If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit filed by a fired Arkansas firefighter over a Facebook post will proceed to trial, reinforcing the principle that public outrage alone is not a legitimate basis for punishing constitutionally protected…
GVSETS 2025 — The US Army intends to accelerate and scale the use of 3D printing, several officials said at a ground vehicles conference this week, as they’ve become increasingly aware of the advantages 3D printing capacities can provide to logistics and sustainment. “Just like everything else with technology, it is kind of a crawl,…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Russia has moved to limit voice call features on WhatsApp and Telegram, accusing both platforms of resisting cooperation with investigations into fraud and terrorism. The decision, announced by the state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, affects only the calling function for…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the UK equivalent of the Internal Revenue Service, has for the first time confirmed it has been using artificial intelligence to monitor social media activity in certain tax-related investigations, a revelation that intensifies concerns…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. You’ve probably gathered that Britain has developed a bit of a crush on surveillance. Not the kind you might associate with espionage thrillers or Cold War paranoia, but a distinctly modern version that looks suspiciously like a white van…
WARSAW — The Polish Ministry of National Defence has finalized a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) with the US government to upgrade its fleet of 48 F-16 Block 52+ multi-role combat aircraft to the advanced F-16 Viper configuration, also known as the F-16V. Lockheed Martin will serve as the primary contractor for the modernization…
GVSETS 2025 — As the war against Russia grinds on, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have identified more and more uses for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), from serving as hosts for electronic warfare payloads to medevac, but they’re always on the lookout for more, according to a Ukrainian official. “I saw today some [unmanned] systems over…
Russia’s drone and missile attacks on Ukraine – and Ukraine’s own asymmetric tactics – have accelerated the need for rapid adaptation on the modern battlefield. The days of relying solely on new platform development are gone. Like the urgent deployment of blast-resistant vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter IEDs, today’s mission demands faster paths…
SYDNEY — Japan, for the first time since World War II, will once again have a navy that includes aircraft carriers — technically, at least, after retrofitting two helicopter-destroyers to host recently arrived F-35 stealth fighters. While they are not the immense super carriers of the US Navy like the Gerald R. Ford, the vessels,…
GVSETS 2025 — Michigan-based vehicle-maker GS Engineering this week is using the GVSETS Conference here to promote what one company official called a “small, cost-effective” ground vehicle platform designed for use by the US Marines. The Remote Expeditionary Autonomous Pioneer System or REAPr was developed as part of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project….
The U.S. industrial base for munitions and energetics is at a crossroads, with the Army investing heavily in munitions technology and production capacity. This includes a critical focus on artillery shells, which complements a simultaneous pursuit of vitally needed howitzer capability improvements – all in search of desperately needed improved long-range precision artillery fires. But…
WASHINGTON — Swiss officials said today negotiations with the US have failed to resolve a pricing dispute over an order for F-35 fighter jets, raising the possibility that Bern will have to reassess its planned buy. After selecting the jet in 2021 and inking a contract in 2022, Switzerland says its order of 36 F-35A…
GVSETS 2025 — The US Army, in partnership with Clemson University, recently revealed the Deep Orange 16 semi-autonomous vehicle, the latest upgrade over previous Deep Orange vehicles designed to work in support of emergency response in extreme conditions. The vehicle was on display Tuesday here at the GVSETS Conference in Novi, Mich. Deep Orange 16…
At the NATO Summit earlier this summer, NATO allies agreed to raise their defense spending target to 5 percent of GDP by 2035 — with 3.5 percent focused on hard security and 1.5 allocated to defense-enablers like critical infrastructure and cybersecurity. The move, pushed by the White House, represents a much-needed increase in spending to…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Free expression in Britain is facing what the United States now calls a serious decline, with the US State Department’s latest Human Rights Report accusing the UK government of tightening its grip on speech, particularly since Keir Starmer’s administration…
P&W RAY Rotating Detonation Engine Animation. Photo courtesy of RTX. The engineers gathered at a lab in Connecticut, stood outside a testing chamber and listened. Inside was what’s known as a rotating detonation engine – a new style of propulsion system, and one their peers, colleagues and predecessors had been researching and theorizing about for…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Reddit is sharply reducing what the Internet Archive can store, blocking the Wayback Machine from saving most of the site. Only the Reddit.com homepage will remain available for archiving, meaning the public record will no longer include individual posts,…
WASHINGTON — The autonomous surface vessel producer Seasats had an unexpected encounter with a Chinese warship while transiting the Indo-Pacific earlier this year, its chief executive exclusively told Breaking Defense. The California-based company conducted a publicly tracked transit of one of its USVs, dubbed Lightfish, from San Diego to Japan, a roughly 7,500 nautical mile…
WASHINGTON — The US Navy is drowning in data, but it can’t turn that intelligence into new tactics or tech updates fast enough for a 21st century war, warned the new Chief Data and AI Officer for the Department of the Navy Stuart Wagner. But, he said, a forthcoming strategy for “data and AI weaponization”…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. British shopkeepers are being told to think twice before displaying images of suspected shoplifters, after the UK’s data regulator warned such measures could fall foul of privacy laws. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) argues that even when someone is…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Centralized digital ID systems promise convenience and streamlined access to services, but when a single database becomes the gateway to a population’s most sensitive details, the consequences of a breach can be devastating. Nigeria is now facing exactly that…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Fortnite will once again be playable on iPhones in Australia, following a significant court ruling that targeted Apple and Google’s control over mobile app distribution. The federal court found both companies had leveraged their dominant positions, and steep in-app…
MELBOURNE — A plan to base Singaporean F-15 fighter jets on Guam for training has been scrapped, Singapore’s defense ministry confirmed today in a statement, although some of the proposed infrastructure upgrades to the island’s sprawling Andersen Air Force Base to support the jets will still go ahead. The decision was mutually agreed upon by…
WASHINGTON — Soldiers inside divisions and brigades will not be left without replacements for Gray Eagle and RQ-7B Shadow drones, according to a US Army leader who says new plans to replace both are in the works. Since the service unveiled its Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) in May, questions have swirled about the path ahead…
GVSETS 2025 — As the Army races to embrace commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions, officials and industry figures here said they’re seeing challenges both in how the acquisition process is done and, ultimately, the limits to what COTS products can bring to bear when it comes to ground vehicles. “It confronts both the way we do…
Ukraine may be fighting a war right now, but that doesn’t mean its drone manufacturers aren’t eyeing ways to generate more funds from foreign buyers. This time on The Weekly Break Out, editors Aaron Mehta and Lee Ferran discuss a recent piece by freelancer Kollen Post about the push from Ukrainian industry for customers outside…
The recent demonstration of Israeli and American military prowess in Iran has given rise to a new pathway to regional integration: an incremental progression that starts with security cooperation, moving to economic, technological and civil infrastructure partnerships, and eventually culminating in full normalization. It may not be the traditional model of diplomacy, exemplified by the…
By the time you finish telling Meta’s AI how your boss ruined your life, a stranger halfway across the world might already be reading it over lukewarm coffee. The stranger’s job isn’t to help you heal; it’s to give your robot therapist a performance review. According to contract workers speaking with Business Insider, Meta’s chatbot…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Perplexity, a San Francisco-based AI startup, has surprised the tech world with a $34.5 billion unsolicited offer to acquire Google’s Chrome browser. The move comes as the US Department of Justice presses ahead with antitrust remedies that could force…
WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab today announced finalization of a $275 million deal to buy the holding company for sensor system startup Geost — giving it a potential toehold in the Pentagon’s mega-billion Golden Dome air and missile defense initiative. Geost, which makes electro-optical and infrared sensors, is a subcontractor to Sierra Space, providing payloads for…
WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance (ULA) tonight is slated to launch its first Vulcan mission under the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, carrying an experimental satellite to demonstration new technologies for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). The Vulcan heavy-lifter will carry two military payloads directly to geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) at about…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is moving forward in the US Senate with 16 new co-sponsors as of July 31, 2025, reviving a proposal that copies the same type of provision found in the UK’s controversial Online Safety…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. TeaOnHer, a newly released iOS app encouraging men to upload and share photos and personal details about women they claim to have dated, is already embroiled in a major privacy scandal. The platform, which went live just days ago,…
WASHINGTON — Days before the Senate took off on August recess, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee asked a handful of nominees for key Pentagon posts — including the official slated to become the department’s next comptroller — whether they would follow congressional guidance on implementing $150 billion in additional defense funding granted…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s federal government’s “Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia,” has thrown her support behind a controversial set of proposals that would give authorities the power to delete online posts by politicians if they are judged to be “disinformation”…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump activated the DC National Guard today with approximately 800 troops expected to start appearing throughout the nation’s capital within days. “Mr. President, it’s an honor to be here and, at your direction, this morning we mobilized the DC National Guard,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the White House. “You will…
Packed with new missiles, drones and jet designs, Turkey’s IDEF 2025 conference ended up being full of news. Of course, not everyone could make it to the show, held in Istanbul. Which is why Breaking Defense’s Middle Eastern Bureau Chief Agnes Helou traveled to the show to bring you the sights and sounds for the…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The European Union’s “European Media Freedom Act” became binding law across all member states on August 8, but behind its name lies a set of provisions that could restrict the very freedoms it claims to safeguard. We obtained a…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Roman Storm’s guilty verdict is sending shockwaves through privacy advocates and the open-source development community, with many warning it could change how the US criminal justice system treats creators of decentralized tools. A federal jury in New York on…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Robby Starbuck’s settlement with Meta marks one of the first high-profile cases in which a person has taken legal action against an AI system for defamation. Starbuck, a conservative activist and former congressional candidate, sued Meta in April after…
WASHINGTON — By the end of the year some American special operations forces (SOF) will begin fielding new wearable tech designed to keep a real-time eye on their vitals as well as integrate with systems designed to warn command posts should the operator be exposed to dangerous gases or chemicals, according to an official with…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Britain’s Online Safety Act has claimed its first major courtroom victory over one of the internet’s most collaborative platforms, with the High Court rejecting the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal challenge. The ruling leaves intact a law that is a blueprint…
BELFAST — High-profile British, European and US drone manufacturers are largely refraining from sharing details about how or if they will engage with the United Kingdom’s recently launched project to assess autonomous collaborative platform (ACP) or loyal wingman type aircraft, as the Royal Air Force (RAF) looks to modernize capabilities through a mix of crewed,…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. British police have been quietly tapping into the nation’s passport photo database for hundreds of facial recognition searches, sparking fierce warnings from privacy campaigners about the scale of state surveillance creeping into everyday life. What began as a rare…
BELFAST — The German government said today it will indefinitely suspend weapon exports to Israel that could be fielded in the Gaza Strip, signaling a shift away from unwavering support for the Middle Eastern nation. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the move in a statement, making clear that Berlin “will, until further notice, authorise no…
LAUREL, Md. — As the Trump Administration tries to jumpstart American AI amidst concerns about AI ethics and hallucinations, experts here believe they’ve found a low-risk, high-payoff way to leverage Large Language Models right now: wargames. At least some federal agencies are receptive: Elements of the Defense Department, Energy Department, and intelligence community are asking…
SMD 2025 — With industry gathered together in Huntsville, Ala. on Thursday eager to hear new details about the ambitions of Golden Dome, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) revealed new details about plans for a second contracting vehicle that could top $151 billion, according to presentation slides reviewed by Breaking Defense. The presentation described the…
The United States is apparently moving toward a future where semiconductors might be able to report their whereabouts like snitches with a silicon conscience. Michael Kratsios, a senior official and one of the minds behind the federal government’s recently unveiled AI action plan, confirmed Washington is thinking about giving chips “better location-tracking” so they can…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The White House has decided that banks shouldn’t play political bouncer, at least the banks that answer to federal regulators. In a flourish of pen and podium, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that supposedly halts “politically motivated…
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Britain’s intelligence apparatus was designed to do what one might reasonably expect: track terrorists and generally stop the kinds of people who enjoy blowing things up. But that was before the digital gaze turned inward. Today, it’s not jihadist…
MELBOURNE — American defense tech company Anduril has expanded its footprint in the Indo-Pacific with tie-ups in Taiwan and South Korea, the company has announced. It also announced that it has also delivered the first tranche of Altius loitering munitions to Taiwan, six months after signing the contract with the self-governing island. Anduril said in…
