DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power

  The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has secured unprecedented access to at least seven sensitive federal databases, including those of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration. This access has sparked fears about cybersecurity vulnerabilities and privacy violations. Another concern has received far less attention: the potential use of the data to train a private company’s artificial intelligence systems.

  The White House press secretary said government data that DOGE has collected isn’t being used to train Musk’s AI models despite Elon Musk’s control over DOGE. However, evidence has emerged that DOGE personnel simultaneously hold positions with at least one of Musk’s companies.

Give states the freedom to regulate drones

  In late June, a drone nearly collided with an aircraft carrying 500-gallon buckets of water to douse a wildfire in southern Utah. Incidents like this have been used to feed the narrative that drones are so dangerous that they must be regulated by the feds, leaving no room for states to act on their own.

  Utah has disproved that claim.

  Within weeks of the near collision, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed into law a bill dealing with drone interference in emergency firefighting operations. Utah’s prompt action shows that states can and do act to protect the public without prodding from or preemption by Washington.

Scott Lilly: Whack-a-Mole budgeting

  The preposterous legislative sideshow taking place around sequestration gives a pretty clear picture of how little the people who were elected to run the government actually know about it.

  Exactly four days after long-anticipated sequester furloughs began for air-traffic controllers, Congress decided the furloughs were not such a good idea after all. It also decided that perhaps it wasn’t a problem caused by an administrator trying to showboat the evils of across-the-board cuts but in fact a problem with the legislation that the members of Congress had crafted themselves—legislation directing that across-the-board cuts be taken from each program, project and activity within the $7.5 billion appropriated for air-traffic operations.