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No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama after podcast comments cause frenzy
No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama after podcast comments cause frenzy
“Former President Barack Obama clarified that he has not seen evidence of aliens, despite stating on a podcast that “they’re real.” He emphasized the vastness of the universe and the low likelihood of extraterrestrial contact during his presidency.
Former US president clarifies ‘they’re real’ answer that he gave during quick-fire interview round
Hours after Barack Obama caused a frenzy by saying aliens were real on a podcast, the former US president has posted a statement clarifying that he has not seen any evidence of them.
In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a speed round of questioning where the host asks guests quick questions and the guests respond with brief answers.
After he was asked “Are aliens real?”, Obama said: “They’re real but I haven’t seen them.”
He went on: “They’re not being kept at Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
The comment was picked up by media outlets around the world, with headlines such as “Former US president Barack Obama says aliens are real” and “‘They’re real’: Obama’s shock alien claims”. Time Magazine covered the drama, reporting: “Obama says aliens are real, but they aren’t at Area 51”.
However, following the media frenzy, Obama released a statement on Instagram on Sunday evening.
“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
There is a long-running conspiracy theory claiming that the US government is hiding extraterrestrials at Area 51, a highly classified air force site in Nevada.
In 2019, after 1.5 million people signed up to “storm” the site, approximately 150 social media influencers gathered around the airstrip but the event ended anticlimactically, with only a few arrests, and ultimately turned into a music festival.
Declassified documents released in 2013 revealed that the secret airstrip was actually used for aerial testing of US government projects including the U-2 and Oxcart aerial surveillance programs.
“High-altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side-effect – a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” the documents said.“
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by sending subpoenas to tech companies for information on social media accounts that criticize or track ICE. Companies like Google, Meta, and Reddit have received hundreds of subpoenas, some of which they complied with, while others notified the account holders to challenge the subpoenas in court. The DHS argues it needs this information to protect ICE agents, but critics argue it infringes on free speech and privacy rights.
The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.
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The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.
In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.
The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.
“The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.” Over the last six months, Mr. Loney has represented people whose social media account information was sought by the Department of Homeland Security.
The department said it had “broad administrative subpoena authority” but did not address questions about its requests. In court, its lawyers have argued that they are seeking information to help keep ICE agents in the field safe.
What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight.
Meta, Reddit and Discord declined to comment.
“When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. “We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.”
The Trump administration has aggressively tried tamping down criticism of ICE, partly by identifying Americans who have demonstrated against the agency. ICE agents told protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded and identified with facial recognition technology. Last month, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, also said on Fox News that he was pushing to “create a database” of people who were “arrested for interference, impeding and assault.”
Silicon Valley has long had an uneasy relationship with the federal government and how much user information to provide it. Transparency reports published by tech companies show that the number of requests for user information from different governments around the world has climbed over the years, with the United States and India among those submitting the most.
Some social media companies previously fought government requests for user information. In 2017, Twitter (now X) sued the federal government to stop an administrative subpoena that asked it to unmask an account critical of the first Trump administration. The subpoena was later withdrawn.
Unlike arrest warrants, which require a judge’s approval, administrative subpoenas are issued by the Department of Homeland Security. They were only sparingly used in the past, primarily to uncover the people behind social media accounts engaged in serious crimes such as child trafficking, said tech employees familiar with the legal tool. But last year, the department ramped up its use of the subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media accounts.
In September, for example, it sent Meta administrative subpoenas to identify the people behind Instagram accounts that posted about ICE raids in California, according to the A.C.L.U. The subpoenas were challenged in court, and the Department of Homeland Security withdrew the requests for information before a judge could rule.
Mr. Loney of the A.C.L.U. said avoiding a judge’s ruling was important for the department to keep issuing the subpoenas without a legal order to stop. “The pressure is on the end user, the private individual, to go to court,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security also sought more information on the Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to tracking ICE activity in Montgomery County, Pa., outside Philadelphia. The accounts, called Montco Community Watch, began posting in Spanish and English about ICE sightings in June and, over the next six months, solicited tips from their roughly 10,000 followers to alert people to the locations of agents on specific streets or in front of local landmarks.
On Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent Meta a request for the name, email address, post code and other identifying information of the person or people behind the accounts. Meta informed the two Instagram and Facebook accounts of the request on Oct. 3.
“We have received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about your Facebook account,” the notification said, according to court records. “If we do not receive a copy of documentation that you have filed in court challenging this legal process within ten (10) days, we will respond to the requesting agency with information.”
The account owner alerted the A.C.L.U., which filed a motion on Oct. 16 to quash the government’s request. In a hearing on Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the A.C.L.U. argued that the government was using administrative subpoenas to target people whose speech it did not agree with.
Sarah Balkissoon, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the government, said the Department of Homeland Security’s position was that it was “within their power to investigate threats to its own officers or impediments to their officers,” according to a court transcript viewed by The Times.
Two days later, the subpoena was withdrawn.
The Montco Community Watch accounts continue to post almost every day. The Times emailed a request for comment to the address associated with the accounts but did not receive a reply.
On Monday, the Instagram account posted an alert for ICE activity in the Eagleville area of Montgomery County. “Montco ICE alert,” the post said. “This is confirmed ICE activity.”
On Friday, the account posted a video of students at Norristown Area High School protesting against ICE. “We stand with you and are proud you made your voices heard!” the post said.
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
Mike Isaac is The Times’s Silicon Valley correspondent, based in San Francisco. He covers the world’s most consequential tech companies, and how they shape culture both online and offline.“
With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules
With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules
“The Trump administration’s elimination of the “endangerment finding” effectively removes the U.S. government’s legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars. This move, part of a yearlong deregulation effort, leaves the U.S. without meaningful fuel efficiency standards, potentially increasing emissions by 10% over 30 years. While automakers may benefit from reduced regulations, experts warn this could isolate them from the global shift towards electric vehicles.
The E.P.A.’s killing of the “endangerment finding” caps a year of deregulation that is likely to make cars thirstier for gas and less competitive globally, experts say.
The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.
The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.
That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.
“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups.
“Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”
Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gases in the United States.
Car buyers could still vote with their wallets, demanding more fuel-efficient cars. California has vowed to sue to maintain stricter standards. And the Department of Transportation still regulates fuel economy under rules meant to conserve oil.
But last year, the Trump administration proposed weakening the fuel economy standards to largely irrelevant levels. The Republican-controlled Congress also set civil penalties for violations at $0, essentially making them voluntary for automakers. In addition, Congress last year blocked California’s clean-car rules.
The bottom line is that the United States is set to stand apart from a majority of the world’s industrialized nations, which have mandatory fuel economy or greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions rules. The E.P.A. still regulates tailpipe emissions of specific pollutants, like nitrogen oxides.
The Biden administration had sought to tighten limits on emissions to encourage automakers to sell more nonpolluting electric vehicles.
The Trump administration’s elimination of the endangerment finding on Thursday is expected to face fierce legal challenges from environmental groups and others. The endangerment finding was a 2009 scientific conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to Americans’ health and welfare. It provided the foundation to justify federal regulations that limit carbon dioxide, methane and other pollution, including from cars.
If the E.P.A.’s decision holds, it could increase the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 30 years, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group.
Greenhouse emissions are the main driver of global climate change, which in turn is intensifying heat waves, drought, hurricanes and floods while also melting glaciers, causing sea levels to rise.
Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, called the end of the finding “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” He accused Democrats of having launched an “ideological crusade” on climate change that had “strangled entire sectors of the United States economy,” particularly the auto industry, which has struggled to sell electric vehicles.
Climate concerns aside, it’s unclear whether the U.S. auto industry will ultimately benefit from the elimination of emissions and fuel efficiency regulations. The move could leave American automakers even more dominated by gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles, experts said, as China and other nations continue to shift toward cleaner electric cars.
That could leave them at a competitive disadvantage in coming years. “Our automakers are not going to survive,” Ms. Oge predicted.
John Bozzella, the president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents automakers in the United States, has declined to say whether he supports the end of the endangerment finding. But he said in a statement that the move would “correct some of the unachievable emissions regulations enacted under the previous administration.”
Mr. Trump has swung back and forth on his opinion of electric vehicles. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he said electric cars would “kill” America’s auto industry. But he appeared to at least temporarily soften his stance at the urging of Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and his one-time close adviser. In March, he said he would buy a Tesla.
“Globally, the push is in exactly the opposite direction, in the direction of electrifying vehicles,” said Ann Carlson, a professor at U.C.L.A. School of Law who served under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Transportation Department agency that sets fuel efficiency standards.
But now, “they’re saying no standards whatsoever,” she said.
For 17 years, the E.P.A. worked in tandem with the Department of Transportation, with the E.P.A. regulating carbon dioxide emissions (to protect health) and the Transportation Department governing how much fuel a car can burn (to conserve fuel).
The endangerment finding had allowed the E.P.A. in recent years to push standards more aggressively than possible using fuel-economy rules alone, setting targets so low they would eventually have become virtually impossible for gasoline engines to meet. The E.P.A. also had the authority, for example, to issue stop-sale orders if an automaker failed to meet standards, preventing them from selling certain cars until the issue was resolved.
The first Trump administration had moved to weaken both the tailpipe emissions and fuel economy standards. Mr. Biden had then reversed course, strengthening them. But now that the second Trump administration has eliminated the E.P.A.’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gases, another reversal by a future administration could be more difficult.
“Even if a new administration came in and was inclined to regulate greenhouse gasses, it would take years to reissue and defend the endangerment finding,” Professor Carlson said. “And in the meantime, they would have no authority to write any new greenhouse gas regulations.”
The remaining rules, such as the fuel efficiency requirements, could also be weakened. In December, the Trump administration proposed resetting the Transportation Department standard to require automakers to achieve an average of 34.5 miles per gallon for the full lineup of cars they sell by 2031. The Biden-era target was closer to 50 miles per gallon.
Those new standards would be less stringent than those in the European Union, as well as those of countries like China, Japan and India. Congress’s separate decision to eliminate fines for failure to comply with efficiency standards also makes the rules voluntary, saving automakers significant compliance costs.
Any resulting shift by American automakers toward gas guzzlers that can’t be sold in Europe or China could further isolate the U.S. market. And the United States would increasingly cede the future of automotive technology to Chinese electric vehicle giants like BYD, experts said.
“We’re an outlier now,” said Joshua Linn, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies environmental policies and the transportation sector. “Those larger trucks and S.U.V.s tend to make them more money,” he said. “But if they want to compete in Europe or East Asia, they really need to be able to produce these E.V.s.”
A divergence in tailpipe emissions rules could emerge domestically. California has promised a court challenge, saying the state would fight to continue to regulate greenhouse gases. Other states are expected to follow California’s lead.
“To have a patchwork of systems makes it really hard for companies that do business in 50 states,” let alone in other countries, said Anne L. Kelly, the vice president of government relations at Ceres, an advocacy group that works with businesses on their sustainability plans. “There is no world in which this is helpful for the auto industry.”
Matthew Beecham, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Mobility, an automotive company, said that given the uncertainties, automakers were likely to hedge their bets. They might expand their gasoline car lineups, he said, but most likely would not abandon electrification completely.
And despite no penalties for violating the remaining fuel economy standards, there was unlikely to be “wholesale lawbreaking,” he said, because state rules and investor scrutiny could keep companies in check. “Expect tactical shifts toward profitable trucks, not open defiance,” he added.
Still, a shift toward larger gasoline models could ultimately undermine their competitiveness in an intensifying global E.V. race. Carmakers around the world are scrambling to secure enough E.V. batteries, for example, and that race penalizes laggards, he said.
While the E.P.A. continues to regulate pollutants like nitrogen oxides that pose direct threats to human health, it is now also seeking to weaken those rules.
Aaron Szabo, the E.P.A.’s air quality chief, wrote in an opinion article published by The Hill in December that rolling back those rules would “reduce red tape and bring common sense back to rulemaking.” The move to roll back regulations increases choice and lowers the price of cars, he said.
But vehicles that burn more fuel cost car owners more at the pump, said Daniel Becker, the director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, in addition to the costs to the climate, public health and industrial competitiveness.
The Trump administration “is telling American manufacturers, ‘You guys go build gasoline cars again,’” he said. “The Chinese government is telling its manufacturers, ‘You go build the advanced vehicles that are going take over the world.’”
Maxine Joselow contributed reporting from Washington.
Hiroko Tabuchi covers pollution and the environment for The Times. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years in Tokyo and New York.“
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