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Christian Vasquez

@chrismvasq.com
3K followers 1.6K following 296 posts

hi chat, im a US-based freelance journalist covering tech and cyberspace // focus = h4x0rz + infrastructure + policy // priors: cyberscoop, e&e news, politico signal: chrismvasq.42 tips.hushline.app/to/chrismvasq

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Christian Vasquez
News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Decades of experience. And every single one now handing their press pass in. Another step towards the authoritarian state. (📸 Mike Brest)
A wall showing a collage of 56 assigned Pentagon reporters. They are now handing given up their accreditation as they have refused to sign up to the Pentagon’s new press policy which restricts a free press and attacks the First Amendment.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 14/10/2025
www.bbc.com/news/live/cx2r2z0gyp7t?…
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
White House made good on threats to fire workers during shutdown, and CISA was among those that lost workers - 176 were fired on Friday. A CISA spokesperson told Metacurity that CISA under Biden admin focused on "censorship, branding, and electioneering. This is part of getting CISA back on mission"
metacurity.com
The White House fired 176 CISA employees on Friday, with more layoffs feared
Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters leaked 5m Qantas, 23m Vietnam Air customers' records, Spanish cops dismantle GXC Team, Dutch gov't warns of China's Nexperia security risks, Breach of crypto betting platform...
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Leia🇨🇴🇺🇸 @theswprincess.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
CBP agents knocked on an El Paso home at 7:15 a.m. The owner asked to secure his Rottweiler, Chop, in the bathroom. While he got his ID, agents opened the door and shot Chop. The family tried to save him as he bled out on the kitchen floor.
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U.S. Press Freedom Tracker @pressfreedomtracker.us · 09/10/2025
If you are a journalist — or know one — who has been attacked, seriously threatened, denied access by a public official or targeted with a legal order in the course of reporting, let us know. You can now submit tips in English or Spanish. Email: tips@pressfreedomtracker.us
If you are a journalist — or know one — who has been attacked, seriously threatened, denied access by a public official or targeted with a legal order in the course of reporting, let us know. You can now submit tips in English or Spanish.

Email: tips@pressfreedomtracker.us
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
The increasing use of AI to surveil people’s emotions endangers not only privacy but also personal autonomy—the bedrock of democracy, writes Oznur Uguz. Newly emerging AI laws fail to provide adequate safeguards, she says.
buff.ly
How AI-Powered Emotional Surveillance Can Threaten Personal Autonomy and Democracy | TechPolicy.Press
If we do not regulate emotional AI surveillance now, we might soon have to fake how we feel to protect our privacy, writes Oznur Uguz.
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 08/10/2025
"While on the phone with 911, Rinderknecht allegedly typed a question into ChatGPT: 'Are you at fault if a fire is lift because of your cigarettes'"
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Andy Greenberg @agreenberg.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
A source shares some screenshots of the Lapsus ransomware gang celebrating the government shutdown as a disruption to the FBI investigations tracking them. They also refer to Trump as "my king."
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
* TRUMP TO U.S. MILITARY LEADERS: WE'RE UNDER INVASION FROM WITHIN @reuters.com
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Glen @vaguebiscuit.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Well don't I feel stupid
A headline about the James Webb Telescope potentially finding a new stellar object dubbed a black hole star
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
NEW: Here's our report on the "SIM farm" the Secret Service discovered, which hopefully helps better explain what the hell is up with all this. @agreenberg.bsky.social, @lhn.bsky.social, & @mattburgess1.bsky.social report: www.wired.com/story/sim-fa...
wired.com
‘SIM Farms’ Are a Spam Plague. A Giant One in New York Threatened US Infrastructure, Feds Say
The agency says it found a network of some 300 servers and 100,000 SIM cards—enough to knock out cell service in the NYC area. Experts say it mirrors facilities typically used for cybercrime.
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Techmeme @techmeme.com · 21/09/2025
Researchers suggest LLM-powered medical AI tools understate the severity of symptoms in female patients and show less "empathy" toward Black and Asian patients (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
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Trans Journalists Association @transjournalists.org · 11/09/2025
“News organizations should be as transparent as possible about how details… are being confirmed, both to increase accuracy in reporting and build trust with audiences in a breaking news environment.” Our full statement: www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...
transjournalists.org
TJA urges caution in reporting on details of Charlie Kirk shooting investigation
Various outlets have reported that authorities have found ammunition engraved with expressions of “transgender and antifascist ideology” alongside a weapon purportedly associated with the killing of C...
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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Old journalism rule: Don't publish everything you hear on the police scanner.
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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
i wrote this post in july two years ago when blue sky had around 200,000 total users and i thought i would ask again tell me what u are doing be proud of what u do and share it here
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 10/09/2025
"This is the kind of signature that we would see that was made by something biological … it's kind of the equivalent of seeing leftover fossils … leftovers from a meal. And maybe that meal has been excreted by a microbe. And that's what we're seeing in this sample." www.npr.org/2025/09/10/n...
npr.org
Life on Mars? NASA says a rock sample shows potential signs of ancient life
Ancient organisms may have left microscopic "biosignatures" on Mars. That's according to NASA scientists, who say a rock sample offers the most concrete proof yet that the red planet once hosted life.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 10/09/2025
legitimately depressing
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 10/09/2025
the president likely raped and trafficked children, you pathetic fucks
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 10/09/2025
wat "There is increasing concern from U.S. officials that the devices, along with the electronic systems that manage rechargeable batteries, could be seeded with rogue communications components that would allow them to be remotely tampered with on Beijing’s orders." www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
reuters.com
Exclusive: US warns hidden radios may be embedded in solar-powered highway infrastructure
U.S. officials say solar-powered highway infrastructure including chargers, roadside weather stations, and traffic cameras should be scanned for the presence of rogue devices – such as hidden radios – secreted inside batteries and inverters.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 10/09/2025
I shouldn't have to preemptively ensure that I have access to imm lawyers in case I get profiled and detailed when traveling but here we are.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 10/09/2025
“My concern is that this is a never-ending war, where Israel is targeting more and more countries around the world with impunity,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Progressives Urge U.S. Arms Embargo After Israel Bombs Qatar theintercept.com/2025/09/09/i...
theintercept.com
Progressives Urge U.S. Arms Embargo After Israel Bombs Qatar
Qatar is the sixth country Israel bombed this year, interrupting ceasefire negotiations in a war progressives say U.S. support makes possible.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Oh, I see that neither @reuters.com nor @advocate.com credited Law Dork with breaking this story. Not cool.
lawdork.com
Feds indict LGBTQ org lawyer over testimony in Alabama "judge-shopping" investigation
In an indictment unsealed Monday, Lambda Legal counsel Carl Charles faces a felony charge of making a false declaration to the investigating judicial panel.
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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
A few random headlines from the last 24 hours are a reminder that the system of “law enforcement” only attempts to enforce *some* laws against *some* people. Being “tough on crime” always means ignoring crimes of the powerful while ruthlessly crushing vulnerable people and political targets.
Headlines about cops drinking and driving and banks supporting Epstein and lgbtq lawyer targeted by Trump and irs immunizing rich people for tax shelters.
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Amistad Law Project @amistadlaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Please do not call the cops when someone is having a mental health crisis. They escalate the crisis and put people in more danger. In Philly, you can call 988 to get in touch with non-police mobile crisis teams. Thank you @leximcmenamin.com for reporting on this for @teenvogue.com.
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 09/09/2025
Being Latino and speaking Spanish is not probative of anything but being Latino and speaking Spanish The only way the Court could conclude otherwise is if it thinks being Latino is incompatible with innocence ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/noem-...
ballsandstrikes.org
Conservative Justices Declare Racial Profiling Just Fine If Mister Trump Asks For It
Once again, the Court issues an unexplained shadow docket order that will inflict real-world harm on people whom Supreme Court justices never encounter or think about.
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Reposted by Christian Vasquez
Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
It adds that ChatGPT has been granted an "Authority to Operate" at the FISMA Moderate level, referring to the Federal Information Security Modernization Act. Here's what "moderate" means:
A moderate impact level occurs when the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability could be expected to have a serious adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals.

A serious adverse effect means that, for example, the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability might: 

Cause a significant deterioration of mission capability, but CMS is still able to perform its primary functions
Effectiveness of functions is noticeably reduced
Result in significant damage to organizational assets
Result in significant financial loss
Result in significant harm to individuals that does not involve loss of life or serious life threatening injuries
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 09/09/2025
there is nothing scientific or transparent about generative ai's "answers"
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 09/09/2025
matty realizes the leopards would in fact eat his face
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Johnathan Perkins @johnathanperk.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Lawyer here, currently representing nearly 40 clients who themselves, or who have family that were kidnapped by I.C.E., weeks ago in Los Angeles. @RonFilipkowski.bsky.social’s advice is fine—but please understand: “proof of citizenship” will NOT stop I.C.E. from kidnapping you or your loved ones.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 09/09/2025
"... there is a danger that with this rhetorical move, the Trump administration is attempting to open a new “forever war” against an amorphous set of actors who are not in reality engaged in hostilities against the United States." www.justsecurity.org/119985/label...
justsecurity.org
Labels, Not Law, to Justify Lethal Force: Venezuela Boat Strike
A new label does not transform a problem or grant the U.S. president or the U.S. military expanded legal authority to kill civilians.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 08/09/2025
reddit post: old.reddit.com/r/PleX/comme...
old.reddit.com
Oh boy.
Posted in r/PleX by u/richpanda64 • 218 points and 159 comments
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Reposted by Christian Vasquez
tierney cyren @bnb.im · 08/09/2025
plex got pwned, reset your passwords
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Francesca D'Annunzio @francescadnunz.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
NEW: Chihuahua, Mexico's most sprawling state, is building a surveillance system. Once complete, it'll have almost 10K cameras, including some w/ facial recognition capabilities. Authorities offered to share access with US police—including Texas DPS. 🧵 www.texasobserver.org/texas-chihua...
texasobserver.org
Just Beyond the Texas Border, Chihuahua Is Launching a Burgeoning State Surveillance System
The 20-story Torre Centinela looming over Juárez is part of a much larger AI-powered network that won’t stop at the U.S.-Mexico divide.
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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Here's something I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits.
Here is a list I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits.

Defense of democracy seen as basic to the job.

Symmetrical accounts of asymmetrical realities seen as malpractice.

“Politics as strategic game” frame seen as low quality, downmarket, amateurish— and overmatched.

Bad actors with a history of misinforming the public seen as unsuitable sources and unwelcome guests.

Internalizing of the “liberal bias” critique seen as self-crippling, a historic mistake in need of correction.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Justice Sotomayor, not mincing words, also says that today's decision will lead to the "creation of [] a second-class citizenship status" for Latinos, who now will have the burden to "carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely."
The concurrence relegates the interests of U. S. citizens
and individuals with legal status to a single sentence, positing that the Government will free these individuals as
soon as they show they are legally in the United States.
Ante, at 8 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.). That blinks reality.
Two plaintiffs in this very case tried to explain that they
are U. S. citizens; one was then pushed against a fence with
his arms twisted behind his back, and the other was taken away from his job to a warehouse for further questioning. More fundamentally, it is the Government’s burden to prove that it has reasonable suspicion to stop someone. The concurrence improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Sotomayor on the impact: "The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction."
The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but
declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work
low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken
away from work, and held until they provide proof of their
legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Justice Sotomayor is crystal clear in dissent as to what's happening: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."
NOEM v. VASQUEZ PERDOMO
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
this Court decides to take the once-extraordinary step of
staying the District Court’s order. That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not
have to live in a country where the Government can seize
anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to
work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our
constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 08/09/2025
today is a bad day
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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Signal Secure Backups are here 🙌
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
BREAKING: By an apparent 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court halts an injunction that had prevented immigration agents from racially profiling Latinos in central California. Sotomayor, dissenting, says the decision is "unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation's constitutional guarantees."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26085894-25a169-order/
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 08/09/2025
lmao got em
2 AP alerts:
39m ago
Howard Stern pranks listeners by having Andy Cohen announce his departure from SiriusXM before returning to his show.

1h ago
Howard Stern splits with SiriusM after nearly 20 years with the satellite radio company.
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The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 07/09/2025
Reporters from across newsrooms in Chicago are collaborating to collect visual evidence of federal agents detaining people & using force in Chicago. Send videos to tinyurl.com/chicagojourn..., or get in touch via email chicagojournalists@protonmail.com.
We are a group of journalists across newsrooms in Chicago, collecting video related to use of force, stop & frisk, and traffic stops conducted by federal agents and the National Guard.
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Just Trump declaring war on a US city, a normal Saturday
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Christian Vasquez @chrismvasq.com · 06/09/2025
the ability to accurately measure risk seems like an important skill tbh but what do i know
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 06/09/2025
Your reminder that we don’t even know who wrote this crap because my former employer no longer says who is on its editorial board. And if you ask its AI helper, it lists seven people, three of whom have left and one of whom is semi-retired and lives in Hong Kong.
“Who is on the washington post editoria…”

Ask The Post Al
Answers are Al generated from Washington Post reporting.
Because Al can make mistakes, verify information by referencing provided sources for each answer. Learn more

“The current members of The Washington Post's editorial board include David Shipley (WRONG), Charles Lane (WRONG), Stephen  (WRONG), Mary Duenwald, James Hohmann, Eduardo Porter, and Keith B.' Richburg (MAYBE WRONG). Recently, some members of the board…”
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
🚨NEW: Reversing *generations* of practice, the Board of Immigration Appeals gives ICE exactly what it demanded, ruling that any undocumented immigrant who entered illegally is categorically ineligible for release from detention on bond — expanding mandatory detention by millions of people.
Matter of Jonathan Javier YAJURE HURTADO, Respondent
Decided September 5, 2025
U.S. Department of Justice
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Board of Immigration Appeals
Based on the plain language of section 235(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) (2018), Immigration Judges lack authority to hear bond
requests or to grant bond to aliens who are present in the United States without admission.
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Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai @lorenzofb.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
NEW: X has started rolling out it's end-to-end encrypted chat for all users. I was invited to start using it yesterday, so I asked a couple of experts if users should trust it. The answer: no, nobody should trust it at this point. There are several reasons why, which they explained to me here.
techcrunch.com
X is now offering me end-to-end encrypted chat. You probably shouldn't trust it yet. | TechCrunch
X's new encrypted messaging feature, XChat, has some red flags.
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