AI is meant to be the saving grace of the modern age. Proponents say it will unlock new innovations in economic growth, health care, and other industries. On the flip side, it’s also a tool for bad actors to commit digital crimes faster and more efficiently than ever before.It's a tension that is now reaching the law, from the courts to Congress. And not a moment too soon.So far, hundreds of thousands of victims have been affected.Last month, for instance, Google filed a lawsuit against Chinese scammers accused of targeting “hundreds of thousands of Americans” with financial schemes, all distributed broadly with some help from AI.As the group's malicious activities are exposed, you can take some simple actions to start fighting back — while Congress gets moving to ensure we can sweep back the tide of automated scams at scale.Here's the scoop.The lawsuitAccording to the civil lawsuit divulged on the Keyword blog by Google, the Mountain View tech giant is going after a cybercriminal group based in China called “Outsider Enterprise.” The entity uses Telegram, a third-party communications app with optional end-to-end encryption that subverts authorities, to share “phishing kits” that recreate official-looking text messages from major companies, all aimed at unsuspecting users. The goal is to trick users into clicking on a link in the messages, which then takes them to a fake copy of popular websites — including Google, YouTube, and government services — before stealing their personal information.These types of scams are nothing new. Phishing dates back to the 1990s with the advent of AOL. What is new, however, is the breadth and scale of scams that criminals can achieve with AI platforms, like Google Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Claude by Anthropic.Google claims that "Outsider Enterprise" runs a massive AI-fueled cybercriminal network built around 9,000 fake websites, all siphoning data gleaned from 2.5 million messages sent directly to users in two weeks during May alone.RELATED: New Senate bill punishes chilling of online speech — if it passes Bjorn Bakstad/Getty Images So far, “hundreds of thousands of victims” have been affected, with more than $1 million in estimated losses.Google lobbies for legislationTo help curb the onslaught of the AI-enabled scams that are likely to emerge in the coming years, Google demands immediate government regulation, with seven bills called out by name on its blog. Note that most of these bills are bipartisan in nature.National Strategy for Combating Scams Act: This bipartisan bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Derek Schmidt (Kan.), is designed to crack down on financial fraud and improve anti-scam efforts on the state and local levels.Strategic Task Force on Scam Prevention Act: Led by Reps. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), this bill empowers the DOJ and FTC to create a comprehensive national scam prevention strategy task force to support scam victims.STOP Scams Against Seniors Act: Proposed by Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), STOP holds criminal organizations accountable for targeting older victims.AI Plan Act: Reps. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.). The bill enables the executive branch to devise a plan to protect the U.S.’ financial system and sensitive data from misuse by AI companies and platforms.Stopping Cross-border Attacks and Manipulation Act: This bill by Reps. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) aims directly at international cybercriminals and foreign scam networks that target American citizens. Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness and Education Campaign Act: Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) proposed a bill that compels the secretary of commerce to educate the public and provide information on the benefits, risks, and prevalence of AI as it applies to the daily lives of everyday Americans.Stop Schemes, Cyber Fraud, Abuse, Manipulation, and Swindles Act: Proposed by Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.), this bill gives the FBI the power to set up an anti-scam task force guided by a standardized system for tracking and investigating criminal groups.Usually, companies prefer less government regulation over the products they create, so it’s strange to watch Google lobby so adamantly for AI laws that could potentially limit Gemini and its competitors. Still, given the broad impacts of AI on modern life — both good and bad — it’s clear that some regulation is necessary.How to protect yourselfMost of these bills have a long way to go before they become law. In the meantime, there are some things you can do to protect yourself from Outsider Enterprise and other AI phishing scams:Approach all texts from unknown senders with suspicion. Major groups, including Google and the government, rarely send official communications via SMS, RCS, or iMessage. Texts claiming otherwise should not be trusted.Flag all potential scam texts as spam within your messaging app. This helps message platform holders tune their algorithms to identify scam texts, alert authorities, and block them from reaching your phone in the first place.Turn on the spam text blocker in your built-in messaging app on iPhone and Android.Phishing is just one way that AI poses a danger to users. Sophisticated AI platforms, like Claude Mythos by Anthropic, can supposedly hack into some of the most secure systems that protect banks, online accounts, and even government infrastructure. Concerns over AI’s growing capabilities have even caused the Trump administration to enact stronger regulations that give the government early access to frontier models before they are made available to the public. Whether or not this new procedure offers any meaningful protection from AI remains to be seen.

For the first time ever, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have jointly rung their bells from the White House.President Trump rang the opening bells of both exchanges from the Oval Office on Monday, marking the official launch of Trump Accounts for children.'Children, at the age of 18 and after, become very wealthy people, come into the world with essentially no money and end up, at a pretty young age, being very rich.'The accounts, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, became available for contributions starting July 4 and are open to children who won't turn 18 by year's end.Every eligible child gets a one-time $1,000 seed contribution from the federal government, and family or employers can add more, up to annual limits. The money is invested — by default in an S&P 500 ETF, with more options coming — and grows, tax-advantaged, until the child turns 18. Parents can enroll for free at TrumpAccounts.gov.Attendees included Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and his wife, and NYSE President Lynn Martin, along with executives from Nasdaq and other major firms. Michael and Susan Dell pledged a $6.25 billion commitment — $250 each to the first 25 million qualifying children signed up for Trump Accounts.At the event, Trump urged attendees to "go out and buy a Dell computer" — and Dell stock jumped more than 7% following his remarks.RELATED: Last summer's teen hiring market was the worst on record. Alarming report shows it's about to get even worse — here's why. Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesNumerous companies including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Robinhood also pledged to match the government's initial contribution for employees' children's accounts, while SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said she would give company stock to Trump Accounts for more than 2 million children nationwide.Trump touted the accounts as a way for children to "become very wealthy people ... come into the world with essentially no money and end up, at a pretty young age, being very rich" by adulthood, adding that between individual contributions and seed funding, roughly $800 million in new capital would flow into the stock market for children this week alone.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Federal Trade Commission is finally suing the World Professional Association for Transgender Health over sweeping recommendations for pediatric gender medicine that allegedly rested on weak evidence and conjecture.The action is long overdue.WPATH’s dishonesty should surprise no one. The organization has openly rejected basic biology.WPATH has disregarded basic standards of medical honesty for years. Although the complaint was filed only recently, the organization’s indifference to evidence — and to the safety of gender-confused children — has long been apparent.In 2022, WPATH removed minimum-age recommendations from its standards of care, reportedly under pressure from then-Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a transgender-identifying male.Thousands of detransitioners now live with the physical and psychological consequences of procedures they underwent as minors. Many of the doctors involved relied on WPATH’s prestige and guidelines to justify interventions children could not fully understand or consent to.Most doctors are unwilling to risk their licenses by prescribing dangerous drugs or performing irreversible procedures without institutional cover, regardless of their ideological sympathies. Organizations such as WPATH, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics provided that cover.Holding those institutions accountable could bring down the entire house of cards supporting pediatric gender medicine.WPATH’s dishonesty should surprise no one. The organization has openly rejected basic biology. In 2024, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that a senior WPATH official denied that sex is binary.Other reporting revealed that doctors recommending certain drugs to transgender-identifying patients knew the treatments were untested or potentially harmful but continued promoting them in the name of “justice.”WPATH went so far as to include “eunuch” as a gender identity in draft guidelines published in 2021. It relied in part on material from the Eunuch Archive, a fetish website, to support the inclusion.The organization suggested that doctors should castrate people who identify as eunuchs because they might otherwise attempt the procedure themselves.RELATED: The YMCA broke the first rule of summer camp Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesWhy should Americans care about an organization few outside medicine had heard of until recently?Because WPATH’s guidelines became a central source of authority in court cases defending pediatric sex-change procedures.During 2023 litigation over an Alabama law banning such procedures for minors, opponents repeatedly cited WPATH’s standards to give their case an aura of medical credibility.A federal judge subpoenaed WPATH’s internal documents concerning the creation of those guidelines. WPATH tried to quash the order, but the judge ruled that the material was of “crucial import” to the litigation.The resulting documents steadily undermined WPATH’s credibility and helped lay the groundwork for the FTC’s lawsuit.That judge understood in 2023 what the Trump administration and the FTC understand now: The medical professionals and activists behind WPATH’s guidelines helped create the current regime of pediatric gender medicine.Calling them to account could become a decisive moment.The FTC filed its complaint alongside attorneys general from Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas. The consequences could extend far beyond WPATH itself, affecting doctors, hospitals, professional associations, and court cases that relied on its authority.Most important, the case could begin addressing the institutional failure that allowed so many young men and women to be fast-tracked into procedures they ultimately regret.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10 in front of a massive crowd at Utah Valley University.Just days after the young father of two was pronounced dead, 23-year-old Tyler Robinson was ushered by his parents to the Washington County Sheriff's Office, where he turned himself in.'I think my battery died.'Robinson, a Utah State University dropout whom Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said had become "more political" in the lead-up to the assassination, was subsequently charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, and obstruction of justice as well as with witness tampering for allegedly telling his boyfriend to delete his text messages and to stay quiet if questioned by police.The suspected assassin has yet to enter a plea.On Monday, day one of the five-day preliminary hearing in Robinson's murder case, prosecutors began laying out the evidence that they believe is sufficient both to convince state District Judge Tony Graf to try the case and to ultimately warrant the death penalty.The court heard from former Utah Valley police officer Chris Bagley, who described the "crime scene," specifically the roof of the Losee Center building where he found a red-and-black screwdriver "that looked out of place" and an apparent "sniper pad."RELATED: Foreign-born professor who danced on Charlie Kirk's grave set to receive major payday Trent Nelson-Pool/Getty ImagesFBI Director Kash Patel claimed just days after Kirk's assassination that DNA on the screwdriver was "positively processed for the suspect in custody."In addition to describing the spot that apparently had a clear view of where Kirk had been seated, Bagley recalled how he discovered a shoe print in the grass on the northeast side of the building after learning on the basis of surveillance footage that somebody ran along the edge of the rooftop, then dropped down.One of Robinson's attorneys, Kathryn Nester, provided some indication of the strategy the defense may adopt, casting doubt on whether Robinson could actually be identified as the gunman.Nester pressed Bagley on his discovery of an empty pistol holster on the ground after the crowd fled and police mistakenly thought they had apprehended the gunman. Bagley expressed uncertainty about whether the holster had been fingerprinted and what ultimately happened to it.Nester later asked Bagley about his body camera footage, of which he had roughly 27 minutes for Sept. 10. Bagley said, "I think my battery died. I don't know."David Hull, a former Utah State Bureau of Investigation agent who led the initial probe in the assassination and now works for the Utah Department of Public Safety, also took the stand on Monday, touching on some of the evidence prosecutors want to introduce — including a video of the shooting taken by a female witness.While footage of the assassination was played on Monday in court, it was not shown publicly.Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray previously alleged in court documents that DNA consistent with Robinson's was found on the suspected murder weapon — a bolt-action rifle — as well as the spent round and three unspent rounds found with the rifle, in addition to the towel in which it was wrapped.This week, prosecutors are expected to show a video statement from Robinson's apparent trans-identifying homosexual lover, Lance Twiggs, where Twiggs discusses messages he exchanged with the suspected assassin, CNN reported.In the original charging documents, Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray provided alleged text messages between Twiggs and Robinson where the suspected assassin allegedly admits to killing Kirk, discusses picking up his rifle, and provides an apparent motive, stating, "I had enough of his hatred." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!