Greetings, my name is David Colarusso. I'm the co-director of Suffolk University Law School's Legal Innovation & Technology (LIT) Lab. With one foot in law and the other in tech, I really want the open web to thrive. So I created a bot (@icymilaw.org) and this site to help folks discover great law-themed content while showing off what one can do with sufficiently open protocols. Note, the number of fire emoji represent how many standard deviations more popular a link is than the average link observed in its category.
If you like these, you'll ❤️ this open source client-side algorithmically-driven RSS reader. You might also enjoy this post: How and why I (still) use social media. It includes tips on how to make your own custom social media algo(s).
News-like Links
A collection of links shared recently¹ by legal-type folks² with URLs that look like they point to news articles,³ sorted by popularity.
- Trump Administration Overrules D.C. Police on Immigration Enforcement 🔥🔥🔥🔥
- Bondi Tightens Trump Administration’s Grip on D.C. Police 🔥🔥🔥
- Defending Trump’s Orders Leaves DOJ Lawyers Showing Strain, Seeking Delays 🔥🔥🔥Mass departures from the US Justice Department and a rising flood of lawsuits are squeezing government lawyers defending administration policies, with signs of strain spilling into court.
- Meta’s AI rules have let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with children 🔥An internal Meta policy document reveals the social-media giant’s rules for chatbots, which have permitted provocative behavior on topics including sex and race.
- Opinion | Adam Schiff, Letitia James and Trump’s Payback Plan 🔥
- Ohio requires buses for private school kids. Public school students have to find their own ride 🔥School districts are responsible for transporting private and charter school kids, leaving thousands of public school students behind ...
- Law Firms That Settled With Trump Are Asked to Help on Trade Deals 🔥
- ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detainees Allege Disease, Flooding at Florida Facility 🔥In legal filing, immigrants ask for increased access to lawyers as administration faces pressure over detention conditions ...
- ‘Mind-blown’: scientists discover sex reversal in kookaburras and lorikeets with cause unknown 🔥Almost all of the ‘sex discordant’ birds were genetically female but had male reproductive organs, study finds ...
- D.C. police chief expands cooperation with immigration enforcement 🔥The order, amid Trump’s takeover of D.C. police, marks a significant departure for the force, though D.C. law still prohibits police from providing certain types of assistance.
- 2025 on track to beat UK record for wildfires, warn firefighters 🔥Professional body says firefighters ‘pushed to brink’ by climate crisis-fuelled blazes, as wildfire in North Yorkshire continues to burn ...
- ICE Adds Random Person to Group Chat, Exposes Details of Manhunt in Real-Time 🔥The texts were sent to a group called “Mass Text” and show ICE using DMV and license plate reader data in an attempt to find their target, copies of the messages obtained by 404 Media show.
- Ukrainians Who Fled War Are Losing Their Legal Status to Stay in the U.S. 🔥The Trump administration is letting a makeshift Biden-era program lapse.
Blog-like Links
A collection of links shared recently⁴ by legal-type folks⁵ with URLs that look like they point to blogs/newsletters,⁶ sorted by popularity.
- Congress may have the spending power, but Trump can usurp it if they won't protect it.† 🔥🔥And they haven't ...
- LIVE SOON: Live with Heather Cox Richardson 🔥🔥Starting Aug 14 at 5:00 PM EDT ...
- Breaking: D.C. officials balk at Bondi's order claiming powers over D.C. police 🔥A.G. Schwalb told D.C. police chief that Bondi's order — purporting to make the DEA administrator D.C.'s "Emergency Police Commissioner" — is "unlawful."
- BREAKING: Gavin Newsom Announces November 4th Special Election for New Congressional Maps 🔥Gavin Newsom announced a November 4th special election for new Congressional maps, border patrol arrests people outside of Newsom's press conference, Texas Democrats set to return home, and more ...
- Democrats finally bring a gun to the gun fight 🔥It’s a serious moment; we all get that.
AI & The Law Links
A collection of links shared recently⁷ on Bluesky that look like they talk about AI & the law,⁸ sorted by popularity.
- A DOGE AI Tool Called SweetREX Is Coming to Slash US Government Regulation 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥Named for its developer, an undergrad who took leave from UChicago to become a DOGE affiliate, a new AI tool automates the review of federal regulations and flags rules it thinks can be eliminated.
- Labor unions mobilize to challenge advance of algorithms in workplaces† 🔥Labor groups are trying to slow the advance of disruptive AI technology into workplaces, with the AFL-CIO and others trying to help state legislators pass AI laws.
- Meta’s AI rules have let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with children 🔥An internal Meta policy document reveals the social-media giant’s rules for chatbots, which have permitted provocative behavior on topics including sex and race.
- Musk Loses Court Bid to Dismiss OpenAI’s Harassment Claim† 🔥Elon Musk must face claims by OpenAI that his attacks on the startup in court and in the media amount to a “years-long harassment campaign,” a federal judge ruled.
- GenAI is a lawsuit waiting to happen to your business : Enter a prompt and get back a copyright infringement ...
Law Review-like Links
A collection of links shared recently⁹ on Bluesky that look like they point to papers in law journals or the like,¹⁰ sorted by popularity.
- Voting Rights and Private Rights of Action: An Empirical Study of Litigation Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 1982-2024† 🔥🔥🔥 The Voting Rights Act is perhaps the most effective civil rights law ever enacted, bringing millions of Americans who have historically been discriminate ...
- Indigenizing Legal Republicanism† This Article proposes and evaluates a synthesis of neorepublican legal theory and Indigenous peoples law and philosophy. Neorepublican legal theory, a critical ...
- The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 For the first time since World War II-and the first time ever outside a formally declared war-an American president has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to detain ...
- Misunderstanding National Religious Broadcasters† This piece examines the proposed order and joint motion for entry of consent judgment in National Religious Broadcasters v. Commissioner addressing ...
- Constructing Constitutional Rights In his important article Determining Rights, Professor Jud Campbell correctly observes that "[t]wo central problems in rights jurisprudence are ...
AI Paper-like Links
A collection of links shared recently¹¹ on Bluesky that look like they point to papers on AI,¹² sorted by popularity. Wondering why this section is on a site about the law? Well, I teach a course on AI & the Law, and it turns out that understanding this stuff is super important to figuring out what the law might have to say. So, I figured since I was sharing lists, I might as well share this one too.
- Large Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology† 🔥🔥🔥Large Language Models (LLMs),such as ChatGPT, are increasingly used in research, ranging from simple writing assistance to complex data annotation tasks. Recently, some research has suggested that LLM...
- Generative AI and the Future of the Digital Commons: Five Open Questions and Knowledge Gaps 🔥🔥The rapid advancement of Generative AI (GenAI) relies heavily on the digital commons, a vast collection of free and open online content that is created, shared, and maintained by communities. However,...
- Subliminal Learning: Language models transmit behavioral traits via hidden signals in data† 🔥We study subliminal learning, a surprising phenomenon where language models transmit behavioral traits via semantically unrelated data. In our main experiments, a "teacher" model with some trait T (su...
- Training language models to be warm and empathetic makes them less reliable and more sycophantic 🔥
- The Illusory Normativity of Rights-Based AI Regulation 🔥Whether and how to regulate AI is now a central question of governance. Across academic, policy, and international legal circles, the European Union is widel ...
The High Score
The 20 accounts most reposted by @icymilaw.org over the past week¹³ (the list below is updated every Sunday). High Score, get it? One Score = 20, as in, "four score and seven years ago." ;)
- Law + Tech News Bot (@news.bot.suffolklitlab.org)
- ICYMI (Law) (@icymilaw.org)
- Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Mark Zaid, Esq (@markzaidesq.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) (promoted)
- Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Steve Peers (@stevepeers.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov.bsky.social)
- Sheryl Weikal, due process enjoyer (@leftistlawyer.com) (promoted)
- Walter Olson (@walterolson.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Matthew Segal (@segalmr.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Miriam Posner (@miriamposner.com) (promoted)
- Quinn Yeargain (@yeargain.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Heidi Kitrosser (@heidikitrosser.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Harry Litman (@harrylitman.bsky.social) (promoted)
- National Security Counselors 🕵 (@nationalsecuritylaw.org) (promoted)
- Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) (promoted)
- Rick Hasen (@rickhasen.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Sarah Fackrell (@design-law.bsky.social) (relegated)
- John Pfaff (@johnpfaff.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Mike Boylan-Kolchin (@mbkplus.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Joe Dunman (@joedunman.bsky.social) (relegated)
- John Q. Barrett (@johnqbarrett.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Quinta Jurecic (@qjurecic.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Jess Miers 🦝 (@jmiers230.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Sherrilyn Ifill (@sifill.bsky.social) (relegated)
- emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Katie Phang (@katiephang.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor.bsky.social) (relegated)
- dag (@davidallengreen.bsky.social) (relegated)
- Jessica Pishko (@jesspish.bsky.social) (relegated)
† This link was also in yesterday's digest. ¹ Approx. 1 day lookback. ² Attorneys, law profs, et al. ³ News-like links (law) ⁴ Supra note 1. ⁵ Supra note 2. ⁶ Blog-like links (law) ⁷ Approx. 3.5 days lookback. ⁸ AI & the Law ⁹ Approx. 1 week lookback. ¹⁰ Law Review-like ¹¹ Supra note 9. ¹² AI Papers et al. ¹³ High Score
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