ESPN’s Anderson apologizes for mocking Whitecloud’s name

By MARK ANDERSON

May 9, 2023

Vegas Golden Knights' Zach Whitecloud (2) and Edmonton Oilers' Warren Foegele (37) battle for the puck during second-period NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff game action in Edmonton, Alberta, Monday, May 8, 2023. 

(Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor John Anderson apologized to Zach Whitecloud, a First Nation member in Canada, on Tuesday after comparing the Vegas Golden Knights defenseman’s last name to toilet paper the previous night.

Whitecloud told reporters in Edmonton, Alberta, that he spoke with Anderson on Tuesday morning.

“I think it was an attempt at humor that came out as being obviously insensitive, and he acknowledges that,” Whitecloud said. “He understands that it was wrong to say. I wanted to make sure he knew that I accepted his apology. People make mistakes, and this is a scenario where not just John but everyone can learn from and move forward in a positive direction and try to be better for.”

Anderson’s comments came while narrating Whitecloud scoring in the Knights’ 5-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday night. Vegas leads the series 2-1, with Game 4 scheduled for Wednesday night in Edmonton.

“What kind of name is Whitecloud?” Anderson asked during the highlights. “A great name if you’re a toilet paper.”

Whitecloud is the first member of the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation to play in the NHL.

“This is totally on me and I sincerely apologize to Zach, the Golden Knights, their fans and everyone else for what I said,” Anderson said in a statement. “It’s my job to be prepared and know the backgrounds of the players and I blew it.”

While speaking to reporters, Whitecloud became emotional when talking about his background.

“I’m proud of my culture,” Whitecloud said. “I’m proud of where I come from and where I was raised, who I was raised by. I carry my grandfather’s last name, and nothing makes me more proud than to be able to do that. In our culture, we were raised to be the first ones to reach out and offer help, so that’s why I reached out to John this morning.”

This is the second time in less than a week an announcer made news over a comment.

Last week, Oakland Athletics announcer Glen Kuiper appeared to mispronounce “negro” during the pregame show on NBC Sports California when talking about a visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Kuiper apologized during the A’s-Kansas City Royals broadcast “if it sounded different than I meant it to be said.”

NBC Sports California suspended Kuiper the next day.

RTW IS UNION BUSTING

Florida ends automatic due payments for teacher’s unions

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON

May 9, 2023



TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Teachers and other government employees will have to write monthly checks if they want to stay in their union after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Tuesday banning automatic dues deductions from public employees’ paychecks,

The anti-union bill also gives employees the right to immediately quit a union for no reason and requires unions to recertify if the number of dues-paying members drops below 60% of those eligible to join.

“If you want to join, you can, but you write a check and you hand it over. That is gonna lead to more take-home pay for teachers,” DeSantis said at the bill-signing ceremony.

It was one of several bills that DeSantis signed that affect education, including new term limits for school board members, restrictions on student social media use and protections for teachers who report administrators they believe are violating state education policies.

While DeSantis touted the bills as giving more freedom to teachers, the Florida Education Association disputed the governor’s narrative by saying the actions were punishment for opposing his policies, similar to the way DeSantis has used his office to seek retribution on others who disagree with him.

“The governor may have let his desire to crush perceived opponents get the best of him,” teachers union President Andrew Spar said in a news release. “This new law grossly oversteps in trying to silence teachers, staff, professors and most other public employees. We will not go quietly — our students and our professions are simply too important.”

The bill also forces unions to tell members the salaries of their five top compensated officials. It doesn’t apply to unions that represent first-responders.

Spar likened the action to the way DeSantis punished Disney World for speaking out against legislation that banned discussion of sexual preferences and gender identity in school lessons. He said the governor’s policies are contributing to a teacher shortage.

Another bill DeSantis signed will give teachers the benefit of the doubt when dealing with disruptive students and would protect teachers who turn in administrators and school board members who violate state education policy.

The law comes at a time when school districts are trying to implement changes imposed by DeSantis, including restrictions on how race and sexuality can be taught in schools and more power given to parents seeking to ban books.

DeSantis sounded like he is still bitter unions opposed his ban on mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic and the school districts that required them despite the governor’s order.

“What did some of the school districts and school unions do? They defied the state. We ended up having to go to court over this because you had a handful of rogue districts that thought they knew better than the elected representatives and the parents of this state,” DeSantis said.

In 2021, DeSantis threatened to withhold money from districts that had mandatory mask policies. All districts eventually complied.

“There’s no question — if you look at COVID, locking kids out of school — the unions not only were for it, they were instrumental in ensuring it,” DeSantis said.

Another new law will allow teachers to set classroom phone use policies, such as having students hand over their phones at the beginning of class. It also bans the use of TikTok on school equipment and doesn’t allow students to use school internet to access social media unless it’s part of an assignment.

“Social media, it has more problem than it solves, and I think it does more harm than good,” DeSantis said. “Put those devices down and live life normally, and I think we’re going to be so much better off.”

Another new law will reduce term limits for school board members from 12 years to eight years.

Connecticut seeks to rein in high TCH marijuana products

May 9, 2023

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — After discovering cannabis products are being sold in convenience and CBD stores across Connecticut with higher levels of THC than regulated dispensaries, legislators moved Tuesday to impose new restrictions on the amount of marijuana’s main intoxicating component in these products.

The bipartisan legislation, which cleared the state House on a nearly unanimous vote, marks the first major update of the state’s fledgling recreational marijuana program that kicked off in January.

“All we’re trying to do is make sure that any products that are sold with a significant amount of THC in Connecticut are sold in our regulated marketplace through the dispensaries, where there’s labeling requirements, there’s per package requirements, there’s per container requirements,” said Rep. Mike D’Agostino, D-Hamden, who held out a handful of large, colorful THC gummies that were being sold legally at an unregulated store due to a “loophole” in federal law concerning CBD stores.

The bill, which now awaits a vote in the Senate, imposes new THC limits for products sold in these stores, including for tinctures, oils, lotions and edibles. The legislation also pulls chemically created high-THC products off the shelves of non-regulated stores, an issue other states have been grappling with as well.

Rep. David Rutigliano, R-Trumbull, who originally opposed Connecticut’s marijuana legalization law, said he supports these new changes and believes they will help address public safety concerns.

“I’ve heard from constituents concerned about the poisoning of young children. That really happens from gas stations and other outlets that are selling things they really shouldn’t sell,” said the lawmaker, who helped to craft this bill. “These things in my opinion should really be limited to somebody that has a license to sell and distribute marijuana and not appear in your local gas station.”

Crump: Abuse victims set to sue Baltimore Archdiocese

By LEA SKENE

May 9, 2023

Attorney Ben Crump, left, along with clergy abuse victim Marc Floto of Westminster, standing with his wife, Melissa, right, speaks, during a news conference, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in Baltimore. He is holding a photograph of himself as a child. After Maryland lawmakers recently passed legislation eliminating the statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits amid increased scrutiny of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced a series of civil claims Tuesday he plans to bring on behalf of victims. 

(Barbara Haddock Taylor/The Baltimore Sun via AP)

BALTIMORE (AP) — After Maryland lawmakers recently eliminated the statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits amid heightened scrutiny of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced plans Tuesday to bring a series of civil claims on behalf of victims.

The threat of litigation comes as the the archdiocese faces continued fallout from a state report released last month that found more than 150 priests and other clergy in the archdiocese sexually abused over 600 children with impunity. The report, which the Maryland Attorney General’s Office produced after a yearslong investigation, paints a damning picture of the nation’s oldest Catholic diocese.

Days after the report’s release, Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation to end Maryland’s statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits effective Oct. 1. Previously, victims couldn’t sue after turning 38.

Crump, best known for representing victims of police brutality, held a news conference Tuesday outside the Baltimore Basilica with attorney Adam Slater, his partner on some earlier high-profile sex abuse cases. Several potential plaintiffs shared their stories of abuse; some overlapped with findings of the attorney general’s investigation while others presented new allegations.

“You cannot outrun the trauma that was inflicted, no matter how hard they tried,” Crump told reporters. “Many of them — for years, for decades — believed it was their fault.”

A spokesperson for the archdiocese didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Marc Floto, one of the potential plaintiffs, said the attorney general’s investigation inspired him to come forward and speak publicly about childhood abuse he said caused “so many problems” in his life.

“Still to this day, I have so much anger, so much hate,” he said, sobbing silently between sentences. “The church needs to be held accountable.”

Floto displayed a printed photo of himself — in suit and tie, his blonde hair neatly combed — from around the time he said the abuse occurred.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.

“This little boy had his innocence stolen,” Crump said.

Floto said he wasn’t interviewed for the attorney general’s investigation but his abuser, Father James Dowdy, is named in the report.

Ordained in 1969, Dowdy served in several Maryland parishes before abuse allegations surfaced in 1991, according to the report. He denied the allegations, saying it was nothing more than horseplay with boys, and apparently he faced no consequences.

Two years later, another man reported Dowdy had sexually abused him in the 1970s and ’80s. Dowdy was then placed on leave and his ministerial faculties were removed, the report says. Church officials agreed to pay the victim’s counseling and medication costs while simultaneously bankrolling Dowdy’s therapy, health care and living expenses for years. His expenses cost the church well over $100,000, more than 10 times what the victim received, according to the report. During therapy, Dowdy disclosed many more instances of abuse. Finally, in 1977, his church employment was terminated.

The Baltimore archdiocese has already paid more than $13.2 million for care and compensation for 301 abuse victims since the 1980s, including $6.8 million toward 105 voluntary settlements.

But the recent law change, including a provision making it retroactive, could allow for a deluge of additional lawsuits.

The Maryland Catholic Conference, representing the three dioceses serving the state, opposed the measure, arguing the retroactive window was unconstitutional and citing potentially devastating impacts on the Baltimore archdiocese and other institutions. Anticipating a court challenge, lawmakers included language in the bill that would further delay lawsuits until the Supreme Court of Maryland can determine whether it’s constitutional.

Several other states have passed similar legislation in recent years, and in some cases, resulting lawsuits have driven dioceses into bankruptcy.

Also present at Tuesday’s news conference, former Maryland Sen. Tim Ferguson said he was 13 or 14 when a priest asked to take him fishing for the weekend. The guest bedroom was being renovated, the priest claimed, so they would have to share his bed.

Ferguson said he froze during the assault, then laid awake all night. He was afraid to report the abuse to his parents, worried what his father might do.

Joe Taylor said his abuser, Father Thomas Smith, would take boys on beach trips and make them swim with him in “dark waters.”

Smith’s name appears multiple times in the attorney general’s report, which said he both perpetrated abuse and helped protect other abusers in congregations across the Baltimore area. He died by suicide in 1993, not long after a second victim accused him of assault and filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese. The claim was later dismissed because of the statute of limitations, but a judge found the archdiocese committed a possible dereliction of duties in its handling of abuse cases.

The lawsuit came five years after Smith admitted to church officials that he had abused multiple boys in the 1960s — a revelation that was brushed under the rug, according to the report. Shortly after learning of the abuse, then-Archbishop William Borders wrote Smith a letter praising his “many fine years of priesthood” and ordering him “not to engage in any form of youth work,” according to the report.

Dozens more victims came forward after Smith’s death.

Taylor, who grew up in a devout Catholic family, said his own relatives didn’t believe him when he reported Smith’s abuse, believing priests to be infallible.

“Just a lifelong battle,” he said. “No amount of money can bring back 45 years of lost friends and family.”

Clergy abuse victim Marc Floto, at podium, of Westminster is comforted by his wife Melissa, right, as he shares his experiences during a news conference with attorneys Adam Stater, left, and Ben Crump, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in Baltimore. After Maryland lawmakers recently passed legislation eliminating the statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits amid increased scrutiny of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced a series of civil claims Tuesday he plans to bring on behalf of victims. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/The Baltimore Sun via AP)

Russia’s wildfire death toll rises to 21 in Ural Mountains

May 9, 2023

In this handout photo released by Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service on Monday, May 8, 2023, Russian Emergency Ministry employees and local citizens work at a side of fire in Tyumen region, Russia. Wildfires have raged in Russia's Ural mountains and in Siberia this week, with authorities promising to swiftly contain them. Blazes engulfed thousands of hectares in Sverdlovsk and Kurgan, as well as Tyumen and Omsk regions. 

MOSCOW (AP) — The death toll from wildfires in Russia’s Ural Mountains rose to 21 Tuesday, Russian state news agency Tass reported, citing local emergency service agencies.

Wildfires have raged in the Kurgan region of the Urals and in Siberia all week. A resident of western Siberia’s Tyumen province died while attempting to extinguish a fire.

According to local authorities, most of the deaths occurred Sunday in the Kurgan province village of Yuldus, which is located on the border between the Ural Mountains and Siberia.

“The death toll may increase,” regional emergency service officials said.

A state of emergency was introduced in the province, where more than 5,000 buildings have burned down. Fires also have engulfed thousands of hectares (acres) in Sverdlovsk province, and in Siberia’s Omsk and Tyumen provinces.

During a Monday visit to Kurgan province, Russia’s emergency situations minister of Emergency Situations said settlements were no longer at risk from the blazes, though local media reported Tuesday that fires still burned there, as well as in Sverdlovsk and Tyumen.

In recent years, Russia has experienced especially widespread forest fires, which experts blamed on unusually dry summers and high temperatures.

The experts also cited a 2007 decision to disband a federal aviation network tasked with spotting and combating fires. Its assets were turned over to regional authorities, leading to the force’s rapid decline and attracting much criticism. The government later reversed the move and reestablished the federal agency in charge of monitoring forests from the air. However, its resources remain limited, making it hard to survey the massive forests of Siberia and the Far East.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged authorities a year ago on Tuesday to take stronger action to prevent wildfires and increase coordination between various official agencies in dealing with them.

India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party challenged in only southern state where it holds power

By ASHOK SHARMA

yesterday

1 of 16
A woman with her hands decorated with henna holds her voter identity card as she waits to cast her vote at a polling station in Bengaluru, India, Wednesday, May 10, 2023. People in the southern Indian state of Karnataka were voting Wednesday in an election where pre-poll surveys showed the opposition Congress party favored over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing Hindu nationalist party. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

NEW DELHI (AP) — People in the southern Indian state of Karnataka voted Wednesday in an election where pre-poll surveys showed the opposition Congress party favored over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Hindu nationalist party.

The votes for 224 state legislature seats will be counted May 13 and the outcome is likely to be an indicator of voter sentiment ahead of national elections expected by May next year.

Bengaluru, the state capital, is India’s information technology hub and the area is a sought-after workplace for young professionals.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is battling to retain the only southern state where it has ever won power. BJP strongholds are in northern, central and western India, while opposition parties rule the other southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The BJP is battling to limit its losses due to anti-incumbency, inflation, allegations of corruption and poor infrastructure development in the state.

A. Narayana, a political analyst, said there is voters’ anger against the ruling BJP government in the state.

“If this anger somehow translates into voting, the BJP has reasons to worry and the Congress has reasons to rejoice,” he said.

Sandeep Shastri, another expert, said the situation seems to be like that. “The Congress has its nose ahead.”

A BJP win would put top Congress figure Rahul Gandhi’s popularity in question. If Congress prevails, the credit will go to Gandhi’s crucial campaigning for his party in Karnataka.

In the 2018 assembly elections, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 104 seats, followed by the Congress with 78 seats and the Janata Dal (Secular) with 37. The BJP formed the government 15 months after defecting lawmakers from other parties joined.


Modi's party faces pressure in Karnataka election

People in the southern Indian state of Karnataka were voting Wednesday in an election where pre-poll surveys showed the opposition Congress party being favoured over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Hindu nationalist party (May 10).

The party is battling a dent in its image caused by the suicide of a government contractor earlier this year and the arrest of a lawmaker who was caught accepting bribes.

The opposition Congress has built its campaign around the Karnataka Contractors’ Association accusation that BJP ministers and officials demand and accept 40% commission or a bribe for every project sanctioned by the government. The BJP leaders deny the accusations.

Karnataka, with a population of 61 million, has strong caste-based voting patterns. The dominant Lingayat community comprises 17% of the population and influences the outcome in nearly 100 seats. It’s the stronghold of key BJP leaders who belong to the community.

The BJP is banking on its ties with powerful religious institutions followed by different castes and communities like Lingayats, Vokkaligas, Kurubas, Valmikis, Nayakas and Madiga.

It also is trying to maximize gains in a coastal region where communal polarization between majority Hindus and minority Muslims has deepened due to a row over wearing the hijabs.

Last year, a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, triggering protests by Muslims who said they were being deprived of rights to education and religion.

That led to counter-protests by Hindu students wearing saffron shawls, a color closely associated with that religion and favored by Hindu nationalists. An Indian court later upheld the ban on wearing hijab in class in the state saying the Muslim headscarf is not an essential religious practice of Islam.

According to the 2011 census, India’s most recent, 84% of Karnataka’s people were Hindu, almost 13% Muslim and less than 2% Christian.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Army sergeant who fatally shot BLM protester in Texas sentenced to 25 years as governor seeks pardon

By JIM VERTUNO

yesterday

 1 of 14

Whitney Mitchell, partner of Garrett Foster, cries after testifying in Daniel Perry's sentencing hearing in the 147th District Courtroom at the Travis County Justice Center, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Foster was the primary caregiver for Mitchell, who is quadriplegic. Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant convicted of murder in the fatal shooting of Air Force veteran Garrett Foster, 28, an armed protester during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Texas, could be facing up to life in prison. 

(Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A U.S. Army sergeant who fatally shot an armed protester at a Black Lives Matter march in Texas was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday, after prosecutors used his social media history and text messages to portray him as a racist who may commit violence again.

Daniel Perry’s sentence now pushes the case toward a potentially thorny decision for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he wants to issue a swift pardon.

Abbott requested the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to send him a pardon recommendation for Perry shortly after he was convicted in April of killing Garrett Foster at the Austin march in July 2020.

Abbott lauded Texas’ tough Stand Your Ground self-defense laws and said Perry was railroaded by a liberal prosecutor. Since then, Perry’s trail of texts and online posts, including shockingly racist images, have been made public and the governor has stayed silent on the matter.

Abbott’s office did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the sentence or whether he still intends to issue a pardon. Perry, 36, could have received up to life in prison.

Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said Abbott moved too soon on the call for a pardon.

“Abbott clearly boxed himself into a corner,” when he appeared to respond to criticism from conservative former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who demanded the governor act, Jones said.

“I suspect if Gov. Abbott had known all that he knows now, he would not have jumped the gun on pledging to pardon him,” Jones said.

The Pardons and Parole board, which is appointed by Abbott, has already started reviewing Perry’s case. State law requires the board to recommend a pardon before the governor can act.

The case has been embroiled in politics as it came amid widespread demonstrations against police killings and racial injustice, following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Perry’s attorneys on Wednesday called the case a “political prosecution” and the release of the texts and social media posts “character assassination.”

Attorney Clinton Broden said the defense team would pursue both a pardon and a standard appeal in the court system.

“Those who claim that Governor Abbott’s expressed intent is based on politics simply choose to ignore the fact that it was only the political machinations of a rogue district attorney which led to Sgt. Perry’s prosecution,” he said.

Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza said it was Abbott “who decided to insert politics in this case.” Garza said he’s been assured by the parole board that he and Foster’s family will be given a chance to address the board in Perry’s case.

In a statement, the board confirmed the investigation is ongoing and declined further comment.

“The entire history of the board, the board has been a careful steward of the power of clemency in this state,” Garza said. “Our criminal justice system is not perfect, but in this case it worked exactly as it should. The Travis County District Attorney’s office is not done fighting for Garrett and the integrity of that process here.”

In a brief statement before sentencing, state District Judge Clifford Brown said Perry received a fair trial. The jury’s verdict “deserves our honor and it deserves to be respected,” Brown said, without mentioning the potential pardon.

Jones predicted the board will let Perry’s legal appeals happen first, and that it would be years, if ever, before the board makes a recommendation in the case.

“The majority (of conservatives) will want to put it in the rearview mirror,” Jones said. “Conservatives have far better causes and individuals to support, far better than Daniel Perry.”

Perry, who is white, was stationed at Fort Hood, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Austin, when the shooting happened. He was working as a ride-share driver and had just dropped off a customer when he turned onto a street filled with protesters. Foster, a 28-year-old Air Force veteran who was also white, was legally carrying an AK-47 rifle.

Perry said he acted in self defense, claiming that he was trying to drive past the crowd and fired his pistol when Foster pointed a rifle at him. Witnesses testified that they did not see Foster raise his weapon, and prosecutors argued that Perry could have driven away without shooting.

Army spokesman Bryce Dubee has said Perry is classified as in “civilian confinement” pending separation from the military.

Among Perry’s statements introduced Tuesday, he wrote on Facebook a month before the shooting: “It is official I am a racist because I do not agree with people acting like animals at the zoo.”

Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020. A few days later as protests erupted, Perry sent a text message to an acquaintance: “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Foster was with his girlfriend, Whitney Mitchell, who is Black and uses a wheelchair, when Perry gunned him down. Mitchell and several members of Foster’s family were in the courtroom for sentencing Wednesday.

Foster’s mother, Sheila Foster, was allowed to address Perry after he was sentenced and still in the courtroom.

“After three long years we’re finally getting justice for Garrett,” she said. “Mr. Perry, I pray to God that one day he will get rid of all this hate that is in your heart.”

BOTH ARE FASCIST REGIMES
EU lawmakers warn of Hungary, Poland spyware abuses

By LORNE COOK

May 9, 2023

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers investigating the use of Pegasus spyware against opposition politicians and journalists on Tuesday raised deep concern about abuses in Hungary and Poland and lamented a lack of cooperation with their inquiry.

The spyware developed by developed by Israeli cyber-intelligence company NSO has been used around the world to break into the phones and computers of political figures, human rights activists, reporters and even Catholic clergy. It was allegedly only made available to government agencies.

Cybersleuths have found traces of Pegasus or other spyware in Poland, Hungary, Spain and Greece. But after a year-long investigation, members of the European Parliament said they had been unable to come up with a smoking gun.

“Do we have evidence? No, because none of the authorities are cooperating,” said Dutch Liberal lawmaker Sophie In‘t Veld, who helped lead the probe.

In’t Veld said the lawmakers suspect, but cannot prove, that Greece exported Predator spyware to Cyprus, which then delivered it to Sudan, where more than 600 people have been killed since April 15 in fighting between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary group.

Dutch conservative lawmaker Jeroen Lenaers said the refusal of Poland’s right-wing government to cooperate appeared to be “part of a wider approach to silence any kind of dissent in Poland and it’s extremely concerning.”

In their final report, the lawmakers said that Poland’s use of Pegasus was part of “a system for the surveillance of the opposition and critics of the government -- designed to keep the ruling majority and the government in power.”

They argued that the use of spyware in Hungary was “part of a calculated and strategic campaign to destroy media freedom and freedom of expression by the government.” Hungary’s justice minister refused repeated requests for talks.

The lawmakers said they sent questionnaires to authorities in the EU’s 27 member countries but that very few came back with “relevant information.” Some, including the Netherlands, did not reply at all. Others refused to provide information due to what they said were national security grounds.

“The abuse of spyware has nothing to do with national security,” In’t Veld said. She also raised concern about where the victims might turn for help when the authorities are accused of doing the spying. “In not one single case has justice been done so far. Not one,” she said.

NSO has been subject to export limits by the U.S. federal government, which has accused the firm of conducting “transnational repression.” Major technology companies, including Apple and Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, also have brought NSO to court.

Discord forces members to change usernames, discord erupts

By DAVID HAMILTON

May 9, 2023

A display Discord stands at the company's booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco, March 22, 2023. The social app Discord, a favorite of gamers, inadvertently fostered internal strife after announcing on Wednesday, May 3, that its millions of members will have to pick new usernames. 

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The social app Discord, a favorite of gamers, inadvertently stirred internal strife after announcing last week that it will force its millions of members to pick new usernames. Now the question is whether the change will escalate into all-out warfare that could include players threatening one another in order to seize control of popular names.

The issue may sound trivial compared to real-life concerns such as mass shootings and killer storms. But it’s a big deal for people who rely on the mid-sized social network to recruit fellow gamers, swap virtual weapons and organize strategy in multiplayer games. A Reddit thread on the change drew more than 4,000 comments, the vast majority of them angry or at least unhappy.

Discord, which says it has 150 million monthly active users, has no plans to reconsider the new policy, according to a spokesman.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH DISCORD USERNAMES?

Discord users have long been free to choose any name they wanted, even ones already in use. That was part of the company’s goal of letting users represent themselves freely, according to a detailed May 3 blog post by Discord co-founder and chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy. The approach differed from social platforms such as Twitter, which has always required users to select unique names.

Discord assigned each username an invisible four-digit identifier to distinguish them from duplicates. But as Discord grew, the San Francisco-based company decided to expand its messaging system — initially limited to conversations within shared groups it calls “servers” — to the entire platform. To help people to find their friends across servers, Discord made those four-digit codes a visible part of usernames. If your username was “SgtRock,” you might have suddenly found yourself with the handle “SgtRock#1842.”

That, too, seemed to work for a while. But according to Vishnevskiy’s post, more than 40% of Discord users either don’t remember their four-digit codes — variously known as “tags” or “discriminators” in Discord-speak — or know what they are in the first place. Almost half of all friend requests on Discord fail to reach the correct person, the executive wrote.

SO WHAT’S CHANGING?

Two changes are taking place simultaneously. In the coming weeks, Vishnevskiy wrote, Discord will start notifying users via an in-app message when they’re cleared to select a new username. Some server owners will get priority, followed by users based on the age of their accounts. Paid subscribers to a Discord service that lets them customize their discriminators (among other benefits) will also get “early access,” although neither Vishnevskiy’s post nor Discord’s user documentation offer details.

At the same time, Discord is also allowing users to pick a non-exclusive “display name” of their choosing. This will be displayed prominently on user profiles and in chat, but unlike the username, it won’t be used for messaging.

All of this will “roll out slowly over the course of several months,” per the Discord announcements.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Some gamers take their usernames extremely seriously, viewing them as unique and personal extensions of their identity, not to mention pillars of their online reputations. Many also don’t appreciate changes being thrust upon them. In the Reddit thread, complaints range from “don’t fix what isn’t broken” to accusations that the changes are mostly designed to attract new and often younger users who might be put off by the complexity of the existing system.

That might not be far from the truth, experts suggest. Social platforms tend to be heavily used by a small group and very lightly used by a much larger group, said Drew Margolin, a Cornell University professor of communications. In a commercial sense, he said, “there’s this tension between what would be appealing to a larger market and what are the main users.”

Margolin suggests that network effects — that is, the fact that users and their friends are already on Discord, making it difficult to leave — will most likely outweigh the current outrage, whose impact is difficult to assess. But there’s still a potential for serious blowback, as some gamers have been known to go to extreme lengths to obtain coveted usernames.

WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES?

Gamers warn that the move could create a black market in desirable names or even spark dangerous threats to force their surrender. Such threats can range from online harassment campaigns to “swatting” — the highly dangerous practice of making fake crime reports to police in order to provoke an armed law enforcement response at an opponent’s home.

Swatting can lead to injuries and deaths — sometimes of people unconnected to whatever online feud provoked the action. In 2017, an innocent man was fatally shot by Wichita police responding to a hoax call reporting a kidnapping and shooting. The call was make by a California man named Tyler Barriss, who authorities said was recruited by another gamer to make the call. But the address Barriss used was old, leading police to to a person who wasn’t involved in the video game or the dispute.

Barriss pled guilty to making multiple false emergency calls across the U.S. and in 2019 was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Mass event will let hackers test limits of AI technology

By MATT O'BRIEN

May 10, 2023

Rumman Chowdhury, co-founder of Humane Intelligence, a nonprofit developing accountable AI systems, poses for a photograph at her home Monday, May 8, 2023, in Katy, Texas. ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and other major AI providers such as Google and Microsoft, are coordinating with the Biden administration to let thousands of hackers take a shot at testing the limits of their technology. Chowdhury is the lead coordinator of the mass hacking event planned for this summer's DEF CON hacker convention in Las Vegas.

 (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

No sooner did ChatGPT get unleashed than hackers started “jailbreaking” the artificial intelligence chatbot — trying to override its safeguards so it could blurt out something unhinged or obscene.

But now its maker, OpenAI, and other major AI providers such as Google and Microsoft, are coordinating with the Biden administration to let thousands of hackers take a shot at testing the limits of their technology.

Some of the things they’ll be looking to find: How can chatbots be manipulated to cause harm? Will they share the private information we confide in them to other users? And why do they assume a doctor is a man and a nurse is a woman?

“This is why we need thousands of people,” said Rumman Chowdhury, a coordinator of the mass hacking event planned for this summer’s DEF CON hacker convention in Las Vegas that’s expected to draw several thousand people. “We need a lot of people with a wide range of lived experiences, subject matter expertise and backgrounds hacking at these models and trying to find problems that can then go be fixed.”

Anyone who’s tried ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing chatbot or Google’s Bard will have quickly learned that they have a tendency to fabricate information and confidently present it as fact. These systems, built on what’s known as large language models, also emulate the cultural biases they’ve learned from being trained upon huge troves of what people have written online.

The idea of a mass hack caught the attention of U.S. government officials in March at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, where Sven Cattell, founder of DEF CON’s long-running AI Village, and Austin Carson, president of responsible AI nonprofit SeedAI, helped lead a workshop inviting community college students to hack an AI model.

Carson said those conversations eventually blossomed into a proposal to test AI language models following the guidelines of the White House’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights — a set of principles to limit the impacts of algorithmic bias, give users control over their data and ensure that automated systems are used safely and transparently.

There’s already a community of users trying their best to trick chatbots and highlight their flaws. Some are official “red teams” authorized by the companies to “prompt attack” the AI models to discover their vulnerabilities. Many others are hobbyists showing off humorous or disturbing outputs on social media until they get banned for violating a product’s terms of service.

“What happens now is kind of a scattershot approach where people find stuff, it goes viral on Twitter,” and then it may or may not get fixed if it’s egregious enough or the person calling attention to it is influential, Chowdhury said.

In one example, known as the “grandma exploit,” users were able to get chatbots to tell them how to make a bomb — a request a commercial chatbot would normally decline — by asking it to pretend it was a grandmother telling a bedtime story about how to make a bomb.

In another example, searching for Chowdhury using an early version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine chatbot — which is based on the same technology as ChatGPT but can pull real-time information from the internet — led to a profile that speculated Chowdhury “loves to buy new shoes every month” and made strange and gendered assertions about her physical appearance.

Chowdhury helped introduce a method for rewarding the discovery of algorithmic bias to DEF CON’s AI Village in 2021 when she was the head of Twitter’s AI ethics team — a job that has since been eliminated upon Elon Musk’s October takeover of the company. Paying hackers a “bounty” if they uncover a security bug is commonplace in the cybersecurity industry — but it was a newer concept to researchers studying harmful AI bias.

This year’s event will be at a much greater scale, and is the first to tackle the large language models that have attracted a surge of public interest and commercial investment since the release of ChatGPT late last year.

Chowdhury, now the co-founder of AI accountability nonprofit Humane Intelligence, said it’s not just about finding flaws but about figuring out ways to fix them.

“This is a direct pipeline to give feedback to companies,” she said. “It’s not like we’re just doing this hackathon and everybody’s going home. We’re going to be spending months after the exercise compiling a report, explaining common vulnerabilities, things that came up, patterns we saw.”

Some of the details are still being negotiated, but companies that have agreed to provide their models for testing include OpenAI, Google, chipmaker Nvidia and startups Anthropic, Hugging Face and Stability AI. Building the platform for the testing is another startup called Scale AI, known for its work in assigning humans to help train AI models by labeling data.

“As these foundation models become more and more widespread, it’s really critical that we do everything we can to ensure their safety,” said Scale CEO Alexandr Wang. “You can imagine somebody on one side of the world asking it some very sensitive or detailed questions, including some of their personal information. You don’t want any of that information leaking to any other user.”

Other dangers Wang worries about are chatbots that give out “unbelievably bad medical advice” or other misinformation that can cause serious harm.

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said the DEF CON event will hopefully be the start of a deeper commitment from AI developers to measure and evaluate the safety of the systems they are building.

“Our basic view is that AI systems will need third-party assessments, both before deployment and after deployment. Red-teaming is one way that you can do that,” Clark said. “We need to get practice at figuring out how to do this. It hasn’t really been done before.