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🚨There is still time to stop this!🚨 (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Uhh, so the Washington Post revealed my city has been using dystopian nightmare AI facial recognition surveillance through a private company to track people on a watchlist.

Apparently they had a secret partnership with Palantir several years ago(news to me) and this is allegedly not directly related to that, but it seems like it definitely is.

Now Republicans are trying to pass a law to ban states from regulating AI for the next 10 years

Not only would it ban any new regulations, it would repeal all existing bans and regulations.

This may be confusing bc states rights, right? Well, since the federal government is currently being controlled by the people that also run these private AI companies, these companies would get to decide what a federal regulation would cover (if anything) and if it actually gets enforced (hard to do if you disband the entire federal government that handles oversight and protection of rights. That means even if you live in a deep blue state, you could end up in the same mass surveillance boat as me in bright red Louisiana, with no way to stop it no matter how much you beg your local leaders.

Not good, right? So please for the love of God, make sure you, and everyone you know make as much noise as possible so that doesn't happen!

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[-] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago

This literally doesn't even matter. This bill is so much worse than that

There's a clause making it so judges can't enforce contempt charges against the federal government. The executive branch will literally be above the law... There's nothing the courts could do to enforce it

Don't get distracted, there's 1k pages of terrible bullshit, but this is literally democracy ending

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Uhh this definitely matters. Do you realize what Palantir tech already does to people in other countries?

Apparently my city is already allowing this on its own citizens:

That provision could, for the first time, give the city explicit permission to use a whole host of surveillance technology in certain circumstances, including voice recognition, x-ray vans, “through the wall radar,” social media monitoring software, “tools used to gain unauthorized access to a computer,” and more.

All they need is a picture of your face, whether they get it from a protest you attended, a street camera you passed by, your driver's license. Doesn't matter.

Then they can do all this to you or any of your friends or family members they might be able to connect to you via social media.

They are storing your data and making billions of of it while making their own AI smarter and deadlier for the rest of the fucking planet. You think that's not important?

This is how they think they're going to fix the economy (for themselves). Taking your rights away and exploiting the people to get richer.

And yeah you're right, the federal government will cease to exist that's why it fucking matters states enact laws to protect themselves and ban together instead of splitting apart and trying to fight separate battles.

My state just became the first to start using DOGE voter database maintenance. Clearly I'm losing my right to vote. Who do I report to when that happens? The DOJ?

My state is helping this happen. So until they lose enough money and power by collapsing the economy with their failed AI attempt, that's what I'm stuck with.

I know if I go to another state it will follow me there because once they conquer blue cities, they're moving on to blue states unless blue states wake the fuck up, ban together with businesses and universities who have money and power and are also feeling the burden of the economy, and start protecting themselves.

Here's a preview of what's probably in store if you keep pretending like your states protection of the rights of its own citizens don't matter

Why TF do you think Texas, the first state to volunteer it's national guard to enforce Trump's immigration policy in other states, has a law protecting itself from other states being able to do the same to them? Because it doesn't matter?

Once the federal government is gone, state laws are all you will have. Wake Up!

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Oh, I'm not saying it's not horrible and not a terrible part of the bill...I think you what you laid out is pretty close to what they intend to do

But I'm still saying, this doesn't even matter. Literally, one of the buried clauses let's the government blatantly ignore the courts, which means they get to blatantly ignore the law

If they pass contempt clause, the federal courts lose all power over the executive. It even cuts the path to getting the supreme Court to hear cases on unconstitutionality

This literally just doesn't matter, because the brown shirts could do whatever they want, and the states would have no mechanism to stop them anyways

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If this goes through the Senate, it will be shitty and so very Trump. However if that happens, it seems most likely judges will just begin setting a bond, which could be as low as $1.

It's unprecedented but it doesn't really mean that Trump has unlimited executive power, unless for some reason judges just refused to start setting the bond. There normally isn't one bc judges normally don't say if you want justice for a violation of your rights by the government you need to provide a security bond first.

On the one hand it will be a new low for America, but will probably be reversed as soon as Trump is out of office. It will almost certainly do him no favors in court going forward or the Republicans any favors during the midterms.

The shittiest part is that it would retroactively effect cases where he's in contempt and also effect long standing injunctions like desegregation orders in schools. Funny thing about that specifically, red states are already seeing the DOJ dropping investigations and law suits into civil rights violations. Last week the DOJ said they're no longer investigating civil rights accusations against Louisiana State Police, and last month the DOJ removed a consent decree that enforced segregation on a Louisiana school in the 60s, meanwhile the governor has been trying to remove a consent decree on the NOPD for years.

The argument of both red states and the federal government, is that these federal rules are no longer necessary bc states like Louisiana got their act together a long time ago. Definitely not true, but what can I do about that if my governor says it's so and no other elected officials are willing to challenge him on it.

Yet Republicans are somehow arguing state regulations on AI are unnecessary because their "light touch" federal regulations will be all you need. That's because they plan to provide no enforceable regulations that will actually serve anyone but corporations.

Literally, the only thing a federal government should be doing is protecting the rights of people. When a federal government becomes worthless and stops providing federal laws protecting your rights (because they argue they're not necessary to protect you from people exactly like them), you hopefully have state leaders who are willing to step in and provide the insurance that the federal government is failing to provide you.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

The bond is meant to pay for damages of the lawsuit if it goes forward

Can judges set it to $1? Maybe. Or maybe that's grounds to have a mistrial, or lodge a complaint against the judge. Maybe it becomes another step in every lawsuit against the government - where both parties try to get the judge to nail down a cash value

Or maybe, they can't. What is the process of doing this? When is appropriate to take a bond, and when is it not?

This administration will stretch the law as far as they can. Maybe the judiciary can win this fight, maybe the administration can use this as another shield.

This is entirely legal theory - it's not even law yet. No one knows how it would shake out. We have to read laws with the worst possible interpretation, because that's how the administration is going to play any card you give them

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Clearly this is just a way to get all of the cases currently holding him in contempt dropped.

It seems it's up to the judge's discretion at what it's set, at least according to the traitorous scumbags that wrote the bill.

“The judge can set the security at whatever level he wants,” Mr. Jordan said at a hearing on Wednesday. “What’s typically happened in these cases is he’s just waiving it. Nobody’s putting it up. And they’re getting this injunction that applies nationwide, which is the concern.”

Most likely, unless the judges want to allow the court system to completely crumble, like you're worried they will, they will have to play ball by setting it to an affordable amount like $1.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-policy-bill-judges-contempt.html

The point isn't really that you have to pay a $1. The point is that the president is making it loud and clear that there is now a dollar amount on upholding the constitution. By making a citizen pay any amount of money anytime the government violates the rights it's a show of lawlessness by the president and his loyalists.

These people are already being paid to uphold the rights they're violating, with the tax dollars that they're squandering on the AI data centers they're rolling out across the country in different states, so that they can steal more data, invade more privacy, violate more rights, and have no consequences unless they are cut off at the state level by state government.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Why are you taking a Republican senator at his word?

They're lying. They don't know how this would actually play out, no one does

It doesn't matter what they say today... They're going to immediately push this as far as they can if it gets through. They operate in bad faith, every time

And maybe you're right and that's how it does play out... But this is a play that ends democracy if we lose.

And let me remind you, they literally just argued in the supreme Court to do basically what I'm describing

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hey what a fucking coincidence this happened the same day the fucking bill passed the house. Probably just another distraction.

Palantir awarded $795M Army contract modification

Pentagon boosts budget for Palantir’s AI software in major expansion of Project Maven

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Then take it back.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Definitely can't do it on my own or even with just my city. We need Americans to ban together and remember what it is supposed to mean to be an American.

There's already a lawsuit with multiple sanctuary jurisdictions protecting themselves from Trump. Why not have something similar for any Americans that don't want to become the United States of Palantir? Maybe not much we can do in the moment, but what if could find a way to redirect all future tax dollars to be paid into R's scat ampng the communities that join instead of the kings that are taxing us without representation?

Idk just an idea. Spit balling bc nobody else is doing it. Hurricane season literally starts in a few days and I am not expecting a penny of relief for the state from Trump and any state money we do have is definitely not going to my city.

Why TF am I paying taxes for this? That apparently want to run this country so bad like a corporation, but if it was one, I'd be a very angry shareholders demanding the people on the board step down or I start investing my money in a company I believe in.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

So we know there are enough complicit democrats that this will pass.

We all know what needs to be done

this post was submitted on 24 May 2025

181 points (95.9% liked)

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