{"id":892078,"date":"2026-03-14T09:12:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/14\/the-download-murky-ai-surveillance-laws-and-the-white-house-cracks-down-on-defiant-labs\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T09:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:12:55","slug":"the-download-murky-ai-surveillance-laws-and-the-white-house-cracks-down-on-defiant-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/14\/the-download-murky-ai-surveillance-laws-and-the-white-house-cracks-down-on-defiant-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Download: murky AI surveillance laws, and the White House cracks down on defiant labs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plus: a satellite firm that exposed Iranian strikes has stopped sharing imagery<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

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This is today’s edition of <\/em>The Download<\/em><\/a>, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.<\/em><\/p>\n

Is the Pentagon allowed to surveil Americans with AI?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The ongoing public feud between the Department of Defense and the AI company Anthropic has raised a deep and still unanswered question: Does the law actually allow the US government to conduct mass surveillance on Americans?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Surprisingly, the answer is not straightforward. More than a decade after Edward Snowden exposed the NSA\u2019s collection of bulk metadata from the phones of Americans, the US is still navigating a gap between what ordinary people think and what the law allows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, the legal complexity has a new edge: AI is supercharging surveillance\u2014and our laws haven\u2019t caught up. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Kim<\/em><\/p>\n

The must-reads<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve combed the internet to find you today\u2019s most fun\/important\/scary\/fascinating stories about technology.<\/em><\/p>\n

1 The White House has tightened its AI rules amid the Anthropic spat<\/strong>
New guidelines require companies to allow “any lawful” use of their \u200cmodels. (FT $<\/a>)
+ London\u2019s mayor has slammed Trump\u2019s treatment of Anthropic and invited the firm to expand in the city. <\/em>(BBC<\/a>)<\/p>\n

2 A satellite firm has stopped sharing imagery after exposing Iranian strikes<\/strong>
Planet Lab said it wants to stop \u201cadversarial actors\u201d from using the data. (Ars Technica<\/a>)
+ AI is turbocharging the conflict in Iran. <\/em>(WSJ<\/a> $)
+ War is adding a brutal new element to the country’s internet issues. <\/em>(Wired<\/a> $)<\/p>\n

3 The OpenAI-Anthropic feud is getting messy<\/strong>
The Pentagon contract controversy has intensified a deeply personal animosity between the founders. (NYT<\/a> $)
+ Sam Altman and Dario Amodei\u2019s rivalry could reshape the future of AI. <\/em>(WSJ<\/a> $)\u00a0<\/em>
+ OpenAI\u2019s robotics lead has quit over concerns about surveillance and \u201clethal autonomy.\u201d <\/em>(TechCrunch<\/a>)
+ The company\u2019s DoD \u201ccompromise\u201d has brought Anthropic\u2019s fears to life. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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4 Staff at Block are outraged over the company\u2019s “AI layoffs”\u00a0<\/strong>
They\u2019re pushing back against Jack Dorsey\u2019s bullishness on AI. (The Guardian<\/a>)
+ They\u2019ve also cast doubt on the payroll saving<\/em>s. (Gizmodo<\/a>)
+ It\u2019s not the first case of fears over AI taking everyone\u2019s jobs. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

5 Data center \u201cman camps\u201d are springing up in Texas<\/strong>
Aimed at luring workers to help build the centers, they will offer free steaks and golf simulators. (Bloomberg<\/a> $)<\/p>\n

6 The OpenClaw craze is sparking a rally in Chinese tech stocks<\/strong>
Shares surged after government agencies and tech leaders promoted the AI agent. (Bloomberg<\/a> $)
+ Why is China falling so hard for it? <\/em>(SCMP<\/a>)<\/p>\n

7 AI-generated videos are altering our relationship to nature<\/strong>
And could lead to \u201cdistorted expectations\u201d of animal behavior. (NYT<\/a> $)
+ AI slop could form a new kind of pop culture.<\/em> (MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

8 A rogue AI agent freed itself to mine crypto in secret<\/strong>
<\/em>The model escaped its sandbox to start a side hustle in digital currency. (Axios<\/a>)
+ AI agents are also starting to harass people. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

9 In a first, a spacecraft has changed an asteroid\u2019s orbit around the sun<\/strong>
The feat was a test of Earth\u2019s future defenses. (Engadget<\/a>)<\/p>\n

10 How the Furby brought creepy-cute robotics into playtime\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0
<\/em>A new show traces the legacy of the surprisingly high-tech toy. (The Verge<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Quote of the day<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cI wanted to approach the whole situation with love.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014Block cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey tells Wired<\/a> why he wore a hat with the word \u2018Love\u2019 on it during a meeting where he laid off 40% of his workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One more thing<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\"Geoffrey<\/p>\n

LINDA NYLIND \/ EYEVINE VIA REDUX<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he\u2019s now scared of the tech he helped build<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geoffrey Hinton is a pioneer of deep learning who helped develop some of the most important techniques at the heart of modern artificial intelligence, but after a decade at Google, he\u2019s stepped down to focus on concerns he now has about AI.<\/p>\n

Hinton wants to spend his time on what he describes as \u201cmore philosophical work.\u201d And that will focus on the small but\u2014to him\u2014very real danger that AI will turn out to be a disaster. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Will Douglas Heaven<\/em><\/p>\n

We can still have nice things<\/strong><\/p>\n

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? <\/em>Drop me a line<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em>+ De La Soul\u2019s Tiny Desk concert<\/a> is a masterclass in joy and grief, proving their “Daisy Age” philosophy is timeless.
+ These original Disney concepts<\/a> of beloved characters are a portal into an alternate childhood.
+ This square phone<\/a> traverses two decades of nostalgia by rotating into a Game Boy AND a BlackBerry.
+ A newly discovered Rembrandt<\/a> shows the Old Masters still have new tricks to reveal. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Thomas Macaulay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plus: a satellite firm that exposed Iranian strikes has stopped sharing imagery This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Is the Pentagon allowed to surveil Americans with AI? The ongoing public feud between the Department of Defense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":892079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24097,37029,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-download","category-murky","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}