposted by Frank Bajak

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 2d

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

bit.ly

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 2d

Our first American-Peruvian pope to the world’s journalists:

“I urge you: Never sell out your authority.”

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 2d

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

bit.ly

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 3d

Throughout Myanmar and in the refugee camps along its borders, the USAID cuts have left children screaming and crying for food. Marco Rubio claims the cuts have caused no deaths. That’s a lie, the father of one dead child tells AP journalists.
apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 4d

bsky.app/profile/malw...

Jake Williams @malwarejake.bsky.social · 4d

Digital disinformation will be the norm, not the exception.

Quantian @quantian.bsky.social · 4d

Sora is not the real problem here. The real problem is that in 12, at most 24 months, there will be a Sora clone from Tencent or Alibaba that is just as good and can be run by anybody with a 5099, at which point everyone in society needs to rapidly agree to treat all digital video as fake, period.

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Reposted by Frank Bajak

Steve Mullis @stevemullis.net · 4d

"hand-to-hand combat with antifa every night"

a guy in a frog costume standing facing a line of police and ICE agents in Portland

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 4d

Such self-serving hogwash. Independent, fact-based U.S. journalism is on life-support as a business. McKenzie, interestingly, runs a “media org” that platforms lots of refugees from legit news orgs destroyed by broligarchs who hate real journalism. It also platforms right-wing extremists.

Hamish McKenzie claims Bari Weiss’ ascension to CBS post shows the US news business is flourishing

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 4d

She’s s “Zionist fanatic” who cozyied up to broligarchs. She’s not a journalist. Next question. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/b...

How Bari Weiss Won

www.nytimes.com

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 4d

None of the major social media apps have serious guardrails anymore so disinfo brushfires lit with OpenAI’s Sora are apt to quickly escalate to raging online conflagrations. Apex irresponsibility from Sam Altman.

Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 5d

“OpenAI is essentially a social arsonist, developing & releasing tools that hyper scale the most racist, misogynistic, & toxic elements of society, lowering the barriers for all manner of abuse.”

And there is also a dark side.

👏🏽 @hypervisible.blacksky.app

h/t @bcmerchant.bsky.social

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 9d

OpenAI is essentially a social arsonist, developing and releasing tools that hyper scale the most racist, misogynistic, and toxic elements of society, lowering the barriers for all manner of abuse. The so called guardrails make a pinky swear look like an ironclad contract.

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 5d

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Signal @signal.org · 8d

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

signal.org

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 5d

Trump gonna invade now?

“In recent weeks, the Navy has supported our mission to blow the cartel terrorists the hell out of the water ...” he said in Norfolk today. "They're not coming in by sea anymore, so now we'll have to start looking about the land because they'll be forced to go by land."

Reuters @reuters.com · 5d

Trump says US hit another boat off Venezuela coast on Saturday reut.rs/3KBMIcX

Trump says US hit another boat off Venezuela coast on Saturday

U.S. forces hit another vessel allegedly carrying illegal drugs off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday evening, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday, adding that the U.S. would also start looking at drug trafficking occurring on land.

reut.rs

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 5d

This is why the fate of a country often rests with its general and flag officers. To whom or what are they loyal?

Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 5d

With all due respect, quoting a named expert is always preferable to quoting an anonymous blogger, no matter the blogger’s qualifications. AP policy, e.g., demands journalists explain why they are granting anonymity. It seems this case was simply an error either of writer or editor.

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Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 6d

Who could have predicted that third party verification programs collecting IDs to age gate content would have all their data hacked?! Oh right…..everyone!

John Scott-Railton @jsrailton.bsky.social · 6d

NEW: breach of Discord age verification data.

Including some users passports & DLs

Age verification is a badly implemented data grab wrapped in a moral panic.

Mark my words, as age verification mandates expand, we'll end up more surveilled and less secure. 1/

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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 6d

About 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported, according to a June @pewresearch.org survey.

About 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported

About four-in-ten immigrants (43%) say they worry a lot or some, up from 33% in March.

www.pewresearch.org

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