Grant
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grantbkr.bsky.social
Grant
@grantbkr.bsky.social
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Google knows what's in my cabinet and Facebook logs all of my favorite sandwiches.
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Reposted by Grant
justinhendrix.bsky.social
According to the 2025 Freedom on the Net report, global internet freedom declined for the 15th consecutive year. Of 72 countries assessed, conditions deteriorated in 28, while 17 registered overall gains. The US was among the countries that experienced the most significant declines.
Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year | TechPolicy.Press
Despite funding cuts, Freedom House delivered its annual report on how countries are performing on measures of digital rights and internet freedom.
www.techpolicy.press
November 13, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Grant
dwj88.bsky.social
My latest for @techpolicypress.bsky.social on tech censorship of ICE-monitoring applications.

www.techpolicy.press/under-trump-...
October 16, 2025 at 7:40 PM
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rondeibert.bsky.social
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

A stunning investigation by @lighthousereports.com of what I call "despotism as a service"👇
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you
We uncovered a massive data trove. It revealed the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.
www.motherjones.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Grant
nateschenkkan.bsky.social
New from me in @foreignpolicy.com: how the US has gone from leading a global push against transnational repression, to proactively supporting it:

foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/08/t...
Trump Is Supporting Transnational Repression
Instead of sheltering pro-democracy dissidents, America is now returning them for arrest.
foreignpolicy.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Grant
dwj88.bsky.social
A secret meeting with X. A senior State Dept. advisor just out of college. The VP's speech in Munich. Pressure on European regulators.

What do they share? They're all part of an agenda to turn the transatlantic alliance into a far right international:

www.techpolicy.press/trumps-state...
Trump’s State Department Wants to Use Tech Policy to Remake Europe In Its Image | TechPolicy.Press
Tech policy is a key part of the Trump administration's dramatic project to replace the US's traditional European alliances, Dean Jackson writes.
www.techpolicy.press
October 7, 2025 at 2:43 PM
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premthakker.bsky.social
Read this very carefully: *One quarter* of all the people who have died of starvation in Gaza over the past 22 months have died in the past *3* days.
July 25, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Reposted by Grant
premthakker.bsky.social
Today:
- Israeli forces bomb a kindergarten - Israeli forces attack World Health Organization buildings, stripping and tying up staff and family members, taking some hostage - Reporters from AFP, world’s oldest news agency, announce this is the first time in their entire history that their colleagues may die from starvation - United Nations staff say they will stay at their humanitarian hub in central Gaza, despite Israeli displacement orders - Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook says war on Gaza must expand, even if that endangers the hostages - Israeli soldiers arrested in Belgium due to accusations of war crimes - 28 nations, including the UK, Canada, Japan, Spain, and France, condemn Israel’s blocking of aid & killing of people seeking food and water; demands Israel to not block aid and not ethnically cleanse Palestinians - The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention – named after Raphael Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide – demands world leaders: - "No more discussions, meetings, reports, sessions, summits…GET FOOD AND WATER INTO GAZA NOW. IF YOU HAVE THE POWER, YOU MUST USE IT."
July 22, 2025 at 12:56 AM
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tomscocca.bsky.social
You Had One Job Hall of Fame
jacobkornbluh.bsky.social Jacob Kornbluh @jacobkornbluh.bsky.social · Jul 11
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt tells Jake Tapper he regrets defending Musk’s Nazi-style salute in Jan.:

“It’s not so much what he intended. It's the impact that it had. It's the way that white nationalists rejoiced at seeing him do this... I wish we'd called it out more clearly when it happened.”
July 11, 2025 at 2:53 AM
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nateschenkkan.bsky.social
I wrote a quick turn for @foreignpolicy.com on the idea of Trump as an illiberal interventionist:

foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/24/t...
Trump’s Illiberal Interventionism
The president swore off building nations, not destroying them.
foreignpolicy.com
June 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
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premthakker.bsky.social
Israel just killed *another 44 people* who were waiting for food at a "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" aid site. Meanwhile:
zeteo.com Zeteo @zeteo.com · Jun 24
SCOOP: After weeks of murkiness about who is funding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, sources reveal top Trump officials are *forcing* USAID to send up to $210 million to GHF.

Read @premthakker.bsky.social's article:
zeteo.com/p/scoop-usai...
SCOOP: USAID Being 'Forced' to Award Millions to Disastrous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
GHF’s ‘initial’ funding request for $30 million in June comes as Israeli forces continue to kill scores of Palestinians at or near the aid sites.
zeteo.com
June 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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nateschenkkan.bsky.social
Alright, now that I’m officially laid off: this will be my notebook as I look for work, write, and think. First post at the link, subscribe if this something you’d like to be reading: nateschenkkan.substack.com
Now What? | Nate Schenkkan | Substack
An intermittent place for writing about democracy and autocracy in the US and around the world. Until recently I worked at Freedom House as Senior Director of Research. Now what? Click to read "Now Wh...
nateschenkkan.substack.com
May 29, 2025 at 6:40 PM
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gwynnefitz.bsky.social
Dispatch from 26 Federal plaza where plain clothes federal agents detained at least 7 people leaving immigration court, plus a priest attempting to observe the arrests. www.thecity.nyc/2025/05/28/i...
Migrants, and a Pastor, Arrested Inside Manhattan Immigration Courthouse
Dozens of masked agents in plainclothes searched for targets exiting the elevators.
www.thecity.nyc
May 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM
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premthakker.bsky.social
New — Mahmoud Khalil's legal team says ICE & private prison contractor GEO Group are refusing to let him have a contact visit with his wife & newborn baby.

They traveled over 1500 miles — hoping Mahmoud could see and hold them for the first time since his arrest over 10 weeks ago.
ICE Refuses to Allow Mahmoud Khalil to Hold His Newborn Son Mr. Khalil's legal team filed a letter requesting the federal court overseeing Mr. Khalil's case order ICE to permit a family contact visit **There will be also be a virtual press briefing tonight at 5:30 pm ET (register here)** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 21, 2025 CONTACT: ACLU Media, media@aclu.org Center for Constitutional Rights, press@ccrjustice.org JENA, LA - In a decision that underscores the government's ongoing retaliation against Mahmoud Khalil in response to his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights, officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private prison contractor GEO Group have refused to allow a contact visit between him and his family. The officials cite a blanket no-contact visitation policy at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC) and unspecified "security concerns" relating to the presence of a mother and newborn baby in an unsecure part of the facility. ICE's refusal comes after multiple requests from Mr. Khalil's legal team that point to federal policies explicitly encouraging contact visits between detained parents and their ies tie the act iths children. Mr. Khalil's team has also noted that permission for family visits like these are routinely granted at facilities like the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey, where his attorneys have requested he be transferred. Mr. Khalil's wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, traveled over 1400 miles from New York to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC) in Jena, Louisiana, bringing their newborn child in the hopes of a contact visit - one where her husband could meet, touch, and hold his son for the very first time. Instead, facility administrators have repeatedly denied these requests and have insisted the visit proceed behind glass, where no human touch is possible. "I am furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just," said Dr. Noor Abdalla. "After flying o…
May 21, 2025 at 6:38 PM
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laurarpetto.bsky.social
Mohsen was just released by the federal judge in VT!!
April 30, 2025 at 2:48 PM
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jameeljaffer.bsky.social
What a disgrace that the courts have allowed Trump and Rubio to keep this student behind bars for nothing more than having exercised his constitutional rights. www.npr.org/2025/04/29/n...
Detained on verge of U.S. citizenship, Mohsen Mahdawi speaks from Vermont prison
Speaking to NPR in his first media interview since his detention, lawful permanent U.S. resident Mohsen Mahdawi finds peace in meditation and hopes "America will fulfill its promise."
www.npr.org
April 29, 2025 at 12:34 PM
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jameeljaffer.bsky.social
Worth noting that a number of universities have now sued over withheld and canceled grants, but no university has yet sued over the arrest, detention, and threatened deportation of its foreign students. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/o...
Opinion | Our Foreign Students Are Terrified, and They’re Right to Be
The immigration crackdown has come to America’s campuses.
www.nytimes.com
April 21, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Reposted by Grant
nkalamb.bsky.social
At least 2 people—29 and 44 yo—have died while detained at Krome ICE prison near Miami.

The facility is so overcrowded people are sleeping in the bathrooms: “Their faces are literally under the toilet.”

english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-...
Last weekend, the first protests took place on the access road to the facility, and dozens of people made clear their rejection of the “inhumane conditions” at Krome, which have recently come to light. Outrage began to grow precisely with the news of the death of Maksym Chernayak, a 44-year-old Ukrainian who was in the country thanks to the humanitarian parole program, on February 20. As that news broke, so did the death of Genry Ruiz Guillén, a 29-year-old Honduran, who had died on January 23. Both died in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and had been detained at Krome before being transferred to a hospital where they could not be saved. Details of each case are limited — in that of Ruiz Guillén, there isn’t even an official cause of death — and family members and lawyers are trying to clarify the sequence of events that led to the loss of life to determine whether the deaths could have been prevented. Suspicions about possible irregularities in the protocols are not unfounded. Florida immigration lawyers have known about Krome’s notorious status for years, although the current situation is clearly different. Speaking to a local television station, immigration attorney Katie Blankenship said she would never be able to erase the images of women held at Krome — which began admitting female detainees more than 20 years after an investigation into sexual abuse by guards in 2000. “Every time I walked in there, there was literally a group of women with no room to move, banging on the window, pleading, because they saw someone who wasn’t an agent. They saw that I was a lawyer and said, ‘Please help us. Please help us. Please help us.’” Blankenship adds that her clients — whom she now meets in separate rooms as the meeting rooms have become collective cells for dozens of people — are sleeping in the bathrooms: “Their faces are literally under the toilet.”
April 21, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Reposted by Grant
nikkimcr.bsky.social
The Trump Admin’s Lies About Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Debunked

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
The Trump Admin's Lies About Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Debunked
Donald Trump and his administration have been pushing misinformation to justify sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a brutal prison in El Salvador.
www.rollingstone.com
April 16, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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alfunk.bsky.social
Great new piece from @freedomhouse.bsky.social's Maddie Masinsin & @thegni.bsky.social's @ramshajahangir.bsky.social on the human rights costs of data localization requirements freedomhouse.org/article/data...
Data Localization: A Global Threat to Human Rights Online
As more and more governments turn to data localization, these laws’ negative impact on digital rights are becoming increasingly clear. The multistakeholder community must come together to devise right...
freedomhouse.org
April 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM
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premthakker.bsky.social
NEWS: It began with Mahmoud Khalil. Now the Trump admin is trying to deport *hundreds* of students by vaguely saying they have criminal records—making them guess why.
Some have traffic violations. Some didn't even commit a crime.

One's "criminal record"? Apparently being a domestic violence victim.
Trump Is Trying to Deport Students Who Show Up in a ‘Criminal Records Check.’ But Many Have Never Been Convicted
What began with Mahmoud Khalil has now expanded into widespread immigration status revocations with no explanation and little apparent recourse.
zeteo.com
April 8, 2025 at 7:40 PM
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jameeljaffer.bsky.social
The Court congratulates itself for having guaranteed due process but the actual, foreseeable, almost-certain result of its opinion will be to ensure that most disappeared people don’t receive any process at all.
kenwhite.bsky.social Your Last Merry Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Apr 8
In fact, it is offensively ridiculous to think that any but a handful of people disappeared by ICE will be able to file habeas corpus, because it relies on them having informed families with connections to available knowledgeable lawyers with time and resources to act instantly.
kenwhite.bsky.social Your Last Merry Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Apr 8
How the FedSoc judges on SCOTUS want you think habeas corpus works:
April 8, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Grant
sarahemclaugh.bsky.social
We should fight to make campus a space for dissent in an unfree world. But, as this administration is trampling free expression underfoot in an effort to silence who it deems "pro-Hamas," that dream is slipping through our fingers.

Thoughts in @bostonglobe.com: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/07/m...
Right now, two students, one from abroad and one a citizen, could express the same exact message on campus, but one could be whisked away because he is on a visa. If we create two classes in higher education — citizens who are free to speak and immigrants who are not — we will have an echo of freedom, a pale impression of the values we as a country claim to espouse. And all of us, not just immigrants, will suffer for it.
April 7, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Grant
premthakker.bsky.social
"Rumeysa has not been accused of committing any crime and DHS has not produced any evidence that she was engaged in any unlawful activities. Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence of U.S. supplied bombs being dropped on Gaza killing over 1,000 people, including over 250 children in the last week."
premthakker.bsky.social Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · Mar 28
New from Rumeysa Ozturk's lawyer:

Rumeysa hasn't been accused of any crime & "DHS has not produced any evidence" that she did anything unlawful.

Rumeysa wasn't able to speak to her lawyer for 24+ hours & not until after she was in Louisiana — despite a court order that she not be moved from Mass.
March 28, 2025 at 3:50 AM