All posts tagged "Mazie Hirono"

WASHINGTON — Republicans continue lambasting Democrats for wanting to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional justices.

But GOP rhetoric is distorting reality.

Most vulnerable Senate Democrats are actually running away from progressive calls to expand the court beyond its current nine justices. Even President Joe Biden, who last month unveiled a Supreme Court reform proposal, excluded the addition of additional justices....

Last week, senators put the CEOs of five social media giants each in the hot seat over accusations of their platforms’ negligence toward the sexual exploitation and online safety of children.

The hottest seat of all at a multi-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing belonged to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who a senator asked to stand up and publicly apologize to victims and parents in attendance holding photos of their children they say were sexually abused, bullied or committed self harm — many dying by suicide — related to exploitation on social media platforms.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the committee’s ranking Republican. “You have a product that’s killing people.”...

WASHINGTON — If the titans of Silicon Valley have blood on their hands — as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday — then how much blood is on federal lawmakers’ hands for congressional inaction on measures to protect the nation’s children online?

Raw Story posed that question to 15 members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as they exited their high profile hearing with the heads of TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta where senators, like Graham, the committee’s top Republican, blamed the CEOs for the issue Congress has yet to address.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” Graham said as the room erupted with applause. ...

WASHINGTON — We’re in the midst of the first deepfake election in U.S. history, and, if Congress keeps up at its current pace, expect to be bombarded with disinformation guised as the nation’s politicians.

"Republicans have been trying to push nonpartisan and Democratic voters to participate in their primary,” some New Hampshire voters heard a voice strikingly similar to President Joe Biden saying when they picked up their phone ahead of Tuesday’s primary. “What a bunch of malarkey.”

The generative AI-assisted fake president was convincing enough to alarm members of Congress who’ve been asleep at the digital wheel, but, now that we’re in the throes of the 2024 election, passing any election related measures has only gotten more difficult, which means this year’s real election may prove to be the fakest contest in history. ...

New smartphones sold in the United States would have to contain a mechanism to brick the devices remotely, wiping data and rendering them inoperable, under legislation proposed Friday by four Democratic U.S. senators.