U.S. forces deployed to war zones have been targeted using location data harvested from phones and other consumer devices, according to reports fielded by military officials, highlighting how the global surveillance economy is reshaping modern battlefields. In a letter shared with Reuters by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, U.S. Central Command said it had “received multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater.” The message, sent on April 14, offered no further specifics, but Centcom’s area of responsibility includes the Gulf, where U.S. forces are facing off against the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz. “That foreign adversaries are still able to buy location data collected from the phones of U.S. personnel serving in military hotspots is a direct result of DoD leadership’s failure to prioritize this threat and implement commonsense cyber defenses recommended by federal cybersecurity experts,” the letter stated. The disclosure was the first official confirmation that U.S. forces had been targeted in an active war zone, Wyden and a bipartisan group of legislators said in a letter sent on Thursday to the Pentagon. “Commercial location data can be used to identify where U.S. troops congregate and their pattern of life, which can be exploited by adversaries to target attacks such as missiles, drones, and roadside bombs, as well as for counterintelligence purposes,” the letter warned. Wyden said in a statement that it was time to “start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat.” The Pentagon did not return messages seeking comment. The lawmakers said in their letter that their efforts to obtain more information from military officials about the reported targeting had been unsuccessful. Location data is widely used in digital advertising, which is a key source of revenue for many tech companies. Such data is typically collected from smartphones or other devices by apps or service providers before being sold to data brokers who collate and resell the data, sometimes via complex networks of intermediaries. Although the threat to privacy inherent in selling the details of people’s day-to-day movements on the open market has long been a matter of public discussion, its potential as a national security risk has recently drawn concern as well. As far back as 2016, one U.S. defense contractor was able to leverage commercially available location data to track special operations forces from their bases in the United States to a sensitive staging post in Syria, according to an account first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal. More recently, journalists at Wired and two German news outlets drew on billions of coordinates collected by a data broker to expose the granular comings and goings of people stationed at or around 11 U.S. military and intelligence sites in Germany. Two groups that represent digital advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Association of National Advertisers, did not return emails seeking comment. The letter from U.S. lawmakers to the Pentagon said that, given what military officials know about the trade in location data, they should have acted faster to protect their personnel, for example by disabling the unique advertising ID attached to military-issued devices, automatically turning off location sharing on smartphones in the field, and steering staff away from Google’s Chrome web browser toward more privacy-focused alternatives. One of the letter’s cosigners was U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican who was formerly a U.S. Army Special Forces officer. Harrigan said that browsers like Chrome “are built from the ground up to collect and share user data” and that every day they remain on government-issued devices “is another day we are handing our adversaries a weapon against our own troops.” In a statement, Alphabet’s Google said that Chrome had “industry leading security.” The company added that it had “long advocated for stronger rules and safeguards against data brokers.”   (Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

As AI chatbots get more conversational, one question hangs in the air: could AI be conscious? The latest public thinker to announce openness to the idea is famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. After spending three days conversing with Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude about a range of topics, the noted atheist acknowledged that he was now open to the possibility that artificial intelligence may possess consciousness. Dawkins is just the latest in a long line of people going back centuries who have attributed mind to machines. In the 1960s, almost 60 years before Claude came along, MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum discovered something unsettling about human beings: we are astonishingly quick to attribute mind, personality, and even intimacy to machines that merely simulate conversation. Weizenbaum built a primitive chatbot he called ELIZA, a program that relied on keyword detection, pattern matching, and scripted response templates to carry on a conversation. The computer scientist was under no pretenses about ELIZA. He knew it was driven by comprehensible procedures. What shocked him was the strong emotional responses he observed from people who interacted with ELIZA. He wrote in a 1976 book: “Extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” He often gave the example of his secretary at MIT, who watched him work on the program for months. After only a few sessions with ELIZA, she asked him to leave the room so she could more privately confide in the program. Weizenbaum was also taken aback by how quickly science professionals were willing to consider programs like ELIZA as substitutes for human treatment. Psychiatrist Kenneth M. Colby said ELIZA could be “made widely available to mental hospitals and psychiatric centers suffering a shortage of therapists.” Noted astrophysicist Carl Sagan also weighed in on ELIZA’s potential, envisioning a future where such programs would provide medical care to the masses: “[F]or a few dollars a session, we would be able to talk with an attentive, tested, and largely non-directive psychotherapist.” ELIZA also taught Weizenbaum that people are very generous with their assumptions in conversation: “The human speaker will…contribute much to clothe ELIZA’s responses in vestments of plausibility,” he wrote. In other words, trained as we are since before birth in human conversation, and lonely as we might be in today’s modern age, we are more than happy to meet a conversation partner halfway, even if that partner is a machine. Which brings us back to Mr. Dawkins. Today’s Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots like Claude and ChatGPT are vastly more sophisticated than ELIZA, harnessing newer technologies in natural language processing to make conversations much more engaging. And as Weizenbaum predicted, today’s AI models can build belief-structure models of users across multiple sessions. It’s little wonder, then, that even eminent thinkers like Dawkins would be flattered and impressed to the point of acknowledging the possibility of consciousness. But is AI actually conscious? Under the hood of today’s AI models, it’s still all about patterns. Algorithms trained on vast datasets analyze our queries letter by letter and harness statistical analysis to produce responses arranged in patterns we recognize as human language. And it’s getting better and faster at doing this every month. Give an AI model enough data and train it to shape its responses in patterns we recognize as conversation, and the sky is the limit. AI can simulate intelligence, consciousness, romance, concern, interest, curiosity, or anything else that typifies human existence. But simulations, while powerful, are still only simulations. If Mr. Dawkins can get lulled into entertaining notions of AI consciousness, all of us can. It’s crucial that we get in the driver’s seat with AI now so we don’t get taken for a ride later. If you’re going to use an AI chatbot, keep it limited and advisory. Avoid personalizing chatbots with names or personal pronouns. And wherever possible, opt for the real thing over a simulation. The most amazing computer in the universe is still your own brain. Use it to blast past mere simulations and unleash the real thing. *** Andrew McDiarmid is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. Follow his writing on technology at https://thehumanadventure.substack.com.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent weighed in Thursday on growing speculation about a proposed $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump, stressing that any such move would ultimately be up to Congress, while also defending the Treasury Department’s preparations should legislation pass. The issue surfaced during a White House press briefing when Bessent was asked how long it would take for Americans to see his signature as Treasury secretary next to Trump’s face on newly created currency. “As Treasury Secretary, I have two mandates for U.S. currency at present,” Bessent replied. “That no living person can be on U.S. currency, and the currency must say ‘In God We Trust.’” Bessent explained that proposed legislation already moving through Congress would change the long-standing prohibition on living individuals appearing on American currency. “So right now, there is proposed legislation from the House, in front of the Senate, to change the first requirement, so that a living person, Donald J. Trump, could be on the $250 bill,” he said. “So it’s all up on Capitol Hill.” The Treasury secretary also confirmed that the department has already begun preparing in case the legislation becomes law. “At Treasury we prepare things in advance, so we have prepared in advance that if the legislation is passed, but we will stick to the law,” Bessent said. Later in the briefing, reporters repeatedly pressed Bessent on whether he personally believed placing Trump on currency was politically wise, especially amid continued concerns about inflation and affordability. Bessent pushed back against the framing of the question and again clarified that the proposal is not being initiated directly by Trump himself. “The President doesn’t do it,” Bessent said. “The House and the Senate have to do it.” Bessent also mocked a Thursday Washington Post report about the proposal after reporters cited it while questioning Treasury’s internal preparations. “I don’t really understand this Washington Post article,” Bessent said. “Yeah, terribly written, terribly edited.” He argued the story merely confirmed that Treasury was following existing law while preparing for the possibility Congress could approve the legislation. “We prepare for everything if it gets passed,” Bessent said. “You can’t draw something up the day before.” When reporters again asked whether it was politically appropriate to place Trump on currency, Bessent tied the proposal to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States. “I don’t think that there’s anything untoward about having the President of the United States — the person who was President of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill,” he said. The proposal comes as the Trump administration increasingly looks for ways to commemorate America’s semiquincentennial celebration in 2026, with some supporters pushing for new coins, currency, and memorial projects honoring Trump’s role during the anniversary year.

The Trump administration is in talks to provide funding to some American drone companies, including Unusual Machines and Sequoia Capital-backed Neros, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Shares of Unusual Machines were up 37% in premarket trading on Thursday. Drone dominance was described as a “presidential priority” in President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027. Months-long discussions between private-sector firms and the Pentagon have included the Office of Strategic Capital, a Biden-era lending unit focused on companies critical to national security supply chains, the Journal reported. Unusual Machines is a drone components maker that counts Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, while Neros is a startup specializing in autonomous drones. Performance Drone Works, which won a contract to supply the U.S. Army with reconnaissance drones, is also under consideration for possible funding, the report added. Reuters said it could not verify the report. The White House, Pentagon, and companies involved did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Some proposals being discussed include funding through a mix of debt and equity, which could give the government ownership stakes, the report said. Shares of Aureus Greenway, which is set to acquire drone technology company Powerus, rose nearly 30% before the bell. The deal is also backed by the Trump family. Shares of other U.S.-based drone companies, Red Cat, Kratos Defense, AeroVironment, and Swarmer rose between 7% and 13% in premarket trading on Thursday. Last June, the Trump administration unveiled an executive order titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” aimed at boosting the domestic drone industry through executive action. The plan called for faster approvals for beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations and expanded exports of American-made drones. It also prioritized U.S.-manufactured systems for federal agencies and the military, while exploring financial incentives such as direct loans, loan guarantees, and equity investments to strengthen the sector against foreign competitors, particularly China. “The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets,” the order stated. “Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people.” (Reporting by Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul and Edwina Gibbs)

A federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama has been identified as the official caught having sex in her chambers with a high-ranking law enforcement officer during business hours. Citing a person familiar with the investigation, Bloomberg Law reported Thursday that U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia received a “private reprimand” from the court’s disciplinary panel for engaging “in an extramarital affair with a high-ranking law enforcement officer.” The panel said the judge had “sexual intercourse in the judge’s chambers during business hours within hearing distance of staff,” but did not identify Ross by name.  Ross was first identified as the judge involved by Marco Polo, a watchdog organization known for publishing material related to Hunter Biden’s laptop. The Atlanta-based judge did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire.  An investigation into Ross began in September 2025 after a court clerk reported hearing “kissing sounds and other noises consistent with intimate activity” and “sounds of moaning” coming from judicial chambers.  That investigation found that Ross maintained a sexual relationship with the law enforcement officer for two years, placing herself in jeopardy of extortion and blackmail. Ross was also found to have lied about the relationship and attended a partisan political event in violation of court guidelines.  The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability, which reviews complaints against judges, later affirmed the findings.  Ross received a private reprimand along with an order to write apology letters to former clerks. She was also barred from becoming chief judge or serving on Judicial Conference committees.  Obama appointed Ross to the federal bench in 2014. She was confirmed after advancing through the Senate with bipartisan support.  During her confirmation hearing, Ross called her husband her “rock and source of inspiration in all of my professional and personal endeavors.” In her judicial questionnaire, she wrote that “the most important attribute of a judge is integrity.” As a judge, Ross has overseen several high-profile election-integrity cases and sentenced reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley to 12 and 7 years in prison, respectively. They were later pardoned by President Donald Trump.  Todd Chrisley called for Ross to be impeached, writing on Instagram that “this corrupt judge who couldn’t focus on our case because she was to (sic) busy clapping dem cheeks in her chambers per the articles that are surfacing in the last few hours, she needs to be impeached and we will work with Congress and our legal team to see that this happens.” During the 2020 election, Ross extended the deadline for receiving absentee ballots to three days after Election Day. That ruling was later blocked by a higher court.