Mrs. Bhutan + IlPalesecheamo

Folgaria - via vai 34
(Friday, 13 March 20:00)

Mrs. Bhutan è il progetto nato nel 2024 dall’ incontro fra l’omonima rapper e Wario Pianesi (Rico degli Uochi Toki) che decide di dotarsi unicamente di una Nintendo DS per creare basi storte sulle quali Mrs. Bhutan reppa in angloitaliano. Dall’ imponente quantità di brani prodotti ne scelgono dodici che faranno parte del loro primo album uscito a luglio. Il live è un susseguirsi di rime parlate con ferocia dalla missis mascherata di frange, su basi fatte di suoni spigolosi, che sembrano stati scovati nei registri interni di una CPU del 1993.

IlPalesecheamo è un progetto musicale italiano che fonde cantautorato, electro e hip-hop, noto per l'album "Una storia italiana" (2023). Ideato da Adriano Cataldo, il progetto esplora sonorità moderne con testi cantautorali.

Info: talibasterdei@proton.me

gancio.daghe.org/event/mrs-bhu…

Fuori Alfredo dal 41 bis. Iniziative a Carrara e a Pisa, 14 e 18 marzo 2026

piazza Ingolstadt, Marina di Carrara, Carrara, MS - piazza Ingolstadt, Marina di Carrara, Carrara, MS
(sabato, 14 marzo 17:30)

Fuori Alfredo dal 41 bis
Iniziative a Carrara e a Pisa, 14 e 18 marzo 2026

Ai servi del potere dico una cosa sola: potete tenermi in galera per il resto della vita ma rassegnatevi, non riuscirete a togliermi la coerenza e il rispetto di me stesso, né tanto meno il piacere e la voglia di combattervi.
Alfredo Cospito, 2021

Il 41 bis impiegato contro i rivoluzionari è una tra le principali espressioni dell’offensiva repressiva avviata dagli ultimi governi. Alfredo Cospito, anarchico finito in carcere nel 2012 per aver colpito uno dei responsabili del disastro nucleare che verrà, dopo quasi 10 anni veniva trasferito in regime di 41 bis e al contempo messo a rischio di una condanna all’ergastolo ostativo. La nuova inquisizione di Stato desiderava un annientamento totale.

Tuttavia, in particolare dopo l’inizio di un lunghissimo sciopero della fame da parte di Alfredo, si è sviluppato un grande movimento di solidarietà internazionale, che ha infranto la coltre di silenzio che vigeva su un regime detentivo prima di allora inviolabile e ostacolato la macchina della repressione.

Risale allo scorso anno la sentenza di non luogo a procedere nei confronti di una decina di anarchici, tra cui Alfredo Cospito, inquisiti a Perugia per la pubblicazione di un giornale anarchico rivoluzionario. Un’inchiesta che era stata un importante sostegno al trasferimento in 41 bis.

A prescindere da condanne e assoluzioni, sappiamo bene come il ministero della galera sia capace di scovare sempre nuove motivazioni per mantenere Alfredo in quella tomba per vivi. Così come sappiamo quanto il 41 bis sia un perno fondamentale nel sistema carcerario. Lo vediamo oggi con la riorganizzazione del regime detentivo al fine di concentrare una consistente parte dei detenuti in alcune carceri in Sardegna.

Con l’approssimarsi della scadenza dei primi quattro anni di applicazione di questo regime nei confronti di Alfredo, torniamo in piazza contro il 41 bis.

Nell’attuale contesto di guerra la tortura bianca del 41 bis è un monito contro quanti potrebbero decidere di farla finita con lo Stato e il capitalismo. Contro tutti i padroni della guerra, dello sfruttamento e delle tecno-scienze, continueremo sempre a sostenere le ragioni dell’azione diretta e rivoluzionaria.

Presidi
Sabato 14 marzo 2026: Marina di Carrara, piazza Ingolstadt, ore 17:30.
Mercoledì 18 marzo 2026: Pisa, piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, ore 17:30.

lapunta.org/event/fuori-alfred…

Muon S live performance @Next Emerson

Next-Emerson - Via di Bellagio 15
(lunedì, 16 marzo 20:30)

La Sala Giochi del Next Emerson, aperta ogni lunedì, ospita la performance di danza Tip Tap elettronica industrial MOUN S, eseguita dai francesi Anna Gaïotti e Jean Bender
Il live inizierà poco dopo la cena di rito settimanale, aperta all'utenza.

https://annagaiotti.com/MUON-S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IICTd-lOlhQ

info accessibilità:
https://csaexemerson.org/index.php/csaccessibile/

lapunta.org/event/muon-s-live-…

Mercato 47

CSA Magazzino 47 - via industriale 10 Brescia
(venerdì, 13 marzo 16:00)

TUTTI I VENERDÌ DALLE 15.00 ALLE 19.00

Prodotti biologici, naturali, tradizionali, dall’agricoltura contadina e dai piccoli produttori: una spesa diversa è possibile pane, ortaggi, frutta, vini, formaggi, miele, pasta, cereali, conserve, cosmesi, produttori del commercio equo e tanto altro ancora per difenderci dall’aumento dei prezzi, per acquistare prodotti di qualità, per incontrare e conoscere i piccoli produttori, per non essere asserviti all’industria agro-alimentare e alle grandi catene di distribuzioni, per il consumo critico e perche’ la spesa sia un momento di incontro e socialità.

Con “Mercato 47” ci siamo proposti di realizzare un’opportunità di incontro diretto, senza forme di intermediazione commerciale, tra consumatori e piccoli produttori, contadini, artigiani, che siano attenti alla qualità del prodotto e delle relazioni (sociali, con l’ambiente e con il territorio) che si sviluppano durante il processo produttivo e di commercializzazione.

Crediamo che questo sia il modo per garantire una spesa di qualità, di prodotti genuini, tipici, biologici e naturali, a un prezzo inferiore rispetto a quello praticato dalla distribuzione commerciale, e anche per assicurare un equo corrispettivo al lavoro contadino e artigianale, costretto spesso a piegarsi alle condizioni imposte dall’industria agro-alimentare e dalle grandi catene commerciali.

È un modo concreto di combattere il caro-prezzi, l’aumento del costo della vita, l’erosione dei salari da parte dell’inflazione e della progressiva riduzione della spesa pubblica per i servizi sociali. È un modo per costruire dal basso relazioni economiche estranee alle logiche di puro profitto, privilegiando nel consumo i piccoli produttori attenti alla salvaguardia dell’ambiente, della biodiversità, delle produzioni tipiche, genuine e di qualità anche per contrastare l’omologazione del gusto imposta dalla grande industria agro-alimentare.

È un modo, infine, per recuperare la dimensione popolare del mercato come momento di incontro e di scambio tra le persone, con una serie di proposte di contorno (degustazioni, presentazioni di prodotti, concerti, proiezioni cinematografiche, presentazione di libri ecc.), che facciano della nostra spesa settimanale un’occasione di socialità, ma pure di ragionamento su come un mondo diverso si possa costruire anche a partire dai nostri comportamenti quotidiani, compreso ciò che mangiamo, che beviamo e che consumiamo.
Crediamo che sia importante che un’esperienza come questa sia nata e si sviluppi in un Centro Sociale Autogestito come il Magazzino 47, luogo di sperimentazione di una socialità liberata e di costruzione di pratiche politiche che, dal basso, si oppongono agli assetti economici imposti dalla globalizzazione capitalista.
Ricordiamo che a “Mercato 47” potrete trovare piccoli produttori di ortaggi, frutta, formaggi e salumi, farine, miele e altro ancora. Ma, poiché, vogliamo che per voi possa essere l’occasione della vostra spesa settimanale, “Mercato 47” organizza anche la vendita di quei prodotti per i quali non è possibile avere la presenza diretta dei produttori. E così troverete pane, pasta, olio, salse, riso, succhi, agrumi (nella stagione invernale) tutti biologici: questi prodotti vengono venduti con un ricarico medio del 20% sul “prezzo sorgente”, che consente a “Mercato 47” di pagare le spese di gestione e a chi acquista di operare un significativo risparmio sul prezzo pagato per prodotti di uguale qualità, acquistati nei normali circuiti di distribuzione. Potrete poi trovare anche una vasta gamma di prodotti del commercio equo e solidale: caffè, te, succhi di frutta, riso, orzo, legumi, ecc.
Ricordiamo ancora che a margine di Mercato 47 ogni venerdì sera sarà aperta l’enoteca, ci saranno cene a prezzi popolari e organizzeremo degustazioni, piccoli concerti, proiezioni di film, presentazioni di libri, dibattiti. E che lo spazio di Mercato 47 è aperto alle idee, alle iniziative, ai contributi di chi intenda proporre momenti di socialità, di cultura, di svago, e che le realtà collettive possano proporsi per l’organizzazione di cene di autofinanziamento.
Per dirla con Serge Latouche, economista francese, il mercato “e’ innanzitutto uno spazio di socialità specifico prima di essere un luogo di scambio di merci. Luogo per eccellezza della vita pubblica… occasione di incontri, luogo in cui si mescolano le generazioni, i sessi, le etnie diversi. La piazza di mercato appare come un luogo antitetico rispetto a quello del potere ufficiale”. Anche per questo, in un Centro Sociale Autogestito, si fa Mercato 47.

lasitua.org/event/mercato-47-1…

presentazione percorsi e autodifesa digitale

CSA Magazzino 47 - via industriale 10 Brescia
(domenica, 22 marzo 18:00)

DATA DA DEFINIRE

Percorsi di resistenza e liberazione dalle piattaforme

Privacy, crittografia, autogestione e decentralizzazione

Discussione sull'autonomia digitale @mag47

(Oggi, domani? Chi lo sa... Stay tuned!)

lasitua.org/event/presentazion…

normativ+limonov // marmellataestrema

arci no space zone - via vergnano 65-67 brescia
(venerdì, 3 aprile 22:00)

venerdì 2 gennaio saranno due band a farci compagnia nel mese più freddo: i @limonov.band da milano e i @normativ.band da mantova per una serata tutta punk punk punk.

anche questa volta ci sarà il karaoke(y) estremo a farci compagnia, per cui segnati durante la serata e canta a spaccagola!

l'ingresso è sempre free con tessera arci.

extrememusicforkindpeople

lasitua.org/event/normativlimo…

I Pesissimi LIVE

Casa di Quartiere "Scipione dal Ferro" - 50, Via Sante Vincenzi, Cirenaica, San Donato-San Vitale, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, 14007, Italia
(venerdì, 6 marzo 20:30)

I PESISSIMI (Bologna) - I membri (aff)fondatori Stefano “Sbarbo” Cavedoni e Andrea “Andy Bellombrosa” Dallavalle, con l’assistenza (anche medica) di Stefano "Bitto Bitume" Bittelli (basso) e Carlo "Rullo Frullo" Cavazzoni (batteria), ripercorrono tutti gli (in)successi dei mitici Skiantos

ORDINARY FRANK (Modena) - Band pop rock italiana immeritatamente sconosciuta ai più. Alternano sapientemente un sound anni '90 ad un cantautorato classico venato di ironia e grasse risate

GENERALE BANANA (Carpi) - Dopo i recenti successi ottenuti a Radio Due, il Generale torna sul palco del Lardo per presentare i suoi nuovi brani surreali

Conduce la serata il fantasista Michele Bombo Lamberti

Concerti - ore 20:30
Ingresso a offerta libera
Possibilità di cenare (info 346 614 9292)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lardo ai Giovani" nasce nel 2015 con lo scopo di dare visibilità ad #artisti e #band che suonano #musica #demenziale. Grazie all'organizzazione di #concerti e #festival, il Lardo ha messo in contatto tra loro moltissime realtà demenziali sul territorio nazionale

balotta.org/event/i-pesissimi-…

Clocks come in many styles and sizes, with perhaps the most visually pleasing ones involving marbles. Watching these little spheres obey gravity and form clearly readable numbers on a clock has strong mesmerizing qualities. If you’re not into really big marble clocks, or cannot quite find the space for a desk-sized clock, then the tiny marble clock by [Jens] may be an option.

While he totally loved the massive marble clock that [Ivan Miranda] built, it is a massive contraption that’s hard to justify as a permanent installation. His take on the concept thus makes it as small as possible, by using a pick-and-place style arm to place the marbles instead. Although the marbles don’t do a lot of rolling this way, it’s decidedly more quiet, and replace the rumbling and click-clacking of marbles with the smooth motion of a robotic arm.

Another benefit of this clock is that it’s cheap to make, with a price tag of less than $23. A big part of this is the use of cheap SG90 micro servos, and a permanent magnet along with a mechanism that pushes the marble off said magnet. Perhaps the biggest issue with this clock is that the arm somewhat obscures the time while it’s moving around, but it’s definitely another interesting addition to the gallery of marble clocks.

We have previously seen such clocks built out of wood and brass as well as 3D-printed using pendulum mechanisms, which can be made pretty compact as well, albeit with a more analog vibe.

Thanks to [Hari] for the tip.

youtube.com/embed/aYX8qytpilQ?…

hackaday.com/2026/03/06/the-wo…

Out of all of Batman’s massive array of tools which turn a relatively ordinary person into a superhero, perhaps his most utilitarian is his grappling gun — allowing him the ability to soar around his city like Spiderman or Superman. [John Boss] isn’t typically fighting crime, but he did develop his own grappling gun of sorts which gives him another superpower: the ability to easily scale snowy hills to quickly get back to the top.

The grappling gun takes inspiration from a commonly used tool called a power ascender, which is often used in industry applications where climbing is required. This one is held in the hand and uses a brushless motor with a belt-driven 3:1 reduction for increased torque. The pulley system, bearings, and motor are all housed in a 3D printed enclosure and are powered by rechargeable Milwaukee power tool batteries. During prototyping the rope intake and output feed locations had to be moved to increase the pulley’s grabbing ability, and with a working prototype he swapped a lot of the plastic 3D printed parts out for metal to increase the sturdiness of the device.

The grappling gun was originally designed for a smaller child to get hoisted up a hill on a sled, but when stress testing the device [John] found out that it actually has more than enough capability to haul even an adult up a hill on skis. As an added bonus, the outfeed for the rope can be put into a bag and used to automatically coil the rope up when he’s done at the hill. Although this is a great solution for a portable rope tow, for something more permanent and more powerful take a look at this backyard rope tow that was built from spare parts.

youtube.com/embed/osh5q5kJruU?…

hackaday.com/2026/03/06/portab…

An early print of the linoleum block that Kristina started carving during the podcast. (It’s the original Cherry MX patent drawing, re-imagined for block printing.)
This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over assorted beverages to bring you the latest news, mystery sound results show, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so.

In the news, we’ve launched a brand-new contest! Yes, the Green-Powered Challenge is underway, and we need your entry to truly make it a contest. You have until April 24th to enter, so show us what you can do with power you scrounge up from the environment around you!

On What’s That Sound, Kristina was leaning toward some kind of distant typing sounds, but [Konrad] knew it was our own Tom Nardi’s steam heat radiator pinging away.

After that, it’s on to the hacks and such, beginning with an exploration of all the gross security vulnerabilities in a cheap WiFi extender, and we take a look inside a little black and white pay television like you’d find in a Greyhound station in the 80s and 90s.

We also discuss the idea of mixing custom spray paint colors on the fly, a pen clip that never bends out of shape, and running video through a guitar effects pedal. Finally, we discuss climate engineering with disintegrating satellites, and the curse of everything device.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/…

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

• iTunes
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• RSS
• YouTube
• Check out our Libsyn landing page

Episode 360 Show Notes:

News:

• Get Your Green Power On!

What’s that Sound?

• Congrats to [Konrad] who knew this was Tom Nardi’s radiator!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Exploring Security Vulnerabilities In A Cheap WiFi Extender
• Vend-o-Vision: Trading Quarters For Watching TV In Public
• Using A Solid-State Elastocaloric Cooler To Freeze Water
  
  • A Refrigerator Cooled By Rubber Bands

  
  

• Color Mixing Spray Paint On The Fly
• NASA Uses Mars Global Localization As GNSS Replacement For The Perseverance Rover
  
  • Censible: A Robust and Practical Global Localization Framework for Planetary Surface Missions

  
  

• Designing A Pen Clip That Never Bends Out Of Shape

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Running Video Through A Guitar Effects Pedal
  • Neither Android Nor IOS: DIY Smartphone Runs On ESP32!
  • SNES Controllers Are (Almost) SPI-Compatible
  • Making A 286 Think It’s Alive Again

  
  

• Kristina’s Picks:
  
  • Why Peeling Adhesive Tape Is So Unreasonably Noisy
  • Computer Terminal Replica Inspired By 70s Hardware
  • Fish Drives Tank

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Accidental Climate Engineering With Disintegrating Satellites
• The Curse Of The Everything Device

hackaday.com/2026/03/06/hackad…

The SGI O2 was SGI’s last-ditch attempt at a low-end MIPS-based workstation back in 1996, and correspondingly didn’t use the hottest parts of the time, nor did it offer much of an upgrade path. None of which is a concern to hobbyists who are more than happy to work around any hardware- and software limitations to e.g. install much faster CPUs. While quite a few CPU upgrades were possible with just some BGA chip reworking skills, installing the 900 MHz RM7900 would require some PROM hacking, which [mattst88] recently took a shake at.

The initial work on upgrading SGI O2 systems was done in the early 2000s, with [Joe Page] and [Ian Mapleson] running into the issue that these higher frequency MIPS CPUs required a custom IP32 PROM image, for which they figured that they’d need either SGI’s help or do some tricky reverse-engineering. Since SGI is no longer around, [mattst88] decided to take up the torch.

After downloading a 512 kB binary dump of the last version of the O2’s PROM, he set to work reverse-engineering it, starting by dissembling the file. A big part of understanding MIPS PROM code is understanding how the MIPS architecture works, including its boot process, so much of what followed was a crash-course on the subject.

With that knowledge it was much easier to properly direct the Capstone disassembler and begin the arduous process of making sense of the blob of data and code. The resulting source files now reassemble into bit-identical ROM files, which makes it likely that modifying it to support different CPUs is now possible with just a bit more work.

For those who want to play along, [mattst88] has made his ip32prom-decompiler project available on GitHub.

Thanks to [adistuder] for the tip.

Top image: Silicon Graphics 1600SW LCD display and O2 workstation. (Source: Wikimedia)

hackaday.com/2026/03/06/revers…

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, all parties to which have abysmal recent records on press freedom, is sure to bring an escalation in censorship and retaliation against journalists. That makes it a perfect time (as it has been for over a century) to reform the Espionage Act, one of the primary weapons the government uses to stifle whistleblowing and war reporting. Read on for more.

The public deserves to know when Iran war reporting is stifled

Journalists covering the U.S. and Israel’s new war on Iran should be telling their audiences not only what they know but what they were prevented from finding out, and by whom.

That doesn’t just mean an occasional editorial bemoaning threats to press freedom. Those are valuable, but on their own, they turn speech suppression into a side issue. With an unprecedented censorship infrastructure surrounding this war, it’s anything but that. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern wrote about why reporting should include acknowledgment and explanation of how censorship impacts what the public sees and reads in each story.

• Read more

Florida should not get its own mini-CIA

If Florida enacts House Bill 945, it will create a national first — a CIA-style structure at the state level that blurs the traditional line between state law enforcement and intelligence work. And it likely wouldn’t remain a local experiment. Red states often borrow aggressively from one another’s policy playbooks, on everything from gerrymandering to anti-abortion laws to transporting immigrants to Democratic-led states.

Stern, along with FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper and Florida First Amendment Foundation Executive Director Bobby Block, wrote for The Guardian that state-level intelligence offices empowered to scrutinize residents based on ideology are sure to be used against journalists.

• Read the op-ed

A judge finally called a newsroom raid what it is

When a judge orders a journalist not to publish a story, everyone recognizes it as a prior restraint — the most serious First Amendment violation there is, according to the Supreme Court, and one that has never been allowed against the press. But when the government kicks down a reporter’s door and walks out with computers, or seizes a news photographer’s equipment at a protest, that’s often seen as something different.

It’s not — in both cases, the reporter is left unable to publish news, which is the harm that the prohibition on prior restraints seeks to avoid. Magistrate Judge William Porter’s February order restricting how prosecutors could search materials seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson recognizes this reality by treating the seizure of her materials, containing terabytes of data, source communications, and works in progress, as a prior restraint. We’ve been critical of other aspects of Porter’s order but he at least deserves credit for that.

• Read more

Assange case coming back to bite ‘conventional’ journalists

For years we warned that the Espionage Act prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, started by the first Trump administration and shamefully continued by the Biden administration, would lead to attacks on more conventional reporters, regardless of official claims that Assange wasn’t really a journalist so the press needn’t worry.

In the past two months, the federal government and its defenders have used the Assange case to normalize and defend everything from seizing Natanson’s devices in violation of federal law to accusing journalist Seth Harp of illegally “leaking” identities of government officials. FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm explained this troubling trend in a video (and we’ve got plenty of other great video content on YouTube).

• Watch it here

Help our SecureDrop team make our lives online more secure

WEBCAT, a new software tool under development at FPF, has just entered alpha testing. The goal of the project is to allow web browsers to verify the origin of code before they run it. By guarding against hacked web servers, WEBCAT aims to make our lives online more secure.

We invite adventurous web users to try out our Firefox browser extension, and web application developers to experiment with our new decentralized web domain enrollment system.

• Read more

What we’re reading

Nashville reporter who has detailed ICE activity detained in South Nashville stop

Nashville Banner
We don’t yet know if Estefany Rodríguez’s detention was in retaliation for her reporting, but we certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Immigration and Customs Enforcement abductions of immigrant journalists take the reporters best equipped to cover the agency’s activities off the beat.

Photographer indicted after Minnesota church protest coverage

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
Junn Bollmann is the latest journalist charged for covering the same church protest that prompted the Trump administration’s outrageous arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. The Justice Department will likely lose these cases, and the journalists should sue.

Chicago appeals court vacates judge’s use-of-force injunction on immigration agents

Chicago Tribune
The 7th Circuit has apparently decided it’s in the business of correcting “injustices” no one asked it to correct. The one it chose to start with? An already dismissed order restraining violent immigration agents from assaulting journalists.

Prairieland ICE shooting trial jury gets closer look at ‘antifa’ materials defendants owned

KERA News
“Zines are really like this little atomic unit of freedom of the press with simple pamphlets that you just pass around. It begs the question of whether the prosecution believes that we should have a First Amendment in the first place,” said Lydia Koza, wife of defendant Autumn Hill. Also, read our 2025 op-ed on how the federal case in Texas threatens press freedom.

Some of the best news stories start with a public records request

Poynter
Nearly everything is fair game for a records request at public universities, “even the amount of money dining halls spend on ranch dressing,” write student journalists for Michigan State University’s The State News.

The New York Times takes the Pentagon to court

Columbia Journalism Review
The Pentagon’s media policy is “unconstitutional, but ... what they say after the fact makes their arguments even worse,” Timm said. They “admitted that they don’t care if people break this as long as they agree with them.”

Use our action center to tell Congress to pass Rep. Tlaib’s bill to fix the arcane and dangerous Espionage Act so the government can no longer treat whistleblowers and journalists like enemy spies.

• EMAIL CONGRESS

freedom.press/issues/press-mus…

When a judge orders a journalist not to publish a story, everyone recognizes it as a prior restraint — the most serious First Amendment violation there is, according to the Supreme Court, and one that has never been allowed against the press. But when the government kicks down a reporter’s door and walks out with computers, or seizes a news photographer’s camera at a protest, that’s often seen as something different.

It’s not. In both cases, the reporter is left unable to publish news, which is the exact harm that the prohibition on prior restraints seeks to avoid. Magistrate Judge William Porter’s February order restricting how prosecutors could search materials seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson recognizes this reality. Porter treated the seizure of her devices, containing terabytes of data, source communications, and works in progress, as a prior restraint — a recognition long overdue, and one that courts have been notably reluctant to make explicit.

We’ve been critical of other aspects of Porter’s order. He should have required that Natanson’s materials be returned outright and should have sanctioned prosecutors for omitting the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — a law that prohibits exactly this kind of raid in most circumstances — from their warrant application. He admitted the Trump administration has a track record of falsely claiming national security threats, but deferred to them anyway. But at least he framed the issue correctly before his anticlimactic conclusion.

There’s actually an argument that seizures are worse than orders not to publish. Traditional prior restraints are so nakedly unconstitutional that news outlets sometimes opt to just ignore them, dare the court to hold a journalist in contempt of court for reporting the news, and publish anyway. That happened in Colorado, where a reporter from BusinessDen defied an order to return court records the court itself had released. The judge backed down.

But you can’t choose to ignore a seizure and risk contempt. When the FBI has your hard drives, you don’t have the option of printing the story anyway.

Plus, a traditional prior restraint targets specific information that the government claims (almost always falsely) poses some kind of extraordinary threat, the most famous example being the Pentagon Papers. A seizure of a modern journalist’s devices captures everything from stories in progress to research notes to contacts, most of which have nothing to do with whatever law enforcement is investigating. The seizure of Natanson’s materials likely killed far more stories than any targeted court order ever could have, which also increases the potential chilling effect among other journalists’ worried about losing not just one scoop, but all of their hard work, by publishing materials that upset the government.

The seizure of Natanson’s materials likely killed far more stories than any targeted court order ever could have.

Florida journalist Tim Burke faced the same predicament. Agents raided his Tampa home in 2023 and walked out with essentially every piece of equipment in his newsroom. The seized data included reporting that had nothing to do with his purported crime of violating computer fraud laws by publishing newsworthy information (outtakes of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Ye, formerly Kanye West, where the recording artist went on antisemitic rants) that he found on an unencrypted website.

The seizure was, for all intents and purposes, an indefinite prior restraint on his First Amendment right to report and publish newsworthy information. The government prevented Burke from reporting for more than nine months before even indicting him. Then the indictment sought forfeiture of his computers, claiming that his reporting in progress was criminal “contraband,” an argument the government is now floating in Natanson’s case as well.

The raid of the Marion County Record is another example. Police in Kansas walked out with computers, phones, and reporting materials, forcing the newspaper to pivot in order to publish its next edition on time. It makes little difference to the impacted journalists whether the government says “you can’t publish this” or “you no longer have what you want to publish.”

Less dramatic infringements can have the same effect — journalists covering civil unrest, for example, might be working with a single phone or camera. Seizure of those devices stops them from publishing their coverage (and potentially exposes their sources) just like a newsroom raid. The latter are relatively rare, but the former happens all the time.

Porter is not the first to recognize this dynamic. The Supreme Court has said that seizures of materials protected by the First Amendment run “the risk of prior restraint” and can’t be justified by probable cause alone. As one federal appellate court put it, “The government need not ban a protected activity … if it can simply proceed upstream and dam the source.”

But the judge may be the first to put it so plainly in the newsgathering context. He deserves credit for understanding the constitutional implications of silencing Natanson and not shying away from expanding the legal concept of “prior restraints” to seizures of electronics that the courts that developed that jurisprudence decades ago could never have anticipated. Maybe next time, he’ll follow through with the right remedy — ordering the immediate return of all the seized materials and sanctioning the prosecutors who took them under false pretenses.

freedom.press/issues/a-judge-f…