PACER Paywalls and Mexican Speech Laws Silence the Public
July 12, 2026
State institutions in Mexico and the US federal court system are weaponizing administrative fees and protective speech laws to insulate the powerful from public scrutiny. While French cybersecurity mandates and Vancouver's DIY art underground attempt to build resilient technical and social enclosures, the dismissal of Proud Boys prosecutions signals a systemic unraveling of judicial accountability under executive pressure.
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The Courts’ Solution To Overpriced Court Records: Make Them More Expensive
For many, many years on Techdirt we’ve bemoaned the fact that federal court documents are not available for free as they should be. Instead, we have PACER, a bloated, expensive, difficult to use system that charges you for every “page” it loads up for you (including search results). The whole thing…
- media and technology
- AI governance
- structural power
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France to Stop Certifying Non-Quantum-Safe Encryption
France is accelerating its transition to post-quantum encryption: France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI said on Tuesday it would stop certifying security products that lack quantum-resistant encryption, a move that will force government bodies and critical operators to shift away from older systems. S…
- Cybersecurity
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US judge dismisses January 6 case against Proud Boys after Trump order
The case is the latest instance of the Trump administration seeking to unravel prosecutions against January 6 rioters.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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Mexico Passed Speech Laws To Protect The Powerless. The Powerful Used Them To Silence Critics.
For over a decade, a particular argument keeps resurfacing from well-meaning progressives: the rise of authoritarianism around the globe is a good reason to pass laws suppressing speech. The idea is that somehow, magically, without free speech, authoritarians and fascists would never come to power i…
- media and technology
- AI governance
- structural power
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You Can’t Keep Down the Underground
Take Your Time Back co-founder Luis Gonzalez on Vancouver’s embattled DIY art venues, creating ‘no-working’ spaces, and starting fresh. A Tyee interview.
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“We cannot be in this journalism silo”: News Futures tries to grow a civic media field
“We are sitting in the middle of a fucking polycrisis.” That’s how Darryl Holliday introduced the first-ever News Futures Convention in San Francisco in March. While the idea of being in crisis is a common theme of U.S. journalism conferences, this was not a traditional journalism conference. News F…
- media and technology
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Making scientific knowledge free for all
Will accessing scientific knowledge ever become totally free? (Pictured here, the book tower at Prague's Municipal Library, the Czech Republic). Lysander Yuen/Unsplash, CC BY Scientific research publishing is a particularly lucrative industry. The most recent estimates suggest that it generates arou…
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