AcidicBasicGlitch

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67955108

Palantir and Nuclear Company will jointly create the nuclear operating system (NOS), which will simplify construction, allowing the firm to build plants faster and at lower cost.

The deal follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders that aimed to boost U.S. nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.

The orders, signed in May, direct the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors and power plants.

Palantir and Nuclear Company will jointly create the nuclear operating system (NOS), which will simplify construction, allowing the firm to build plants faster and at lower cost.

The deal follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders that aimed to boost U.S. nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.

The orders, signed in May, direct the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors and power plants.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has until the end of June to develop new guidance for federal agencies. Federal agencies will use this guidance to create new policies that align with the Trump administration’s dubious definitions of scientific integrity and “gold standard science.”

The goals of scientific integrity policies are to (1) protect the scientific process from inappropriate (like political or corporate) influence, (2) make federal research and evidence accessible without compromising people’s personal data, (3) allow federal scientists to communicate their research without interference, and (4) to use the best available science in decision and policy making.

I mean, I think we all know what the choice will be, right?

Automation, public data repositories, standardized metadata forms, and interoperable data-sharing platforms are some of the major pushes being made in guidance for Federal agencies looking to apply the Trump administration’s “gold standard science” objectives, according to guidance issued today by the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP).

OSTP Director Michael Kratsios delivered the memo to Federal agencies on June 23 and said the guidance will assist agencies in applying an executive order from President Donald Trump on “Restoring Gold Standard Science” by ensuring “that science is no longer manipulated or misused to justify political ends.”

That memo included methods of approaching science-related initiatives – namely those related to national security and energy innovation, according to the document – that would foster cross disciplinary collaboration and withstand scrutiny.

“In an age of rapid technological progress and heightened public scrutiny, federally-funded and federally-performed science, and its use in Federal decision-making, must be beyond reproach,” reads the document.

To support this goal, OSTP said that agencies should encourage depositing raw data and code in publicly accessible repositories to facilitate reproducibility. Other data-related pushes include requiring grant applications to include data sharing plans, and standardizing metadata formats and data-sharing platforms across agencies.

When introducing the concept of gold standard science in May, Kratsios zeroed in on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles in scientific fields, claiming that inclusive efforts pushed by DEI pose an “existential threat to the real diversity of thought that forms the foundation of the scientific community.”

Kratsios said that the “first step to restoring trust in America’s scientific establishment, and rebuilding a strong foundation for breakthrough discoveries, is a return to Gold Standard Science.”

Russia launched a mass missile and drone attack on Kyiv overnight on June 23, killing at least nine people and injuring 33 others, including four children, local officials reported.

Kyiv Independent journalists heard explosions and kamikaze drones flying overhead from around 1 a.m. Louder explosions from ballistic missiles were heard an hour later, with the attack lasting around 3.5 hours in total.

The heaviest damage occurred in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the city, when a five-story building partially collapsed after being hit by a ballistic missile, Ukraine's military reported. At least nine people died as a result, and more may be trapped under the rubble.

An 11-year-old girl was confirmed as the ninth victim of the strike, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said. Her mother's body was recovered earlier from the rubble.

Trump: China you gotta do something! You are, after all, my best friend.

New Orleans has emerged as a flashpoint in debates over real-time facial recognition technology. The city’s leaders are weighing a landmark ordinance that, if passed, would make New Orleans the first U.S. city to formally legalize continuous facial surveillance by police officers.

The move follows revelations that, for two years, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) quietly used automated alerts from a privately operated camera network known as Project NOLA that bypassed the strictures of the city’s 2022 ordinance which explicitly banned such practices. Project NOLA is a non-profit surveillance network founded by ex-police detective Bryan Lagarde.

Despite this, Project NOLA’s network was set to continuously and automatically scan public spaces. Every face that passed within view was compared in real time, and officers were pinged via an app whenever a watchlist match occurred, leaving no requirement for supervisory oversight, independent verification, or adherence to reporting standards.

Opponents argue that automated surveillance everywhere in public spaces raises profound threats to privacy, civil rights, and due process. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana described the system as a “facial recognition technology nightmare” that enables the government to “track us as we go about our daily lives.”

The wrongful arrest of Randal Reid based on misidentification from still-image facial recognition is touted as highlighting the real-world dangers of facial recognition. Reid is a 29‑year‑old Black logistics analyst from Georgia who was wrongfully arrested in late 2022 and held for six days due to a false facial recognition match.

The ACLU has urged the City Council to reimpose a moratorium and demand an independent audit covering privacy compliance, algorithmic bias, evidence admissibility, record retention, and public awareness. The organization said that NOPD currently lacks any system for logging or disclosing facial-recognition-derived evidence, and Project NOLA operates outside official oversight entirely.

A vote by the City Council is expected later this month. If passed, NOPD and any authorized third party will be legally empowered to scan live public feeds using facial recognition, provided reports are submitted according to the new law.

Meanwhile, NOPD is awaiting the outcome of its internal audit and Kirkpatrick has stated that policy revisions will be guided by the council’s decisions. Meanwhile, the ACLU and partners are preparing to escalate their opposition, pushing for either outright prohibition or deeply strengthened accountability measures.

The decision facing New Orleans encapsulates the broader tension between embracing AI-based public safety tools and protecting civil liberties. Proponents emphasize the edge that real-time intelligence can provide in stopping violent crime and responding to emergencies, while critics warn that indiscriminate surveillance erodes privacy, civil rights, and due-process safeguards.

A few things I feel are very important that none of the recent June articles about this mention:

1. The city has managed to keep this all relatively under wraps. Few people are even aware of this, and even if they are they are not aware of the level of surveillance.

2. This seems to be being kept in the dark even by people that we should be able to trust. I only found out about the City Council vote this month bc I make a habit of searching for updates about this every so often. I cannot find any information about when the vote is actually scheduled, just sometimes at the end of June. This is the last week of June so presumably this week?

3. State Police and ICE can't be regulated by city government. There is a permanent state police force in New Orleans that was established as of last year by Governor Landry.

I believe they have continued using this technology however they please, and there is no real way for the city to regulate how they use it, and who they share it with.

EDIT: The city council meeting is this coming Thursday

Thursday, June 26

10:00a City Council Facial Recognition Meeting – City Council Chamber, 1300 Perdido St., Second Floor West

Livestream link

Last words before he kills us all.

Well one Republican hasn't been fully neutered by Trump. How about the rest of you?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67475475