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New federal privacy bill called a ‘consensus’ of existing state laws

Chris Teale — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:00:00 -0400

After multiple failed attempts, the House is once again trying to pass a national data privacy law, and proponents argue that this one can succeed where the rest have failed.

Rep. John Joyce, a Pennsylvania Republican and the leader of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Data Privacy Working Group, introduced the Securing and Establishing Consumer Uniform Rights and Enforcement over Data Act, known as the SECURE Data Act, in April.

Lawmakers and expert witnesses got their first chance this week to debate the new legislation, and many argued that it takes the most positive aspects of the 22 state-level data privacy laws and codifies them into a national standard. States have legislated in the absence of Congressional action with various laws, whether they be comprehensive data privacy laws or focused on narrower issues like data security.

“The SECURE Data Act takes the best ideas of the state privacy laws and incorporates many of the ideas developed over the past several years,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Florida Republican who chairs the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, during his opening statement. “It seeks to establish meaningful consumer protections while creating a uniform national standard that promotes innovation, economic growth and regulatory certainty.”

Supporters said the new bill incorporates various positive aspects and requirements from existing state privacy laws, including protecting consumers’ ability to exercise control over their personal data; having heightened safeguards for processing sensitive data; requiring disclosures to consumers; placing restrictions and obligations on service providers; and setting data security requirements.

“Equally important, however, is that these agreed upon privacy protections are effective,” Tyler Bridegan, a partner in the Privacy and Cybersecurity team at the international law firm Womble Bond Dickinson LLP and a former director of privacy and technology enforcement for the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said in written testimony. “When enforced properly, these requirements provide a powerful tool for consumers and government regulators alike.”

Others noted the bipartisan nature of those state-level privacy laws and applauded that the SECURE Data Act uses a similar structure.

Kate Goodloe, managing director at the Business Software Alliance technology trade group, said it is built on a “core set of rights for consumers,” based on the consensus that they should be able to access, correct, or delete their data, and have the right to opt out of their data’s sale.

Having a strong foundation in state laws that have already passed means this latest effort should be less likely to flounder, she said, as lawmakers in state legislatures have already shown what is possible.

“In the past, efforts to draft comprehensive federal privacy legislation started from a blank slate, without the benefit of a consensus to emerge from the states,” Goodloe said in written testimony. “But the landscape of American consumer privacy laws is no longer blank. Four years ago, when this Committee advanced a comprehensive privacy bill to the full House of Representatives, just one state privacy law was in effect. Today, 22 states have acted. Grounding federal privacy legislation in the structure already widely adopted across the states is a critical step.”

Critics, however, derided this latest piece of legislation, not just for preempting existing state laws but also for the other aspects contained within. They noted its partisan nature, compared to previous bipartisan bills that have been debated in Congress.

Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the bill is “fundamentally flawed” and too weak, as it “sets a weaker standard than the weakest state law as the national ceiling.”

Fitzgerald said the bill puts the onus on individuals to protect their own privacy rather than set any limitations on the companies that collect that data, and strips away key protections that exist in state law, including requirements to honor universal opt-out mechanisms to allow consumers to opt out quickly from targeted advertising and the sale of their personal data. And she said it does not require companies to carry out data protection assessments, nor does it include a private right of action that would help enforce it.

“Rather than advancing consumer rights, its passage would cement weak rules into law, deter stronger future laws, and leave Americans more vulnerable than ever,” Fitzgerald said in written testimony. “Passage of the SECURE Data Act would put many Americans in a worse position than they are in now, making the enactment of this bill worse than no federal privacy law at all.”

Some lawmakers were similarly perturbed. Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who is the full committee’s ranking member, said in his opening statement that preempting existing state laws would “eliminate hard won privacy protections that millions of Americans currently enjoy,” and “invalidate any state law that relates to the bill.” And it would mean states would be “forever barred” from addressing future harms.

“[This] bill locks in the failed notice and consent status quo, then compounds loophole upon loophole to water down its provisions,” Pallone said. “And then, to make matters worse, it adds expansive preemption that will leave many Americans with fewer privacy protections than they have today. Rather than taking the strongest consumer protections from the existing state privacy laws, this bill is assembled from industry-friendly state privacy laws that have been pushed by Big Tech. It is, therefore, no surprise that this bill allows Big Tech and others to continue their ongoing privacy violations.”

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New York MTA seeks AI subway ‘track intrusion’ tech

Jose Martinez, The City — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0400

This article was originally published by The City Reporter.

The MTA is taking another swipe at tapping into technology that can detect when a person, object or animal is about to end up on the subway tracks.

The transportation authority is seeking a provider to design, build and test an artificial intelligence-supported track intrusion detection system, according to a contract notice it posted in April. The prototype would “evaluate performance under real-world conditions” at an underground station, as well as at one elevated stop. The stations have not yet been determined.

About 6% of all subway delays last year were pinned on the presence of a person or debris on the tracks.

Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, told The City Reporter that the project is akin to other high-tech advances within the subway system, including the rollout of tap-and-go fare payment and the testing of new fare gates.

“One of the big pushes we’re in the middle of in this new capital program is the modernization of the system, acknowledging that we’ve got a 100-year-old system and we’re dutifully trying to tack all these great new technologies onto it to make it work better,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of successes, but it’s very challenging to implement them.”

The latest effort to test track intrusion detection technology comes after there were 1,297 unauthorized entries on the tracks last year — a 22% increase from the 1,062 such incidents in 2019, MTA numbers reveal. An “unauthorized entry” is defined by the MTA as an unauthorized person entering off-limits areas such as tunnels.

That can include people trying to retrieve a dropped item, being pushed down during a fight or assault, ending up on the tracks while under the influence of drugs or alcohol or attempting suicide.

The figures also show there were 491 track intrusions over the first four months of 2026, down slightly from 505 in the same period last year — and from a high of 537 from January through April of 2022.

The six-page solicitation outlines the enduring hope of developing subway-specific detectors that can spot people or objects above a certain size entering the tracks intentionally or accidentally, after several other systems were tested at a pair of Manhattan stations from 2014 to 2019.

It’s a tall order. The MTA wants a system that’s “capable of detecting pre-intrusion behaviors under low and high passenger density on the station platforms.”

In a transit system known for the idiosyncrasies of some passengers, the systems would also be required to flag “erratic movements” and people leaning into the tracks while generating a “timely and appropriate response” through alerts for train operators, station staff and control center personnel.

The solicitation notes that the two-year test at two stations would cost between $10 million and $50 million.

Torres-Springer said the MTA is aiming to award a contract for the project by the end of this year.

MTA officials said that previous tests yielded key takeaways about the strengths and limitations of detection systems, while conceding that rapidly advancing AI capabilities could be a solution in a subway setting.

“We determined that the technology worked to identify a track intrusion, but it didn’t work to do it in a precise-enough way that we could manage how we respond to it,” Torres-Springer said. “And now it is apparent that AI technology has evolved such that we should be able to do much better than that.”

However, nonprofit the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project warned that the expansion of cameras in the city and the use of AI-driven tech may be cause for concern.

“As with any tool that could be used for surveillance and will expand cameras across the city, transparency and reporting is key to accountability,” said William Owen, communications director for the local tech watchdog group. “MTA continues to test unproven AI on New York City Transit instead of real infrastructure and safety improvements to the subway.”

In an effort to discourage people from going onto the tracks, the MTA installed steel platform-edge barriers at more than 100 stations by the end of 2025, and has announced plans to have them in close to 200 of its 472 stations by the end of this year. The agency had previously committed to testing platform doors at three stations after straphanger Michelle Go was pushed to her death in front of an R train in January 2022 at the Times Square-42nd Street station.

The track intrusion test would mark the latest step for the MTA on a winding route to developing systems designed to cut down on safety risks to commuters, transit workers and anyone who ends up in the path of a train.

“We are working on something called the station of the future, which is sort of looking at what a station in the New York City subway system is going to look like and how it’s going to function 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now,” Torres-Springer said. “This is also part of that, it becomes part of the bundle of technologies and systems that we begin to implement in future stations.”ever

“Anything that can help make the system safer for riders and will keep the trains moving while reducing risk to workers is beneficial,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “The increasing emphasis on newer technology is an approach that we’re glad could be tested in two stations with two different environments.”

A 2022 request for information detailed how the previous pilot projects checked out closed circuit television cameras combined with lasers and video analytics; laser scanners with visual and infrared image verification; thermal camera detection technology and microwave scanners that could record entries onto the tracks.

Potential obstacles to deploying track intrusion detection systems include finding ways to ensure that subway on-time performance is not compromised by the volume of intrusion alarms, staffing to maintain the systems — and funding.

Celeste Kirkland, safety director for Transport Workers Union Local 100, said the technology would have to fit with the quirks of a subway system that opened in 1904.

“There are a lot of challenges — we’ve got water intrusions, smoke, poor lighting, curved stations with limited sightlines, crowded platforms,” Kirkland said. “It sounds good, but how are they going to handle the false positives, how are they going to tie it to the existing systems we have?”

The detectors on Vancouver’s automated and driverless SkyTrain are sometimes triggered by the presence of birds or debris, a TransLink spokesperson told The City Reporter in 2022, with workers then having to inspect the area before service can resume safely.

Kirkland said the potential tripping of alarms by birds or other animals would also be a concern.

“We have rats all through the system,” she said. “Would they want a train to stop mistakenly because a rat jumped off a benchwall onto the tracks and is seen by a sensor? So, I think they have a lot to do.”

The detectors are rare in U.S. subway stations, with the Chicago Transit Authority last year announcing plans to test camera-based capabilities at two rail stations. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority previously tested the technology at a platform at its Civic Center stop.

Daglian, of PCAC, said it is “very encouraging” that the MTA is moving ahead with its plans.

“It’s why you pilot things,” she said. “AI and machine learning are still things we need to learn to trust.”

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House lawmakers advance measure to tax digital advertising platforms

Justin Sweitzer — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Lawmakers on the Pennsylvania House Finance Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to advance a measure that would levy a tax on digital ads and potentially generate $500 million in new revenue for the state.

The vote spurred plenty of discussion among state legislators, with proponents of the digital ad tax bill saying it would modernize an antiquated state tax and create a new source of recurring revenue, while critics worry that the tax on digital advertising platforms could get passed on to small businesses and consumers, despite being targeted toward Big Tech companies and large corporations.

How would the digital ad tax work?

House Bill 1678 wouldn’t create a new state-level tax, but would instead extend Pennsylvania’s existing 5% gross receipts tax to cover companies and corporations that provide digital advertising services in the state. That includes banner advertising, search engine advertising, interstitial advertising and other advertising services.

Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, the prime sponsor of the bill, said during an April public hearing that the tax would apply to large technology companies like Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft – and could raise between $300 million and $600 million per year, if enacted.

One of the bill’s cosponsors, Democratic state Rep. Aerion Abney, said Wednesday that Pennsylvania’s tax laws should be updated to reflect major economic shifts that have occurred due to the advent of the internet and digital platforms.

“Pennsylvania’s gross receipts tax – it dates all the way back to the 1860s,” he said. “The gross receipts tax has been modernized since that time to include things like the telecommunications industry. This legislation looks to modernize the GRT to recognize the fact that we live in the 21st century, and we have the internet and we have apps.”

Proponents of the bill cited a recent report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers that found that total digital advertising revenue in the U.S. rose by 13.9% in 2025 to a record $294.6 billion.

“I want to be clear that this legislation doesn’t cost working people in our districts a penny. It just calls on those huge for-profit corporations to pay their fair share,” Fiedler added at the April public hearing, noting that the tax revenues could be used to fund a number of priorities, including roads, bridges, schools and mass transit. “Unfortunately, we’re heading into some very tough budget times for our state. I think we need to be creative, thoughtful and have open minds when it comes to sources of revenue, especially sources of revenue that protect our constituents from seeing any kind of tax increase.”

As it’s currently written, the legislation includes an exemption for advertising on broadcast and news media platforms.

Ray Murphy, the co-leader of a progressive organization known Pennsylvanians for Accountability from Yass, Billionaires and Corporations, or PAYBAC, said in a statement that HB 1678 would help address the state’s structural budget deficit at a time when the state’s June 30 budget deadline is drawing near.

“The corporations building data centers, driving up utility bills, and profiting off our data have to pay their share. With budget negotiations in their final stretch, passing the digital ad tax would bring in $500 million in new revenue from Big Tech, helping to close the budget gap right now – without raising costs for working people,” Murphy said. “There’s no excuse to leave that money on the table. We urge all members of the House to vote yes on HB 1678, and for the Senate to advance its companion bill, SB 1199.”

Do other states tax digital advertising?

Maryland became the first state in the nation to enact a tax on digital advertising when the its legislature voted to override a gubernatorial veto in February 2021.

Maryland’s digital ad tax applies to companies with annual gross revenues of $100 million or more, with the rate increasing relative to the share of revenue a corporation derives from digital advertising. But while Maryland made history with the passage of its tax on digital advertising platforms, the law has been the target of several lawsuits challenging its legality, potentially serving as a cautionary tale for Pennsylvania lawmakers.

Last October, a U.S. District Court judge struck down a portion of the law that prohibited companies from notifying consumers of the tax and passing it on to customers.

In Utah, state lawmakers passed legislation to tax digital ads targeted to individual internet users; Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill into law on March 25 of this year. Utah’s legislation takes a different approach by not specifically mentioning digital advertising, which could help it avoid the legal challenges Maryland faced, according to Governing.

According to the legislation, revenue generated from Utah’s targeted ad tax can be used for child literacy programs, youth sports and recreation, mental health services for children, and adoption and foster care services, among other uses.

Lawmakers express concerns with a digital ad tax

Legislators on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns with aspects of the proposed digital ad tax.

Democratic state Rep. Arvind Venkat voted in favor of the legislation on Wednesday, but said he had concerns about both the legal challenges experienced by other states, as well as the possibility that such a tax could get passed on to businesses and consumers.

“I do have concerns from the hearing as to the experience in other states with regard to this tax, as to whether it really is confined to these large corporations or whether it gets passed on to the advertisers – which can include small businesses,” Venkat said, adding that he also worries the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act could preempt state efforts to tax digital goods and services.

Republican lawmakers also expressed reservations about the bill. GOP state Rep. Leslie Rossi worried that large tech companies and digital platforms could pass on the costs of the digital ad tax to small businesses that don’t have the ability to absorb them.

“HB 1678 is aimed at large digital platforms, but small businesses may not be able to absorb these costs like a national competitor is able to do,” Rossi said Wednesday. “In rural areas, such as my district, small businesses need to advertise to survive, and small business is the lifeblood of many of our communities. This added tax would certainly have an impact, resulting in lower profits for small businesses, and the consumer would end up paying higher prices.”

State Rep. Keith Greiner, the Republican chair of the House Finance Committee, said lawmakers should be working to help businesses of all sizes succeed.

“We don’t have one state yet that has been successful with initiating a tax like this,” he said. “It’s very frustrating; this anti-business attitude has to stop here in Pennsylvania, too. We need to be promoting business and supporting big business and small business – and not working against them.”

With the bill successfully advancing out of committee, it now awaits a vote on the House floor, and would also have to advance through the state Senate in order to make it to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk.

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HHS wants states to use more predictive analytics in child welfare

Natalie Alms — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

The Department of Health and Human Services is offering state child welfare agencies $6 million to pilot predictive analytics to assess children's risk of abuse and neglect in the child welfare system, the Administration for Children and Families announced last week.

The artificial intelligence push is part of the Trump administration’s agenda to modernize the child welfare system and address the shortage of foster homes across the U.S. Although the hope is that the tools improve decisionmaking in the system, they’ve also been the subject of critiques about surveillance and bias.

ACF says that predictive analytics can help agencies identify low-risk families that don’t need to be in the welfare system, as well as high-risk cases that need more immediate attention, in the hopes of improving the ratio of foster homes to children.

Although some child welfare agencies have already begun using more data tools and predictive analytics in their work, many still depend on assessment tools to calculate a child’s risk of abuse and neglect by walking employees through a standard set of weighted questions. The process can be prone to error and bias.

The hope is that predictive risk models can help analyze the full administrative records in child welfare case management systems, update in real time and be trained locally — but these models can also introduce bias, too.

In 2023, The Justice Department was reportedly scrutinizing one early adopter of AI in child welfare — Allegheny County, Pennsylvania — after the Associated Press in 2022 found potential issues with bias and transparency in the tool. The county said at the time that evidence suggested that the tool had actually reduced racial disparities in screening decisions and that staff make ultimate decisions.

Others have raised concerns about the potential for surveillance with these tools.

The potential benefits to modernizing risk assessment practices with more data outweigh the risks, says an internal ACF report. The tools aren’t, however, a substitute for a strong workforce, the same report cautions. They require feedback loops to ensure that they work and transparency into how they work.

“This is a tool. It can be useful,” said Linda Spears, president and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America, a membership-based child welfare coalition. Spears added, however, “it will not fix all of the things that contribute to poor decisionmaking,” especially as the field is suffering from an ongoing workforce crisis.

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How agencies can balance AI’s potential and risks for cyber attacks

Kaitlyn Levinson — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:19:51 -0400

Cybersecurity remains a top priority for state and local leaders, and technology like artificial intelligence has emerged as one tool in governments’ arsenals to thwart cyber attacks. But leaders must find a balance between AI's potential and its risks in order to effectively use the technology, speakers said at the Engage Public Sector Summit hosted by GovExec, Carahsoft and Check Point last week in Washington, D.C.

Bad actors have increasingly targeted critical government functions from elections to public transit systems and schools. The growing threat landscape presents government leaders with the opportunity to explore innovative solutions like AI to combat cyber attacks, Keith Hartung, chief security officer at the Pennsylvania Treasury Department, said.

“AI and security are a natural fit … because we’ve been leveraging [them] for years,” said Hartung. While generative AI is a newer concept to tech and cyber leaders, “deep learning and machine learning that [AI] is built on are the same baseline technologies that we’ve used to analyze emails and sort the logs in our SIM tools for forever,” he said.

Now, tech staff can do more and do it faster because AI has become more advanced, Hartung said. As an example, he explained that the Pennsylvania Treasury Department has 360 employees, but only three of them — including Hartung — make up the agency’s security team.

That’s where AI in cybersecurity has functioned as a “force enabler” for the trio in charge of managing the approximately $120 billion that flows through the Treasury Department annually, Hartung said. Without AI, the team would not be able to keep up with sorting the thousands of log files that they need to stay on top of in order to monitor and address cyber threats.

The team also leans on an AI model to predict cyber threats because the system can scour social media, dark web sources or public websites to alert staff of potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors, Hartung said. Such insights enable the security team to “create a beautiful little report that I can hand off to my [chief information officer] and say, ‘This is a threat we saw, this is the action we’ve taken and this is what we think we may have mitigated proactively.’ Talk about a win,” he said.

But keeping a human in the loop when implementing AI tools, particularly when it comes to generative AI solutions that recommend action steps to users, remains “super critical for all of us,” he said. “I don't want people in my agency to think of it as artificial intelligence. I tell them every day, ‘Stop thinking in that term, think of it as augmented intelligence. [AI] is not there to replace, it is there to make you better.’”

Indeed, government agencies should break down how they want to implement AI in cybersecurity to mitigate concerns about the tech’s impact on critical operations and infrastructure, said Glen Deskin, head of engineering and cybersecurity evangelist at Check Point Software Technologies.

Many people are hesitant to explore AI cybersecurity options in the first place because they haven’t taken time to determine which tasks they want an AI tool to assume and which ones can remain under human responsibility, he explained. For example, agencies can configure an AI solution to help analyze data without progressing to making automated decisions or actions that a human with cyber expertise and experience is better suited to do.

“The big thing is not the technology, it’s actually the people that will run these technologies,” said Suneel Cherukuri, chief information security officer for the District of Columbia.

An agentic security operations center, for example, could help governments field cyber threats by leveraging agents to triage and address attacks, he said. Such tools can not only streamline the process of identifying a cyber attack, they can provide educational resources for staff to further beef up agencies’ cybersecurity.

For instance, agency leaders can take data insights from an SOC to curate training resources that “I can take back to my school districts and university partnerships to say, ‘Here is how we can train our kids [for] real scenarios,” Cherukuri explained.

Indeed, SOCs are gaining traction as a way for state and local governments to partner with nearby educational institutions to build a cyber talent pipeline. Louisiana State University, for example, offers an SOC program that trains students on how to protect institutions across the state from cyber threats while also building a workforce capable of dealing with today’s evolving threat landscape.

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Big Tech finds a foe in Texas’ robust consumer protection laws and AG Ken Paxton

Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0400

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

In the final days of his GOP runoff campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed lawsuits against Netflix, WhatsApp and Discord, and launched another investigation into Meta.

During his victory speech, he cemented a key pillar of his campaign: cracking down on bad actors in Big Tech.

“As attorney general, I've sued some of the largest companies in the world … for taking advantage of our kids by exposing them to dangerous, addictive material,” Paxton said Tuesday night. “In Washington, I will not stop fighting to protect Texas children from Big Tech.”

The stump speech has merit.

Thanks to robust state laws surrounding consumer protection and data privacy and a sympathetic federal appeals court, Paxton is one of the most prolific litigators of Big Tech among state attorneys general, according to legal experts. Paxton’s office has filed at least two dozen lawsuits against large tech companies in the past five years and secured some of the largest settlements in the history of state litigation.

The legal action serves as a useful campaign tool as Paxton embarks on what promises to be a contentious U.S. Senate race against Austin Democratic state Rep. James Talarico as public opinion on artificial intelligence and Big Tech sours.

“You're going to hear more from Ken Paxton on this, you're going to hear more from Republicans, I think, up and down the ballot on this,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist who has worked in national and Texas politics. “There is a growing groundswell of opposition to the idea of Big Tech oligarchs … you hear it from (U.S. Sen.) Bernie Sanders and you hear it from Ken Paxton.”

Separate from the campaign trail, Paxton’s efforts are having real world impacts.

Two of the largest settlements a state has ever obtained from a tech company have come from Texas. In 2024, Paxton announced a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the company from obtaining Texas users’ biometric data without their permission, described by Paxton’s office as the largest ever settlement obtained from a lawsuit brought by a single state. In October 2025, Paxton announced a $1.4 billion settlement with Google for tracking Texas users’ data without their permission. That money, paid over several years in the case of Meta, is sent to the Texas State Treasury and becomes state revenue.

“He is known as one of the more litigious in this space, and he’s also been winning,” said Joanna Forster, a partner at Crowell and Moring LLP who represents and advises large tech companies. “If I were him, keep doing what’s been winning.”

Paxton in the summer of 2024 created a division within the Office of the Attorney General dedicated to enforcement of Texas’ privacy laws against Big Tech firms. Paxton cited the growing ability of tech companies to collect and sell data on their users and promised to use existing state law to pursue legal actions. Texas has some of the most comprehensive AI and consumer protection laws of any state.

Paxton has successfully leveraged that robust cache of legislation, as well as a sympathetic bench on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing him to create new law in a variety of categories applying to Big Tech, Forster said.

Paxton makes frequent use of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act, suing Netflix, Meta and WhatsApp, and messaging app Discord under the statute in recent months. Those lawsuits broadly hinge on a legal argument that Texas consumers were lied to by the companies, which misrepresented how they use consumers’ data, Paxton argued.

Paxton used the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, a law on the books since 2009 that prohibits the collection of biometric data without consent, to sue Meta in the case that led to the $1.4 billion settlement.

The Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act and the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, both passed by the Legislature in 2023, were cited in a 2024 lawsuit against TikTok, as well as the December 2024 announcement that Paxton’s office would investigate 15 AI and social media companies over their safety and privacy practices for minors.

Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act, sweeping legislation passed last year that includes measures to rein in AI technology that manipulate human behavior and create deep fakes, gives Paxton an additional tool to go after companies, Forster said.

State attorneys general across the country, regardless of political party, are taking legal action against Big Tech companies at a high rate, and Texas is among the most prolific, said Matthew F. Ferraro, also a partner at Crowell and Moring LLP and former senior counsel for cybersecurity and emerging technology to the Secretary of Homeland Security under President Joe Biden’s administration.

“That is an across-the-spectrum series of regulators who are interested in these issues, and that's why I think the political developments are probably not going to change the central fact, which is that technology companies are going to be under increasing scrutiny from a variety of regulators across the country,” Ferraro said.

The increasing litigation is partially due to the bipartisan agreement among voters that tech companies need to be regulated more strictly, Steinhauser said. Stories like the case of a 13-year-old girl who was groomed over Roblox and Discord before being sexually assaulted in her Galveston home by an adult man only serve to reinforce public opinion, he added.

Recent public opinion polling has found Americans critical of Big Tech companies in a variety of areas, including bipartisan opposition to the construction of data centers, a belief social media companies wield too much power and a broad distrust of tech CEOs.

“Part of the reason Ken [Paxton] is taking it up, I think, is it’s a real problem and he’s heard about it, his team has heard about it, or they’ve experienced it with their own children,” Steinhauser said. “If the politics of this was bad, maybe they wouldn’t do it, but I think the politics of it is good, and it just so happens it’s a real issue on voters’ minds.”

The Paxton and Talarico campaigns, as well as the Texas Attorney General’s Office, did not respond to requests for comment.

While it may be good politics for Democrats and Republicans, the legal action by states is creating a growing patchwork of laws and court rulings that tech companies are subject to across the country, and the federal government has done little to address the fractious regulatory environment, Forster said. Companies are increasingly faced with either having different rules for users in different states, pulling out of states altogether or building their product to meet the most restrictive state’s laws.

“I think none of those options is a good one for the industry,” Forster said.

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Colorado bill to ban surveillance prices, wages vetoed by Gov. Polis

Sara Wilson, Colorado Newsline — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400

This article was originally published by Colorado Newsline.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would have prohibited corporations from using someone’s personal data to set individualized wages and retail prices, writing in his veto letter that the policy is overly broad and could inadvertently discourage discounts for consumers.

House Bill 26-1210 was among a trio of bills concerned with affordability touted by Democratic lawmakers early in the 2026 legislative session, but became the only one out of the three to pass the Legislature before it adjourned last month.

“Instead of specifically defining and targeting unethical conduct and practices, the bill takes a broader approach to capture any technology that incidentally influences a price or wage amount,” Polis wrote. “Because of the broad sweep, the bill would punish differentially lower prices, not just higher prices.”

The bill would have banned algorithms and software that use data processes like statistical modeling, data analytics and artificial intelligence to set an individual price or wage for a person. That is commonly known as surveillance pricing, because it uses personal data like someone’s browsing history and habits to often set a price at the highest amount someone is willing to pay. Drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft might get different payout offers for the same ride, grocery shoppers could pay different prices for the same product, or someone researching vacation destinations online could face a more expensive plane ticket.

The bill was narrowed and amended in the Legislature to allow loyalty and rewards programs, which often use the technology described in the bill. Even with the consumer discount definitions in the bill, Polis wrote that the bill could prevent corporations from lowering prices and offering personalized discounts based on data. A handful of Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill.

‘It makes logical sense to specifically address unethical price gouging that targets a consumer with an unfair, significantly
higher price. In practice, this means that many Coloradans won’t get discounts on items they buy if I were to sign this,” Polis wrote. “This opens the door to some perfectly acceptable consumer discount, if not appropriately captured by the definitions in this bill, being subject to scrutiny and enforcement under the Consumer Protection Act.”

There is similar legislation related to surveillance pricing in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A Maryland law signed this year bans surveillance pricing in grocery stores that result in higher prices for shoppers.

Polis vetoed two other bills on Tuesday afternoon. One dealt with arbitration reform, and another would have limited when restaurants can include plastic utensils with takeout orders.

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AI agents will transform government services. Will we build a future of prosperity together?

Andrew Chrismer — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Artificial intelligence agents are already deployed all over the private sector, from helping gate agents at airports clear their standby lists to running complex legal reviews in multi-billion-dollar real estate transactions.

Many governments around the world are also deploying these agents to enhance their services for millions of citizens. Singapore’s Government Technology Agency, for example, has deployed agentic AI that automatically matches employment benefits, grants and social services from multiple agencies within a single seamless portal — without requiring citizens to navigate each program separately. This technology could transform the lives of people who rely on government services like food assistance, housing, mental health services and workforce training.

Imagine a family completely strapped for cash trying to navigate multiple assistance programs and application processes now able to use their smartphone to enter a simple command and a bit of personal data, then only seconds later the app replies with a comprehensive assistance plan, dates of appointments, and possibly even amounts available in assistance and when they will hit the family’s bank account. A follow-up prompt from the app asks, “Can I connect you to a case manager who will help you build a financial mobility plan and send your resume out to these 5 companies who are hiring in your field of work?”

This is the future we owe to our most vulnerable citizens. As these opportunities for increased efficiency and service delivery present themselves, what can state and local government leaders do to harness AI’s capabilities now?

Before governments begin to adopt widespread and mainstream uses of agentic processes, governments should understand the possibilities that exist right now to improve the lives of case workers and the families they serve and make service navigation less burdensome.

Right now, in the US, an estimated $140 billion in federal benefits goes unclaimed annually due to eye-wateringly complex and disparate systems. This leaves struggling families who could use these services and funding for basic needs, housing and family stabilization out to dry. AI agents have the potential of crosswalking these systems, aiding families in legal cases, advising on job opportunities and financial sovereignty with a simple command. This would also let case workers get back to the real human-level work of family support and economic mobility that they want to do as civil servants.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has deployed a pilot program that has trained over 3,000 civil service workers from various departments to work side-by-side with AI agents to widely promising results already. This can act as a test case for others to follow suit in years to come.

However, government leaders must understand the technology at an organizational level before these agents deploy. Colorado, which framed its 2024 AI governing framework on the one adopted by the European Union, has set some important guardrails for these uses for government services. These types of frameworks should be stringent enough to ensure personal data and algorithm bias are accounted for, but flexible enough to adapt at the speed of technology, not the speed of government.

Government and public sector leaders should anchor their entire strategic planning around the use of these agents. This is the biggest technological disruption in society in generations, and governments who do not respond with organizational innovation and redesign of processes, case manager job descriptions, performance management, and data privacy and security investments, will be doing a great disservice to the public they are there to serve.

Workforce boards and programs that aren’t planning now for AI disruption in their regional economies are late to the game, but not too late to catch up. It is estimated that AI will disrupt up to 30% of jobs by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report, and public workforce strategies should align their offerings, goals and community mobility objectives to reflect this sea change.

Lastly, the public sector and the private sector must align, create structured feedback loops and work in lockstep with one another on the real forecasted needs for workers in their communities. Meaningful work and upward mobility are the keys to thriving families, businesses and communities. So start with desired outcomes, not the adoption of the technology.

Instead of companies asking themselves what the government can provide to train workers for the jobs of the future, they must be asking, what the economic outcomes are that we want for our communities. This is not always an intuitive question for business leaders whose main objective is to maximize profits, but if the long-term goals are aligned around creating healthy and stable workforces that create value over the long term, then this is the right question to be asking of our government leaders.

The companies and agencies that build those feedback loops now will be the ones shaping outcomes for their communities a decade from now. Leading companies within a region should share real-time data with regional workforce boards on AI disruption; co-design training programs rather than reviewing them after the fact, and always seat a senior leader on the workforce board’s AI working group, if one exists.

The question was never whether the technology or tools are capable enough. They are. The question is whether leaders are. Countries abroad are already performing in ways described here, and states, cities and counties should learn from these benchmarks. Technology, like agentic AI, is not an esoteric concept. It’s already deployed and enhances productivity in many industries. Workers and families are not standing still either; they must keep moving to provide for their families and move up the economic mobility ladder. Government leaders need to act now and with intention.

Andrew Chrismer is principal consultant at Aligned Public Consulting, a Chicago-based firm specializing in strategy, AI readiness and operational design for public agencies, workforce systems and philanthropies. He has also served as chief alignment officer for a $190 million county health and human services system.

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Local Texas officials turn to AI to enhance flood management

Kaitlyn Levinson — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:02:05 -0400

Texas is one of the nation’s most at-risk states for flooding as its hot, dry climate and proximity to the Gulf of Mexico make it susceptible to hurricane events and stormwater runoff.

Indeed, the state reported more than 100 deaths last year after major flood waters ripped through Central Texas. The July 4, 2025 event made national headlines after reports that nearly 30 children and camp staff were killed after waters swept through Camp Mystic in Kerr County.

Preventing such tragedies is the main goal of the Galveston County Consolidated Drainage District, said Rusty Burkett, the district’s board president. The district, which is located about 30 miles south of Houston, recently deployed a network of radar sensors as part of a broader flood data intelligence platform that officials will use to monitor water levels across the cities of Friendswood and League.

“I think flooding and drainage [are] the number one threat to lives and property in Galveston County,” Burkett said. That’s why GCCDD is “focused on” the “flood mitigation techniques to protect the people and property in the tax base and the vitality of this area," he added.

Indeed, GCCDD maintains approximately 72 miles of creeks and tributaries for flood and drainage management, said Paige Bailey, executive director and general counsel of GCCDD. The sensors — which each cost less than $10,000 — were deployed at seven sites and went live in April.

Data insights from the sensors will also inform GCCDD officials’ emergency response and flood prevention efforts to ensure the protection of people and property, Burkett said. Additional data sources include local weather feeds and data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, which he said will help GCCDD better understand historical flood trends.

GCCDD is planning to expand its sensor network to include LiDAR sensors that will monitor the flow of water for enhanced insights, which Burkett said will be critical for predicting flooding conditions and events in communities.

For data analysis and visualizations, the district is using a flood intelligence platform developed by Simplicity Integration, a flood management company, and powered by a decision intelligence system from Axonis, an AI company.

The platform will also send automated, localized text alerts to people if the sensor system detects that water is rising to an at-risk level determined by officials, said Alison Reese, Simplicity Integration’s chief operating officer and co-founder. The system can also connect with existing infrastructure to, for instance, trigger sirens or activate barrier systems that look to manage incoming flood waters.

The flood intelligence system has “already mapped out some locations where we need more stream gauges, more sensors and some additional LiDAR [sensors] … in order to give our community the best possible information,” Bailey said.

Adopting and implementing such solutions “is just one bullet in our arsenal for public service,” Burkett said. “We're going to get some really accurate information about predictive flooding, which has never happened before.”

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Policies to close digital divide must pass ‘kitchen table test,’ nonprofits say

Chris Teale — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:00:00 -0400

A collection of nonprofits said in a report released last week that policies to close the digital divide and promote digital equity must pass the “kitchen table test” and place communities at the heart of decision making.

Public Knowledge, UnidosUS and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance said while broadband access is a “foundational prerequisite for participation in modern-day life,” policies in the past to get more people online have prioritized concentrated wealth over community needs. And that has meant that “false narratives” rooted in scarcity have taken resources away from those who need them most, the report says.

Instead, the group of nonprofits said in their report entitled, “The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation,” that policies must meet disadvantaged communities where they are and strengthen grassroots solutions. That could include putting digital resources at frequently visited community hubs or integrating training and digital skills programs in places that already offer community service.

At a more macro level, the paper calls for urgent reform to the Universal Service Fund to provide a broadband affordability benefit of $40 or more to reflect growing market costs. And it called on the federal government more broadly to provide sustained investment in digital skills, device access and training.

“The fight for a more connected future must reflect the experiences of people broadband policy is supposed to serve, who are part of this complex digital divide continuum,” Alisa Valentin, broadband policy director at Public Knowledge, wrote in a blog post to accompany the report’s release.

The groups spent multiple years working on this report, and heard from seven focus groups about their issues with internet access and use and suggestions for policies to help alleviate those issues. In Valentin’s blog post, she said that one consumer in Albuquerque, New Mexico compared their broadband experience to “a hyena” because it is “poor quality that doesn’t offer the plans my family needs.” Meanwhile, a father in Atlanta said he is faced with a choice to “either put food on the table for six people or have the internet.”

In a bid to solve those connectivity and digital equity problems, focus groups suggested various solutions rooted in their communities. Those suggestions included having subsidies to help defray costs and make internet subscriptions more affordable, as well as having more community-based internet service providers beyond the existing corporate ISPs. Discounts on connected devices that are contingent on completing training courses were also suggested.

“This project makes clear that when policies are driven by false narratives about scarcity, politics of ‘deservingness,’ profit over people, or the prioritization of industry profits over the public interest, then the digital divide persists and is deliberately reinforced,” Valentin said in a separate statement. “Without policy interventions that meaningfully address affordability, reliable service, digital skills support, and device access, equitable internet access remains an empty promise that will leave the growing number of economically vulnerable people behind everywhere from major metropolitan cities of Denver to the hills of rural Appalachia.”

In addition to those local policies, the report calls for more federal involvement, including by reforming the USF so it can provide a robust subsidy via the Lifeline program it funds for the Federal Communications Commission. Having a minimum subsidy of $40 a month would help low-income communities, the report argues, and take into account rising costs.

The groups also said the federal government must take a stronger role in digital equity, something it has appeared to pull back on in recent months after the ending of digital equity grants. Still up for discussion is the future of around $21 billion in funds from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, and the report said federal agencies should consider its use for this purpose.

“The digital divide is fundamentally about power and resource distribution,” the report says. “Closing it requires not just building infrastructure but ensuring people can actually benefit from networks through comprehensive adoption support, community ownership models, and policy frameworks that prioritize human dignity over corporate profits. The communities most affected by digital exclusion possess the wisdom to drive solutions — they just need the resources and power to implement them.”

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ChatGPT creators knew product would cause harm, Florida argues in lawsuit

Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0400

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix.

OpenAI should’ve known the damage its chatbot would cause, the state argues in a lawsuit against ChatGPT’s creators.

In an 83-page filing in state circuit court in Highlands County, the Florida Department of Legal Affairs and Attorney General James Uthmeier laid ChatGPT’s rollout and management side-by-side with instances in which the technology has been consulted or involved in tragedy, including the 2025 mass shooting on campus of Florida State University.

The complaint opens with a screenshot of ChatGPT’s parental control policy stating, “Built with safety in mind.” The AG’s first words in the brief: “Not so.”

ChatGPT has become a household name. With that came financial growth. At the end of 2024, ChatGPT generated $1 billion per quarter. As of a month ago, it generated $2 billion per month.

“This success has not been earned; the rise of OpenAI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians), leveraging their data and safety to boost OpenAI’s market value at unacceptable costs,” the state argued, emphasizing that a rapid rollout of the product puts consumers at risk.

The state seeks monetary damages, disgorgement, restitution, civil penalties, equitable relief, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs. The lawsuit alleges OpenAI violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and seeks to hold OpenAI CEO Sam Altman personally liable for his “reckless and willful conduct.”

OpenAI has not yet responded to a Phoenix request for comment but issued a written statement to NPR.

“AI is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection, which is why we have put in place industry leading protections and policies,” the company said.

“In particular we built safety for minors directly into our products, including a more protective experience specifically for minors, an age prediction tool, defaulting users whose age we are not confident into our more protective experience, and giving parents tools to monitor their kids’ use of AI.”

The state alleges ChatGPT is a “public nuisance.”

The suit references various studies finding negative effects of the technology on mental health, academic performance, and more.

The lawsuit references the FSU shooting, in which the alleged gunman consulted ChatGPT seeking information about other shooters’ notoriety and how to use his guns. The state goes on to mention other instances in which a crime was committed after a criminal consulted ChatGPT.

“As these examples show, ChatGPT proactively aids, abets, and promotes dangerous activities and is a threat to the public safety of Floridians,” the suit alleges.

Uthmeier touts it as a first in the nation lawsuit.

The AG says OpenAI’s advertisements show how useful ChatGPT can be to scale a business, manage healthcare, and other tasks but do not disclose that the tool makes mistakes or hallucinate information.

“Despite Defendants’ marketing that ChatGPT is a reliable aid for almost any of life’s daily affairs, the plain truth is that it is shockingly unreliable,” the lawsuit alleges.

The filing points to attorneys across the country who’ve relied on the tool to compose court filings, leading to documents containing hallucinated information. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court introduced an artificial intelligence policy.

The state is asking to permanently enjoin OpenAI from collecting data from people younger than 13 without providing notice and parental consent.

“The free version of ChatGPT has no gatekeeping or age verification mechanism whatsoever. While ChatGPT’s paid subscription nominally asks users to provide their age, there is no mechanism to verify the age of its users, and no ability to inform parents of what conversations minors are having with ChatGPT,” the state alleges.

“ChatGPT does not send reports of a child’s activity to parents, or otherwise alert parents if a child accesses concerning content other than if the additional (voluntary) step of linking an account has been set up, and even then, only in ‘limited situations.’ In no event can a parent request access to what information a child has provided ChatGPT.”

The state launched a criminal investigation into the company in April.

“The dangers of ChatGPT proactively providing advice and suggestions about self-harm or violence that have led to several deaths in Florida, along with the cognitive decline and behavioral addiction of Florida teens, outweigh any benefits of having an available AI chatbot,” the suit states.

The suit goes into Sam Altman’s professional history, alleging his “dangerous and deceptive management of OpenAI” as it evolved from a smaller nonprofit into the AI giant it is today.

“Unless Defendants are temporarily and permanently enjoined from engaging further in the acts and practices complained of herein, Defendants’ actions will continue to result in irreparable injury to the public for which there is no adequate remedy at law.”

The state is seeking a jury trial.

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Hackers are already laying groundwork to disrupt the 2026 midterms, research says

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Hackers are already preparing for the 2026 midterms, with a new report warning that campaigns, fundraising platforms, public websites and local governments could face a wave of phishing, credential theft, artificial intelligence-generated deception and foreign influence activity.

The findings, produced by cybersecurity firm Check Point, do not point to voting machines as the most likely near-term target, but instead warn that attackers are more likely to exploit infrastructure around elections — like campaign accounts and fundraising platforms — to steal credentials, impersonate trusted organizations, disrupt public information or fuel doubts about the nation’s electoral process.

The conclusions come as the Trump administration has pursued a more aggressive role in election administration, including through a March executive order aimed at tightening rules around mail-in voting and voter eligibility. The U.S. Postal Service has also proposed a rule that would require states to submit lists of voters receiving mail ballots.

The report also comes amid scrutiny of the intelligence community’s posture toward election threats under outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. ODNI recently named two officials to coordinate the intelligence community’s election-threat mission for the 2026 cycle.

The firm does not address the administration directly. The assessment is notable, however, because it points to AI and digital threats as more immediate election security concerns, rather than the voting-procedure issues that have dominated talking points from the White House.

“Overall, the most significant 2026 risks center on the trusted accounts, platforms, services, and information channels that election-related organizations rely on to operate and maintain public trust, with election-adjacent systems presenting the more immediate source of operational exposure,” the report says.

Check Point also said it observed sustained election-related infrastructure creation in early 2026, including new websites containing terms such as “election” and “vote.”

In January, the firm identified roughly 1,300 newly registered domains containing the keyword “election” and nearly 3,000 containing “vote.” Between April 13 and May 14, it identified about 1,140 newly registered domains containing “election” and roughly 4,000 containing “vote.”

The company cautioned that those registrations do not prove malicious activity on their own, but they expand the pool of web infrastructure that could later be used for phishing, fake donation pages, impersonation or misinformation campaigns.

Check Point also found exposed credentials tied to some of the most widely used political and government platforms, including roughly 9,500 linked to ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, and 6,500 linked to WinRed, its Republican counterpart.

The firm also observed smaller volumes tied to gop.com and democrats.org, the national party websites, as well as usa.gov, the federal government’s public services portal.

The company identified Russia, Iran and China as the principal state actors to monitor. AI is expected to make their influence operations easier to scale, and could be used to create more convincing phishing lures, cloned audio, manipulated images and deepfake videos.

Local governments may be especially exposed because they often operate with fewer resources, older technology and smaller security teams. Check Point cited recent ransomware incidents affecting Winona County, Minnesota, and Foster City, California, as examples of how municipal cyberattacks can disrupt public services and erode trust in government systems.

“Even when election operations are not directly affected, disruption at the local government level can still create confusion, delay public communications, and undermine confidence during politically sensitive periods,” the report says.

The findings also come as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s election security role faces new uncertainty. The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal would eliminate the agency’s election security program, including funds for information-sharing support to state and local officials and dedicated election security advisors.

Efforts under the Trump administration to scale back CISA and its election resources have strained relationships with state and local officials and have raised concerns that jurisdictions may be far less prepared to counter threats in November, officials in Michigan and Georgia said late last month. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has also pressed DHS over reports that CISA is no longer providing the same election security training and resources it offered in prior years.

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Education leader proposes stronger restrictions on AI and screentime

Chris Teale — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:00:00 -0400

A national education leader called last week for schools to better regulate students’ use of artificial intelligence and their screen time, as they are “drowning in tech.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a union that represents 1.8 million teachers, educators, staff and other professionals, said in a speech that screen use should be banned outright for students in pre-K through second grade, including for assessments. And she said students under 16 should be completely banned from using “social companion” AI chatbots that simulate human relationships.

It’s part of a 10-point action plan released by AFT in a bid to improve student success and learning while wrestling with the implications of technology and AI in the classroom.

“We are in an era of massive disruption,” Weingarten said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “Artificial intelligence is triggering seismic shifts in virtually every aspect of our society. Our students are already feeling the impacts of this disruption. Young people are resilient, but too often the kids are not all right. The major reason is that they are drowning in tech.”

Weingarten said she is not calling for an “AI ban or a [Google] Chromebook bonfire.” But instead, AFT’s action plan is calling for “getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms,” she added.

That action plan, including banning screens for pre-K through second grade as well as student-facing AI in schools, calls for schooling and accountability to be redesigned so active learning is the norm across all grades. AFT also calls on schools to ensure students have a “solid foundation” in literacy, numeracy and civic engagement, and to focus on well-being so that students and families have basic needs met and students are ready to learn.

AFT’s action plan goes on to urge the protection of intellectual property and academic freedom, with support for educators to decide how best to integrate technology into their classrooms. The union also calls for a “new gold standard” of safety and privacy for AI use in schools, and it aims to establish an independent research consortium not funded by tech companies to build and share best practices around tech, screens and AI in schools.

Finally, AFT called for adequate funding of education by states and the federal government, as well as what it called a “tech tax” on tech companies’ earnings and some business operations “to ensure they pay their fair share for the adverse and disruptive consequences of this technology on American families, such as workers being displaced by AI.”

“We are at a crossroads that will define the future of work and society,” Weingarten said in her speech. “Without proper oversight and strong guardrails, there will be real dangers to our safety, privacy, climate and the very fabric of society.”

The problems of AI, social media and screentime have troubled policymakers across the political spectrum, with various states enacting restrictions for their students. Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said at the end of last year it would study whether schools are too reliant on technology, and if that spending has undermined reaching educational targets.

Weingarten said Democrats are “frankly AWOL” on the issue of screentime, and called on them to do more. And she accused Republicans of “trying to exploit the current crisis to destroy public education and pluralism as we know it.”

“Democrats have been and still are among the strongest advocates of strengthening public education,” she said. “But too few Democratic leaders speak clearly about the fundamental importance of public education as a national priority. And too many want to resurrect the failures of high-stakes testing, are pushing privatization or are frankly AWOL from efforts to make the public schools, which 90 percent of American children attend, the very best they can be.”

And while it may be tempting to blame technology and AI for all of education’s ills, Weingarten called for a positive vision for the future of education that can be rolled out across the United States.

“We need a relentless, intentional focus on what our young people need: greater literacy, numeracy and civic engagement, and active learning that excites and engages them — all while ensuring their social and mental well-being and ability to form healthy relationships,” she said. “Devices down, eyes up, hands-on.”

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What’s in the water? What we know and don’t know about data center water discharge in Virginia

Shannon Heckt, Virginia Mercury — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0400

This article was originally published by Virginia Mercury.

Data centers require a massive amount of water to cool their systems, which heat up as they process digital information through numerous computers and network servers. Systems that aren’t “closed loop” have to cycle out water that doesn’t evaporate.

Most data centers in Virginia are permitted to discharge water into municipal wastewater systems, the same place household water goes to be treated and recycled for consumption. But there’s limited data tracking of potential chemicals in data centers’ discharge water.

At least one data center is permitted to discharge directly into a natural water source in the state: Northeast Creek in Louisa County. Another is applying for a similar permit to discharge into nearby Sedges Creek which feeds into Lake Anna.

That water is pretreated before being released into the creek and has limits to certain metals and temperature set by the Department of Environmental Quality. But the knowledge gaps about the chemical makeup of data centers’ water discharge poses major questions over whether “forever chemicals” could be contaminating water from the facilities, posing risks to human and environmental health.

Cooling the Waters

Amazon’s Lake Anna Tech Park project will include an evaporative water cooling system, which is what they use in the Northeast Creek location. The H2O will come from well water until industrial systems are hooked up. At that point, the water will be run through a “membrane” that cools the air and fans will blow it onto the data halls containing the computers.

Amazon – which operates dozens of data centers in the state – explained that at the two Louisa sites they are only using the evaporation method a small portion of the year; the rest of the time they pull in air from outside for cooling. Water sent through an evaporative cooling system is considered non-contact, meaning it does not directly touch the computer equipment.

“In Louisa County, we rely on outside natural air-cooling for about 96% of the year and only use water-based cooling during the hottest periods, which is about 4% of annual operations,” Amazon said in a statement.

After a few cycles the water has to be released. The system dechlorinates the water and manages pH balance before sending it into the creek.

“As part of this process, cooling water needs to be periodically discharged; this cooling water is called ‘non-contact cooling water.’ It never touches IT equipment, and it’s treated before release in alignment with state environmental standards,” an Amazon representative said.

Larger, newer data centers are more frequently designed with “closed loop” systems, meaning they don’t take in as much water on a daily basis. Initially, hundreds of gallons of water are pumped into this type of system, much of which evaporates, and then it’s topped off as needed.

But they take more energy to operate.

In an aerial view, an Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes on July 17, 2024 in Stone Ridge, Virginia. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Closed loop systems will often use what is described as mechanical cooling or liquid cooling, where the water is recycled through the system, cooled, and placed directly on chips to bring the temperature down. The heat from those systems still has to be expelled through an HVAC system.

The water is pretreated before being released into the creek and has limits for certain metals and temperature set by DEQ. But with recent reports showing the ubiquitous nature of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in everything from water to soil to household products, community members are increasingly worried about whether the data center’s discharge water contains them, too.

Residents have also cited concerns over PFAS being present in the equipment inside of data centers that is used to cool the heated systems and routinely replaced every few years.

These chemicals can have serious health impacts when people are exposed to even small amounts, such as decreased fertility, higher risk of some cancers, and weakening of the immune system.

Virginia currently does not have requirements for the testing of the discharge water of data centers for PFAS, nor does the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the water being discharged from data centers either into wastewater systems or into the creek are not explicitly required to be tested for PFAS, it is unclear whether they are present or not.

“We know that they may be using, not only PFAS, but other toxic chemicals. We know that they released massive amounts of water, at least to treatment works, and some of them to surface waters,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz with EarthJustice, a nonprofit that litigates environmental issues.  ”And beyond that, it’s just a void. There’s really a dangerous lack of information.”

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports that PFAS can be present in the cooling systems that are liquid based – which is not what the Louisa Amazon data centers use. Data on how much of those chemicals are released from centers and cause pollution is minimal.

Documents DEQ provided in response to community concerns about potential chemicals in the treated water for the Sedges Creek permit application provide some answers.

“25% sodium hydroxide, 93% sulfuric acid, 40% sodium bisulfite, polyaluminum chloride, polymer, sulfide‐functional polymer, and 32% calcium chloride,” the agency wrote. “These chemicals are removed during the treatment process; however, Total Residual Chlorine (TRC), chlorides and pH are monitored to ensure they have been removed and that the treatment process is operating properly.”

What Virginia Allows

Data centers that discharge their pretreated water into wastewater infrastructure have to comply with local treatment requirements and regulations. The amount of water they may unload varies by project and is determined by local leaders.

Industry representatives emphasize that they follow local and state regulations, which do not include the PFAS testing in the water discharge.

“Those that do produce wastewater handle it in a variety of ways in compliance with the law. Some may send their wastewater back to a municipal treatment plant, while others may treat it on site,” Nicole Riley with the Data Center Coalition said in an interview. “Some data centers are actually discharging cleaner water than they take in. In all cases, the industry takes seriously its responsibility to comply with applicable laws and regulations.”

The permit for the Amazon data center in the Northeast Tech Campus in Louisa is allowed to discharge up to 460,000 gallons of water a day into Northeast Creek that feeds into Lake Anna.

Under the pollutant discharge elimination system permit for that data center, operators must test monthly, and in some cases daily, for residual chlorine used in the treatment phase, as well as aluminum, cadmium, copper, zinc, hardness and pH. The water temperature must be maintained below 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

In general, data collected over most data centers’ five-year permits must be evaluated by state regulators before the permit may be re-issued. Depending on the results, data center operators may have to make adjustments.

“In the case of a data center, the source water, type of cooling system, and any additives used with the cooling system are key and need to be evaluated to determine the reasonable potential for a pollutant to be in the discharge,” a DEQ representative said.

PFAS, which pose harm to human and environmental health, also find their way into drinking water and human bodies. (Photo by CasarsaGuru via Getty Images)

The draft permit for the additional Amazon data center in the Lake Anna Tech campus that would discharge into Sedges Creek allows up to 280,000 gallons a day. It will abide by the same standards for metals, pH, and temperature regulation.

Amazon anticipates not needing to use the cooling system all year round. DEQ states they plan to use it “mainly in April through October of each year,” which would presumably lead to less water use than the permitted gallons. The company claims it will be even less, with only 4% of the year needing the water cooling system rather than using air from outside the facility.

The draft permit also allows for it to be altered to potentially include PFAS testing in the future, if that is something regulators desire.

“The permit may be reopened to incorporate changes to any applicable standard or requirement, including those related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” DEQ said. It’s a step that advocates want to see the state take.

“They can test their wastewater before they discharge it to the publicly owned treatment works (POTW) and they should be doing that. POTWs need to know what the sources of PFAS that they’re dealing with are,” Kalmuss-Katz said.

New PFAS Regulations in the Works

The General Assembly this year advanced legislation towards testing for PFAS in wastewater and trying to locate the largest polluters of forever chemicals.

Senate Bill 138 requires public wastewater treatment facilities, industrial companies that use PFAS, airports and firefighting facilities to test their discharge for PFAS. Data centers do not currently fall under this legislation’s self reporting requirements.

Additionally, other bills were signed into law that require biosolids — sewage sludge from wastewater treatment facilities that is converted into fertilizer for farms — to be tested for the presence of PFAS. This pairs with past legislation to track down the largest sources of PFAS that are ending up in wastewater treatment facilities.

The Trump Administration has been adamant about expanding AI infrastructure, which includes data centers, by signing executive orders to beef up the expansion of the industry and the necessary transmission lines and power generation needed to support it.

Subsequently, the EPA announced the fast-track review of new chemicals that are intended to be used by the data center industry for their equipment and the manufacturing of their components.

What Comes Next

For the draft permit for the Amazon data center discharge into Sedges Creek, the next public hearing will be at Louisa County Middle School on June 9, 2026 at 7 to 9 p.m. From there, DEQ will make final decisions on if they will approve the permit for the facility.

It remains to be seen whether state or local officials will begin requiring data center discharge water be tested for PFAS and what that process might entail.

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Federal broadband policy is increasingly being recast around satellite

Jericho Casper, The Daily Yonder — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Another federal broadband subsidy may soon be restructured to account for the growing role of SpaceX's Starlink.

The low-Earth orbit satellite internet provider, having already gained legitimacy within broadband deployment programs administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, has also found a receptive audience at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC recently tweaked a proposal to modernize its High-Cost programs to place greater emphasis on considering the emergence of satellite technologies.

The High-Cost program, one of four initiatives within the federal Universal Service Fund overseen by the FCC, subsidizes telecommunications and broadband deployment in rural and other expensive-to-serve areas. At roughly $4.5 billion annually, it is the fund’s largest program.

In a proposed rulemaking adopted unanimously on May 20 the FCC asked whether LEO satellite broadband should be treated as a sufficient substitute for terrestrial infrastructure in the most difficult-to-serve areas, and whether continued support for land-based deployments in those locations constitutes unnecessary “overbuilding.”

In its proposal, the FCC claimed “nearly all” remaining U.S. locations without a fiber, cable or fixed wireless broadband connection are now considered to be served by “a LEO satellite provider.”

Many of those locations are in sparsely populated rural areas, where the high cost of deploying terrestrial broadband infrastructure has historically left residents with few connectivity options.

In its filing, the FCC reinforced its policy that “providing support in areas of the country where another voice and broadband provider is offering high-quality service without government assistance is an inefficient use of limited universal service funds.”

The FCC’s proposed rulemaking landed just days after SpaceX satellite policy principal Joseph Bissonnette met with all FCC commissioners to argue the FCC’s High-Cost programs should be “phased out” with “funding redirected to more productive ends.”

The FCC’s proposed rulemaking raises a series of unresolved questions about how regulators should evaluate satellite broadband performance, particularly around affordability, latency, reliability, and long-term capacity compared to terrestrial networks.

While FCC officials across the political spectrum stressed that the inquiry is meant to “build a record” on the technical merits of satellite service, the proposal closely follows a restructuring of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program that expanded consideration of satellite broadband.

Changes implemented by the Trump administration resulted in SpaceX winning the most locations of any ISP, taking more than 464,000 locations under the BEAD program, alongside $636 million in funding.

The previous administration had not treated satellite systems as meeting the technical requirements envisioned for broadband infrastructure under the BEAD program established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The bipartisan infrastructure law called for broadband networks built with BEAD funding to be capable of providing broadband service with: (1) at least 100/20 Megabit per second (Mbps) speed; (2) a low network latency enabling real-time, interactive applications; and (3) a low network outage rate of less than 48 hours over any 365-day period.

According to recent speed test data from Ookla, only 44.7 percent of Starlink customers in the US reached the 100/20 Mbps mark in the fourth quarter of 2025. That was a dramatic increase from the 17.4 percent who met it in the first quarter of 2025.

Starlink’s own disclosures indicate significant variability in user performance.

The company’s website says users typically experience download speeds between 45 and 280 Mbps, with a majority of users experiencing speeds over 100 Mbps. Upload speeds, however, range between 10 and 30 Mbps.

Latency ranges between 25 and 60 milliseconds (ms) in most land-based conditions, but can exceed 100 ms in remote regions such as oceans, islands, and Alaska.

By contrast, fiber networks commonly deliver symmetrical upload and download speeds exceeding 1 gigabit per second, with latency often below 10 milliseconds.

Higher latency can affect real-time applications such as video calls and interactive services, and users also report occasional service interruptions during satellite handoffs and periods of congestion. The gap becomes more noticeable for bandwidth-intensive or real-time applications such as cloud backups, online gaming, livestreaming and large file transfers.

While SpaceX’s Starlink service has steadily increased user speeds and reduced latency over the past several years, the technology is still outperformed by terrestrial networks in every other broadband performance dimension.

One analysis last year from Penn State University's X-Lab found that Starlink can support only 6.66 households per square mile before speeds drop below FCC broadband minimums.

Even still, federal policy is increasingly opening additional pathways for satellite broadband within legacy subsidy programs. A bill passed in the House in March would expand consideration of satellite service in another federal broadband funding stream.

Introduced by Representative David Taylor, a Republican from Ohio, the Expanding Appalachia’s Broadband Access Act would require the Government Accountability Office to assess whether the Appalachian Regional Commission can incorporate satellite-based broadband into its infrastructure grant programs.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), a federal-state partnership covering 13 Appalachian states, has historically prioritized fiber-optic infrastructure with its broadband grants.

ARC requires eligible providers to reliably deliver symmetrical 100/100 Mbps speeds with latency under 100 milliseconds. Providers must also offer affordable service with no data caps or throttling.

That ARC’s emphasis on affordability collides with emerging questions about satellite pricing.

SpaceX’s Starlink currently offers a “Residential Lite” plan at $80 per month and a standard residential plan at $120 per month, with advertised download speeds of up to 250–305 Mbps and upload speeds of 35–40 Mbps. After offering a limited promotion, the company recently raised prices across several plans by $5 to $10 per month.

The FCC has also begun to directly examine whether these pricing dynamics could become a policy concern if satellite broadband becomes the primary option in some rural areas.

The commission has asked whether rates in those regions could rise significantly above those charged for comparable urban services, and how regulators might ensure “reasonably comparable” pricing if terrestrial competition declines.

Looking ahead, SpaceX is positioning Starlink for a major capacity expansion.

The company expects to begin launching third-generation satellites later this year, which it says will increase download capacity by a factor of 10 and upload capacity by a factor of 24 compared with its current generation.

The FCC also adopted changes in April to satellite spectrum sharing rules that are expected to increase usable capacity by allowing greater frequency reuse across overlapping satellite beams.

SpaceX has already deployed more than 3,000 satellites in 2025 alone, adding roughly 270 terabits per second of capacity to its constellation, according to company disclosures.

The company’s growing footprint in federal policy comes as it prepares for a highly anticipated initial public offering expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq on June 12. Proceeds are expected to raise between $50 billion and $75 billion, which would make it the largest IPO ever.

SpaceX’s 250-page prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Wednesday offered a first public look at its earnings and financials, revealing that more than a fifth of its revenue now comes from government contracts, underscoring the extent to which federal demand is already intertwined with the business of Starlink.

This article was produced in collaboration with Broadband Breakfast, a news and events community focused on broadband infrastructure, investment, and impact.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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States are moving fast on AI. Now, we must measure what matters

Amanda Renteria — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

As artificial intelligence transforms our economy, more people may turn to government for help with food assistance, healthcare, unemployment and more.

The question is whether the systems they find will be ready for them.

In the past, these systems, many of which were designed for an analog era, have been too slow, too confusing and too fragmented. Now, with a shifting policy landscape and changing eligibility requirements, making these systems work for people is even more critical.

AI can either help government meet this challenge or compound it.

Used responsibly, it can help agencies process information more efficiently, identify missing documents earlier, translate complex rules into clearer guidance and make it easier for people to find and complete the right application. It can also reduce administrative burden for caseworkers and help agencies deliver services with greater speed and accuracy. But if done wrong, it can increase bias, add complexity and reduce trust in government.

Across the country, states are not waiting on the sidelines of this technological shift. They are stepping forward with urgency and a deep commitment to getting it right.

According to new analysis, more states are moving beyond general interest in AI and taking concrete action. They are establishing governance bodies, issuing executive orders, launching secure tests, creating innovation labs and beginning to train public sector workers. Some are testing tools that support document review, eligibility workflows and internal agency operations.

This matters because the next wave of AI adoption will not happen in a vacuum. What takes hold and works in one state will be replicated or adapted in another.

Several states are beginning to shape the trajectory of our government’s use of AI.

Maryland has partnered with Anthropic to deploy an AI-powered agent to help residents navigate the benefits application process online. New Jersey is building on its AI assistant with specialized tools that can expand educational resources, validate documents and analyze high volumes of resident feedback.

Pennsylvania is scaling an AI-driven tool to scan documents for legibility during the benefits application process, helping reduce administrative burden for caseworkers. And Texas has published a robust AI governance framework that provides guidelines and is working to improve data quality across state agencies as it moves from pilots, or smaller tests, to broader projects.

These are just a few examples of what is possible when states approach AI with seriousness, structure and a commitment to learning. They also show that responsible AI adoption will look different across states because public needs, agency capacity, technology infrastructure and policy environments vary widely.

At the same time, few have built the systems needed to consistently measure long-term impact.

That is where the next phase must be focused.

In the year ahead, more states will formalize governance structures to guide their use of AI, expand workforce training and build stronger testing environments. Successful pilots will continue transitioning into operational programs. Procurement strategies will become more sophisticated as states demand stronger evidence of performance, security, accessibility and public value.

The most important shift will be from adoption to accountability. Government leaders should resist the temptation to define success by the number of AI tools launched. The better measure is whether those tools create public value: faster decisions, fewer burdensome steps, more accurate information, better resident experiences and stronger support for the public servants who make government work every day.

Doing so requires clear evaluation frameworks. Government leaders need to know whether AI tools are reducing errors, saving staff time, improving service quality and working effectively across communities. They need feedback loops that include residents, caseworkers, agency leaders, technologists and policymakers. They need systems that allow them to learn, adjust and improve over time.

State governments are already stepping up and embracing responsible AI. The opportunity now is to ensure that AI helps government become more responsive, more effective and more human.

Amanda Renteria is CEO of Code for America, the country’s leading civic tech nonprofit for over 15 years.

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Maine enlists AI to help combat rising home insurance rates

Kaitlyn Levinson — Fri, 29 May 2026 14:40:10 -0400

Maine, known for its picturesque coastal cottages and rocky shores adorned with lighthouses, is also reckoning with the impacts of climate change that have grown more severe and frequent in recent years. Rising sea levels and skyrocketing temperatures have pushed state officials to pursue solutions to help residents protect their homes, and artificial intelligence has emerged as a key player.

The Maine Bureau of Insurance is rolling out a grant program for state residents this year that will partially finance roof repairs to build their homes’ resilience against severe climate events, like hurricanes. The program comes as homeowners insurance premiums have seen a 23% rate increase in recent years.

Through the $15 million Fortify Maine Homes program, homeowners could be eligible for at least $10,000 and up to $15,000 in grant money to support their climate resilience projects. To efficiently approve applications and dole out funds, officials realized the program needed a platform to streamline and expedite the process, said Charlie Mercer, the program lead.

“There are a lot of players in the program — everyone from applicants to contractors to evaluators and other individuals,” he said, adding that BOI wanted to “build a system that allows all of those people to communicate with each other and move as efficiently as possible.”

Helping the state build and implement such a system is Forerunner, a geospatial platform provider. For BOI, Forerunner has designed an online portal where residents can apply for grant money based on required criteria, such as holding state residency, owning a single-family or duplex home, having an in-force homeowners’ insurance policy and others.

AI is then used to assist BOI staff with conducting application reviews, prompting human staff to confirm if the application is missing information or contains incorrect data that the original applicant needs to address, Mercer explained. An independent evaluator will also inspect the property to determine if the home meets the program’s standards for qualification, the results of which will be examined by the AI tool.

The online platform will generate an AI-enabled summary to inform BOI staff’s decision to approve or deny an application, after which the state will send homeowners a list of state-approved contractors who can complete the construction project, he said.

“AI is going to be able to do a number of things for us that will speed up the process,” Mercer said. “If AI can tell me if that's a real correct address, I want AI to tell me that. If AI can tell me [a house is] in a flood zone, I want AI to tell me that, rather than the staff person having to go look up addresses and make sure they're real addresses. That’s going to allow our folks to focus on the bigger, more important issues in terms of getting applications processed.”

Once an application is approved, the AI tool also helps users draft and send emails and other communications between homeowners, contractors and evaluators through the portal to ensure stakeholders are updated on the project’s progress, Mercer said.

The program and the platform used to implement it “will bring a new market” to Maine, he said. For example, homeowners will be able to engage with businesses more, and businesses will have new and more work opportunities through the initiative. For the state government, leaders could see service delivery speed and efficiency improve.

To get there, “we want to tiptoe before we walk and walk before we run,” Mercer said. That’s why the home improvement program will first be piloted in four counties where data shows homeowners face relatively high costs from insurance claims. The application period is slated to open in June.

Next year, officials plan to expand program coverage for flood mitigation projects, such as drain installation, sealing home foundations and opening and retrofitting electrical systems.

“Eventually we'll be able to show the state of Maine a return on investment on their dollars [through] how much we were able to help homeowners across the state, how much homeowners invest in these properties as well, and what insurance savings [we] were able to receive and achieve because of the work that was done through this program,” Mercer said. “I can't imagine the number of people or what we'd have to do if we had to do this all manually, so the portal and AI together really are going to be a huge help to us.”

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Massachusetts establishes nation’s first union for ride-hailing drivers

Chris Teale — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

Massachusetts this week became the first state to establish a union for ride-hailing drivers, in what officials said is one of the biggest expansions of collective bargaining rights in modern history.

The state’s Department of Labor Relations last week certified the App Driver’s Union as the exclusive bargaining unit for ride-hailing drivers, where they can collectively bargain for wages, benefits and other work conditions.

The certification means the almost 70,000 ride-hailing drivers in the state can unionize while maintaining their status as independent contractors. Voters first approved the right for them to unionize in November 2024 through Ballot Question 3. State officials said this represents the largest private sector bargaining victory since the 1940s, and it is the first gig worker union in the country.

“Massachusetts has always been at the forefront of the labor movement — from the mills of Lowell to the innovation economy of today. This is a historic moment for workers, for fairness and for the future of our economy,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “Rideshare drivers are crucial members of our workforce and our communities, and they deserve a real voice in shaping their wages, benefits and working conditions.”

Studies in the past several years have found that ride-hailing drivers and other independent contractors in the gig economy struggle with low wages; a lack of benefits typically granted to employees, including sick pay; and other issues like violence and sexual harassment. Federal and state lawmakers have tried with varying degrees of success to get those issues under control.

But this unionization effort in Massachusetts, kicked off by the ballot initiative and a 2024 law, looked to make it easier for ride-hailing drivers to unionize and collectively bargain in the state. Drivers could obtain each other’s contact information to organize by showing support from 5% of their peers, a lower threshold than the 30% support required under the National Labor Relations Act.

Then, if drivers showed at least 25% support, they could begin the bargaining process. This Massachusetts law also provides for bargaining across a sector, so sets standards across an entire industry, rather than at an individual work site. The Center for American Progress said in an analysis that the new App Drivers Union bargaining unit could be the largest in the private sector since 1941, when more than 80,000 Ford workers at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, unionized and joined the United Auto Workers union.

For their part, major ride-hailing companies indicated a willingness to work with the ADU and its members.

Lyft spokesman CJ Macklin said the company is “committed to engaging in good faith, while Uber spokeswoman Katie Franger said the efforts of 2024 show “what we can achieve when we listen to drivers.”

“Lyft does well when drivers do well, and we'll stay focused on helping drivers succeed while keeping rideshare affordable and dependable for everyone who counts on it," Macklin continued.

“As we enter this next phase, we will work closely with the ADU, our broader driver community, and the Department of Labor Relations,” Franger added. “Together, we will ensure that driver flexibility and hard-won benefits remain the foundation of our progress, while upholding the highest standards of safety, data security, transparency, and public accountability.”

Similar bargaining efforts are underway in Illinois and Minnesota, and there is hope this model could continue to spread. One thing that could stand in its way, however, would be if President Donald Trump’s administration, the National Labor Relations Board or the U.S. Supreme Court chooses to classify ride-hailing drivers or other gig economy workers as employees.

But those present at a rally at the Massachusetts State House said it represents a historic accomplishment.

“As industries evolve, Massachusetts remains committed to ensuring that worker protections evolve alongside them,” State Rep. Paul McMurtry, a Democrat who chairs the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, said in a statement. “Today’s achievement sends a clear message that innovation and strong labor standards can coexist, and that our Commonwealth will always fight to ensure workers have the opportunity to live, work, and raise their families with security and dignity.”

Experts said this kind of sectoral bargaining, which looks to represent workers across an entire industry rather than at an individual work site, could be a model for others.

“Technology and artificial intelligence are rapidly reshaping work, but this effort shows that workers do not have to face those changes alone,” David Madland, senior adviser to the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement.

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Experts tell Alabama lawmakers to clearly define ages, artificial intelligence in future legislation

Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector — Fri, 29 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400

This story was originally published by Alabama Reflector.

Experts told Alabama lawmakers Wednesday that regulating artificial intelligence for children should start with clear definitions.

Speaking before the Study Commission on Artificial Intelligence and Children’s Safety – a group of lawmakers, child advocates, a representative from the Attorney General’s office and the Department of Mental Health – Kevin Frazier, AI innovation and law fellow at the University of Texas, told lawmakers that an outright ban on AI is not the answer.

“Blanket bans just ignore the fact that there’s so many contextual factors that for one family versus another, AI use may make sense,” Frazier said.

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The commission is tasked with studying the effects of AI, social media, and Internet access and usage on children, and to recommend legislation to address issues related to such technologies, according to the resolution creating the commission.

A 2025 study from the National Institutes of Health found potential benefits and risks when children and teens use AI. The study found that using AI for homework or the classroom could free up time to focus on other topics, but can also cause cognitive biases or lead students to offload tasks to AI that they would otherwise learn on their own.

A February study from the Pew Research Center found that 54% of teens have used an AI chatbot to help with homework, but few use it regularly.

“For a minority of teens, chatbots have become a go-to tool for much of their schoolwork. One-in-ten teens say they do all or most of their schoolwork with chatbots’ help,” the study states. “Larger shares say they do some (21%) or a little (23%) of their schoolwork with the help of a chatbot. Another 45% haven’t used them in this way.”

The NIH study also found potential benefits and risks when adolescents use AI for mental health reasons. Frazier, who leads the University of Texas’ AI Innovation and Law Program, said that AI should not be made the enemy, but be used to streamline processes in the classroom and in mental health facilities.

“We see also that there is a significant shortage of mental health support, so when it comes to accessing the requisite degree of expertise in mental health care and the number of mental health workforce practitioners generally, Alabama tends to be on the lower end of the spectrum across the United States, also known as the bottom,” Frazier said.

Rep. Ben Robbins, R-Sylacauga, who co-chairs the commission, said in an interview after the meeting that he hopes the commission can build a foundation for AI legislation.

“Artificial intelligence is evolving and growing so rapidly and fast that we don’t even have the framework or the foundation to legislate,” he said. “We have to define it as it’s used in the industry and where it might be going in a few years.”

When drafting legislation, Rob Eleveld, CEO of the Transparency Coalition – a nonprofit that researches policies related to AI – said that specific definitions are important.

“Any bill you create to protect kids is going to have some definition of a minor in it, and how you determine a minor, and there are rightly a lot of concerns about if you have to provide documentation, a social security card, a drivers license to prove you’re a minor,” Eleveld said. “This is stuff that can be hacked, it can be that companies can use against these kids.”

While the Legislature has previously defined terms such as “minor” and “parent” in legislation, like in a law passed in February requiring app stores to have age verifications for minors, it has yet to define artificial intelligence.

Yonathan Arbel, a law professor at the University of Alabama, also cautioned on the type of age verification definitions the state should use. There is the simple verification, like in an app store law from February, and there is age assurance.

“I would urge you to think about when each type of age verification method is appropriate and what tolerance do we have for mistakes,” Arbel said.

Age verification, he said, is more binary but easy to bypass, whereas age assurance is based on behavior compounded with government documents used in age verification, but can still be inaccurate.

Robbins said the potential harms children face in modern technology are the same they faced 30 years ago, just in a different medium.

“Human history has changed, but harms have not changed. Assault of a child is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago, and you’re explaining that there are now new doors to walk through to create that harm,” he said. “No longer are you saying ‘Don’t take candy from the stranger’ because the candy from the stranger has now moved to another location, and they’re operating online.”

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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Texas’ app age verification law allowed to go into effect for now

Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune — Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400

This article was originally published by Texas Tribune.

Texas’ law requiring app marketplace operators like Google and Apple to verify all users’ ages and seek parental permission before minors can download apps or make in-app purchases can go into effect for now, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a temporary injunction issued by a federal district judge in Austin, who wrote in December that the restrictions in Texas’ law likely violated the First Amendment. The 5th Circuit panel did not explain its reasoning for issuing the decision, which can still be reversed by the appeals court in the future.

Senate Bill 2420, which was supposed to activate on Jan. 1, establishes age verification requirements and mandates parental consent before a person under the age of 18is allowed to download or make purchases within apps. The law also requires app developers to say whether their apps are appropriate for people in four categories: children under 13, teens aged 13-15, older teens aged 16-17 or adults 18 or older.

Its supporters say the law is needed to protect children as they navigate social media and online spaces, while critics say it would violate free speech rights. Louisiana and Utah have passed similar laws that have not yet gone into effect.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech trade group, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, an advocacy group, filed separate lawsuits in October challenging the law, both arguing it violates the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman sided with the plaintiffs in December, finding the law likely violates the First Amendment and issuing the temporary injunction blocking the law while the full case plays out in the district court.

“The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book,” Pitman wrote in a 20-page ruling at the time.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the temporary injunction in late December.

Paxton earlier this month urged the appeals court to allow enforcement of the law, arguing the state has the right to regulate transactions between minors and app marketplaces that take place in the state, according to court filings.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plaintiffs earlier this week urged the court to uphold Pitman’s injunction, arguing SB 2420 “restricts an enormous amount of online speech” in violation of the First Amendment.

Students Engaged in Advancing Texas in a statement Thursday noted its members use app marketplaces to access apps used to communicate and learn, and the organization itself uses apps to engage with its members and the public.

“Students have just as much a right to access information as adults, and this law denies them that access,” Cameron Samuels, co-founder and executive director of SEAT, wrote in a statement.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thursday’s ruling is only an administrative stay, temporarily blocking the lower court’s injunction of the law until a further review by the 5th Circuit.

Disclosure: Apple and Google have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Israeli researchers link Iran government to LA Metro cyberattack

Chris Teale — Thu, 28 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

A cyberattack that crippled a transit system in Los Angeles in March appears to have been carried out not by a pro-Iran hacker group, but by a government ministry, according to new research.

Gambit, an Israeli security company, said in an analysis released this week that new forensic evidence suggests that the Iran Ministry of Intelligence and Security was responsible for the attack on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, known as LA Metro. The attack forced the transit agency to shut down access to some of its network after its security team found unauthorized activity, although it said bus and rail service was unaffected.

Gambit’s analysis found that the group responsible is not a new, standalone hacktivist group, but is instead the group Black Shadow, which has links to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Initially, a new pro-Iranian hacking group called Ababil of Minab had claimed responsibility for the attack and published claims on Telegram that they said showed them accessing LA Metro’s internal systems. Gambit said those claims were false.

According to the research, hackers infiltrated a virtual machine on LA Metro’s network and deleted it, as well as its underlying files. Hours later, LA Metro said a “technical issue” was delaying service alerts and preventing riders from loading fares onto their mobile app. Hackers then continued to infiltrate virtual systems and delete files.

The analysis found that the group had also hit organizations in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, where the group took databases offline and deleted them. The hackers also appear to have used ChatGPT to improve their scripts and make their hacks more effective, Gambit said.

“What makes this campaign matter beyond the attribution is the velocity,” Gambit researchers wrote. “Modern intrusion operators are moving from initial access straight into the recovery layer, virtualization, backups, storage volumes, to maximize destruction and deny remediation. The skill required to do that at scale is collapsing in parallel. As AI capabilities become widely available, any actor, skilled or not, will be able to execute this kind of campaign.”

Experts have long warned of the threat Iran could pose to U.S. critical infrastructure as it looks to retaliate for the ongoing war in their country and the surrounding region. Other observers said hacking efforts like the ones made against LA Metro and SFRTA should have officials worried, especially if they are backed by Iranian government agencies.

TJ Sayers, senior director of threat intelligence at the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, drew a comparison to Handala Hack Team, which emerged in 2023 as a pro-Palestinian hacktivist group judged to be responsible for several cyberattacks during the ongoing war in Iran and is also allegedly operated by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

“Aside from their claimed allegiance with Iranian state causes, very little information was available on Ababil of Minab at the time they claimed the attack,” Sayers continued in an email. “This is not uncharacteristic for emerging Iranian hacktivist collectives, especially with reference to any ties directly to state or state sanctioned activities.”

The ministry was sanctioned in 2022 for what then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control described as “malign cyber activities,” which included cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. Israel’s top cyberdefense official recently warned that Iran’s hackers are coordinating with each other more closely, too.

Experts said the hacks in Los Angeles and elsewhere represent something of an escalation in Iran’s efforts to wreak havoc in cyberspace. Ensar Seker, chief information security officer at threat intelligence platform SOCRadar, said it shows the nation’s “growing willingness to combine espionage, disruption, and psychological impact in a single campaign.”

“Transportation systems are particularly attractive targets because even limited operational disruption can generate immediate public visibility, media attention, and pressure on local governments,” Seker continued in an email. “In this case, the theft of hundreds of gigabytes of internal data alongside network disruption suggests the attackers were not simply conducting intelligence collection, but also positioning themselves for coercive influence and operational impact.”

Seker warned that organizations that are being targeted need to be hyper-vigilant, especially as it shows that regional conflicts can “increasingly spill” into civilian digital infrastructure that is often far away from the immediate conflict zone.

“Organizations should also pay attention to the data exposure aspect of this incident,” Seker said. “The theft of backups, emails, and internal documentation can create long-term downstream risks including follow-on phishing campaigns, extortion attempts, infrastructure mapping, and targeting of employees or contractors. Many organizations still treat operational disruption and data theft as separate problems, but modern state-aligned actors increasingly combine both into multi-stage campaigns.”

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Gov. Josh Shapiro’s new data center standards reflect new reality

Justin Sweitzer — Thu, 28 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Data centers are among the hottest topics of the summer – and many officials want Pennsylvania to be at the forefront of future developments.

On Wednesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a list of standards for potential data center developers, aiming to create guardrails for an industry whose energy needs have quickly outpaced public sentiment.

On the topic of data centers and artificial intelligence development, Shapiro has gone from being Pennsylvania’s head cheerleader to a cautiously optimistic fan – a change that coincides with public concerns about the environmental and energy impacts of such infrastructure and the level to which public investment should contribute to these projects.

The newly released standards drew a mix of praise and concerns. Katie Blume, the chair of the Clean Power PA Coalition, a group made up of energy, environmental and business stakeholders, said the standards are “an important step toward ensuring data center growth in Pennsylvania happens responsibly.” However, the Data Center Coalition, an industry group advocating for data center developers, said it has “strong concerns” that the standards will create a “complicated framework that would present significant challenges for future development and operation of data centers in the commonwealth.”

The latest standards and statements show Shapiro’s rapidly evolving embrace of the industry over the past year – and the potential economic gains for Pennsylvania – while taking a measured approach to address community concerns.

Here’s a look at Shapiro’s timeline of takes on data center development:

June 2025: Shapiro and Amazon announce $20 billion data center investment

On June 9, 2025, Shapiro joined leaders from Amazon to announce a $20 billion investment to build two data center campuses in the commonwealth – the largest private-sector investment in state history. Shapiro said the investment would “power our global economy and the future of artificial intelligence” – and proclaimed that Pennsylvania was “all in on AI.”

“We are already all in on AI,” Shapiro said. “Here in Pennsylvania, we have the energy resources to support this technology. We’ve got the brains to be able to drive innovation forward. We have the workforce ready to build and maintain these critical data centers. We’ve got elected leaders from every single level ready to roll up their sleeves and continue to work together for the common good – for our commonwealth. This is what a united front looks like to win the battle of AI supremacy.”

July 2025: Shapiro joins Sen. Dave McCormick’s energy and AI-focused summit

The Democratic governor and Republican officials seemed to be in lockstep on making Pennsylvania an AI powerhouse during a summit hosted by McCormick.

Both Shapiro and McCormick touched on the importance that Pennsylvania’s workforce, educational institutions and energy assets could play in the AI economy.

“I think this deal with Amazon is an indicator of all that we can be … we have government and the private sector working together, not at odds, and we pull in our educational institutions in a way that really helps move Pennsylvania forward,” Shapiro said during the day’s third panel.

February 2026: Shapiro outlines GRID standards for data center developers

During his 2026 budget address, Shapiro once again showed support for leading the way in data center and AI development, while outlining a set of “responsible development” guidelines that he said would “hold data center developers accountable to strict standards if they want our full support.”

These guidelines, known as the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards, include requiring data center developers to:

Bring their own power generation to projects
Commit to strict transparency standards and direct community engagement
Hire and train local workers
Commit to high standards of environmental protection and water protection

“If companies adhere to these principles, they will unlock benefits from the Commonwealth, including speed and certainty in permitting and available tax credits,” Shapiro said during his budget address.

Shapiro also acknowledged that while data centers have the potential to bring new jobs and new tax revenue to the state, Pennsylvania residents “have real concerns about these data centers and the impact they could have on our communities, our utility bills, and our environment.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed interest in Shapiro’s GRID standards. “The notion that data centers should bring their own supply to the market seems to make a lot of sense,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said in February.

May 2026: Shapiro unveils full GRID standards

Shapiro unveiled his full GRID standards on Wednesday, calling for regulations to establish “clear guardrails to hold data centers developers accountable while still supporting responsible growth of AI and technology infrastructure in Pennsylvania.”

The GRID standards include protections for energy affordability and ratepayers, transparency and community engagement, workforce development initiatives and environmental protection and sustainability measures.

Under the standards, developers must build, bring or buy the electric capacity needed to meet data center energy demands, and they would be required to develop a community outreach plan designed to inform community stakeholders about data center projects.

Shapiro’s office said it’s also proposing legislation that would, in an effort to create additional enforcement, tie eligibility for state tax benefits to GRID certification, meaning businesses would have to meet the aforementioned guidelines in order to receive additional public dollars.

“If companies want the Commonwealth’s full support – they must meet strong standards on energy affordability, clean energy generation, transparency, workforce development, community impact, and environmental protection,” Shapiro said in a statement Wednesday. “This is about setting a higher bar for projects and ensuring development happens responsibly and in a way that benefits Pennsylvanians.”

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Empire AI is already making rapid progress in drug discovery

John Celock — Thu, 28 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400

One of the most transformational projects in New York higher education is Empire AI, a first-in-the-nation consortium of public and private research universities to advance artificial intelligence research in the state. Headquartered at the University at Buffalo, Empire AI is predicted to have not just an academic impact on the state – including from research and the growth of new academic programs – but an economic impact with the research serving as a base for new companies. City & State talked with Venu Govindaraju, the University at Buffalo’s senior vice president for research, innovation and economic development, to discuss where Empire AI is going. Govindaraju has been working on artificial intelligence projects for over 30 years, earning him the moniker “the OG of AI.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Where do things stand now with Empire AI?

Empire AI is, as we all know, a consortium of universities, right? So we already have a board, and all the consortium members are represented in the board. So that is one aspect. The other aspect is the real hardware, right? The computers that will, essentially, catapult us into the new age of research. So the way things stand is, I believe it was October of 2023 if I’m not mistaken, when the governor came and inaugurated the alpha machines. So the alpha machines were essentially coming from a gift from (the) Simons Foundation. And those, I think it was $10 million and then there is something more added on to it. Those computers are in UB’s Center for Computational Research in our downtown office in the economic development zone. Those are operational. They have been performing and all the consortium members have been running projects on those machines for the last year and a half and with some very, very exciting results to show for that. Then the next installment, buying computing hardware, what is called beta, I think we have about 280 or so of those GPUs, which are all just about to be operational in maybe a few weeks. These are very high density computing chips, so there were some arrangements that had to be made to accommodate the power requirements and also the cooling that needs to be done. These beta machines, I think, were an additional $30 million to 40 million of investment, and will give us about anywhere between 10 to 20 times speed up over the alpha.

Where do things stand with the permanent Empire AI data center?

The real data center is being built as the Empire AI computing center on the University of Buffalo campus. The drawings are all being approved as we speak, and groundbreaking should happen sometime in late summer. We are told that it should take 12 to 18 months. So my guess would be that that center should be ready maybe at the end of next year, sometime (after) for operation. That will be, again, another additional 10 to 20 times speed up, so you can see how you know we have this is really the latest and greatest computing infrastructure available.

What types of projects has Empire AI been used for so far?

At UB, we have had some very good, interesting projects in the health space, in the drug discovery space. I think the other consortium members have talked about helping with climate prediction, with the environment, with urban planning, so it’s the entire gamut of projects. My understanding is more than 120 projects have already been submitted to get time on these machines.

What was the pharmacology project that the University at Buffalo was working on with Empire AI?

This is really exciting and interesting for me, because from my understanding of how this works for drug discovery, scientists would usually design a particular kind of protein based on their understanding of its structure. Its protein gets folded, and somebody got a Nobel Prize a few years back trying to predict how this protein folds in various dimensions. The way scientists should work is they essentially design by simulation on a computer, and they come up with some kind of a predicted structure, then they go and actually fabricate that protein in a lab. Then they test that manufactured protein under various instruments and see how that behaves. Then they come back to the drawing board and tweak the design and go back and do the same cycle again. Before Empire AI, that cycle, each step, each iteration, would take anywhere from six to eight months, not because some of us don’t have the most sophisticated computing infrastructure, but because it is not what the latest Empire AI is offering. So now, with the alpha, one of our scientists, he was able to show that instead of taking six months for an iteration, he can just do it in six days. And the prediction is that once we have beta next month, that could be very well six hours.

What type of impact can Empire AI have long term on New York?

It’s not just getting some publications and scholarly activities going, but actually getting the translation part of getting startup companies launched and commercialization happening. So in New York’s case, AI can be used to bring down healthcare costs, because that is looming large in every state, especially New York, because we have such good benefits for everybody but the cost is going to skyrocket. It’s already skyrocketing. What can AI do? Drug discovery will be faster, so maybe it will get cheaper. Maybe the way we monitor and manage our hospitals, the beds, the patients, all those things. We have more than 100 projects of interest with AI, and more than half of them are in the healthcare space, because that’s most appealing to a lot of people, where AI and medicine can come together.

Can Empire AI serve as an economic catalyst?

That it is, attracting startups to relocate in this ecosystem. I think you must have covered (or) seen a story in The Buffalo News a year or so back where a startup company from Boston was relocating in Buffalo, just with the idea of being close to this ecosystem of Empire AI. Another effect it is having is we see more faculty members, university faculty members, choosing UB over perhaps universities which are similarly ranked, or even maybe higher ranked, but they’re preferring UB because of the access to Empire AI. We’re just getting started.

New York has seen a growth in technology investment between Empire AI, Micron and the federally designated technology hub spanning Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. What will the impact be for the state?

This is a game changer. I think the Empire AI, and the tech hub and the semiconductor industry with Micron and Syracuse, it’s going to take a little bit of time, but this is exactly what we need to catapult us to be the leader in the next decade in the technology space. Semiconductors are going to be so important. All these AI advances are coming out of these specialized chips, and we need to absolutely be on the cutting edge of that and also not be vulnerable to the supply chain issues (that) were exposed during COVID. Looking ahead, we have to be also well placed in quantum, and I see that our state has made huge investments. There have been investments in the Stony Brook area. There was an announcement by the governor that there will be four different quantum hubs, which will be funded and supported to make sure that New York is leading in that space. So AI, semiconductors, quantum, these are all the technologies where I think we are positioning ourselves very well, and ultimately, these will deliver the benefit to society, whether it’s in healthcare or whether it is in education, all those different sectors.

You’ve been called “the OG of AI,” and you’ve done some unique and interesting research in this field. What are your thoughts about that description and talk about some of your work in this field?

That’s a tongue in cheek comment. I heard it a year back, I think when Empire AI was being announced, and I think somebody quite important just called me that. I got into AI 30 years back at the University at Buffalo in the ’90s. We worked on postal automation, and we were the first to actually develop a system that could read handwritten addresses automatically. So just imagine, 30 years back, somebody drops an envelope in the mailbox by just handwriting an address. No human being lays eyes on that address. There is an image taken and a computer program … figures out where that mail should be delivered among all the almost 300 million possible destination places within the United States. It was a big success, because we did something in the real world (that) had not happened (until) then, because most of the artificial intelligence discipline work up to that point had not succeeded in the real world. If you go and look back, the big stories were: The computer can play “Jeopardy.” The computer can play chess and beat the grand masters. Excellent. But those were not helping the public, right? It was not a real-world solution, whereas postal automation was at scale. So, since I was there in the beginning, and that success has been touted as one of the first real-world AI success stories, I guess somebody just wanted to have some fun and call me the OG.

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New drone authorities for local law enforcement: Turning power into preparedness

Keith Stalder — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:00:00 -0400

On any given fall Saturday, thousands of fans pack into college stadiums across the country. Overhead, a small drone appears. At first, it seems routine and easy to ignore. Then it lingers and begins to move unpredictably.

What was once a common sighting is quickly becoming a potential security concern, forcing local law enforcement to assess the situation in real time. Who is operating it? What is its purpose? Does it pose a threat to the thousands of people below?

Scenarios like this are becoming more common. Airports report near misses between drones and commercial aircraft, and medical helicopters are increasingly forced to reroute due to drone activity. Correctional facilities are also grappling with drones used to surveil or deliver contraband over prison walls. What were once isolated incidents are now routine operational challenges.

Local law enforcement and emergency responders are now on the frontlines of the growing drone threat. It is happening in their jurisdictions, at their events, and often on their watch. They are the first and most important line of defense.

The Old Reality: Observe and Report

Historically, state, county, city and tribal law enforcement agencies could detect and track drones, but were not authorized to take active mitigation measures like taking control of, disabling, or otherwise disrupting a drone. Primary authority over airspace and counter-drone operations was largely limited to federal departments in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration.

This left most state and local agencies in a reactive posture, unable to intervene in real time, even when a drone posed a potential threat to public safety and they were the officials the public depended on to respond. The observe and report posture creates risk and waiting for federal coordination or response is often incompatible with the speed and unpredictability of the drone threat.

The New Reality: Authority to Act

That dynamic is beginning to change, and momentum is building in Congress to expand and formalize new authorities. Proposed legislation like the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety and Reauthorization Act signals broader federal efforts to update and extend counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities across agencies. At the same time, the SAFER SKIES Act, enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, marks a significant shift by extending C-UAS authorities to law enforcement and correctional officers.

State, county, city and tribal law enforcement agencies and correctional personnel, once properly trained and certified, are being empowered to take a more active role in C-UAS. The law authorizes these officials to take actions “necessary to mitigate a credible threat” posed by a drone to the safety and security of people, facilities, large-scale public events, critical infrastructure and correctional institutions.

Mitigation can include the ability to detect, identify, monitor and track drones; warn operators through a range of communication methods; and, when necessary, disrupt or disable drone control systems, seize or take control of a drone, confiscate equipment, or use reasonable force to neutralize a threat.

Importantly, these mitigation efforts must use approved technologies from a list jointly maintained by federal agencies, ensuring that state and local actions remain aligned with national standards and legal safeguards.

The Opportunity: Funding and Training Are Available Now

Agencies are not expected to build these capabilities alone. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has already begun investing in state and local preparedness through its Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Grant Program.

To date, FEMA has issued $250 million in FY26 to 11 states and the National Capital Region to support C-UAS readiness for major events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and America 250 celebrations, with an additional $250 million in FY27 to be made available across all states and territories to expand nationwide capabilities.

Funding supports not only equipment, but also planning, organization, training and exercises to build comprehensive operational readiness and requires participating agencies to have personnel trained at the FBI’s National Counter-UAS Training Center.

What Local Authorities Can Do Now

Preparing now will position local agencies to compete effectively for FY27 C-UAS funding and ensure they can operationalize these capabilities when they are needed most. A critical first step is engaging early with your State Administrative Agency, which manages federal grant funding and will play a central role in shaping priorities and distributing resources.

In many states, the SAA is a State Homeland Security Office, Emergency Management Agency, or a department of public safety. At the same time, state, county, city and tribal agencies should clearly define internal C-UAS roles and responsibilities, establishing who is responsible for detection, threat assessment, coordination with federal partners and, where authorized, mitigation.

Equally important is conducting jurisdiction-specific threat and risk assessments and site surveys to identify where drones are most likely to pose a danger. These insights should directly shape operational planning, resource allocation and response protocols.

Local leaders should also integrate C-UAS considerations into existing emergency response and event security plans, coordinate with local venue operators and private sector partners and establish protocols for information sharing with partners and federal agencies.

Developing standard operating procedures, planning for public communication and collecting and reporting data on drone-related incidents will better position agencies to justify and secure future funding. Taking these actions now will help ensure that when FY27 resources become available, agencies are not starting from scratch but are ready to build and scale effective, integrated counter-drone capabilities.

From Capability to Readiness

C-UAS is often framed as a technology challenge, but it is far more than hardware. Drones can be detected, tracked and even disabled with the right tools, but without trained personnel, clear authorities, defined procedures and strong coordination, those tools alone will fall short.

Effective counter-drone operations require an integrated approach that brings together policy, training, interagency collaboration, organizational communications and operational planning alongside technology. Success will depend on how well local agencies build and sustain these capabilities over time.

The drone threat is not slowing down, and neither can our response. Local law enforcement and correctional agencies now have both the authority and the opportunity to act. The next step is ensuring they are fully equipped to protect the communities they serve.

Lieutenant General Keith J. Stalder (U.S. Marine Corps, Ret.) is the Founder and President of KSA Integration, LLC, an award-winning defense and homeland security provider that delivers advanced Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems solutions through cutting-edge technologies, strategic partnerships and operational reach. A former F-4 and F/A-18 pilot, LtGen Stalder served over 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he led U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, II Marine Expeditionary Force and 3D Marine Aircraft Wing.

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Georgia fire department launches drone program to enhance public safety response

Kaitlyn Levinson — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:38:43 -0400

The Sandy Springs Fire Department in Georgia is seeing early efficiency gains after recently launching a drone-as-a-first responder program, making it the first fire department in the state to do so.

The public safety agency launched the DFR program earlier this year after installing a docked drone system in a fire station located near a major intersection of Interstate 285 and state Route 400, which is about 13 miles north of Atlanta.

The intersection and surrounding areas experience significant traffic akin to “an absolute nightmare,” said Livingston Do, captain of technology and data at the Sandy Springs Fire Department. In fact, a 2025 city report showed that ,between 2018 and 2022, there were 27,502 reported crashes in Sandy Springs with 27% and 23% of crashes occurring on I-295 and Route 400, respectively.

When someone on a major road like I-295 and Route 400 needs to contact 911, it’s common for them to not know exactly where they are on a long stretch of highway, Do said. Plus, the build up of traffic can hinder efforts to locate and reach the caller once responders have been dispatched.

That’s where SSFD’s new drone becomes a key tool for public safety responders. The drone uses RapidSOS technology to determine a caller’s approximate GPS coordinates through their device, Do said. The drone operator can then maneuver the drone to the location to identify the individual or vehicle in need of assistance, while the drone livestreams the footage of the scene to responding personnel who have access to tablets in the fire trucks arriving at the incident.

“There's a big philosophy in the fire service that these fire trucks are basically big old toolboxes, and we want options for everything, so [for] whatever incident or occurrence, we want to have an answer for it,” said Do.

SSFD officials hope the DFR program will help first responders locate callers more efficiently, enhance their situational awareness and enable them to prepare resources and personnel proactively.

Indeed, the city’s new drone can arrive at a scene within minutes and “can save us up to 15 to 20 minutes before getting on the scene,” said Do.

Typically, SSFD dispatches two fire trucks to approach the scene from different directions. With the live drone footage, first responders can better plan “whether they're going on the access, the on ramp, the off ramp, before they have to commit to these super long stretches of highway, they wait and see, and then they make a decision based off of that,” he explained.

The drone has proved useful for other use cases beyond its original highway assistance role, including surveying buildings during emergency situations, Do added. SSFD also uses the drone to, for instance, assess buildings on fire to reveal smoke in areas that personnel cannot see from their perspective.

SSFD will measure the impact of the docked drone system by collecting data on the device’s flight hours, analyzing 911 calls and geomapping where drone-enabled responses occur to further evaluate where the agency could expand the drone program in the city, Do said.

As an example, he pointed to the upcoming summer season that usually draws residents and visitors to a nearby recreational park. Drone technology can enhance efforts to locate lost or injured park visitors, expediting and optimizing rescue missions.

The DFR program is “making those [first responders] who are already going out there more efficient, and we’re making sure that they’re not missing anything and that they’re getting to you faster — it’s increasing the quality of service [more] than it is … increasing cost of the service,” Do said.

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