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NAACP Stop Dirty Data How to Negotiate on CBAs and CAB template – Final.pdf
This document is a negotiation guide and template for communities facing proposed data centers. Covers forming a Community Advisory Board, securing cost-recovery agreements for legal and technical support, structuring enforceable Community Benefits Agreements and sequencing stages so non-opposition depends on completed commitments. Includes a CAB charter template.
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Experts Identify Best Practices for Negotiating and Drafting Community Benefits Agreements – Climate Law Blog
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia identifies 35 recommendations for negotiating and drafting Community Benefits Agreements, drawn from interviews with lawyers who have negotiated dozens of CBAs across the United States. Covers best practices for developers, host communities and key contract terms, with a companion database of 50 example agreements from climate…
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Saline Township Legal Data Center Consent Judgment
This consent judgment is a formal legal resolution that determines how a data center project can proceed within Saline Township after a dispute, most likely over zoning or land use. It establishes binding rules for the developer, including conditions on construction, operations, and compliance with local regulations. Rather than stopping the project outright, it allows…
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Addressing Digital Colonialism: A Path to Equitable Data Governance
Data monetization by the Global North is deepening 'digital colonialism' and widening inequality with the Global South. Ndemo and Thegeya's proposed framework covers stakeholders, data lifecycle, typology and legal standards, and the analysis situates it against UNCTAD's cross-border data flow guidance and the African Union's 2022 data policy framework.
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Data Centers Consume Massive Amounts of Water – Companies Rarely Tell the Public Exactly How Much
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for Water Policy examine the massive and growing water demands of data centers driven by AI expansion, highlighting the lack of transparency in how tech companies report water consumption. The analysis focuses on Google and Meta, revealing that data centers account for 95% of both companies' water use…
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Data Center Moratorium Bills Are Spreading in 2026 – Good Jobs First – Updated in March 2026
Moratorium bills are an important statewide or local strategy to pause development so that proper policy can be put in place. This is a good overview of the bills from our friends at Good Jobs First.
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Forum examines impacts of AI data centers in N.C.
More than 200 East Greensboro residents attend a June 9 forum where Dr. Rania Masri details AI data centers' demands on electricity, water and land. Masri connects a proposed ImpactData facility near schools and neighborhoods to tax giveaways, PFAS exposure risks and grid strain. Fifteen North Carolina counties and 22 municipalities have adopted data center…
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Bleeding the Future — Stop AI from Buying Our Elections
Leading the Future, a Trump-aligned AI super PAC backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir's Joe Lonsdale and Marc Andreessen, holds more than $140 million to influence elections and push deregulation, military contracts and legal immunity for AI harms. Bleeding the Future organizes advocates, officials and individuals around a pledge opposing the PAC's spending in…
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Subway rider asks ChatGPT what happens if all data centers are destroyed
The comedic SubwayTakes YouTube Shorts clip captures casual public conversation linking data center infrastructure to digital dependency.
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Policing Gender: How Surveillance Tech Aids Enforcement of Anti-Trans Laws
In Florida, Texas and Missouri, law enforcement uses geofence warrants, facial recognition, student spyware and health data requests to identify transgender people under new anti-trans laws. Officials collect patient records and driver's license data to track people accessing gender-affirming care, with disproportionate effects on Black trans women and low-income communities.
Exposing AI Data Center Threats and Harms