Nappz DJ - Jungle 360 DJ SET

Biella - Galileo - Via Galileo Galilei, 1, 13900 Biella BI
(sabato, 17 gennaio 22:30)

caosbi.eu/event/nappz-dj-jungl…

Incontri nuovi per condividere la vita

Occhieppo Superiore - Biblioteca - Villa Mossa via Martiri della Libertà, 29 - Occhieppo Superiore
(domenica, 18 gennaio 18:00)

Presentazione del ciclo di incontri, con Mirtilla Porzio

caosbi.eu/event/incontri-nuovi…

GAME NIGHT

Biella-Hangar - Via trento 16\C
(venerdì, 23 gennaio 21:00)

Serata giochi da tavolo gratuita. Porta se vuoi un gioco da tavolo per giocare insieme agli altri.

HANGARBIELLA

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Dagli Stati Uniti arriva un segnale di allarme che non può essere ignorato. L’Istituto Lemkin, ONG internazionale impegnata nella prevenzione dei genocidi, ha recentemente pubblicato uno studio che invita a leggere con estrema attenzione le politiche adottate dall’amministrazione Trump nei confronti delle persone trans*, non binarie e intersex. Secondo l’Istituto, e secondo autorevoli studiosi della materia, tra cui due ex presidenti dell’Associazione Internazionale degli Studiosi del Genocidio, tali politiche presentano caratteristiche riconducibili alle fasi iniziali dei processi di persecuzione sistematica che, in diversi contesti storici del Novecento, hanno preceduto crimini di massa e stermini di intere comunità.

La letteratura comparata sul genocidio mostra con chiarezza come questi processi non abbiano inizio con l’eliminazione fisica, ma con la costruzione istituzionale dell’alterità: la definizione di un gruppo come deviante, pericoloso o incompatibile con l’ordine sociale; la progressiva erosione dei suoi diritti; la normalizzazione della discriminazione attraverso atti amministrativi, legislativi e retorici. Dinamiche analoghe sono state osservate nei regimi totalitari europei del secolo scorso, così come in altri contesti segnati da politiche di esclusione radicale e disumanizzazione collettiva.

In questo quadro si collocano le politiche di persecuzione delle persone transgender, non binarie e intersex, che l’Istituto Lemkin individua come un preambolo a forme più estreme di violenza. Emblematica è la normativa che obbliga le persone trans* a utilizzare i servizi igienici in base al sesso assegnato alla nascita: una misura che non può essere considerata simbolica o marginale, ma che contribuisce a legittimare socialmente il controllo dei corpi e l’esposizione forzata nello spazio pubblico.

La dottoressa Elisa von Joeden-Forgey sottolinea come la combinazione di paura, propaganda e retoriche d’odio promosse o tollerate da apparati politico-statali costituisca il terreno su cui attecchiscono le forme più estreme di violenza. È uno schema ricorrente nella storia dei genocidi: prima l’isolamento simbolico, poi l’esclusione giuridica, infine la violenza aperta. I dati che ci arrivano confermano la gravità di questo contesto, mostrando un aumento delle difficoltà nel fare coming out e un incremento dei tassi di suicidio all’interno della comunità, segnali inequivocabili di una pressione sistemica che colpisce direttamente la vita delle persone.

Trump sta utilizzando i corpi delle persone migranti e di quelle trans*, non binarie e intersex come strumenti politici, contribuendo ad anestetizzare l’opinione pubblica rispetto alla violenza strutturale tipica dei regimi autoritari. È una strategia già vista nella storia, in cui la normalizzazione dell’abuso e dell’esclusione prepara il terreno a forme sempre più radicali di disumanizzazione.

Per questo, ricordando le parole del pastore Martin Niemöller nel celebre sermone “Prima vennero…”, è nostro compito non voltarci mai dall’altra parte davanti alla violenza e alla sua normalizzazione. Non saremo mai in un mondo libero finché esisterà anche una sola persona oppressa per il suo credo, per il suo sesso, per la sua identità di genere, per la sua nazionalità o per il colore della sua pelle.

Gianmarco Capogna
Vanessa Capretto
Thomas Predieri

L'articolo Le politiche di Trump contro le persone trans sono estremamente preoccupanti proviene da Possibile.

Continuing his reverse-engineering of the Intel 8087, [Ken Shirriff] covers the conditional tests that are implemented in the microcode of this floating point processing unit (FPU). This microcode contains the details on how to perform the many types of specialized instructions, like cos and arctan, all of which decode into many microcode ops. These micro ops are executed by the microcode engine, which [Ken] will cover in more detail in an upcoming article, but which is effectively its own CPU.

Conditional instructions are implemented in hardware, integrating the states of various functional blocks across the die, ranging from the instruction decoder to a register. Here, the evaluation is performed as close as possible to the source of said parameter to save on wiring.

Implementing this circuitry are multiplexers, with an example shown in the top die shot image. Depending on the local conditions, any of four pass transistors is energized, passing through that input. Not shown in the die shot image are the inverters or buffers that are required with the use of pass transistors to amplify the signal, since pass transistors do not provide that feature.

Despite how firmly obsolete the 8087 is today, it still provides an amazing learning opportunity for anyone interested in ASIC design, which is why it’s so great that [Ken] and his fellow reverse-engineering enthusiasts keep plugging away at recovering all this knowledge.

hackaday.com/2026/01/11/the-in…

[Ronan] likes 35mm film photography, but the world, of course, has gone digital. He picked up an Epson FilmScan 200 for about €10. This wonder device from 1997 promised to convert 35mm film to digital at 1200 DPI resolution. But there was a catch: it connects via SCSI. Worse, the drivers were forever locked to Windows 95/98 and Mac System 7/8.

In a surprise twist, though, [Ronan] recently resurrected a Mac SE/30 with the requisite SCSI port and the System 7 OS. Problem solved? Not quite. The official software is a plugin for Photoshop. So the obvious answer is to write new software to interact with the device.

First, of course, you have to figure out how the device works. A service manual provided clues that, as far as the SCSI bus knew, the device wasn’t a scanner at all, but a processor. The processor, though, used SCSI as a simple pipe to handle Epson’s standard “ESC/I” protocol.

Armed with that information and a knowledge of the Mac’s SCSI Manager API, the rest is just coding. Well, that is until [Ronan] tried to scan the other five negatives in the six-negative film carrier. He was frustrated until he found an old patched SANE driver for the scanner from 2002. By looking at how it worked, he was able to figure out how to switch to the other negatives.

Color scanning also took a little coaxing. The scanner returns three monochrome images, one for each color channel. Some assembly, then, is required. In the end, though, the project was a complete success. Can’t find a FilmScan 200? Don’t have a SCSI port? There’s always the roll-your-own approach.

hackaday.com/2026/01/11/the-sc…

Emulating older computers on microcontrollers has been a staple of retrocomputing for many years now, with most 8-bit and some 16-bit machines available on Atmel, ARM, or ESP32 platforms. But there’s always been a horsepower limit, a point beyond which a microcontroller is no longer enough, and a “proper” computer is needed. One of those barriers now appears to have been broken, as microcontroller-based emulation moves into the 32-bit era. [Amcchord] has the Basilisk II emulator ported to the ESP32-P4 platform, providing a 68040 Mac able to run OS8.1. This early-1990s-spec machine might not seem like much in 2026, but it represents a major step forward.

The hardware it uses is the M5Stack Tab5, and it provides an emulated Mac with up to 16 MB of memory. Remember, in 1992 this would have been a high-spec machine. It manages a 15 frames per second refresh rate, which is adequate for productivity applications. The emulator uses the Tab5’s touchscreen to emulate the Mac mouse alongside support for USB input devices. To 1990 hackers, it’s almost the Mac tablet you didn’t know you would want in the future.

We like this project, both because it’s advancing the art of emulation on microcontrollers, and also because it delivers a computer that’s useful for some of the things you might have done with a Mac in 1992 and could even do today. Pulling this out on the train back then would have blown people’s minds. There’s even a chance that MacOS on something like this would turn a few heads in 2026. It’s certainly not the first emulated Mac we’ve seen though.

hackaday.com/2026/01/11/a-much…

The Tamagotchi Connection is a series of Tamagotchi toys that took the original portable pet concept and mixed things up with a wireless connection, which allowed you to interact with the pets of other proud Tamagotchi owners. This wireless connection is implemented using an infrared transceiver, somewhat like IrDA, but as [Zach Resmer] discovered while reverse-engineering this connection, it’s actually what is called ‘Nearly NEC’ by [Natalie Silvanovich], who has a GitHub repository full of related Tamagotchi hacking tools and ROM dumps.

With the protocol figured out, creating a transceiver for low-bitrate infrared communication isn’t particularly hard. In this case, it was implemented using an RP2040 MCU and an appropriate IR LED and receiver pair. This Tamagometer project was also implemented as an app for the Flipper Zero, and a custom PCB called the Pico TamaBadge by [Daniel Weidman].

There’s a web application associated with [Zach]’s project using a Web Serial-enabled browser (i.e. Chrome). The serial protocol is somewhat documented in the patent for the device’s connection feature, which makes it relatively easy to implement yourself.

hackaday.com/2026/01/10/revers…

While EEG research might help you figure out extrasensory perception, we won’t be betting on it. However, if you want to read EEG data and use an ESP32, [Cerelog-ESP-EEG] might be the right project for you. The commercial project is an 8-channel biosensing board suitable for EEG, EMG, ECG, and brain-computer interface studies. However, the company says, “We love the hacker community! We explicitly grant permission for Personal & Educational Use.” We love you too.

They do require you to agree not to sell boards you are building, and they give you schematics, but no PC board layout. That’s understandable, although we’d guess that achieving good results will require understanding how to lay out highly sensitive circuits.

What you do get is the schematic and the firmware source. They note that you may have to modify the firmware if you want to switch modes, change gain, or enable haptic feedback, among other things. At the application layer, the device is compatible with Lab Streaming Layer, and there is a fork of OpenBCI (brain control interface) that understands how to talk to the board.

Even if you don’t want to directly clone the device, there’s a ton of information here if you are interested in EEG or any other small signal acquisition. We’ve seen a number of interfaces like this, but we are still waiting to see a killer application.

hackaday.com/2026/01/10/esp-wi…

A Vector Network Analyser, or VNA, is the ultimate multi-tool of RF test equipment. They can now be had in not very capable form for almost pocket money prices, but the professional-grade ones cost eye-watering sums. Enough to make an older VNA for a few hundred on eBay a steal, and [W3AXL] has just such a device in an HP 8714C. It’s the height of 1990s tech with a floppy drive and a green-screen CRT, but he’s homing right in on the VGA monitor port on the back. Time for a colour LCD upgrade!

There are two videos below the break, posted a year apart, because as we’re sure many of you will know, events have a habit of getting in the way of projects. In the first, we see the removal of the CRT module and safe extraction of its electronics, followed by the crafting of a display bezel for the LCD. Meanwhile, the second video deals with the VNA itself, extracting the VGA signal and routing it forward to the new module.

We’re struck not for the first time by the high quality of the construction in this piece of test equipment; it’s not only substantial but well designed for maintenance and disassembly. [W3AXL] sensibly leaves the RF part alone, but both CRT and mainboard modules slide out with minimal screw removals and few problems in reassembly.

He goes the extra mile with a second iteration of the display mount and a curved print to fit the CRT shape in the front panel. The result is a colour display on the instrument, and we’re guessing, a much lighter device, too.

If VNAs are new to you, then you might wish to learn a little about them,

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hackaday.com/2026/01/10/a-1990…

A knob can make a surprisingly versatile interface, particularly if it’s the SmartKnob, which builds a knob around a BLDC motor for programmable haptic response. It can rotate freely or with a set resistance, spring back to a fixed point when released, stick at detent points, and completely change its behavior as the interface demands. For people inexperienced in electronic assembly, though, smartknobs can be difficult to assemble. That’s why [Kokensha Tech] designed a simpler version, while at the same time letting it use a wider range of BLDC motors.

In addition to a motor, the original design used a magnetic encoder to detect position and a strain gauge to detect pressure on the knob. A circular LCD on the knob itself provided visual feedback, but it also required the motor to have a hollow center shaft. The LCD control wires running through the shaft proved tricky to assemble. [Kokensha Tech] moved the display out of the knob and onto a separate breakout board, which plugs into the controller board. This greatly broadens the range of compatible motors, since they no longer need a hollow shaft.

The motor now fits on a separate carrier board, which makes it easier to swap out different motors. The carrier board has mounting holes sized for a wide variety of motors, and four different types of motor connectors. [Kokensha Tech] also redesigned the rest of the PCB for easier soldering, while avoiding components with narrow pin spacing whenever possible. The original design used a LILYGO T-micro32 Plus MCU. The ESP32 is both cheaper and easier to solder, so it was a no-brainer to swap it in.

We’ve covered the original SmartKnob before, including a more in-depth look at its design. We’ve also seen another project use BLDCs and field-oriented control to make haptic knobs.

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hackaday.com/2026/01/10/simpli…

Quando August Strindberg iniziò a lavorare a quelli che diverranno i Libri blu, era il 1907; la sua fama non era legata solo a La camera rossa o a L’arringa di un pazzo, ma alla sua apparentemente instabile volontà di praticare strade diverse da quelle del positivismo, del materialismo e del naturalismo ottocenteschi. Quell’«oltre» significava scavalcare il pensiero dominante e ritrovare profonde radici nel cristianesimo e nel misticismo, ma per i suoi antichi amici e colleghi voleva dire nonsenso, follia, rimbambimento.

Ed è per questo che dobbiamo stare attenti alle definizioni che dall’opera passano all’autore, come è accaduto per Van Gogh nell’arte e per Dino Campana nella poesia, per non parlare di Francesco d’Assisi.

Per questo la necessaria e doverosa scelta antologica dagli sterminati, originari Libri blu, più di 1.500 pagine, da parte del grande esperto di Strindberg, Franco Perrelli, è un’opera benemerita: ci mette di fronte al grande problema della definizione di follia da parte della cultura dominante, o semplicemente di una borghesia più o meno colta, abituata a giudicare secondo il pensiero del tempo.

Quello che doveva scuotere fortemente alla lettura non solo dei quattro Libri blu usciti con il loro autore ancora in vita (altri sarebbero stati editi postumi), ma anche di Bandiere nere, storia in cui sembra non esserci scampo alcuno se non con la fuga dalla «pazza folla», era l’attacco frontale al pensiero borghese. Solo con il ritorno al misticismo, alla mediazione platonica e soprattutto alla figura di un Gesù liberato dell’aura di abitudine e conformismo si potevano salvare gli esseri umani.

Uno dei personaggi dei Libri blu, il Maestro, afferma che «se mi definisco cristiano, è perché riconosco Cristo come potenza, una fonte d’energia, dalla quale, tramite la preghiera, traggo la forza sufficiente per sopportare le tribolazioni della vita» (p. 145). Come si vede, la figura del Redentore è assunta in un universo in cui la mistica swedenborghiana, un san Paolo letto soprattutto come maestro interiore e nemico del pensiero «borghese», e un Medioevo in cui «splendevano le scuole abbaziali e le università, nelle quali s’insegnava la sapienza spirituale e quella laica» (p. 160), sono la vera salvezza dal nonsenso di una vita puramente materiale.

Questa aspirazione a un cristianesimo mistico e talvolta dalle sembianze esoteriche è uno dei mezzi spirituali che avvicinerà Strindberg al socialismo: un socialismo in cui non prevale il materialismo marxista, ma l’aspirazione all’innalzamento anche spirituale dell’uomo, ben oltre l’adesione dello scrittore svedese al pensiero nietzschiano, che si era manifestata anche a livello di corrispondenza diretta.

La stessa misoginia dell’A. deve essere vista in questa prospettiva, vale a dire come frutto di una società, quella borghese, in cui tutto è materia, soldi, successo, piacere: chi non fa parte della buona società, o attraversa momenti di crisi, è considerato inutile anche dal punto di vista affettivo. Tuttavia, Strindberg ha sempre considerato il matrimonio, nonostante i suoi personali tre fallimenti, un elemento fondamentale per il cammino umano.

Quindi, la presunta follia dell’A. non gli impedisce di vedere chiaramente oltre se stesso e le proprie esperienze, e di considerare il cristianesimo e il Vangelo come una delle poche speranze di una nuova era: «In generale, si dovrebbe trarre la propria dottrina direttamente dai Vangeli, perché sono più semplici, grandiosi, divini» (p. 212).

The post Libri blu first appeared on La Civiltà Cattolica.

Il libro è una raccolta di scritti di spiritualità e politica di Giuseppe Trotta, figura significativa della cultura religiosa italiana di fine del secolo XX. I 30 brevi testi presentati in questo volume si segnalano per la loro straordinaria intensità, nonché per la varietà di generi che abbracciano. Vi si trovano appunti storiografici e interventi sull’attualità politica, profili biografici e recensioni di libri, meditazioni e altri componimenti più personali, tutti uniti da una riflessione vivace e profonda sul legame tra fede e storia.

La natura di questo legame viene indagata sotto il segno indicato già nel titolo: tra fede e storia, tra spiritualità e politica non esiste continuità o costruzione, ma una radicale sconnessione che, lungi dal risolversi in una frattura inconciliabile, si riformula nel misterioso sgranarsi di un tempo storico che non si esaurisce in sé stesso. È lo sguardo del cristiano, come emerge in vari passaggi del volume, a farsi testimone capace di cogliere un rimando a quell’«altrove» che certo si dà nella fede, ma sfugge alle categorie dell’idea e del progetto insite nella storia. Il cristiano conosce e soffre il disordine e l’ingiustizia del mondo, ma sa anche che questa visione di dolore non esaurisce la realtà; in lui si incarna uno scarto capace di rifrangere un «oltre» che solo un’«attenzione spregiudicata» può rivelare, tracciando così una via di liberazione: «Per andare oltre dobbiamo collocarci altrove» (p. 114).

Lo sguardo spirituale che contraddistingue il cristiano è segnato, secondo l’A., dalla compassione verso ogni uomo, ma anche dalla capacità di esprimere un giudizio severo, condannando la violenza dei poteri mondani. È nella pietas l’autentico ricongiungimento di fede e politica. Pertanto, avere a cuore la città umana implica una sensibilità acuta nei confronti del male, assieme a una percezione dei segni del Regno.

Questa capacità si manifesta in particolare nei saggi di Trotta dedicati al cattolicesimo politico italiano del Novecento, che, pur essendo in grado per alcuni decenni di dare forma a un’epoca, non ha superato una visione costantiniana di cristianità e si è concluso con un inesorabile sfaldamento. L’avvenire resta ora affidato a una generazione di cristiani che vivono la politica come un «dovere contingente», e non come un’assunzione stabile di potere, ma che soprattutto sono capaci di restare nella condizione nomade di «pellegrini», di dimorare sulla soglia, indicando così una nuova terra al di là dell’orizzonte.

In queste pagine si trovano anche importanti riflessioni su esperienze religiose esemplari di personaggi noti, come Simone Weil, Lorenzo Milani, Dietrich Bonhoeffer o Giuseppe Dossetti, ma anche di figure meno conosciute, come l’eremita Giuseppe Sandri. Ogni racconto parla di persone concrete che al nesso tra spiritualità e politica hanno dato, con il loro corpo vivente, una visibilità credibile. L’essere soglia del cristiano non è infatti solo un vedere quell’«altrove» per sé nella fede, ma anche un diventare per gli altri un segno tangibile del trascendente nella storia.

Interessante è una riflessione dell’A. sul Magnificat. Si tratta di un canto che unisce guerra e misericordia, un inno proclamato alla fine del tempo. L’empio e il superbo sono «gonfi di sé», vedono il mondo come un’estensione del proprio io e occupano sempre più spazi; tuttavia, al momento del giudizio, saranno smarriti e dissolti in quel loro sé espanso e inconsistente. Ad essi si contrappone l’umiltà di Maria, «figura dei poveri di Israele», colei che si inchina all’Altrove e, proprio in questo suo abbassamento, diventa partecipe della signoria di Dio sul mondo.

Sarà pur vero che l’esperienza,molto novecentesca, incarnatasi nella biografia politica ed ecclesiale di Trotta sia scomparsa; tuttavia, resta profondamente attuale la sua consapevolezza di un vuoto che squarcia la nostra epoca: un vuoto che può essere il nulla, o appunto l’altrove.

The post Altrove first appeared on La Civiltà Cattolica.

Il libro parla della guerra clandestina e delle trame orchestrate dagli apparati britannici contro Alcide De Gasperi. È una ricostruzione inedita e dettagliata di un capitolo importante della storia d’Italia, basata su fonti archivistiche britanniche, statunitensi e italiane.

Nello scenario di divisione del mondo in aree di influenza decisa a Jalta, l’Italia, considerata Paese sconfitto, viene assegnata al controllo di Londra, che la considera strategica per i suoi interessi, a causa della sua posizione di frontiera fra Europa e Mediterraneo, fra Occidente e Oriente.

De Gasperi guida con autorevolezza l’Italia nel processo di trasformazione in uno Stato democratico, traghettandola verso l’Assemblea costituente e il referendum istituzionale. Evita un nuovo bagno di sangue, stringendo il patto costituzionale con Togliatti; aggancia il Paese all’area atlantica e all’Europa da unificare e crea le condizioni per il boom economico, che nel giro di pochi anni proietterà l’Italia fra le grandi economie del mondo. La rete di interessi stranieri, all’opera per destabilizzare la Penisola, deve fare i conti con le strategie del grande statista, che dimostrano chiaramente che l’Italia non si fa trattare come una colonia e sa svolgere un ruolo determinante sulla scena internazionale.

Dal carteggio riportato in questo libro emerge chiaramente l’ostilità dei governi britannici verso De Gasperi, considerato un serio ostacolo ai piani di Oltremanica per il controllo del Canale di Suez e del Medio Oriente. Fra coloro che vedevano come il fumo negli occhi lo statista italiano c’era Winston Churchill, riportato in sella dai conservatori nel 1951 per salvare l’impero coloniale ormai al tramonto: egli considerava gli italiani «amici e alleati di infimo valore» (p. 199). De Gasperi, presidente del Consiglio e leader della Democrazia Cristiana, poteva contare invece sull’endorsement politico, oltre che sul sostegno economico, degli Stati Uniti.

Gli AA. riportano, fra gli altri, documenti interni di Downing Street, del Foreign Office e dei servizi segreti britannici, per mezzo dei quali ricostruiscono la guerra clandestina contro il grande statista e le azioni a dir poco spregiudicate della propaganda occulta e della macchina del fango. Il principale strumento, l’Information Research Department, mette in circolazione notizie false e veline che vengono pubblicate da giornali e agenzie di stampa «clienti» dell’intelligence inglese. Nel ruolo di direttori e reporter, ex esponenti dell’Ovra e personaggi con trascorsi poco cristallini sono pronti a fare da cassa di risonanza alle fake news.

Il libro ricostruisce i casi più clamorosi: le false lettere di De Gasperi pubblicate dal Candido, e lo scandalo Montesi costruito a tavolino per colpire il figlio di un altro personaggio di spicco della Democrazia Cristiana, Attilio Piccioni, vice di De Gasperi a Palazzo Chigi e suo delfino. Conflitti internazionali e questioni politiche interne, dunque, vengono mischiate con cronaca nera e giudiziaria.

Gli attacchi mediatici si intensificano negli ultimi anni della carriera politica di De Gasperi, il quale muore improvvisamente il 19 agosto 1954. Al suo decesso potrebbe aver contribuito il dolore per le umiliazioni sofferte nell’ultima fase della sua vita politica: questa è l’ipotesi degli AA., basata anche su un articolo-testimonianza di Giulio Andreotti.

Il grande statista è una delle vittime di quella che dagli AA. viene definita «la maledizione italiana», che colpisce protagonisti della storia italiana deceduti prematuramente o uccisi. Una maledizione che inizia con Cavour e prosegue con Alcide De Gasperi, Enrico Mattei e Aldo Moro. Una maledizione che ha privato l’Italia di leader e di figure decisive in momenti cruciali.

The post La maledizione italiana first appeared on La Civiltà Cattolica.

For journalists who work online, the most dangerous assumption is that press freedom is territorial. It is not. In the digital age, journalists publish globally by default, and states increasingly assert criminal jurisdiction globally as well.

The recent assertion of U.S. authority to seize (kidnapping is such an “ugly” word) Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro illustrates a broader and deeply unsettling truth: Once a state claims jurisdiction, the limiting factor is not law, but power. For journalists, that reality has been quietly unfolding for decades.

Extraterritorial jurisdiction and the press

Domestic law (and law enforcement) does not stop at the border. Most countries reserve the “right” to prosecute those outside the country whose actions are directed inside the country, or which impact that country’s laws, citizens, or property.

The concept of “extraterritorial” jurisdiction of domestic law was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922 in United States v. Bowman, where the court noted that certain criminal statutes apply extraterritorially by their nature when they protect national interests. This is commonly called the “protective” principle of extraterritorial application of law. In the cyber era, courts have applied this doctrine aggressively to online conduct, including speech, publication, and data access.

Journalists are not exempt. While the First Amendment provides robust protection against U.S. prosecution for publishing truthful information of public concern, those protections are not portable. They do not bind foreign courts, nor do they prevent foreign states from asserting jurisdiction over content accessible within their borders.

Journalists prosecuted for online speech abroad

One of the earliest and most influential cases illustrating this problem is LICRA v. Yahoo! Inc., a 2000 French case where the court asserted jurisdiction over Yahoo, a U.S. company, for hosting Nazi memorabilia auctions accessible from France, where French law prohibited the display of Nazi materials.

Although Yahoo ultimately resisted enforcement in U.S. courts, the case established the principle that online publication can subject speakers and publishers to the criminal law of any country where the content is accessible. Countries routinely attempt to enforce their own laws — terrorism, defamation, etc., over the activities of journalists outside their borders.

For example, in Akçam v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights recognized the chilling effect of Turkey’s criminal laws on speech, including academic and journalistic commentary. But Turkish prosecutors continue to attempt to use Interpol red notices — which alert law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and detain an individual — to have foreign journalists prosecuted.

In 2023, Russian authorities issued criminal charges against foreign reporters for coverage of the war in Ukraine, alleging dissemination of “false information” about the Russian military — conduct that would be core protected speech in the United States — in violation of the Russian criminal code.

If other countries adopt the Maduro precedent, a foreign country can enforce its laws against U.S. journalists simply by force or power.

China has attempted to use Article 12 of the Cybersecurity Law of the PRC to prosecute those who disseminate online content that “endangers national security” or “damages the public interest” of China. Foreign journalists have been detained, expelled, or prosecuted for online reporting hosted on servers outside China but accessible within it. The Maduro regime itself cracked down on journalists within its own borders, prosecuting them for crimes like terrorism, incitement, and conspiracy.

The United States recently proposed to require those entering the country to provide border agents with access to five years of their social media history, threatening to use this information to ban, arrest, detain, or punish those whose history indicates some vaguely defined “un-American” political persuasion. Moreover, the U.S. government spent years attempting to obtain jurisdiction over Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his publication from abroad of materials the U.S. government claimed could not be published under U.S. law.

There is no ‘there there’

Typically, if speech is permitted (or protected) in the jurisdiction in which it is uttered or published, but prohibited or regulated in another country, the “injured” country has few remedies to go after the speaker/publisher. While it can charge the person with a crime and request that they be extradited, extradition treaties typically require that the conduct be considered “criminal” in both countries. And many countries (including the U.S.) do not typically extradite their own citizens.

Add to that the fact that most extradition treaties also permit the host country to resist extradition for “political speech” or “political activity,” and that an extradition request is subject to both a legal and political process. In addition, the likelihood that a U.S. journalist would be extradited to China, Turkey, or another country for First Amendment-protected activity is small — not nonexistent, but small.

Countries may, however, consider the activities of journalists to constitute violations of surveillance, theft, intellectual property, threat, defamation, or espionage laws, increasing the chance that they will be treated as nonpolitical offenses. Put simply, we extradite whom we want to countries we want for purposes we want. And that’s what other countries do as well.

Kidnapping, rendition, and the Ker–Frisbie Doctrine

What the Maduro case shows is that governments (including the U.S. government) reserve either the right or the pure ability to invade the territorial sovereignty of other nations to obtain jurisdiction over those (including heads of state) we believe have violated U.S. law. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the authority of the U.S. to “kidnap” persons overseas and bring them to U.S. courts — and presumably the opposite applies as well.

Under what is called the Ker-Frisbie Doctrine, the domestic courts do not look at the way the court obtained jurisdiction over the defendant (unless this “shocks the conscience”), but simply look at whether the defendant is physically present.

In the 1886 case Ker v. Illinois, the Supreme Court held that a defendant abducted from Peru could still be tried in U.S. court. It affirmed the principle in 1952 in Frisbie v. Collins. In the 1992 case United States v. Alvarez-Machain, after U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents abducted a doctor in Mexico and brought him to trial in the U.S., the court noted that the U.S./Mexico extradition treaty was just “one way” to obtain jurisdiction over a person. Apparently, kidnapping is another. As a federal appellate court made clear five years later in United States v. Noriega, this principle applies to foreign heads of state as well.

What this means for journalists

For journalists, the implication is sobering. Publishing an article, hosting leaked documents, or reporting on state misconduct online can expose a reporter to criminal liability in jurisdictions with radically different views of press freedom.

The fact that the work is lawful — and even celebrated — in the United States offers no protection abroad. We saw that when Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was abducted and dismembered by the Saudi government at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

What typically “saves” journalists is that foreign countries may fear invading the territorial sovereignty of the host nation. This is why most prosecutions of journalists occur in the country in which they are operating. Russia’s prosecutions of Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich follow this pattern, as does the Turkish government’s detention of freelance journalist Lindsey Snell in Turkey in 2016.

In a networked world, journalism is inherently transnational, but press freedom is not.

However, if a journalist can be lured into a compliant country, or if other countries adopt the Maduro precedent, a foreign country can enforce its laws on people in the U.S. simply by force or power. Instructive is the case of Henry Liu, a Chinese American critic of the Taiwanese government, which hired Taiwanese gang members to kill him in California, or the attempted murder in Brooklyn, New York, of Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.

While journalists and others may be protected by the First Amendment, that protection typically applies only if they are physically in the United States, and assumes that the U.S. has no interest in extraditing the journalist to another country. With the Maduro precedent extending the authority to kidnap those who we perceive to have violated the law of one nation, other nations can be expected to follow suit. It’s no longer about what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called “international niceties” but is about “a world, … the real world, … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Law as narrative, power as reality

The lesson for journalists is not that the law is meaningless, but that it is secondary. Power determines who is charged, who is seized, and who is left alone. Law supplies justification after the fact.

In a networked world, journalism is inherently transnational, but press freedom is not. For journalists who work online, the question is no longer merely, “Is this lawful where I am?” It is, “Who might claim jurisdiction, and what can they do to enforce it?”

The answer, increasingly, depends less on courts than on geopolitics.

In cyberspace, publication is global. So is exposure.

freedom.press/issues/what-the-…

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Welcome to 2026. Rümeysa Öztürk has now been facing deportation for 290 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like, and journalist Ya’akub Vijandre remains locked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over social media posts about issues he reported on. Read on for more on the year’s turbulent start for press freedom.

House committee votes to subpoena journalist for Venezuela reporting

A motion introduced Jan. 7 by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to subpoena journalist Seth Harp passed the House Oversight Committee in a bipartisan voice vote. Luna accused Harp of “leaking classified intel about Operation Absolute Resolve, including doxxing a Delta Force commander.”

The next day, Luna wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for a criminal investigation of Harp. The journalist, however, merely reported the name and publicly available online biography of the commander involved in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In a statement we issued with Defending Rights & Dissent and the First Amendment Foundation following the subpoena, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern explained that, “Identifying government officials by name is not doxxing or harassment, no matter how many times Trump allies say otherwise.” Everyone who supported Luna’s motion — including Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the oversight committee — should be ashamed.

• Read the statement

John Cusack wants to talk about paywalls

Actor and activist John Cusack, a founding board member of FPF, spoke to Columbia Journalism Review about why more news outlets need to remove paywalls for reporting based on Freedom of Information Act requests.

“There’s an irony in the fact that FOIA-based reporting often ends up behind a paywall, because the public owns government records. We fund their creation through taxes, and we fund the agencies that produce them. We fund the FOIA office that processes the disclosure request—the entire apparatus is built on the premise that this information belongs to us,” Cusack said.

He’s not just making a moral case, though. As Cusack notes, outlets like Wired and 404 Media have seen subscriptions surge after unpaywalling their public records reporting.

• Read the interview

The document giving ICE 80 million Medicaid patients’ data

Last year, FPF and 404 Media sued the Department of Homeland Security for a copy of a data-sharing agreement enabling Immigration and Customs Enforcement to receive personal data of Medicaid patients after the agency failed to turn it over in response to FOIA requests. A U.S. attorney working on that case then flagged that the document had quietly been released in a separate lawsuit.

At the end of December, a judge ruled that the Trump administration could resume sharing much of the data after it had been blocked from doing so, Politico reported. That means ICE can use Medicaid data in deportation cases starting Jan. 6, Politico added.

• Read more here

Don’t forget who really sold out CBS News

It’s easy to understand why the outrage over CBS News’ recent self-censorship and propaganda — from spiking stories to airing segments “saluting” the politicians it’s supposed to scrutinize — has largely been directed at CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and her boss, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison.

But, as Stern wrote for The Contrarian, let’s not forget who first sold out CBS News: former Paramount Chair Shari Redstone.

• Read the article

Transparency did not delay justice for Kelly or Epstein. Prosecutors did

One of the prosecutors who helped put sexual predator and R&B star R. Kelly behind bars wrote that releasing the Jeffrey Epstein documents without extensive redactions would hinder future prosecutions. Transparency, argued Elizabeth Geddes, would interfere with investigators gaming out 3D chess moves to build airtight cases against Epstein’s associates.

Most Americans, however, don’t share her confidence in the system that packs private prisons with small-time offenders while the Epsteins and Kellys of the world walk free for decades. In fact, there’s an excellent chance both of them would still be preying on young girls from Chicago to the U.S. Virgin Islands if not for the transparency forced by dogged journalism.

Stern and Jim DeRogatis, the reporter who broke the R. Kelly story, wrote about how misguided Geddes’ take and others like it are.

• Read more here

What we're reading

A rough year for journalists in 2025, with a little hope for things to turn around

The Associated Press
The year 2025 was a dangerous one for journalists in the U.S., reports the AP, citing our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. There were at least 170 assaults on journalists last year, 94% of them at the hands of law enforcement.

2025 left a stressed-out First Amendment

Free Speech Center
“By any measure, 2025 was a stressful year for those who worry about the First Amendment and its status as the bedrock of American liberty.”

The battle for press freedom in the streets

Columbia Journalism Review
Journalists who experience press freedom abuses should speak out and document the incidents on social media, in their publications, and via the Tracker, FPF Deputy Director of Advocacy Adam Rose told CJR.

Filming ICE agents is a First Amendment right. So why might it land you in jail?

Straight Arrow News
“There’s a reason DHS and its counterparts keep getting humiliated in court when they pretend to be victims,” Rose told Straight Arrow News. “They’re losing in front of juries, judges are calling them not credible.”

freedom.press/issues/identifyi…

404 Media

2025-10-01 14:25:57

404 Media and Freedom of the Press Foundation Sue DHS

Last week Freedom of the Press Foundation and 404 Media filed a lawsuit against the multiple parts of the U.S. government demanding they hand over a copy of an agreement that shares the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients with ICE. The data sharing marked a watershed moment for ICE and its access to highly sensitive data that is ordinarily siloed off from the agency. We believe it’s important for the public to see this unprecedented data sharing agreement for themselves.

As the Associated Press wrote when it first reported on the data sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agreement will give ICE the ability to find “the location of aliens.” The data shared includes home addresses and ethnicities, according to the Associated Press.

💡
Do you know anything else about this data sharing agreement? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

Both Freedom of the Press Foundation and 404 Media filed similar Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with DHS and CMS seeking a copy of the agreement. Neither agency provided the requested records in time, so we have now filed the lawsuit. In 404 Media’s case, CMS acknowledged the request but has not provided the records, and DHS did not even acknowledge the request at all.

404 Media’s request asked for a copy of the specific agreement, and if the agencies were unable to locate it, to alternatively provide copies of all agreements between DHS and CMS from this year.

“Despite having received the FOIA requests, and despite their obligations under the law, Defendants have failed to notify Plaintiffs of the scope of documents that they will produce or the scope of documents that they plan to withhold in response to the FOIA requests,” the lawsuit reads.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
Freedom of the Press Foundation is a non-profit organization that monitors press freedom issues in the U.S. and trains journalists on how to keep themselves and their sources safe. It regularly sues the U.S. government for access to records.

The data sharing agreement is just one of a growing list of ways that ICE is sourcing highly sensitive, and sometimes legally protected, information as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. ProPublica reported on the vast system the IRS is building to share millions of taxpayers’ data with ICE. 404 Media previously reported ICE has gained access to ISO Claimsearch, a massive insurance and medical bill database to find deportation targets. The database is nearly all encompassing and contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills.

Separately, 404 Media filed a lawsuit against ICE in September for access to the agency’s $2 million spyware contract.

If you want to support this work, become a paid subscriber here. If you would like to make a larger, tax deductible donation, please email us at donate@404media.co.

Membership

404 Media is a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.

^{Outpost Staff (404 Media)}

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A motion introduced today by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to subpoena journalist Seth Harp passed unanimously in the House Oversight Committee. Luna accused Harp of “leaking classified intel about Operation Absolute Resolve, including doxxing a Delta Force commander.”

The motion was apparently in response to Harp’s reporting the name and publicly available online biography of the commander involved in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Politico reports that the subpoena appears to have arisen from an agreement between Luna and California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia to issue a flurry of subpoenas, including some relating to Jeffrey Epstein. Garcia reportedly supported the Harp subpoena.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern said:

“Journalists don’t work for the government and can’t ‘leak’ government information — to the contrary, it’s their job to find and publish the news, whether the government wants it made public or not. Identifying government officials by name is not doxxing or harassment, no matter how many times Trump allies say otherwise. Reporters have a constitutional right to publish even classified leaks, as long as they don’t commit any crimes to obtain them, but Harp merely published information that was publicly available about someone at the center of the world’s biggest news story. In 2024, the House unanimously passed the PRESS Act to protect journalists from subpoenas about their newsgathering. The bill died after Trump ordered the Senate to kill it on Truth Social. Apparently, so did the principles of Reps. Luna, Garcia, and their colleagues.”

Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, said:

“Rep. Luna’s subpoena of investigative reporter Seth Harp is clearly designed to chill and intimidate a journalist doing some of the most significant investigative reporting on U.S. Special Forces. Her own statement makes clear that far from having a valid legislative purpose, she seeks to hold a journalist ‘accountable’ for what is essentially reporting she dislikes. Her rationale is based on easily debunkable disinformation. Harp did not share classified information about the U.S. regime change operation in Venezuela. And even if he had, his actions would firmly be protected by the First Amendment. This is a dangerous assault on the press freedom, as well as the U.S. people’s right to know. It is shameful it passed the committee.”

Bobby Block, executive director of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation, added:

“This is a naked attempt to intimidate a journalist for doing his job. Rep. Luna’s own words make clear this subpoena has no legitimate legislative purpose — it’s about punishing reporting she doesn’t like. That kind of abuse of power strikes at the heart of the First Amendment and threatens the public’s right to know.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

freedom.press/issues/house-com…