Elizabeth Nolan Brown

<Giant cockroach monster bursts out of Trump flesh suit>
Fox: President’s bold new look too tough for simpering libs
NYT: In the insectoid president’s new “devour all humans” initiative, a break from tradition

Also in today’s newsletter: Anthropic good, OpenAI bad… Alaska court case seeks to decriminalize sex work… the UK comes for streaming services… Neanderthal sex… and more! (Subscribe for free here: reason.com/newsletters/...)

Canadian cops questioned dad about human trafficking after he took his daughter to a coffee shop Plus: AI for mass surveillance, Alaskan lawsuit to decriminalize prostitution, "enhanced" British regulation of streaming services, and more…

Dad dares to go out with teen daughter in public, gets accused of human trafficking 🙄 reason.com/2026/03/02/c...

The cops, of course, commended the guy who gave them the totally baseless tip and blasted out the dad & girl’s pics on social media

"(C) SEXUALLY ORIENTED MATERIAL.- The term 'sexually oriented material' means material that — "(i) includes any depiction, description, or simulation of sexually explicit conduct (as defined in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of section 2256(2) of title 18, United States Code); or "(ii) involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism."

Congressional Republicans have introduced a bill that strips federal funding from any school that allows any book or resources that so much as references trans existence.

They're doing it by redefining anything trans as "sexually oriented material."

marymiller.house.gov/media/press-...

The NSA has a long history of word games, and it woukd be best to understand them before taking reassurances at face value. From 2013. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

Reading this, again, you get the sense that someone at Anthropic knows how the intel community misleads by using definitions of words that are different than everyone else believes. And the people at OpenAI simply don't know or don't care about that.

Well, yes, trans people are getting drugs; yes, from entirely unregulated sources; yes, without counselling; yes, without blood tests; yes, they are self-administering; yes, without clinical oversight; yes, risking long term harm; yes, it is highly suboptimal.

What did you think would happen?

Blaming buildings for sex trafficking As sex trafficking suits expand, critics warn they could push hotels and landlords to police women’s behavior.

Quote of the Week: “We should not expect maintenance staff to report people for having too much lube.” - @enbrown.bsky.social reason.com/2026/02/18/b...

Sigh. Nevermind. From Hegseth:

Pentagon to Anthropic: If you won't let us use your AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, expect punishment The Pentagon wants Anthropic to remove limits on AI use for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, raising civil liberties concerns.

Still, the federal response to this was extremely insane reason.com/2026/02/25/p...

Best we could hope for — at least not trying to compel Anthropic to let the military use its AI for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons

“We don’t want to do robot death machines or mass surveillance, we’re just throwing a massive hissy fit and all sorts of threats at a company that won’t help us do robot death machines and mass surveillance” is … not exactly convincing

Pentagon to Anthropic: If you won't let us use your AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, expect punishment The Pentagon wants Anthropic to remove limits on AI use for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, raising civil liberties concerns.

Kind of wild and extremely worrying that the Trump administration seems to think it can force AI companies to give the military tools for mass domestic surveillance and robot weapons reason.com/2026/02/25/p...

I'll have to look for one next time I'm at my parents house =)

The government wants your posts before it grants you papers The Trump administration will start collecting social media account information on immigration forms.

Trump admin to start demanding social media account info from people applying for green cards, citizenship, work & travel authorizations, refugee status, etc.

A way to chill immigrant speech & give officials pretext for denying status to people critical of them reason.com/2026/02/23/t...

The mandates are impossible to make work ... but that's the point.

The VPN ban is enforced by civil and AG lawsuits. Compliance is impossible, meaning they can sue any site with "material harmful to minors" that accidentally accepts VPN traffic.

It's about creating liability.

Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web Three hacktivists tried to find a workaround to Discord’s age-verification software. Instead, they found its frontend exposed to the open internet.

Oops. Turns out Persona, Discord’s age-verification service, was secretly screening selfies against government watchlists AND accessible by the feds. It's backed by Peter Thiel.

“The state wants to see everything. The corporations want to see everything. And they've learned to work together.”

If you’re not actively in the fight to preserve Section 230 then I do not care about your thoughts on algospeak. The enactment of FOSTA/SESTA in 2018 was the first attack on Section 230, and it is directly to blame for online censorship of sexual language, even before algorithms made it worse.

Cookbook cover — Winter in Tuscany by Amber Guinness

Recipe for Etruscan chestnut & chicpea soup

Boiling Dutch oven on stove

The Cincinnati library has this winter challenge with all sorts of tasks to complete and check off on bookmarks that you then turn in to them and it’s bringing out my dormant inner girl-scout-merit-badge, Pizza Hut Book-It earning dork

Currently cooking a recipe from a library cookbook

Normally not a fan of cute names for bills but there are exceptions to every rule

He was supposed to be getting the kids ready to leave the house 🙄

To be clear:
fried fish on rye — good
Catholic theocracy — not so good

Me to Catholic monarchist weirdos online: oh, sure, you want a Catholic theocracy, but is half your family volunteering at fish fries for the next 5 Fridays?

Doesn’t it? The definition here is so incredibly broad

Sigh. Yes. Remember when we were telling people a decade ago “hey, this online censorship to protect the children won’t stop with Craigslist and Backpage?” 🤪

Tell me your hometown is very Catholic without telling me your hometown is very Catholic

any official who claims to "know" about "trafficking" is making stuff up: "In the latest report, BJS admits that it has essentially no idea about the overall prevalence of human trafficking here."

people who were not citizens but were in the country legally

.... The flip side of "hey, these laws are so vague & broad we can use them against people guilty of other, harder-to-prove sex crimes" is "hey, these laws are so vague & broad we can use them against anyone we want"

Love how the answer here to why prosecutors bring sex trafficking cases against everyone these days is just basically "Because they can." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/n...