Law
Rage against the machine: a California community rallied against a datacenter – and won
Monterey Park residents gathered at city hall on 21 January to speak out against the construction of a datacenter. Monterey Park residents gathered at city hall on 21 January to speak out against the construction of a datacenter. Sat 7 Feb 2026 11.00 ESTLast modified on Sat 7 Feb 2026 16.55 EST When a southern California city council proposed building a giant datacenter the size of four football fields last December, five residents vowed to stop it. Through a frenetic word-of-mouth campaign, the small group raised awareness about the proposed facility in Monterey Park, a small city east of Los Angeles known affectionately as the country's first suburban Chinatown. No Data Center Monterey Park organizers - working in tandem with the grassroots racial justice group San Gabriel Valley (SGV) Progressive Action - held a teach-in and rally that drew hundreds of participants, knocked on doors, and distributed flyers on busy streets.
Moltbook, the Social Network for AI Agents, Exposed Real Humans' Data
Plus: Apple's Lockdown mode keeps the FBI out of a reporter's phone, Elon Musk's Starlink cuts off Russian forces, and more. An analysis by WIRED this week found that ICE and CBP's face recognition app Mobile Fortify, which is being used to identify people across the United States, isn't actually designed to verify who people are and was only approved for Department of Homeland Security use by relaxing some of the agency's own privacy rules. WIRED took a close look at highly militarized ICE and CBP units that use extreme tactics typically seen only in active combat. Two agents involved in the shooting deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis are reportedly members of these paramilitary units. And a new report from the Public Service Alliance this week found that data brokers can fuel violence against public servants, who are facing more and more threats but have few ways to protect their personal information under state privacy laws.