Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

America under Trump isn't feared for its strength.

It's avoided for its ignorance.

It's the drunk, belligerent, painfully racist uncle at the party that nobody wants to get stuck talking to.

It is, in fact, the perfect representation of Trump's own voters.

https://www.theindex.media/donald-trump-is-too-weak-to-understand-soft-power/

New, by me: How Each Pillar of the 1st Amendment is Under Attack

In an address to Congress this month, President Trump claimed he had "brought
free speech back to America." But barely two months into his second term, the
president has waged an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment rights of
journalists, students, universities, government workers, lawyers and judges.

This story explores a slew of recent actions by the Trump administration that
threaten to undermine all five pillars of the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which guarantees freedoms concerning speech, religion, the
media, the right to assembly, and the right to petition the government and
seek redress for wrongs.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/

A quick note that the issue with the infamous Mother of All Signal Group Chats is not Signal, nor encryption.

The issue is authorisation (the authority to do a thing) and, specifically, labelling.

Those TOP SECRET stamps you see on TV are labels. Authorisation schemes are all based around labels: people with *this* label can access items with *that* label.

Government information security is awash with labels. Security clearances, nationality, project codewords, compartmental information -- all are labels. The idea being that a person with a Secret clearance, and "cleared" into compartmented information label, and "read into" a codeword project can access the document with labels SECRET//CRYPTO//AWASH HAVEN (and I am absolutely avoiding real-life labels here, because I don't need ASIO at my door waving the Official Secrets Act).

Now you can see how a military group chat will work. Each chat will have a label (say SECRET//BOMBPEOPLE) and people seeking to join that chat will need to have labels which indicate they have a Secret clearance and have been read into the BOMBPEOPLE codeword.

You can also see that if we invite the Editor of The Atlantic to that SECRET//BOMBPEOPLE conversation then the Editor will lack the labels indicating the Secret clearance and BOMBPEOPLE codeword and their attempt to join the group will not be authorised.

Signal, being communications for ordinary folk, doesn't support much authorisation and does not need military-style label-based authorisation, with its labelling of people, communication channels, and information. Imagine the hassle of configuring all those labels just to text your dad.

This is really what is meant when experts say that Signal is not suitable for national security use.

Of course Israel is targeting journalists. https://interc.pt/3Y8yWCy

Bodies of 8 Red Crescent medics found a week after Israeli soldiers fired at ambulances
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/red-cross-medics-killed-by-israeli-soldiers/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into World News @world-news-CBSNews

Quakers condemn arrests of activists at meeting house — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3x5j6g30ro — this is just nuts.

#ClimateChange is a reality. We need to act. A group of youth organizing to raise awareness in a religious building is just so undemocratic.

#Quakers #FriendsMeeting

Chip Glitching 101 with [Hash]

https://hackaday.com/2025/03/30/chip-glitching-101-with-hash/

“The real antidote to exclusion isn’t inclusion, it’s commoning.”

Said Dan McQuillan. (Because: “Adjusting the boundaries between the inclined and the excluded does nothing to challenge the fundamental premise on which exclusionary solutions are based.”)

Am just re-reading the end of Resisting AI for a talk tmrw.

#commons #civictech

Land Day, marked on March 30, commemorates the 1976 killing of six Palestinians protesting Israeli land confiscations in the Galilee. A symbol of resistance, it remains vital today as Trump vows to “take Gaza” and displacement intensifies. Stand with Palestine.

Tesla Has the Highest Fatal Accident Rate of All Auto Brands, Study Finds

Tesla vehicles suffer fatal accidents at a rate that's twice the industry average
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highest-fatal-accident-rate-of-all-auto-brands-study/

DOGE plans to convert social security COBOL to Java in just months is guaranteed to break it

My latest letter to my congressman today. Please feel free to use it to send to your senators and representatives

(full text in comments since it exceeds alt text)

I want to re-up this piece by Joel Simon for Vanity Fair which helps explain why those of us at the Voice of America are fighting back to preserve our journalistic autonomy — something actually mandated by law as a federal judge just illustrated. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-press-freedom-authoritarianism

“It’s this company that’s been subsidized in a lot of ways by the government, but now the CEO is trying to dismantle the government because he thinks he knows better than everyone, because he comes from the tech industry.” - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/29/tesla-protests-elon-musk-doge #musk the hypocrite

The mainstream press have *not* been doing a good job of covering the implications Rumeysa Ozturk's kidnapping.

I recently had a conversation with some strongly progressive family members who were concerned about the arrest and wanted to hear my perspective as someone living in the affected communities.

I sent them the Op-Ed, and---even as left-leaning progressives---they were startled by how inoffensive it is.

As far as anybody can tell, this Op-Ed is the *only* reason why Marco Rubio had Rumeysa Ozturk kidnapped by ICE agents and revoked her visa: #^https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

I think everyone should at least give it a quick skim.  I think it's especially important for liberals from outside of the Tufts University community to see.  Please do what you can to put the Op-Ed in front of more eyes.

Hegseth's Texts (Hegtexts?) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/3/28/2313002/-Cartoon-Hegseth-s-Texts

I should try this #GetFediHired thing…

Do you have a project or organization that could use some organizing and/or policy research muscle? I have a masters in public policy and a lot of experience in both community and online organizing. I like jumping in and helping out, whether short or long term and have a broad range of skills. I'm EU based but have dual EU/US nationality.

The full CV and all that: https://j-dv.com/

I have been working as a violin maker (yes, the whole thing starting from a lump of wood) so this is me looking to return to my roots. I'm more interested in a cool/worthwhile project than getting rich or anything like that.

Union boss Fain, who loves-loves-loves Trump's viciously counterproductive tariffs, denounces Trump's terrible targeting of unions. At least Fain gets it right about the latter.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shawn-fain-uaw-face-the-nation/

Looks like the government of Greenland is ripping off our designs. Get yours now before the tariffs kick in at

https://sub.media/product/maga-embroidered-hat/

I'm at a loss to convey how deep we're in it right now. To see the dumpster fire we're headed into, you have to know how farms, food, & money actually work.

And we don't even see it coming, bc US media has done a terrible job of reporting on ag for decades. I'm so sorry. You deserve better.