Latest news with #BlaiseIngoglia
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida lawmakers had a bitter, raucous session — and they may run it back soon
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature is just hours from ending a raucous session full of GOP infighting, broken promises and bitter feelings. And they may soon be doing it again. Legislators are scheduled to end their annual 60-day session Friday without a deal on a new state budget — meaning they will be forced to return to the state Capitol sometime in the next two months to avoid a state government shutdown. But the when and how of that return remain unresolved as the clock moves closer to midnight. What is clear: Lawmakers are expected to leave town for at least a week. But there won't be any of the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies a session ending, no congratulatory press conferences or the anticipated traditional dropping of white handkerchiefs. 'It's been a session of missed opportunities,' said state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), an ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis who saw many of his bills fail to cross the finish line. In their final week, lawmakers did agree to ease the financial burdens of condominium owners and impose strict new restrictions on ballot initiatives — both top priorities of DeSantis. But lots of other legislation fell by the wayside in recent days and weeks, including bills dealing with property insurance and education and hotly debated measures dealing with the minimum wage and loosening child labor laws. The session was a complete turnaround from recent years, when DeSantis muscled through a meaty agenda of conservative policy that he cited frequently during his unsuccessful run for president. DeSantis fiercely denounced state House Republicans repeatedly over the past two months and accused them of working with Democrats to undermine him and his agenda. 'I think the House position has been 'Well, the governor had gotten everything he wants so whatever he's for — we're against,'' DeSantis said earlier this week during a press conference. The governor has faulted the House over everything from its proposed budget on the Everglades and law enforcement to pushing bills he said were designed to help 'liberal trial lawyers.' He also criticized them for pushing for sales tax cuts he said would help tourists instead of considering proposals to reduce property taxes. But the House also drew the governor's ire over its investigation of Hope Florida, an initiative spearheaded by first lady Casey DeSantis, and a nonprofit organization linked to the effort. The House probed how $10 million from a settlement between the state and a Medicaid vendor wound up going to the Hope Florida Foundation, which turned around and steered the money to two groups that sent funds to a political committee fighting a ballot initiative on marijuana. House Speaker Daniel Perez has responded by calling DeSantis 'emotional,' while state Rep. Alex Andrade (R-Pensacola), who led the committee behind the probe, has urged federal and state authorities to investigate further. Amid the increasingly bitter feud between Perez and DeSantis, the House and Senate have been unable to reach an agreement on top-level spending levels and tax cuts. Perez wants a $5 billion permanent cut in sales taxes, while Senate President Ben Albritton has urged a more cautious approach and advocated a smaller blend of permanent and one-time cuts. As the budget stalemate continued, tension levels among the two chambers ratcheted up in recent days. When the House refused to go along with setting up a substance abuse research center at the University of South Florida and naming it after Sen. Darryl Rouson, state Senate Democrats and Republicans alike grew irate. Perez angrily responded by accusing the Senate of trying to slip in a 'backdoor appropriations project' and 'emotionally blackmailing the House into doing what they want.' On Friday, the Senate agreed to drop the matter. Legislators spent most of their final day in recess, wondering if there would be at least an agreement reached on when the Legislature would return to handle a new budget. At one point, state Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming Island) was overheard saying, 'It's like the House and Senate don't know how to break up with each other.' 'I've never seen a session like this where we've not been able to finish on time, or reasonably on time, and get a budget done,' said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the House Democratic Leader. 'And I think this is a session where politics got in the way of progress. I mean, it's to the point where bills are dying, where you see basically messages being communicated between the two chambers and the governors using press releases, social media, you know, and news interviews. So, you know, at times it doesn't even seem like everybody is talking or on the same page.' Isa Dominguez contributed to this report.
Politico
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Florida lawmakers had a bitter, raucous session — and they may run it back soon
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature is just hours from ending a raucous session full of GOP infighting, broken promises and bitter feelings. And they may soon be doing it again. Legislators are scheduled to end their annual 60-day session Friday without a deal on a new state budget — meaning they will be forced to return to the state Capitol sometime in the next two months to avoid a state government shutdown. But the when and how of that return remain unresolved as the clock moves closer to midnight. What is clear: Lawmakers are expected to leave town for at least a week. But there won't be any of the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies a session ending, no congratulatory press conferences or the anticipated traditional dropping of white handkerchiefs. 'It's been a session of missed opportunities,' said state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), an ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis who saw many of his bills fail to cross the finish line. In their final week, lawmakers did agree to ease the financial burdens of condominium owners and impose strict new restrictions on ballot initiatives — both top priorities of DeSantis. But lots of other legislation fell by the wayside in recent days and weeks, including bills dealing with property insurance and education and hotly debated measures dealing with the minimum wage and loosening child labor laws. The session was a complete turnaround from recent years, when DeSantis muscled through a meaty agenda of conservative policy that he cited frequently during his unsuccessful run for president. DeSantis fiercely denounced state House Republicans repeatedly over the past two months and accused them of working with Democrats to undermine him and his agenda. 'I think the House position has been 'Well, the governor had gotten everything he wants so whatever he's for — we're against,'' DeSantis said earlier this week during a press conference. The governor has faulted the House over everything from its proposed budget on the Everglades and law enforcement to pushing bills he said were designed to help 'liberal trial lawyers.' He also criticized them for pushing for sales tax cuts he said would help tourists instead of considering proposals to reduce property taxes. But the House also drew the governor's ire over its investigation of Hope Florida, an initiative spearheaded by first lady Casey DeSantis, and a nonprofit organization linked to the effort. The House probed how $10 million from a settlement between the state and a Medicaid vendor wound up going to the Hope Florida Foundation, which turned around and steered the money to two groups that sent funds to a political committee fighting a ballot initiative on marijuana. House Speaker Daniel Perez has responded by calling DeSantis 'emotional,' while state Rep. Alex Andrade (R-Pensacola), who led the committee behind the probe, has urged federal and state authorities to investigate further. Amid the increasingly bitter feud between Perez and DeSantis, the House and Senate have been unable to reach an agreement on top-level spending levels and tax cuts. Perez wants a $5 billion permanent cut in sales taxes, while Senate President Ben Albritton has urged a more cautious approach and advocated a smaller blend of permanent and one-time cuts. As the budget stalemate continued, tension levels among the two chambers ratcheted up in recent days. When the House refused to go along with setting up a substance abuse research center at the University of South Florida and naming it after Sen. Darryl Rouson, state Senate Democrats and Republicans alike grew irate. Perez angrily responded by accusing the Senate of trying to slip in a 'backdoor appropriations project' and 'emotionally blackmailing the House into doing what they want.' On Friday, the Senate agreed to drop the matter. Legislators spent most of their final day in recess, wondering if there would be at least an agreement reached on when the Legislature would return to handle a new budget. At one point, state Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming Island) was overheard saying, 'It's like the House and Senate don't know how to break up with each other.' 'I've never seen a session like this where we've not been able to finish on time, or reasonably on time, and get a budget done,' said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the House Democratic Leader. 'And I think this is a session where politics got in the way of progress. I mean, it's to the point where bills are dying, where you see basically messages being communicated between the two chambers and the governors using press releases, social media, you know, and news interviews. So, you know, at times it doesn't even seem like everybody is talking or on the same page.' Isa Dominguez contributed to this report.
WIRED
19-04-2025
- Politics
- WIRED
Florida Man Enters the Encryption Wars
Just three months into the Trump administration's promised crackdown on immigration to the United States, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement now has a $30 million contract with Palantir to build a 'near-real time' surveillance platform called ImmigrationOS that would track information about people self-deporting (electing to leave the US). Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has been sending aggressive emails telling people with temporary legal status to leave the US. It is unclear who has actually been sent the messages, though, given that a number of people who are US-born citizens have reported receiving them. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency briefly seemed poised this week to cancel funding for the critical software vulnerability tracking project known as the CVE Program. CISA eventually came through with the funding, but some members of the CVE Program's governing board are planning to make the project into an independent nonprofit. A lawsuit over the Trump administration's Houthi Signal group chat is revealing details on steps that federal departments did—and did not—take to preserve the messages per records laws. WIRED took a look at the most dangerous hackers you've never heard of, diving deep on the unrelenting and two-faced Russian intelligence group Gamaredon; the incredibly prolific Chinese Smishing Triad text message scammers; the dangerous members of fallen ransomware giant Black Basta; the Iranian critical infrastructure hackers known as CyberAv3ngers; the TraderTraitor North Korean cryptocurrency hackers responsible for a staggering number of massive heists; and the notorious, longtime Chinese criminal and state-backed crossover hackers known as Brass Typhoon. On top of all of that, a suspected 4chan hack may have devastating consequences for the controversial image board. The AI company Massive Blue is helping cops generate AI-powered social media bots to pose as sympathetic figures and talk to people of interest. And the New Jersey attorney general is suing Discord, claiming that the platform doesn't have adequate safeguards in place to protect children under 13 from sexual predators and harmful content. But wait, there's more! Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn't cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories, and stay safe out there. A draft bill in the state of Florida would require social media companies to provide law enforcement with encryption backdoors so cops could access users' accounts. The bill advanced unanimously from committee this week and will now go to the state Senate for a vote. If passed, the Social Media Use by Minors bill, which is sponsored by state senator Blaise Ingoglia, would require 'social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena.' The bill would also ban disappearing messages in accounts designed for children and would require social media companies to create a mechanism for parents or guardians to access children's accounts. Experts have long warned that encryption backdoors make everyone less secure, including those they are intended to help. Yet waves of attacks on encryption have repeatedly emerged over the years, including a recent trend in the European Union and United Kingdom. A Nevada district judge said this week that the practice of 'tower dumps,' in which law enforcement pulls vast quantities of personal caller data from cell towers, violates the Fourth Amendment and is, thus, unconstitutional. Cell towers collect large quantities of information about users, including phone numbers and phone locations, so when cops request data from a tower during a specific time period, they often receive information on thousands of devices or more. In spite of the decision this week, though, Judge Miranda M. Du said that law enforcement could still use the evidence they had collected through a tower dump in their case. China claimed this week that the US National Security Agency perpetrated 'advanced' cyberattacks against critical industries in February during the Asian Winter Games. Law enforcement from the northeastern city of Harbin put three alleged NSA agents—Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling, and Stephen W. Johnson—on a wanted list and claimed that the University of California and Virginia Tech were involved in the attacks. 'We urge the US to take a responsible attitude on the issue of cyber security and … stop unprovoked smears and attacks on China,' ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a news briefing about multiple topics, according to Reuters. The US government frequently calls out Chinese state-backed hacking and names individual alleged perpetrators, but China has been less consistent about such statements. The move this week comes amid escalating tensions between the two countries, including the Trump's administration's trade war. CBP is using multiple artificial intelligence tools to scan social media and identify people of interest online, according to information from the agency and marketing materials reviewed by 404 Media from the contractors. CBP released information about the platforms this week in parallel to the US Department of Homeland Security's announcement that it will 'begin screening aliens' social media activity for Antisemitism.' That statement also says that US Citizenship and Immigration Services is conducting 'antisemitism' social media searches. CBP told 404 Media in an email that 'neither tool is used for vetting or travel application processing,' referring to Dataminr and Onyx, but did not elaborate beyond that. The platforms use AI to parse large troves of data and can be used to develop leads on people who may be in violation of US immigration laws.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers look to make prosecuting child predators easier
Sen. Blaise Ingoglia. (Photo by Christine Sexton/Florida Phoenix) End-to-end encryption has made crimes against minors significantly harder to prosecute, legal experts say. Florida lawmakers plan to make social media companies cooperate with those investigations. The Sen. Blaise Ingoglia-introduced SB 868 is headed to the Senate floor after passing the Rules Committee Wednesday. Social media companies offering encrypted messaging are in opposition to the bill while state attorneys came to Tallahassee hoping the Legislature would make their jobs easier. Encrypted messages, those designed only to be read by the sender and receiver, not the owners of the platform it was sent on, are designed to prevent hackers or others acting in bad faith from accessing personal messages. Since end-to-end encryption has become widely-used, Ingoglia said, social media companies have told prosecutors they have no records to provide toward convicting 'nefarious' actors in child pornography and drug trafficking cases. 'As you know, there are extremely bad actors online targeting minors with sexually explicit and sexually suggestive materials,' Ingoglia said. 'Encryption, used by social media companies, makes it more challenging if not impossible for law enforcement to retrieve the proof necessary to put these guys behind bars.' The bill would require social media companies to de-crypt messages if subpoenaed by a court and prohibit minors from using messages that are designed to disappear. Popular apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger offer end-to-end encryption. NetChoice, a tech association representing some of the largest social platforms, contest the bill, saying it is 'well intentioned' but 'fundamentally undermines the core purpose of encryption.' 'Creating an encryption backdoor is fraught with privacy and security risks,' NetChoice stated on its website. Rep. Michelle Salzman is sponsor of the House version, HB 743, which must pass the Commerce Committee before receiving a floor vote. 'I shared with all the social media companies that came to see me that we are going to put the safety of Floridians first and them second, and either they can get on board and look good or they can just stand there and fight and lose,' Salzman told reporters Wednesday afternoon. 'We're not going to stop here. This bill will pass this year and we're going to continue the momentum.' This bill is another in lawmakers' effort to protect minors online. Minors younger than 14-years-old will be prohibited from using social media if the state successfully defends its 2024 law that also requires parental consent for 14-and-15-year-olds to use social media platforms with addictive features. NetChoice filed suit against the state on that 2024 law, HB 3. 'So, just think if you were a parent, and you know that your child is being groomed by somebody online, and the child is now being pressured to give nude photos or create child pornography for the purpose of transmitting over,' Ingoglia said. 'And you went to a state's attorney or a prosecutor and they tried and they gave the subpoena or the warrant and the social media came back and they said, 'Hey we have nothing.'' Ingoglia said he does not think social media companies are behaving in good faith. 'Under any other section of law when it comes to prosecuting, somebody who destroys evidence will be put away,' Ingoglia said. 'But social media companies though their algorithms and through their coding are allowed to destroy evidence all the time.' State Attorney Amira Fox, prosecuting in Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee counties, stood beside Salzman and Ingoglia Wednesday in hopes the bill will pass. 'Social media platforms have made it very difficult for prosecutors,' Fox said, adding that end-to-end encryption has attracted people who want to use it for illegal purposes. Fox said compared to the beginning of her career, social media have boosted the number of cases involving child predators. 'We have spent years putting together task forces to tackle human trafficking and child abuse, and now we're met with, when we send our subpoenas and our search warrants to these social media companies … we get back 'no material exists,' because they've encrypted it,' Fox said during a news conference Wednseday afternoon at the Capitol. Fox said the lawmakers' bill is a 'great bill to stand up to this.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Florida democrats fear new legislation would set the stage for 'fetal personhood' ruling
Expecting parents could soon be able to sue for damages if someone causes them to lose a pregnancy if a bill sailing through the Florida Legislature becomes law. Some lawmakers fear the policy could be a backdoor attempt to establish 'fetal personhood,'which is the concept that from the moment of conception, all protections guaranteed by the state and federal constitutions, including the right to life, apply to a fetus. Under current law, someone who murders a pregnant woman can be charged for both the death of the mother and the unborn child. However, the same rules don't apply in civil courts. But under the legislation approved by a Senate committee Thursday, expecting parents could file wrongful death lawsuits if someone causes them to lose a pregnancy. Related: States advance fetal rights measures that critics warn will pave a path for outlawing abortions 'We have places in Florida statute where we value the unborn child, giving enhanced penalties in criminal cases and I think what this does is just makes it consistent,' said State Senator Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill). The bill includes carveouts to shield mothers themselves and healthcare providers acting within the standard of care from liability. But Kara Gross with the ACLU of Florida argued the bill would still open the floodgates for unintended lawsuits. 'Where in the bill would it prevent an abusive partner or ex-boyfriend from bringing a lawsuit for damages against friends and family members of a pregnant person who had an abortion? Where in the bill does it prevent lawsuits for damages against the hospital or a clinic providing such care?' said Gross. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Democratic State Representative Anna Eskamani's (D-Orlando) concerns go beyond the immediate impacts of the bill. She worries that by redefining 'unborn child' to encompass fetuses 'at any stage of development,' the bill would tee up the Florida Supreme Court to establish fetal personhood and lay the groundwork for a total abortion ban. 'And it doesn't stop at abortion. You know, such a definition that embryos and fetuses have the same legal rights as children would also, of course, impact IVF. It would impact surrogacy. It would impact someone who experiences rape or sexual assault and their ability to access an abortion,' said Eskamani. 'It's a really scary and unsettling precedent.' The bill has already been passed on the House floor. It has one more committee stop before making it to the Senate floor. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
