Tag: lawsuits

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Potentially impacting all AI search engines and chatbots known to poorly paraphrase source links, a German court has ruled that Google is liable for false statements in AI Overviews.

The preliminary ruling came in a case flagged by The Decoder, where two publishers found that Google’s AI Overviews incorrectly linked them to scams and other sketchy business practices. After smearing publishers by making affirmative statements like “Yes, [it] is known for dubious business practices and is often perceived as a scam,” Google failed to correct the misleading output, even after the publishers sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this year.

Google tried the usual arguments to shield itself from liability for false statements in AI Overviews, such as arguing that most users understand that AI outputs aren’t always accurate and must be verified.

But the court found that, unlike traditional search engines that merely present lists of links to third-party statements, Google’s tool made “independent, new, and substantive statements” based on its own misinterpretation of links on the Internet.

That’s a problem, the court said, because while publishers may have been able to sue to stop third parties from publishing defamatory statements appearing in Google search results, only Google can correct the underlying algorithm and outputs displayed in AI Overviews. And because, at least initially, the company did not, it therefore “must be held accountable,” the court ruled. Beyond that, Google’s argument was deemed particularly weak, since the AI overview in this case “contains statements that do not appear in the search results at all.”

The court’s order—requiring a temporary injunction barring Google from spreading the false claims in any further AI Overviews—may have global implications, as the court seems to be the first to hold an AI firm liable for AI speech.

In the past, AI firms have hoped that disclaimers warning about misinformation would protect them from lawsuits over untrustworthy outputs. Last year, one chatbot maker even argued that AI speech is its own category of “pure speech” and the First Amendment should protect it.

According to a Google translation of the German court ruling, however, the false outputs were “primarily an expression of the defendant’s commercial activity,” and the AI tool’s “opinions” and false statements were capable of impacting public opinion.

The court concluded that, in weighing the balance, publishers’ interest in removing the false information outweighed Google’s commercial speech rights.

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ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man as a Child Abductor

Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it.

In November 2023, police in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, responded to a call about an attempted child abduction at a McDonald’s. Witnesses said an adult man allegedly tried to get the child, identified as a girl under 12 years old, to leave the restaurant with him. According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon.

In August 2024, Deputies arrested Dillon at his home in Fort Myers, Florida—hundreds of miles away, at the opposite end of the state. “Are you shitting me, man?” Dillon asked the arresting deputy. “I haven’t been out of Fort Myers in two years.” Further, he also said he had never been to Jacksonville Beach.

Dillon posted bail and pleaded not guilty to enticing or luring a child—a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. More than two months later, prosecutors dropped the charges after his attorney provided evidence that he was at work on the day in question.

But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he was only arrested in the first place, and threatened with prosecution for a particularly heinous offense, because of shoddy police work.

The ACLU is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach, as well as the individual police officers and officials involved in the case. According to the lawsuit, the responding officer viewed security camera footage of the suspect but didn’t take a copy; instead, he took pictures of the screen with his cell phone. “In the photos, the suspect image is low resolution, and the suspect’s face is partially shadowed and off-axis,” the lawsuit claims.

When an investigator queried the facial recognition system, it was with the officer’s grainy secondhand cell phone photos.

But there were other leads that police could have followed, to either bolster their case or point in another direction. For example, when he approached the girl, the suspect was picking up food that had been ordered ahead; this implies he had an online account, with contact information and a form of payment attached.

“These records could have been used to identify the actual person who placed the suspect’s order,” the lawsuit notes. “Upon information and belief, Jacksonville Beach PD personnel never requested or obtained mobile ordering records, payment data, or online account information from McDonald’s.”

Further, the McDonald’s manager recognized the assailant as a “regular customer”—likely precluding Dillon, who lived and worked on the other side of the state and did not frequently travel. Besides, at no point did investigators search footage for the suspect’s previous visits, either for higher quality images or transaction records. And once they settled on Dillon as a suspect, investigators could have gotten a warrant for his cell phone’s GPS data, showing whether or not he was at a fast food restaurant 300 miles away from his home on the night in question.

The lawsuit notes that when Dillon’s name came up, investigating officer Scott O’Connell queried the police database of license plate readers, which did not detect Dillon’s vehicles in Jacksonville Beach within the 48 hours surrounding the attempted abduction.

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Bill Introduced in Congress To Codify the First Amendment Right To Film the Feds and Sue for Violations

Two Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill in Congress today that would create a right to sue federal law enforcement officers who stop someone from filming or observing police activity.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D–Fla.) introduced the “Right to Record Act of 2026,” which they say would create new consequences for individual federal officers who violate a person’s First Amendment right to document and record police.

The legislation would create a right to sue a federal law enforcement or immigration officers who engage in wide range of retaliatory behavior, including threatening and harassing videographers, surveilling them, and seizing and destroying their equipment.

The lawmakers cited recent allegations of federal officers targeting videographers in New Jersey, Memphis, and elsewhere across the country, as well as the importance of video evidence in refuting the false government narratives of several shootings of U.S. citizens by immigration agents.

“Over the last year, I’ve investigated dozens of cases of Americans brutalized by agents of their own government, and across the board, video footage corroborated their testimony – showing the world what they experienced and making sure that justice was served,” Blumenthal said in a press release. “Without recordings, we wouldn’t know the truth of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, Marimar Martinez, George Retes, and so, so many others.”

The bill highlights a growing free speech battle: Civil liberties groups say filming the police is a well-established First Amendment right. Although the Supreme Court hasn’t directly addressed the issue, seven federal circuit courts have upheld the right to record and monitor the police, so long as one doesn’t physically interfere with them. However, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have repeatedly suggested that such activity is doxing and obstruction of justice. Over the past two years, videos from around the country—from Oregon to Maine to the Florida Keys—have shown federal immigration agents arresting or threatening to arrest people for filming them.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which endorsed the Right to Record Act, filed a lawsuit in May alleging that a federal police task force in Memphis is systematically retaliating against residents who try to document its activity.

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 Bill O’Reilly Demands Criminal Prosecution of E. Jean Carroll After Bombshell Revelation She Pocketed $7 MILLION in Secret Democrat Dark Money to Smear President Trump – Lied Under Oath in Deposition!

In a no-holds-barred takedown that has left the left-wing media scrambling, Fox News legend and bestselling author Bill O’Reilly has called for the immediate criminal prosecution of E. Jean Carroll, the aging advice columnist turned professional Trump accuser.

O’Reilly didn’t mince words: the entire E. Jean Carroll “fraud” against President Donald J. Trump must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Why? Because it turns out Carroll wasn’t some plucky underdog fighting for “justice” on her own dime. She was bankrolled to the tune of $7 MILLION by a shadowy nonprofit tied to billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and hardcore Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman, friend and confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

And here’s the kicker: Carroll swore under oath in a 2022 deposition that no one was helping her financially. No pro bono lawyers and no outside funding. No mysterious benefactors pulling the strings. She claimed it was all on contingency — her lawyers only get paid if she wins.

She lied.

And now the walls are closing in.

According to explosive details broken down by O’Reilly and confirmed across multiple reports, Carroll’s high-powered law firm, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, received a massive $7 million injection from the American Future Republic — a nonprofit where Reid Hoffman serves as president and chairman of the board. Hoffman, a vocal Trump critic, funneled the cash through his organization to fuel the lawfare operation designed to destroy the 45th (and now 47th) President.

This wasn’t pocket change. This was coordinated big-money election interference disguised as a “civil rights” lawsuit.

Carroll’s team only “refreshed” her memory and disclosed the funding right before trial — after she had already testified under penalty of perjury that nothing of the sort existed. The appeals court tried to wave it away, claiming Carroll herself wasn’t “involved.” But that doesn’t change the fact that the public was deceived, the jury was kept in the dark, and President Trump’s legal team was sandbagged.

O’Reilly laid it out plainly: “The E. Jean Carroll fraud should be prosecuted. That is the most outrageous story — It’s so outrageous that the woman testifies in a deposition under oath that nobody is helping her, no lawyer is helping her, no pro bono, and then we find out she got $7 million.”

He’s right. This wasn’t a search for truth — it was a Democrat-funded hit job from start to finish. The same Reid Hoffman who has poured millions into anti-Trump causes and once rubbed elbows with Epstein’s pedo-circle now stands accused of bankrolling a smear campaign that resulted in massive judgments against the President.

And the DOJ under the Trump administration is already on it. A criminal investigation is underway into the funding scheme, with eyes on potential perjury, obstruction, and more. While some in the legacy media are crying “weaponization,” the American people see it for what it is: long-overdue accountability for one of the most blatant lawfare operations in modern political history.

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Citizen Sues Virginia Military Institute And Its Board, Alleging Secret “Group Text” Meetings, Withheld And Altered Public Records

A new lawsuit accuses the governing board of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) — one of the nation’s last state military colleges and a primary commissioning source for the armed forces — of conducting the public’s business in the shadows.

The verified petition, filed June 1, 2026 in York County Circuit Court (Morris v. Virginia Military Institute, No. CL26005973-00), alleges that some members of VMI’s Board of Visitors held unnoticed “meetings” by reply-all email and other means about official board business — including the day after their own FOIA officer warned them in writing that doing so was illegal, and despite repeated formal training telling them not to “Reply All.”

It further alleges that VMI withheld, redacted, and even altered public records to obscure how a prominent donor and board member was pushed off the board and the board president was forced to step down.

The specifics are striking. According to the petition, board member Donald Hall publicly admitted he was “the principal negotiator” working with the Virginia General Assembly and said former Governor Ralph Northam “was more involved than anyone in this room knows other than me.”

Yet the suit alleges VMI produced no records at all from Hall, none from the former governor, withheld voicemails and call logs, and redacted the identities of email correspondents.

The petition also alleges that VMI’s FOIA officer altered an online records-portal entry to erase his own name —replacing it with the anonymous label “Staff” — and that a process server hired to deliver public comments on important issues intended for the Board to be informed on was turned away from public open committee meetings.

The filing seeks a ruling that the secret meetings and other actions were unlawful, an order forcing board business onto official accounts and devices, and personal civil penalties of $500–$5,000 per violation against the FOIA officer, a board administrator, and six sitting board members — penalties payable to Virginia’s State Literary Fund, not to the petitioner.

The case carries a question of national resonance: how much should politicians control the governance — and the independence — of public universities, and how much of that maneuvering happens off the public record?

What are the implications of these actions on commissioning sources and military readiness?

It also invites an uncomfortable comparison. In the same period, Gov. Abigail Spanberger removed John Rocovich as rector of Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors — a move he has publicly contested — while the VMI BOV and FOIA staff accused of operating in secret remain in place and operating.

Were the standards applied consistently, and who is really steering Virginia’s military college?

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Biden-Appointed Judge Dismisses Kennedy Center Lawsuit Against Jazz Musician Who Canceled Christmas Eve Show in Hatred for Trump Name – Orders Center to Pay All Legal Fees

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier, a Biden appointee, on Friday tossed out a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by the Kennedy Center against jazz musician Chuck Redd.

The judge ordered the Kennedy Center to pay all of Redd’s legal fees and court costs after ruling there was no signed contract and that the case qualified as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) under D.C. law.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported in December 2025, Redd abruptly canceled his long-running free Christmas Eve Jazz Jam after the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously to rename the facility the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

The board acted to honor President Donald Trump’s transformative work in saving and revitalizing the once-troubled national performing arts center.

Former Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell called the cancellation exactly what it was: a “political stunt.” He sent Redd a letter giving “official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt” that harmed the nonprofit and the families who counted on the free Millennium Stage holiday tradition.

Now Judge Bosier has ruled the lawsuit itself was improper political retribution.

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Ohio State University Reaches $100 Million Settlement With Nearly 300 Sex Abuse Survivors

Ohio State University has reached a $100 million settlement with nearly 300 former students who had accused the school’s campus doctor of sexually assaulting them decades ago, the school and a lawyer for the victims said on Wednesday.

The settlement with 279 of the 280 former students was ratified by the university’s board on Wednesday. It followed years of litigation over accusations of decades of abuse by Richard Strauss.

The abuse occurred from 1978 to 1998, the year he retired from the faculty.

“The mediation and its confidentiality are continuing as the parties work to finalize the details of the settlements, and additional information will be shared as appropriate,” the school and a lawyer for the victims said in a joint statement.

In February, the university reached eight additional settlements, bringing the total to 304 survivors and more than $60 million.

Strauss, who killed himself in 2005, was employed by Ohio State’s athletic department and medical staff for nearly two decades.

A 2019 report detailing the investigative findings said that Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 men, nearly all of whom were students, and that university staff who knew of the abuse failed to act. The abuse included groping and fondling of the students’ genitals and other acts under the guise of a medical examination.

News of the investigation and its findings prompted more than 500 plaintiffs to sue Ohio State, alleging they had been sexually abused by Strauss and that the school had shown deliberate indifference.

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Taxpayers let off the hook as Newfoundland and Labrador drops equalization lawsuit

The province made the announcement that it was dropping the lawsuit last week after previously seeking additional funding from the federal government through the court challenge.

Terrazzano commented on the implications of the province rescinding its lawsuit, noting the benefit for Canadian taxpayers. “The Newfoundland and Labrador government was suing the federal government, essentially launching this court challenge trying to get the courts to force the federal government to increase the equalization handouts to the province,” he said.

“Newfoundland and Labrador eventually dropped that court case, so it’s a big win for taxpayers … we were intervening in this, because we were arguing like hold on a second right, the constitution was never designed to let provinces sue Ottawa to get bigger handouts from taxpayers,” Terrazzano continued.

“It’s good that Newfoundland and Labrador came to its senses and dropped this court case, because if they were successful, the bill for equalization could have ballooned by billions of dollars and really taxpayers, especially in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan, would be on the hook for all this,” he added.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s decision to drop its equalization lawsuit spares Canadian taxpayers from a potential multi-billion-dollar increase in federal transfers. The province’s premier, Tony Wakeham, stated that although he believes the equalization system is flawed, the lawsuit will not be moving forward.

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Secret Trial of Pfizer RSV Vaccine Killed Two Infants in the 1960s — Their Families Just Sued the U.S. Government

The families of two Black infants who died during a 1960s experimental RSV vaccine trial have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S., alleging government researchers enrolled the babies in a dangerous medical experiment without their parents’ knowledge or consent, The New York Times reported.

The lawsuit, filed May 22 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other researchers, in 1965 and 1966, subjected dozens of infants — most or all of them from low-income Black families — to testing of Pfizer’s Lot 100 experimental vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

Two infants, Victor Marcellus King and Ross Otto Hambrick, later died after developing vaccine-associated enhanced respiratory disease (VAERD), a severe respiratory illness caused by the vaccine.

VAERD occurs when a vaccinated child who never had RSV is exposed to the virus and develops a more severe case of RSV than they would have if they hadn’t received the vaccine.

The suit was filed by Sharlette Hambrick and Darius King, acting as representatives of the estates of their deceased brothers. They allege federal researchers failed to obtain informed consent from the children’s parents, withheld critical information about prior vaccine failures, and continued the study despite mounting evidence that the vaccine was causing severe reactions in participants.

The complaint also alleges that the tissue samples from the babies who died were later used to develop the RSV vaccines and monoclonal antibody shots that have been approved in the last several years — providing a financial boon for drugmakers.

“Medical research in the United States has a long, troubled racial history,” the complaint states, comparing the alleged conduct to other notorious examples of unethical experimentation involving Black Americans, including the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks.

The infants’ families were unaware the babies had been subjected to the experiment until a reporter from Undark magazine contacted them while investigating the story in 2023.

The reporter found the babies’ names in a doctor’s government-issued laboratory notebook and other paperwork from the clinical trial, the Times reported.

Parents not told infants were being enrolled in trial for experimental vaccine

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Obama Judge Launches Investigation Into Trump Settlement with IRS

A federal judge on Friday launched an investigation into the Trump Administration’s settlement with the IRS that led to the $1.77 billion anti-weaponization fund.

Earlier this month, President Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns in exchange for a deal.

Trump dropped his blockbuster lawsuit against the agency in exchange for a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded fund to pay people who were unfairly targeted by the Biden Regime.

In January, President Trump, Eric Trump, Don Jr., and the Trump Org filed a lawsuit against the IRS for leaking their tax returns.

They sought $10 billion in damages.

After Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit in exchange for the anti-weaponization fund, a group of former judges asked a federal judge to launch an inquiry to determine whether the Trump Administration defrauded the court.

On Friday, Miami-based US District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, launched the inquiry.

Politico reported:

A federal judge is demanding answers to allegations that President Donald Trump defrauded her court by filing a lawsuit against the IRS as a pretext to reach a settlement that resulted in a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to make payouts to his political allies.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams launched the inquiry Friday, after closing the lawsuit on her docket last week. The Miami-based Obama appointee cited a request by 35 former federal judges who urged her to reopen the case to determine whether Trump’s effort amounted to “serious misconduct” and an abuse of the court system.

In September 2023, federal prosecutors charged a former IRS contractor who worked for the agency from 2018 to 2020 with unlawfully obtaining and disseminating the tax details of a high-ranking public official and numerous affluent Americans to media outlets.

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