February, 08 2024, 12:37pm EDT
FCC Bans Deepfake Robocalls But Can’t Solve the Larger Problem
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today announced the unanimous adoption of a Declaratory Ruling that recognizes calls made with AI-generated voices are “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, released the following statement:
“Thank you, FCC, for today’s desperately needed rule outlawing AI voice-generated robocalls. This rule will meaningfully protect consumers from rapidly spreading AI scams and deception. Every agency should follow suit and apply the tools and laws at their disposal to regulate AI.
“Unfortunately, through no fault of the FCC, this move is not enough to safeguard citizens and our elections. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies only in limited measure to election-related calls. The Act’s prohibition on use of ‘an artificial or prerecorded voice’ generally does not apply to non-commercial calls and non-profits. So the FCC’s new rule will not cure the problem of AI voice-generated calls related to elections – the kind of problem evidenced by the faked President Biden robocalls in New Hampshire (although those were illegal for other reasons).”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Trump White House Reportedly Tips Off Wall Street on Trade Talks
"Wall Street execs are getting a direct heads-up from the White House about news that could earn them billions on the stock market."
Apr 24, 2025
Officials inside U.S. President Donald Trump's White House have reportedly tipped off Wall Street executives about a potentially imminent trade agreement with India, a move that one watchdog group described as further evidence that the administration is "flagrantly enabling insider trading."
Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino reported Thursday that unnamed "people inside the Trump White House are alerting Wall Street execs they are nearing an agreement in principle on trade with India." Gasparino cited "senior Wall Street execs" with ties to the Trump White House.
It's not clear what kind of information Trump administration officials provided Wall Street executives or how the information differs from publicly available reporting and White House comments on the U.S.-India trade talks, which have thus far been scant on specific details about the timing or provisions of a potential deal.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, told reporters Wednesday that the Trump administration was "very close" to a bilateral trade agreement with India, one of the United States' largest trading partners.
The report of behind-the-scenes communications between the Trump White House and Wall Street executives on a matter that could substantially move financial markets drew immediate alarm.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, said Thursday that "while we all look at our retirement accounts with alternating relief and horror, Wall Street execs are getting a direct heads-up from the White House about news that could earn them billions on the stock market."
"The White House is flagrantly enabling insider trading and is continuing their long history of embracing Wall Street while throwing everyday Americans to the wolves," said Peterson-Cassin. "These tip-offs also serve as a corrupt shakedown scheme to lure powerful CEOs into Trump's orbit to beg for their own special carve-outs. It is crystal clear that the president doesn't care about fighting for Main Street and just wears economic populism like one of his ill-fitting suits."
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Ben-Gvir Says GOP Leaders Agree Gaza 'Food and Aid Depots Should Be Bombed'
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An Israeli drone strike on a food distribution center in central Gaza that killed three Palestinians on Thursday underscored remarks earlier in the week by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, who said that Republican leaders told him during a meeting at U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort that they agree with his policy of bombing humanitarian aid depots in the embattled enclave.
Eyewitnesses said that an Israeli drone bombed a food distribution point in the town of al-Zawayda, killing three people, including at least one child, and wounding others. The bombing came amid a crippling Israeli blockade of Gaza that has fueled widespread starvation and sickness, with the United Nations relief coordination office warning earlier this week that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached "unprecedented levels."
The Palestinian news outlet Wafareported that Israeli airstrikes killed 52 civilians across the Gaza Strip since dawn Thursday, bringing the death toll from 566 days of Israel's U.S.-backed genocidal assault to at least 51,355, with more than 117,000 others injured, over 14,000 people missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble, and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Thursday's attacks came after Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, said that "senior Republican Party officials" whom he met Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida "expressed support for my very clear position" that Gaza "food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely."
More than 250 Israeli and other hostages were taken during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. It is believed that 24 hostages are still alive in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, has been widely accused of trying to scupper cease-fire and hostage release efforts in order to prolong the war and delay his criminal corruption trial.
On Wednesday, Ben-Gvir was invited by Shabtai, a secretive society co-founded in 1996 by Yale University graduate students including Cory Booker—who is now a Democratic U.S. senator—to speak at the elite Connecticut school. After his speech, Ben-Gvir waved and flashed the "victory" sign to pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the event, prompting some to throw water bottles at him.
Following a Tuesday night protest which it did not organize, the Yale chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was stripped of its official club status by university officials, who cited concerns over "disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering"—without providing any evidence to support their claim.
Ben-Gvir continued his U.S. tour on Thursday, with planned visits to Jewish neighborhoods in New York City's Brooklyn borough.
Tuesday's remarks were not the first time Ben-Gvir—who was convicted in 2007 by an Israeli court of incitement to racism and supporting the Kahanist militant group Kach—has endorsed war crimes against Palestinians.
"Let's bomb the food reserves in Gaza, let's bomb all the power lines in Gaza. Why are there lights in Gaza? There must not be a single light. Stop the electricity," he said last month.
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Trump-Appointed Judge: Administration Must Return Another Man Deported to El Salvador
Citing other courts' decisions in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Judge Stephanie Gallagher stressed that "standing by and taking no action is not facilitation."
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A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term directed his second administration on Wednesday to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan deported to El Salvador in breach of a settlement agreement—as the government continues to defy a similar order to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home to Maryland.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who was supposed to be protected from deportation by an immigration judge's order, and this man, identified in court filings with the pseudonym Cristian, are among hundreds of migrants whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador last month to be imprisoned in a notorious gang prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
As Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher explained in her Wednesday opinion, Cristian was deported while waiting on his asylum case to be decided by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) following a legal fight that resulted in a settlement agreement approved last November.
In class action litigation launched in 2019, Gallagher detailed, a group of people who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors, including Cristian, "sought to enforce its members' rights to have their asylum applications adjudicated on the merits by USCIS while they remained physically present in the United States."
Trump has used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to fast-track the expulsion of alleged gang members—and, as Gallagher noted, his administration argued "that removal of Cristian did not violate the settlement agreement because 'his designation as an alien enemy pursuant to the AEA results in him ceasing to be a member' of the class."
However, the judge concluded that "allegations that class members, like Cristian, are subject to the AEA do not exclude those individuals from the class under the plain terms of the settlement agreement."
Gallagher further found that "under the plain terms of the settlement agreement and fundamental tenets of contract law, removal from the United States of a class member, including but not limited to Cristian, without a final determination on the merits by USCIS on the class member's pending asylum application violates the settlement agreement."
Thus, she wrote, "Cristian, and any other class member who has been removed in violation of the settlement agreement, must be returned to the United States to await adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS."
According to ABC News, which first reported on Gallagher's decision:
Counsel for the class of migrants also alleged in court filings that another Venezuelan man, identified as an 18-year-old named Javier in the court records, was in imminent danger of being deported earlier this month.
Judge Gallagher determined that Javier was covered by the settlement agreement and entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting the government from removing him from the United States.
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"Discovery is underway regarding the government's efforts to comply with court orders (including from the United States Supreme Court) to 'facilitate' Mr. Abrego Garcia's return to the United States," the judge continued. "This court is mindful of the Supreme Court's reminder to afford the 'deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.'"
"However, this court is also guided by, and fully agrees with, the definition of 'facilitate' espoused by Judge Xinis and the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Abrego Garcia," she stressed. "Standing by and taking no action is not facilitation."
Xinis on Wednesday postponed discovery in the Abrego Garcia case for a week, with the agreement of both his legal team and the government, following a sealed filing from the Trump administration earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia's wife and her three children—all U.S. citizens—have
moved to a safe house after multiple Trump administration social media accounts posted paperwork with their home address on X.
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