Anirvan Chatterjee

“The sinking of the Dena seems to be part of Hegseth’s new policy of ignoring ‘stupid rules of engagement’ and ‘punching them while they’re down,’ and it raises questions of what the Trump administration would say if a country like Iran attacked an American ship it knew was unarmed.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/207429/us-attack-iran-naval-ship

This is what it looks like to offer principled pushback against claims made by folks on your own side

https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-story-about

Plug: Spring dates just opened for the Bay Area's South Asian Radical History Walking Tours:

• Saturday, March 21, 2026 in Berkeley (almost sold out)
• Sunday, March 29 in San Francisco

Both tours cover 100+ years of local South Asian activist histories.

The SF tour's offered pretty infrequently, so if you've been curious, this might be a good time to join us!

Details and registration https://www.berkeleysouthasian.org/

"With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands."

https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/life-under-a-clicktatorship

"Since 2023, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation has paid Palantir nearly $4 million to improve its ability to track down payment for the services provided at its hospitals and medical clinics."

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/15/palantir-contract-new-york-city-health-hospitals/

“‘I didn’t expect this from a friend who lived, ate, travelled, laughed and joked with me. it hurts,’ he wrote. "life as an international student is tough, man.’”

https://www.berkeleyscanner.com/2026/02/14/community/body-recovered-lake-anza-tilden-park/

"Investigators say Gupta and the supposed hitman agreed on a price of $100,000 to carry out the assassination, with $15,000 paid upfront in cash. Yadav allegedly shared detailed personal information about Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York City home address, phone numbers, and aspects of his daily routine."

https://americanbazaaronline.com/2026/02/14/indian-national-nikhil-gupta-pleads-guilty-in-us-to-murder-for-hire-conspiracy-475119/

"Since the start of October alone, over 400 federal judges have determined in at least 4,421 cases that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is unlawfully detaining individuals as part of its mass-deportation effort, Reuters found."

https://americanbazaaronline.com/2026/02/14/over-4400-court-rulings-find-ice-unlawfully-detaining-immigrants-475125/

"But numerous media reports indicate that Slater’s sporadic efforts to actually engage in antitrust enforcement consistently angered a 'den of vipers' (including AG Pam Bondi and JD Vance). Some of the friction purportedly involved Bondi being angry Slater was directing merging companies to deal directly with DOJ officials and not Trump’s weird corruption colorguard."

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/13/magas-always-bogus-antitrust-movement-comes-to-a-screeching-halt-with-firing-of-gail-slater/

"Perhaps most critically, the Library has completely reimagined its backup and recovery strategy around one central assumption: modern ransomware destroys, not just encrypts. Backups are now immutable, so they cannot be altered or deleted even by someone with administrator credentials. And they’re air-gapped – physically or logically isolated from production networks so attackers can’t reach them even if they gain extensive access."

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberattack-that-exposed-the-fragility-of-digital-heritage/

"I was a public defender, and in one of my first cases I was asked to represent a woman who was not a robber or a drug dealer — she was someone who had failed to pay the fare on public transit. Precious resources had been spent arresting, processing, prosecuting and trying her"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/opinion/free-bus-rides-mamdani.html

These deep dives into the stories of deportees are painful to read

https://www.al.com/news/2026/01/football-referee-forced-to-leave-alabama-for-mexico-how-many-kids-would-get-deported-for-that.html

This is a good example of why Section 230 remains critical

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/internet-still-works-yelp-protects-consumer-reviews

"The [new test Substack] account was shown separate posts that promoted conspiracy theories about Jewish power and influence and suggested antisemitism was a myth. The algorithm also promoted other extremist content, including newsletters relating to the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory – the suggestion that there is a plot to replace white Europeans with people from other races."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters?CMP=GTUS_email

"Like AI toy maker Bondu, the creator of 'AI' enabled stuffed animals, which recently left the stored chat logs children have with their polyester-filled automated friends openly available online to anybody with a Gmail account"

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/09/whoops-ai-toy-company-leaks-chat-logs-personal-data-of-50000-toddlers/

"'This is an argument they make in every case and they almost always lose,' said Brian McGoldrick, an immigration attorney in San Diego, who in September won the release of an Afghan refugee and former US military interpreter on similar grounds."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/09/venezuelan-freed-after-seven-months-ice-detention-washington-state?CMP=GTUS_email

"'I don’t think anyone here has any trust that will be lasting,' Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO, a state federation of more than 200 local labor unions in Maine. 'You can’t turn a tiger into a vegetarian.' Workers and labor unions in Maine claimed ICE is racially profiling people and has created an environment where people of color are under 'an occupation' impeding their freedom of movement."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/09/maine-ice-raids?CMP=GTUS_email

Bhattacharya knows the truth. But will he actually push back?

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/05/nih-boss-jay-bhattacharya-breaks-with-rfk-jr-on-vaccines/

This is another reason I’m switching more of my work to Claude

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-is-a-space-to-think

“Seeing no option to refuse deployments that she found objectionable, Stewart resigned after a decade of service. She would give up the prospect of a pension offered after 20 years.”

https://www.wired.com/story/public-health-workers-are-quitting-over-assignments-to-guantanamo/

Thank you to No Tech for Apartheid for holding this work down

https://www.wired.com/story/hundreds-of-google-employees-demand-answers-from-executives-about-ice/

hell yes to ICE-free zones everywhere

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/01/16/ice-free-zones-alameda-county-oakland