Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Taylor Lorenz
Congress Wants to Track Every Device You Own
35 minutes Posted Aug 28, 2026 at 10:00 am.
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A New Law That Could Destroy Open Source Forever 

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The US Senate recently introduced the Digital Age Assurance Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that could fundamentally alter how every operating system and internet-connected device works.

 

Under the guise of "protecting children online," this bill threatens to mandate ID verification directly into operating systems (not just social media or the internet, but operating systems themselves). This would impact everything from smartphones to PCs to open-source software like Linux. Obviously, this has huge implications for privacy, free speech, and the future of open-source development. 

 

On this week's Free Speech Friday, I sat down with Laz Pieper and Peter Van Valkenburgh from Coin Center to break down their viral Substack piece, "The Correct Term for Age Verification is Censorship." We dive deep into how turning open-source coders into regulated service providers violates First Amendment rights, how mass identity verification systems are dangerous, why the line between safety mandates and government surveillance is disappearing so fast, and what we can do to stop this law.