hacklink hack forum hacklink film izle hacklink marsbahis izmir escort sahabet porn Jojobet

Tag: Court

The Supreme Court is considering a possible TikTok ban. Here’s what to know

WASHINGTON — The law that could ban TikTok is coming before the Supreme Court on Friday, with the justices largely holding the app’s fate in their hands.

The popular social media platform says the law violates the First Amendment and should be struck down.

TikTok’s parent company is based in China, and the U.S. government says that means it is a potential national security threat. Chinese authorities could force it to hand over sensitive data on the huge number of Americans who use it or could influence the spread of information on the platform, they say.

An appeals court has upheld the law, which bans TikTok unless it’s sold.

The law is set to take effect Jan. 19, the day before a new term begins for President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican says he wants to “save TikTok.”

Here are some key things to know about the case:

Not now, but the short-form video-sharing app could be shut down in less than two weeks if the Supreme Court upholds the law.

Congress passed the measure with bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law in April.

TikTok’s lawyers challenged the law in court, joined by users and content creators who say a ban would upend their livelihoods. TikTok says the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.

But a unanimous appeals court panel made up of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents has upheld the law.

The justices will issue a decision after arguments Friday, a lightning-fast movement by court standards.

The conservative-majority court could drop clues about how it’s leaning during oral arguments.

TikTok lawyers have urged the justices to step in before the law takes effect, saying even a monthlong shutdown would cause the app to lose about one-third of its daily American users and significant advertising revenue.

The court could quickly block the law from going into effect before issuing a final ruling, if at least five of the nine justices think it is unconstitutional.

The law is to take effect Jan. 19, the day before Trump takes over as president.

He took the unusual step of filing court documents asking the Supreme Court to put the law on hold so that he could negotiate a deal for the sale of TikTok after he takes office. His position marked the latest example of him inserting himself into national issues before he takes office. It also was a change from his last presidential term, when he wanted to ban it.

Parent company ByteDance has previously said it has no plans to sell. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, last month.

Free-speech advocacy groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have urged the court to block the law, saying the government hasn’t shown credible evidence of harm and a ban would cause “extraordinary disruption” in Americans’ lives.

On the other side, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican former Senate leader, and a group of 22 states have filed briefs in support, arguing that the law protects free speech by safeguarding Americans’ data and preventing the possible manipulation of information on the platform by Chinese authorities.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Source link

January 10, 2025
TikTok’s fate arrives at Supreme Court in collision of free speech, security

WASHINGTON — In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.

TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s sale by its Chinese parent company.

Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a “political resolution” and avoid deciding the case. It’s unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect’s views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.

TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.

“Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people,” lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.

The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.

The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that “no one can seriously dispute that (China’s) control of TikTok through ByteDance represents a grave threat to national security.”

Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information.

But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok told the justices, adding that limits on speech should not be sustained when they stem from fears that are predicated on future risks.

In December, a panel of three appellate judges, two appointed by Republicans and one by a Democrat, unanimously upheld the law and rejected the First Amendment speech claims.

Adding to the tension, the court is hearing arguments just nine days before the law is supposed to take effect and 10 days before a new administration takes office.

In language typically seen in a campaign ad rather than a legal brief, lawyers for Trump have called on the court to temporarily prevent the TikTok ban from going into effect but refrain from a definitive resolution.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice to be his administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a legal brief filed with the court.

Trump took no position on the underlying merits of the case, Sauer wrote. Trump’s campaign team used TikTok to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, and Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in December. He has 14.7 million followers on TikTok.

The justices have set aside two hours for arguments, and the session likely will extend well beyond that. Three highly experienced Supreme Court lawyers will be making arguments. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will present the Biden administration’s defense of the law, while Trump’s solicitor general in his first administration, Noel Francisco, will argue on behalf of TikTok and ByteDance. Stanford Law professor Jeffrey Fisher, representing content creators and users, will be making his 50th high court argument.

If the law takes effect, Trump’s Justice Department will be charged with enforcing it. Lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance have argued that the new administration could seek to mitigate the law’s most severe consequences.

But they also said that a shutdown of just a month would cause TikTok to lose about one-third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.

As it weighs the case, the court will have to decide what level of review it applies to the law. Under the most searching review, strict scrutiny, laws almost always fail. But two judges on the appellate court that upheld the law said it would be the rare exception that could withstand strict scrutiny.

TikTok, the app’s users and many briefs supporting them urge the court to apply strict scrutiny to strike down the law.

But the Democratic administration and some of its supporters cite restrictions on foreign ownership of radio stations and other sectors of the economy to justify the effort to counter Chinese influence in the TikTok ban.

A decision could come within days.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Source link

January 9, 2025
Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.

The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk.

“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case and was written by D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice for solicitor general.

The argument submitted to the court is the latest example of Trump inserting himself in national issues before he takes office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and he intervened earlier this month in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for a bipartisan plan to be rejected and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table.

He has been holding meetings with foreign leaders and business officials at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida while he assembles his administration, including a meeting last week with TikTok CEO Shou Chew.

Trump has reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined the TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral.

He said earlier this year that he still believed there were national security risks with TikTok, but that he opposed banning it.

The filings Friday come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. The law was was signed by President Joe Biden in April after it passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. TikTok and ByteDance filed a legal challenge afterwards.

Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

In their brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, attorneys for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued the federal appeals court erred in its ruling and based its decision on “alleged ‘risks’ that China could exercise control” over TikTok’s U.S. platform by pressuring its foreign affiliates.

The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its connections to China. Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information.

But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok’s legal filing said, adding that the U.S. fears are predicated on future risks.

In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said because TikTok “is integrated with ByteDance and relies on its propriety engine developed and maintained in China,” its corporate structure carries with it risk.

Source link

December 28, 2024
TikTok asks the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block a US ban unless it’s sold

WASHINGTON — TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it.

Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S.

“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.

President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation.

“As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. His campaign saw the platform as a way to reach younger, less politically engaged voters.

Trump was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.

The case could attract the court’s interest because it pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.

The request first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals from courts in the nation’s capital. He almost certainly will seek input from all nine justices.

On Friday, a panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency plea to block the law, a procedural ruling that allowed the case to move to the Supreme Court.

The same panel had earlier unanimously upheld the law over a First Amendment challenge claiming that it violated free speech rights.

Without a court-ordered freeze, the law would take effect Jan. 19 and expose app stores that offer TikTok and internet hosting services that support it to potential fines.

It would be up to the Justice Department to enforce the law, investigating possible violations and seeking sanctions. But lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance have argued that Trump’s Justice Department might pause enforcement or otherwise seek to mitigate the law’s most severe consequences. Trump takes office a day after the law goes into effect.

The Supreme Court could temporarily put the law on hold so that the justices can give fuller consideration to First Amendment and other issues. They also could quickly schedule arguments and try to render a decision by Jan. 19.

On the other hand, the high court could reject the emergency appeal, which would allow the law to take effect as scheduled.

With that last prospect in mind, the companies’ lawyers asked for a ruling on their emergency request by Jan. 6 because they’d need the time “to coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States.”

The case has made a relatively quick trip through the courts once bipartisan majorities in Congress approved the law and President Joe Biden signed it in April.

___

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Colleen Long contributed to this report.

Source link

December 16, 2024
Court denies TikTok’s request to halt enforcement of potential US ban until Supreme Court review

A federal appeals court on Friday left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States, rejecting a request made by the company to halt enforcement until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge of the statute.

Attorneys for TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.

It’s unclear if the nation’s highest court will take up the case, though some legal experts have said they expect the justices to weigh in due to the types of novel questions it raises about social media, national security and the First Amendment. TikTok is also looking for a potential lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who promised to “save” the short-form video platform during the presidential campaign.

Attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had requested the injunction after a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the U.S. government and rejected their challenge to the law.

The statute, which was signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer due to national security concerns or face a ban in the U.S.

The U.S. has said it sees TikTok as a national security risk because ByteDance could be coerced by Chinese authorities to hand over U.S. user data or manipulate content on the platform for Beijing’s interests. TikTok has denied those claims and has argued that the government’s case rests on hypothetical future risks instead of proven facts.

In the request filed last week, attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had asked for a “modest delay” in enforcement of the law so that the Supreme Court could review the case and the incoming Trump administration could “determine its position” on the matter.

If the law is not overturned, the two companies have said that the popular app will shut down by Jan. 19, just a day before Trump takes office again. More than 170 million American users would be affected, the companies have said.

The Justice Department had opposed TikTok’s request for a pause, saying in a court filing last week that the parties had already proposed a schedule that was “designed for the precise purpose” of allowing Supreme Court review of the law before it took effect.

The appeals court issued its Dec. 6 ruling on the matter in line with that schedule, the Justice Department filing said.

Source link

December 14, 2024
The Onion’s bid for Infowars is still in court as judge reviews auction

A bankruptcy judge scrutinizing The Onion’s bid for Alex Jones ’ Infowars platform was expected to hear a second day of testimony Tuesday after an auctioneer defended the satirical news outlet’s winning offer in November.

It is not clear how quickly U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston will decide whether to approve the bid. The Onion, which wants to turn Infowars’ website and social media accounts into parodies, offered $1.75 million for Infowars’ assets in the auction.

Jones did not attend Monday’s start of the key hearing and instead continued to broadcast from his studios in Austin.

Jeff Tanenbaum, president of ThreeSixty Asset Advisors, was grilled by lawyers for Jones and the company in a Houston courtroom on Monday over how The Onion’s bid came to be valued at $7 million and why a live auction was not held. He defended both the value of the bid and its selection after the two sealed offers were opened.

Lopez could ultimately decide whether to void The Onion’s bid, name the Jones-affiliated company the winner or hold another auction, among other possibilities.

Jones and First United American Companies, which runs a website in Jones’ name that sells nutritional supplements and submitted the other bid, are alleging fraud and collusion in the auction that concluded on Nov. 14. The trustee and The Onion deny the allegations, accusing Jones and the company of sour grapes. First United American Companies bid $3.5 million.

The sale of Infowars is part of Jones’ personal bankruptcy case, which he filed in late 2022 after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in defamation lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas filed by relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut. Jones repeatedly called the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six educators a hoax staged by actors and aimed at increasing gun control.

Most of the proceeds from the sale of Infowars, as well as many of Jones’ personal assets, will go to the Sandy Hook families to help satisfy judgments issued by juries and judges in state courts in Connecticut and Texas. Some proceeds will go to Jones’ other creditors.

The Onion’s bid also included a pledge by many of the Sandy Hook families to forgo some or all of the auction proceeds due to them to give other creditors a total of $100,000 more than they would receive under other bids.

The trustee, Christopher Murray, chose The Onion, saying its proposal was better for creditors because they would receive more money. The Onion valued the bid, with the Sandy Hook families’ offer, at $7 million, because that amount was equal to a purchase price that would provide the same amount of money to the other creditors.

Tanenbaum testified that he agreed with the $7 million valuation and believed The Onion’s bid conformed to the auction rules.

A lawyer for Jones, Ben Broocks, asked Tanenbaum how it was possible that the Sandy Hook families’ offer boosted The Onion’s offer to such a high amount.

“It means the purchase price value has gone up because another purchase price would have to be higher than that value in order to provide the same net benefit to that group of creditors,” Tanenbaum said.

During his opening argument, Broocks said there was no way The Onion should have been chosen over First United American.

“How does a $1.75 million bid beat a $3.5 million bid?” he asked. “How is that $1.75 million greater? Well, it’s voodoo economics to use a phrase.”

Joshua Wolfshohl, an attorney for Murray, told the judge Monday that no wrongdoing occurred during the auction. He called the complaints by Jones and First United American Companies unfounded.

“The vast majority of their complaints are just fantastic, imagined conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality,” he said.

Murray, The Onion and the Sandy families deny allegations of wrongdoing. In his own court filing, Murray called the allegations “a disappointed bidder’s improper attempt to influence an otherwise fair and open auction process.”

Up for sale at the auction were all the equipment and other assets in the Infowars studio in Austin, Texas, as well as its social media accounts, websites, video archive and product trademarks. Jones uses the studio to broadcast his far-right, conspiracy theory-filled shows on the Infowars website, his account on the social platform X and radio stations.

Jones has set up another studio, websites and social media accounts in case The Onion wins approval to buy Infowars and kicks him out. Jones has said he could continue using the Infowars platforms if the auction winner is friendly to him.

Jones is appealing the $1.5 billion in judgments citing free speech rights but has acknowledged that the school shooting happened.

Source link

December 10, 2024
Federal appeals court upholds law requiring sale or ban of TikTok in the U.S.

A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January, is constitutional, rebuffing TikTok’s challenge that the statute ran afoul of the First Amendment and unfairly targeted the platform.

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term and whose Justice Department would have to enforce the law, said during the presidential campaign that he is now against a TikTok ban and would work to “save” the social media platform.

The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, culminated a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.

The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.

However, a significant portion of the government’s information in the case has been redacted and hidden from the public as well as the two companies.

TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government.

Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel heard oral arguments in September.

Some legal experts said at the time that it was challenging to read the tea leaves on how the judges would rule.

In a court hearing that lasted more than two hours, the panel – composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges – appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform.

The judges pressed Daniel Tenny, a Department of Justice attorney, on the implications the case could have on the First Amendment. But they also expressed some skepticism at TikTok’s arguments, challenging the company’s attorney – Andrew Pincus – on whether any First Amendment rights preclude the government from curtailing a powerful company subject to the laws and influence of a foreign adversary.

In parts of their questions about TikTok’s ownership, the judges cited wartime precedent that allows the U.S. to restrict foreign ownership of broadcast licenses and asked if the arguments presented by TikTok would apply if the U.S. was engaged in war.

To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data.

The company also argues the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient.

Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm – the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan – would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content.

Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business.

This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.

TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal costs — as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc.

If TikTok appeals and the courts continue to uphold the law, it would fall on Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and punish any potential violations with fines. The penalties would apply to app stores that would be prohibited from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services that would be barred from supporting it.

Source link

December 6, 2024
Thai court dismisses activist’s suit against Israeli spyware producer over lack of evidence

BANGKOK — A Thai court on Thursday threw out a lawsuit brought by a pro-democracy activist which alleged spyware produced by an Israeli tech firm had been used to hack his phone.

The Civil Court in Bangkok said Jatupat Boonpattararaksa had failed to show sufficient proof that his phone was infected with Pegasus spyware produced by NSO Group Technologies.

Jataput, also known as Pai Dao Din, had alleged that the NSO Group had violated his and other activists’ constitutional rights by facilitating the use of Pegasus to allegedly target them and extract data from their devices.

He had claimed his phone was infected on three occasions in 2021, at a time of large-scale protests against the government that included unprecedented demands for reform of Thailand’s powerful but opaque monarchy.

NSO Group did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

An investigation last year by Thai civil society group iLaw, Thai internet freedom organization DigitalReach and Canadian internet watchdog group Citizen Lab found that 35 individuals in Thailand were targeted by government surveillance using Pegasus, in 2020 and 2021. The victims were predominantly activists and scholars.

Other activists alleged that Thai government agencies were behind the use of Pegasus, but officials have not commented directly on it. When pressed by the opposition in Parliament in 2022, the government acknowledged that state agencies had used Pegasus for activities related to “security or narcotics.”

Speaking outside the court, Jatupat, who had been a leader of street protests in 2021, said he had brought the suit to fight for people’s rights and freedoms.

“We fought for this because we wanted to prove whom the law will protect,” he said. “It is obvious today that the court chose to protect state security.”

Sutawan Chanprasert, from DigitalReach, called the ruling “disappointing.”

“I think there’s a lesson learned,” she said. “I think the reason the court gave will help us to prepare better for the future cases.”

Amnesty International, which had filed a brief in support of Jataput’s suit and has investigated the use of Pegasus spyware around the world, called the ruling “deeply alarming”

“However it won’t deter the fight against the unlawful use of spyware and the fight for justice for the victims of spyware in Thailand and around the world,” the rights group said in a statement.

NSO Group has previously said it only develops the spyware and does not control its use. Its products, including the Pegasus software, are typically licensed to government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate terrorism and serious crime, according to the company’s website.

Source link

November 21, 2024
Supreme Court seems likely to allow class action to proceed against tech company Nvidia

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed likely to keep alive a class-action lawsuit accusing Nvidia of misleading investors about its dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile cryptocurrency.

The justices heard arguments in the tech company’s appeal of a lower-court ruling allowing a 2018 suit led by a Swedish investment management firm to continue.

It’s one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. Last week, the justices wrestled with whether to shut down a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit against Facebook parent Meta stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.

On Wednesday, a majority of the court that included liberal and conservative justices appeared to reject the arguments advanced by Neal Katyal, the lawyer for Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia.

“It’s less and less clear why we took this case and why you should win it,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

The lawsuit followed a dip in the profitability of cryptocurrency, which caused Nvidia’s revenues to fall short of projections and led to a 28% drop in the company’s stock price.

In 2022, Nvidia paid a $5.5 million fine to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it failed to disclose that cryptomining was a significant source of revenue growth from the sale of graphics processing units that were produced and marketed for gaming. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Nvidia has led the artificial intelligence sector to become one of the stock market’s biggest companies, as tech giants continue to spend heavily on the company’s chips and data centers needed to train and operate their AI systems.

That chipmaking dominance has cemented Nvidia’s place as the poster child of the artificial intelligence boom — what CEO Jensen Huang has dubbed “the next industrial revolution.” Demand for generative AI products that can compose documents, make images and serve as personal assistants has fueled sales of Nvidia’s specialized chips over the last year.

Nvidia is among the most valuable companies in the S&P 500, worth over $3 trillion. The company is set to report its third quarter earnings next week.

In the Supreme Court case, the company is arguing that the investors’ lawsuit should be thrown out because it does not measure up to a 1995 law, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, that is intended to bar frivolous complaints.

A district court judge had dismissed the complaint before the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that it could go forward. The Biden administration is backing the investors.

A decision is expected by early summer.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah Parvini in Los Angeles contributed to this report

Source link

November 13, 2024
Italy’s president sharply rebukes Elon Musk over comments on X about migration court rulings

ROME — Italian President Sergio Mattarella sharply rebuked Elon Musk on Wednesday for weighing in on Italian court rulings that have stymied the government’s plans to process some asylum-seekers in Albania.

Musk, who is expected to have a top advisory role in Donald Trump’s new administration, wrote Tuesday on X that “these judges need to go.” He was referring to the latest Italian court ruling against right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni’s Albania immigration deal.

In a subsequent post on Wednesday, Musk wrote: “This is unacceptable. Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?”

The posts concerned a Rome court’s refusal to rule on a formal request to detain seven migrants rescued at sea and transferred to Albania for processing.

Monday’s ruling, which resulted in the men being brought to Italy for processing, was the second judicial setback for Meloni’s much-touted plan to outsource to Albania the processing of some male asylum-seekers.

Mattarella didn’t cite Musk by name but — in an unusually piqued statement — made clear on Wednesday that he was referring to him. Italy’s head of state demanded respect for the country’s sovereignty, especially from other soon-to-be public officials.

“Italy is a great democratic country and … knows how to take care of itself while respecting its Constitution,” Mattarella said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

“Anyone, particularly if as announced is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot attribute to himself the task of imparting prescriptions,” the statement said.

Trump announced Tuesday that Musk, one of the most influential people around the U.S. president-elect, would help lead a Department of Government Efficiency, essentially an independent advisory panel to eliminate waste and fraud.

Musk is a supporter of Meloni and has met with her in Rome on a few occasions, and in September joined her at an awards ceremony on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Photos of them together made such news that Musk seemingly felt the need to tamp down speculation by posting “We are not dating.”

Musk has a history of making provocative statements and sparring with leaders on X. Earlier this year, he posted messages insulting U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and saying the United Kingdom was headed for civil war. He has also clashed with a Brazilian supreme court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and purported misinformation on X, and also accused Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, of “major election fraud” after that country’s disputed election.

The courts’ rulings have raised the ire of Meloni’s far-right-led government, which has been seeking strategies to ease the strain on Italy of the arrival of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. The government had held up the opening of the Albanian centers as a centerpiece of its immigration crackdown, also as a means of deterrence, and said they could be a model for Europe.

In both cases, Italian courts referred the cases to the EU court of justice in Luxembourg to rule if the countries of origin for the migrants are considered safe for repatriation. There is no word on when the European court might rule.

But as a result of the Rome court decisions, no migrant has yet been processed in the Albanian centers, which are budgeted to cost Italy 670 million euros ($730 million) over five years to build and operate.

Italy’s opposition says the money could be much better spent on reinforcing Italian-operated migrant processing centers, while human rights groups say the outsourcing of asylum processing contravenes international law.

The centers opened in October after a months-long delay, because crumbling soil at one of the facilities needed to be repaired. They are run by Italy and are under the country’s jurisdiction, while Albanian guards provide external security.

Source link

November 13, 2024