Category: Business

Today, the Department of State published the 2024 Investment Climate Statements (ICS).  These reports describe the investment climates of more than 160 countries and economies, helping U.S. companies make informed decisions about doing business overseas.  The ICS are also a resource for partner governments to create business environments that are economically sound and sustainable to grow the […]

In Texas’ first public enforcement of its biometric privacy law, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle claims that its now-defunct face recognition system violated state law. The law was first passed in 2001. As part of the Texas settlement, Meta (formerly Facebook) can seek pre-approval from the state for any future biometric projects. […]

As UN delegates sat down in New York this week to restart negotiations, calls are mounting from all corners—from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to Big Tech—to add critical human rights protections to, and fix other major flaws in, the proposed UN surveillance treaty, which as written will jeopardize fundamental rights […]

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good morning, everyone.  Bienvenidos a Washington. It’s so good to have so many friends from all across the hemisphere.  We wanted to give you, as I said to a couple of colleagues, the warmest possible greeting; we may have overcorrected, because I think we’ve had the two hottest days on record in Washington in […]

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey urged the FTC to investigate several car companies caught selling and sharing customer information without clear consent. Alongside details previously gathered from reporting by The New York Times, the letter also showcases exactly how much this data is […]

It’s unlikely you’ve heard of Signaling System 7 (SS7), but every phone network in the world is connected to it, and if you have ever roamed networks internationally or sent an SMS message overseas you have used it. SS7 is a set of telecommunication protocols that cellular network operators use to exchange information and route […]

Today, to bolster semiconductor production capabilities across the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. Department of State, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has unveiled the CHIPS ITSI Western Hemisphere Semiconductor Initiative.  This groundbreaking initiative, supported through the CHIPS Act International Technology Security and Innovation (ITSI) Fund, enhances semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) capabilities […]

BOSTON—A citizen journalists’ group represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a federal lawsuit today against a Massachusetts community-access television company for falsely convincing YouTube to take down video clips of city government meetings. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts by Channel 781, an association of citizen journalists founded […]

This is part one of an ongoing series.  Government involvement in content moderation raises serious human rights concerns in every context. Since October 7, social media platforms have been challenged for the unjustified takedowns of pro-Palestinian content—sometimes at the request of the Israeli government—and a simultaneous failure to remove hate speech towards Palestinians. More specifically, […]

On July 17,2024, Secretary Blinken announced at the America’s Partnership for Economic Prosperity Ministerial the U.S. Department of State and Mexico’s Secretariat of Economy would host the Americas Partnership Semiconductor Symposium:  Expanding the Supplier Ecosystem on September 5-6, 2024, in Mexico City.  The Symposium will focus on expanding and diversifying the semiconductor assembly, testing, and […]