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Eagles coach condemns ‘ridiculous’ notion of benching Jalen Hurts amid team’s offensive struggles
Nick Sirianni shut down talk of benching Jalen Hurts despite the Philadelphia Eagles’ three-game losing streak and his five turnovers against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday.
NY Dem wouldn’t back Mamdani for mayor — now Mamdani is backing his challenger
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander launches congressional bid against Rep. Dan Goldman with backing from Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary.
Newsom calls homelessness and poverty ‘poster child’ of California’s failures as a state
Gov. Gavin Newsom said that homelessness is California’s “poster child” of failure during a new podcast interview, acknowledging the state’s ongoing struggles.
Walz deputy erupts at ICE and fellow Dem, torches Laken Riley Act in fiery tweetstorm as scandals pile up
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan slams fellow Democrat Rep. Angie Craig over ICE vote as immigration enforcement intensifies amid state’s fraud scandal.
Doggett bows out after SCOTUS upholds GOP-drawn map — warns GOP’s redistricting could backfire
Rep. Lloyd Doggett announces he will not seek re-election after the Supreme Court upheld Republican redistricting maps that threatened his Texas seat.
Why We Need Christmas
The world is full of various expressions of the depravity that can be the human soul. This kind of hatred is disgusting and history has shown us where it leads. Human trafficking, especially with children, is a human evil I hate to contemplate. But having just read this story about the open air drug market in Philadelphia, I cannot help but wonder if I have found rock bottom. It tells a tale of a unique kind of human trafficking, not where people are bought and sold, but where they are indeed held as slaves without even the minimal housing and sustenance accorded to slaves that provide labor of some sort.
The post Why We Need Christmas appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom
Thomas Sowell’s warning fits the digital age with brutal precision: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. When governments regulate technology, they seize your privacy first. Every “safety” mandate becomes an excuse to collect more personal data, and the result is always the same. Bureaucrats claim to protect you while making you more vulnerable.
Age-verification laws illustrate this perfectly. Discord’s recent breach — more than 70,000 stolen government ID photos taken from a third-party vendor — shows how quickly privacy collapses once platforms are forced to gather sensitive data.
Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks.
To comply with the U.K.’s new Online Safety Act, Discord began collecting users’ documentation. That data became a target, and once breached, attackers reportedly demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom and threatened to publish the stolen IDs. Discord failed to monitor its vendor’s security practices, and thousands paid the price.
Age-verification mandates require digital platforms to confirm a user’s age before granting access to specific content or services. That means uploading government IDs or submitting to facial scans. The stated goal is child safety. The actual effect is compulsory data surrender. These laws normalize the idea that governments can force citizens to hand over sensitive information just to use the internet.
Centralized data collection creates a jackpot for cybercriminals. As the Discord breach proves, one compromise exposes thousands — or millions — of users. Criminals can sell this information, reuse it for identity theft, or weaponize it for blackmail. The problem isn’t a one-off failure. It is structural. Age verification mandates require platforms to create consolidated databases of personally identifying information, which become single points of catastrophic failure.
The libertarian Cato Institute captures the problem: “Requiring age verification creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk.”
Governments may insist that the Discord breach was an outlier. It wasn’t. Breaches of sensitive information are predictable in systems designed to aggregate it. Even if the motives behind the U.K.’s age-verification regime were noble, undermining privacy to advance those aims is a trade-off free societies should reject. That is why the Online Safety Act triggered an outcry far beyond the U.K.
And, as usual, legislative mandates fail to achieve their stated goals. Days after the OSA took effect, VPN downloads surged as users — including children — bypassed verification systems. Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, told Wired that “whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.” Predictably, age-verification laws encourage evasion instead of compliance.
RELATED: The UK wants to enforce its censorship laws in the US. The First Amendment begs to differ.
mikkelwilliam via iStock/Getty Images
The pattern is simple: Age-verification laws degrade privacy, heighten the risk of identity theft, and fail to keep minors off restricted platforms. They make the internet less safe for everyone.
Meanwhile, policymakers remain determined to spread these mandates in the name of protecting children. The U.K. pioneered the model. Many other governments followed. Twenty-five U.S. states have adopted similar laws. The list grows each month.
But governments cannot treat data breaches as acceptable collateral damage. Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks. The result of this approach will be more surveillance, more breaches, more stolen personal data, and a steady erosion of civil liberties.
Privacy is the backbone of liberty in a digital world. Thomas Jefferson’s warning deserves repetition: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”
Age-verification mandates accelerate that progress — and citizens pay the price.
‘Shopaholic’ author Sophie Kinsella dies aged 55
British author Sophie Kinsella, who penned popular chick lit novels including the “Shopaholic” series, has died aged 55 after being diagnosed with brain cancer, her family announced on Wednesday.
‘The Voice Kids” Final 4 express mix of excitement, nerves ahead of finale
Sofia Mallares of Project Z, Yana Goopio of Team Bilib, Marian Ansay of JuleSquad, and Giani Sarita of Benkada are gearing up to take the stage as finalists in “The Voice Kids.”
