With public opposition toward data centers growing and midterm elections on the horizon, politicians across the spectrum have introduced overreaching policies to stymie data center development and ease voters' minds. These politicians now include President Donald Trump, who has historically been a staunch supporter of the industry.

"New and large, in some cases gigantic, Data Centers are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid," Trump declared on Truth Social on Wednesday. "If companies want to make their Data Centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a 'dividend.' I have watched the process closely, and Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck."

While Trump has suggested that power plants pay for their own power before, ​these comments are in stark contrast to him saying less than a couple of months ago that "the only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backward and poor." Still, the president is not wrong that the strategy could boost data centers' popularity; polling regularly shows that concerns over higher energy prices are one of the main reasons people oppose data centers in their communities.

However, mandating that these power plants "make their own electricity" is the wrong way to accomplish this objective, in part because generation costs are not the leading factor in higher electricity prices—transmission infrastructure, such as wires and poles, is. And regulatory barriers, as well as a lack of competition in the building of this infrastructure, are mostly to blame. 

Regardless, if the goal is to have data center companies produce their own electricity, easing regulations would have more impact than imposing a mandate. As Travis Fisher, director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, tells Reason, "If a tech company buys electricity from the owner of a power plant, in most states the power plant owner then becomes a public utility (even if the transaction occurs off-grid), which brings heavy scrutiny in the form of economic regulation."

To ease these regulatory barriers, Fisher and other experts have advocated for a Consumer Regulated Electricity model that allows large-load customers to connect directly to unregulated power producers off the grid. 

Fisher also notes that lower power costs don't automatically translate into lower utility rates. He tells Reason, "Even if a data center were to bring a matching or beating amount of supply relative to their demand, based on the way retail rates work, I am not convinced that that guarantees that prices will fall." 

On top of not solving the main driver of higher electricity prices, the mandate isn't needed because many data centers have already begun to produce their own power. A report from energy research firm Cleanview shows that operating power capacity dedicated to data centers has nearly doubled since June, while capacity under construction has roughly quadrupled. Additionally, companies including Anthropic and Microsoft are already volunteering to cover consumers' electricity costs.

By calling on power producers to make their own electricity, Trump joins the growing chorus of politicians who are convinced that the government, not the market, is best equipped to dictate how data centers grow and operate. And, in typical Trump fashion, a "mandate" on social media without any legal action behind it has left the public and investors to guess what, if anything, is actually coming. 

Building power plants requires long-term planning and investments meant to last decades, making Trump's tendency to impose abrupt policy changes less than ideal. "The fact that the rules change, not just every four years, but occasionally overnight via tweet," says Fisher, does not make for "a great investment environment."

The post Trump Wants To Force Data Centers To 'Make Their Own Electricity.' Deregulation Would Work Better. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The Trump administration has determined that imports of wind turbine parts pose a national security threat, but it does not appear to be opting to tariff them. President Trump issued a memo Thursday saying “wind turbines and their components and subcomponents are being imported into the United States under such circumstances as to threaten to…

The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors don't have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they don't trust the federal government to investigate itself.

The Trump administration is proposing to extend its suspension of port fees targeting China-linked vessels for another two months, pushing their potential return into January 2027 as Washington and Beijing...

A tanker carrying Russian diesel is expected to arrive in Norfolk, Virginia, on November 2, potentially becoming the first such shipment to reach the United States in more than three...

South Korea’s push to help rebuild the American shipbuilding industry is moving beyond investments in existing shipyards and toward the development of entirely new production capacity. The latest example comes...

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims more than 1.1 million people have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined. But so far, the names of most arrestees have been kept secret. This lack of public disclosure threatens Americans' ability to hold the government accountable.

While ICE will disclose some details about detainees, the agency's refusal to provide the names, dates of birth, and locations of detainees violates the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to a federal lawsuit filed by The Marshall Project on Tuesday. In denying FOIA requests for this information, ICE claims the "privacy interests of the individuals in the records…requested outweigh any minimal public interest disclosure of the information," and revealing such information would "increase the risk of misuse, unwanted contact, harassment, stigma, or other privacy harms," according to the complaint.

A curious position given the DHS' own "worst of the worst" website discloses all kinds of information, including names and photos, while boasting about the detention of select immigration detainees with criminal records. 

It's true that publicly disclosing someone's arrest, particularly a criminal arrest, may damage their reputation. But it's a necessary tradeoff to ensure a functioning democracy. Disapproval of anonymized arrests dates back to the Magna Carta. This pro-liberty stance was adopted early in America's Founding. In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton denounced the "practice of arbitrary imprisonments" as "the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." He went on to cite Sir William Blackstone, an English jurist who greatly influenced America's Founders, quoting: "The confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government." 

Throughout much of American history, law enforcement agencies have disclosed the identities of those arrested through police blotters and other means in the name of transparency and government accountability. Today, 27 states have codified this practice, according to an amicus brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a similar but separate case involving ICE's refusal to release the names of those arrested during a 10-day immigration enforcement operation in Chicago. And even when statutes don't plainly state arrest logs qualify as public records, courts have consistently held they do, the ACLU argues. Indeed, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the constitutional right to privacy does not extend to the publication of official acts, such as arrests. 

"We are seeking transparency and access to information that have existed within the criminal justice system for centuries," said The Marshall Project's editor in chief, Jennifer Peter. Concealing the names of detainees "makes it far more difficult for their loved ones and attorneys to help them—and for organizations like The Marshall Project to shine a light on what's truly happening within immigration camps," Peter continued.

Trump immigration crackdown has been a source of ongoing debate since its inception. Leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, a recent New York Times poll found that 50 percent of Americans trust the Democratic Party to do a better job of handling immigration, compared to 46 percent trusting Republicans more. 

Opponents of Trump's approach to immigration have routinely cited concerns over the use of force, wrongful arrests, detentions, and deportations, including those of U.S. citizens, and the mistreatment of detainees. Proponents of limited government and financial accountability have also raised concerns over the opaque yet explosive expansion of federal agencies, including over $200 billion in funding for FY 2027 and the 100 percent increase in both CBP and ICE funding, reaching nearly 44,000 agents combined, all in the name of immigration enforcement. 

Since the Founding, Americans have been rightly skeptical of government overreach and the potential to abuse arrest powers. In the era of Trump's immigration crackdown, this skepticism is even more warranted, and accountability is even more needed.

The post The Founders Warned Against Secret Arrests. ICE Is Testing That Principle. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Along with higher oil prices associated with the Iran war, Trump’s tariffs are highly unpopular with the electorate.   

People in Russian-occupied city facing severe shortages of food, water and electricity, with some reportedly surviving on weeds

The White House has said that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, where a deepening humanitarian crisis has left thousands of civilians struggling to survive.

In a statement on Friday, the White House said both sides had agreed to halt all military operations in the city from 27 October to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and preparations for the evacuation of civilians.

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© Photograph: 34th Separate Marine Brigade "Borysfen"/Reuters

© Photograph: 34th Separate Marine Brigade "Borysfen"/Reuters

© Photograph: 34th Separate Marine Brigade "Borysfen"/Reuters

If you're reading this, then the internet still works. But that's something that we shouldn't necessarily take for granted after this week's global cybersecurity meltdown.

"Think of it this way: someone discovered that millions of buildings in the country have the same broken lock, and now everyone knows how to open it," writes Matt Shumer in a lengthy post on X about the situation. "The lock maker has sent out a fix, but every building owner has to install it themselves, and many haven't yet."

That massive vulnerability was identified with the help of AI, but the growing capabilities of AI-powered hackers mean that vulnerabilities can be exploited much more rapidly too.

This is the world we live in now. In August, more than 100 tech companies signed a letter warning about exactly this possibility. On Thursday, one of Anthropic's top information security officers wrote that cybersecurity threats "are going to get a lot worse before they get better." Major banks are rushing to secure themselves after reports of autonomous agents operating inside accounts (though many of them may have been authorized by account holders).

This is unlikely to be the last incident like this. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says it saw twice as many "agentic intrusions" (hacking done by an autonomous or semiautonomous AI) in August as in July, and then the number doubled again in September.

Scary stuff, for sure. As is usually the case, however, prevention is better than panic.

Shumer's post contains many helpful suggestions for better online security—it is particularly important to secure your email accounts, since that is the gateway to so much of what we do online. Here's a 15-step plan to stay more digitally secure in the AI age. (And if you're really worried about everything falling to bits, Reason's got you covered there too.) If your devices and browsers have updates available, install them. And for the love of digital gods, don't click on random links in strange emails!

The man who (maybe) saved the internet? There is an old XKCD webcomic—and I'm dating myself as a very specific type of millennial by even referencing that—that seems to perfectly sum up what happened this week. Here it is:

Here's the craziest part: That's basically true! Except the one random person lives in Czechia instead of Nebraska. His name is Ondřej Surý, and The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel found him:

Surý, who lives in Czechia, does not work for the PHP Foundation. But alongside his day job as director of domain-name-system engineering at the nonprofit Internet Systems Consortium, in a volunteer capacity, he maintains and helps automate patches for the coding language. His work, with that of just a handful of others, has allowed countless websites and organizations to fix these vulnerabilities quickly. Over the past 48 hours, he's become arguably the unsung hero of the entire internet—despite the fact that the only compensation he receives is from modest donations. "Ondřej will save the internet today," a user in the PHP Subreddit wrote.

In the war between AI hackers and AI defenders, it's still humans who are the heroes. At least for now.

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Art of the steal. Yesterday, in this space, I detailed how voters are fed up with the Trump administration's seemingly endless stream of corruption. But it's been a whole 24 hours, which means there is yet another scandal in the news—thanks to a Vanity Fair article about President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The article is an excerpt from a forthcoming book. In it, author Matthew Cole claims that Dutch investigators gained access to Kushner's phone with the help of Russian hackers. The evidence from the phone and other sources shows that Kushner has been taking money from the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to "push their agenda with Trump."

Kushner says the article's claims are "outrageous and categorically false."

But wait, there's yet another corruption story. The Justice Department is reportedly probing whether Trump ally Corey Lewandowski profited from his role as a top adviser at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Washington Post reports that the investigation is based on a referral from the DHS inspector general and is focused on "contracting fraud."

It may or may not be connected to other allegations that surfaced in September, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski approached officials in Qatar and the UAE about being hired to help with "visa issues" and other matters.

In both matters, Lewandowski has denied the allegations. He's no longer working for the department, having been fired earlier this year amid a messy scandal involving then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was also canned.

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Scenes from Virginia: Federal prosecutors indicted state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D–Portsmouth), one of the most powerful Democrats in Virginia, on charges of racketeering and money laundering in connection with illegal marijuana sales. (Don't get me started on how dumb it is that recreational marijuana use has been legal here since 2021, but commercial sales are still forbidden. If it's legal to use something, it should be legal to sell it!)

Lucas pushed the failed Virginia redistricting effort and has been an outspoken critic of Trump. She plans to fight the charges. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, also a Democrat, said in a statement that the timing of the indictment, just days before the midterm elections, "further erodes the trust the American people deserve to have in the Department of Justice."

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QUICK HITS

• "The last thing José García-Sorto remembers after being shot in the chest is being pulled from his car, pinned to the pavement and handcuffed, his blood pooling around him on a Phoenix interstate. All he could think about was what would happen to his two young children if he died." The New York Times has a harrowing account of a Honduran immigrant who was shot by immigration officers last year. He's never been charged with a crime in connection with the incident, which suggests "the authorities did not find evidence that he had put anyone in danger."
• Phil Magness and David Hebert debunk the notion that tariffs can help "infant industries" grow and succeed in a global market.
• The Cato Institute's annual ranking of "Freedom in the 50 States" is out. Arizona takes the top spot. How did your state do?
• Is alchemy real now? A California company claims it has successfully turned mercury into gold.
• The World Series begins tonight, and it ought to be terrific. Despite low payrolls, Tampa Bay and Milwaukee were the top teams in their respective leagues this year. They are deep, talented teams full of characters worth cheering—Brewers' star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski is a huge Pokémon nerd; Rays' star hitter Yandy Diaz escaped from Cuba after being imprisoned there. And this is the first World Series since 1980 to match two franchises that have never won a championship.

The post The Man Who Saved the Internet appeared first on Reason Magazine.

A war of words has erupted over who is responsible for the restrictions on Starshield access in Ukraine

A war of words has erupted between the Trump administration, officials in Kyiv and Elon Musk over who is to blame for limiting Ukraine’s access to Space X’s military-grade version of Starlink.

The restrictions to Starshield have rendered many of the drones used by Kyiv to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and hampered air defence systems that stop Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian officials.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Reuters/Pool EPA/AP

© Composite: Reuters/Pool EPA/AP

© Composite: Reuters/Pool EPA/AP

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings said Wednesday that Vice President Vance “could have” avoided talking about an ad for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R) featuring his Democratic rival’s mother  “He could have just ignored it,” Jennings said on “CNN NewsNight” of Vance and the ad. “You know, I mean, campaigns make decisions, surrogates come in…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth barred all Pentagon staff from using undisclosed information to place wagers on forthcoming U.S. military action using betting platforms and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.  “Make no mistake why this matters. Our enemies watch movements in these markets,” Hegseth said in a memo, first obtained by CBS News. “When an American…

In the past 19 years, the lobby has become even richer, Israel’s alleged commitment to peace with Palestinians has been abandoned, it seeks outright military domination of its entire region, the lobby's go-to defense is to cry “antisemitism

SUNY Maritime College’s training ship Empire State VII is expected to return to its Fort Schuyler campus by mid-November after the federal government abruptly changed plans for a months-long deployment...

In my role as a political commentator, I enjoy making predictions. I possess no special talent for this and am often hilariously wrong: Unlike most other pundits, I famously clung to my stupid belief that former President Joe Biden would never step down as the Democrats' 2024 candidate, for instance. I called the 2020 presidential election correctly (and got most states right, only flipping Georgia and Florida), but I messed up in 2024. (Nevertheless, I still demolished my co-host, who didn't appear to take this challenge very seriously.)

The hardest part about making predictions is separating what you want to happen from what is actually likely to happen. Commentators often feel inclined to rally for their preferred outcome, as if shouting about it on television is going to make it come true. In some ways, this is an easier temptation for us libertarians to avoid, since all outcomes generally seem suboptimal. Once again, that is the case: See, for example, the upcoming 2026 midterms.

It seems inarguable that President Donald Trump has squandered much of his political capital by failing to focus narrowly on the economy and instead launching another unpopular war in the Middle East. It also seems obvious that the Democratic Party, once returned in power, will do everything it can to thwart the administration's shrewdest policies—on tech and AI in particular.

But that is my prediction: Democrats will retake the House of Representatives and the Senate.

I don't have any specific map in mind for the House (it's too complicated), but here are my Senate predictions:

Here is my REVISED prediction for the Senate. For the last several weeks, everything has moved in Dems' direction, and I now expect them to take it.

I still say Collins holds on. Michigan and Ohio seem lost for GOP, though. And I'm not super confident in the Iowa call. https://t.co/oph3Swtgzw pic.twitter.com/FtsrGxmukJ

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) October 20, 2026

When I looked at the map back in August, I still thought Ohio was a long shot for the Democrats and that Michigan was in play for the GOP due to Abdul El-Sayed being so far left. Now it looks to me like Republicans will lose both seats, along with Texas and Alaska. I'm still betting that the formidable incumbent in Maine, Sen. Susan Collins (R), will hold on—the polls have misjudged her in the past—and that Iowa is a bridge too far for Dems. If Republicans manage to keep those two seats, then it's a 51–49 map in Democrats' favor.

But wait…all is not lost for Trump.

In the event of a 51–49 Dem advantage, it seems somewhat likely to me that Sen. John Fetterman (D–Pa.) could switch parties, which would restore Republican control because of Vice President J.D. Vance's tiebreaking vote. With his conservative rhetoric on Israel and other issues, Fetterman has no future as an elected Democrat in his state—he could never ever ever win a Democratic primary—and will have to strike some sort deal with Trump before his reelection in 2028. Fetterman should agree to become an independent who caucuses with Republicans in exchange for Trump ensuring that no Republican dares run against him in the future. Absent such a deal, Fetterman is virtually guaranteed to be a one-term senator, so if he harbors any desire to keep his job—perhaps that's an open question—he will need to make a move. A 51–49 Senate will give him the exact leverage he needs.

So those are my predictions! What are yours?

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This Week on Free Media

I'm joined by Amber Duke to discuss the riots in France, Vivek Ramaswamy's terrible campaign ad, and more.

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Worth Watching

Here's another shameless plug for my upcoming debate with Katherine Mangu-Ward, Mehdi Hasan, and Jason Stanley! (Katherine is on my side.) If you are in Washington, D.C., please get tickets here.

The post I Predict the GOP Will Lose Its Senate Majority (and Magically Regain It) appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The Trump administration is advancing some wind projects after a court order required it to do so. A White House official said Thursday that an initial set of wind projects under Pentagon review have been released. The official said this represents two projects located in Maine and South Dakota. The official said the Defense Department…

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade posted a video clip of himself on the social platform X criticizing special envoy Steve Witkoff’s comment calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a humanitarian.” “The Russians must be laughing their heads off,” Kilmeade said in the video. “That just makes you look naive. A humanitarian? This guy kills his opponents,…

Can Congress meaningfully constrain presidential tariff authority when an older, less restrictive statute offers an alternative route to achieve the same goal? 

Once again, a member of President Donald Trump's administration is threatening to punish private citizens for their speech using the power of the government.

Specifically, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened broadcasters who dare to report on polls the president doesn't approve of. Even if the complaint were valid, it would be difficult to enforce without violating the First Amendment.

"During this election season, there has been a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on X. "Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis."

Carr is directly adopting Trump's terminology, in addition to his erratic capitalization: The president often uses the term suppression polls to describe surveys that don't reflect in his favor. The implication is that these polls are manufactured to conceal or downplay enthusiasm for Trump or his preferred candidates, making it less likely that his supporters will turn out if they think it's a lost cause.

Carr doesn't single out any offenders, though there are some likely examples. This week, purported pollster Wedgewood Polls revealed that as part of an "experimental project," it had released surveys with "fabricated numbers" that were printed by outlets like FiftyPlusOne (which sussed out the fraud) and The New York Times.

Similarly, in August, Median Strategies withdrew two polls, then revealed that it had fabricated the results for a "social experiment."

Each scenario is deplorable. And depending on what promises were made, it's possible one firm or the other could face legal consequences.

But it's hard to see how a news outlet could face legal reprisal for just reporting the results of a survey it thought was conducted accurately.

"The FCC takes these issues seriously," Carr added. "Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes. It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations."

There are indeed rules against news distortion and broadcast hoaxes, but they're narrowly tailored to avoid conflicting with the First Amendment.

"News distortion 'must involve a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report,'" according to the FCC. In addition, "broadcasters are only subject to enforcement if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report. Expressions of opinion or errors stemming from mistakes are not actionable."

The hoax rule, on the other hand, is even less applicable: It involves "broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe," where the broadcaster "knows this information is false" and can foreseeably "cause substantial public harm" but airs it anyway, and the broadcast then "does in fact directly cause substantial public harm."

In other words, neither standard applies to a broadcaster that covered an inaccurate poll, especially without knowing at the time that it was wrong.

"Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong," Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, wrote on X. "FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith."

Carr doesn't specify what he thinks should happen to any offenders, though since he tends to define "public interest" as whatever Trump says, we can make an educated guess.

Right before the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Register published a poll that found then–Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three percentage points. Trump ended up winning the state by 13 percentage points, but he was apparently so upset by the poll that he sued both the Register and pollster Ann Selzer, claiming the inaccurate survey constituted "brazen election interference" that violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.

It was clear at the time that the lawsuit was completely meritless. Just as Carr suggested this week in his social media post, Trump was trying to create an exception to the First Amendment for "fake news."

"In the United States there is no such thing as a claim for 'fraudulent news,'" Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in a motion on the defendants' behalf. "No court in any jurisdiction has ever held such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims."

A judge agreed and dismissed the lawsuit last month.

"If someone is accurately reporting the results of a poll, that wouldn't be a false statement," UCLA law professor Rick Hasen told The Washington Post at the time. "The poll might have errors in it, but that wouldn't be a false statement."

That's as true then as it is now. Unless he can somehow prove that a broadcaster knew a pollster had faked a survey, there's no way Carr can punish someone for reporting on the results without running afoul of the First Amendment.

"Brendan Carr is not the journalism police. And he is just about the least qualified person in the country to lecture the press about journalistic ethics," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in an emailed statement. "News broadcasters have a First Amendment right to report polling data, even if it proves to be inaccurate, just like they have a First Amendment right to report on Carr and Trump's own countless lies and distortions, even when they turn out to be inaccurate. FCC policies about hoaxes and distortions must be applied narrowly to avoid clashing with the Constitution, if they can be constitutionally applied at all."

The post FCC Chair Brendan Carr Echoes Trump, Threatens Broadcasters Over 'Fake Polls' appeared first on Reason Magazine.