Victory in Ord, NE! 🏆 "The [police] department says it has spent a significant amount of time listening to residents’ concerns about the ALPRs and potential data privacy." The City Council voted 5-0 in favor of removing the cameras. #deflock #surveillance #alpr

City of Ord to remove FLOCK cameras

The City of Ord will no longer have FLOCK cameras.The Police Department saying in a Facebook post that the city council voted to remove the cameras.The departme

nebraska.tv

On the other hand, make sure to mention Flock by name in every police press release issued for any newsworthy arrest . 🙄

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · yesterday

New: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...

🚨 NHS England apologises and admits that actually employees from Palantir can access indentifiable patient information via the Federated Data Platform (FDP). www.publictechnology.net/2026/08/03/h...

NHS apologises and admits Palantir engineers have access to identifiable patient data

The central health service body has acknowledged the inaccuracy of claims previously made in a transparency document which indicated that only NHS staff were able to see such sensitive information…

publictechnology.net

News flash: Poll by supporters and funders of police surveillance shows support for police surveillance. Amazing! 🫨

Lester Black@leddder.bsky.social · 2d ago

SF voters appear to have gone through a dramatic reversal on policing issues since the pandemic: New poll finds vast majority of SF supports police drone use www.sfgate.com/politics/art...

FLAG: Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization under the new 'deal' struck by Todd Blanche. The new order also reaffirms that Trump won't have to pay any taxes he might have owed the IRS.

Thank you @lastweektonight1.bsky.social for an excellent episode on policing tech. I think I could teach an entire seminar course on the policing related episodes. Brilliant stuff. youtu.be/lnBPhelCdWE?...

Police Surveillance Technology: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

youtu.be

This week’s main story is about how police use surveillance tools like cameras, microphones, license plate readers, “cell site simulators,” and the practice of “predictive policing,” to create a world that has been lovingly described as “Big Brother on steroids.” Full segment at the link in our bio.

John Oliver covers police surveillance in his amazing, cutting way and gives a shout out to “Your Data Will Be Used Against You.” !!!! youtu.be/wagYax-0yJI?...

@calmatters.org covers the issues with AI-powered surveillance cameras and a legislative effort to protect the privacy of Californians and limit police abuse. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social calmatters.org/politics/202...

California police love license plate readers. Privacy advocates and lawmakers want limits

They’re all over our roads and really good at helping police solve crimes, but do California’s automated license plate readers need limits?

calmatters.org

In the Washington Post, "How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network [Flock] into a tool for stalking" When you create a mass surveillance network, it gets abused by those with power against those who lack power. washingtonpost.com/technology/2... No paywall: archive.is/MTtt9#select...

Latest @lastweektonight.com covers police surveillance tech and its many problems/abuses. AI-powered surveillance cameras, microphones, cell site simulators, "crime" centers, police access to private cameras (fusus), etc. Fight back against mass surveillance! www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnBP...

Police Surveillance Technology: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

youtube.com

NEW: In 2025 ICE obtained DNA from nearly one million people and funneled it into an FBI criminal database. The collection likely included DNA from young children and was backed by the threat of criminal prosecution. The raw genetic material is stored indefinitely. Free to read:

ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children

Internal documents show ICE's DNA collection has skyrocketed in the second Trump administration. Now hundreds of thousands of people never convicted of a crime are in an FBI criminal database forever.

wired.com

RFK told Dana Bash that Lyme disease “almost certainly” came from gain of function research. Which is utterly false. www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

Lyme Disease Did Not Come From a Secret Military Lab, Contrary to FDA Chief's Claim

Bacterium that causes it circulated long before the lab opened, decades of evidence show

medpagetoday.com

New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

BIG DEAL on voting rights this morning: Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians. Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.

Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights for Thousands With Past Felony Convictions - Bolts

This is the only state that, absent action by the governor, bans people convicted of any felony from voting for life. Virginians have an opportunity to end that system for good in November.

boltsmag.org

"The Savannah Police Department says six employees have been placed on administrative leave after an internal audit found potential misuse of the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader system." 🤦‍♂️ #Flock #DeFlock #Axon #Surveillance www.wjcl.com/article/sava...

Six Savannah police employees placed on leave over alleged Flock misuse

Savannah Police say six employees are facing investigation after an internal audit uncovered potential misuse of a license plate reader system.

wjcl.com

In Roseville, California, police found that Flock cameras incorrectly read license plates in 71% of the 1,427 alerts in 2023 and 2024. Mass surveillance endangers all of us! @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @deflock.org www.businessinsider.com/flock-camera...

Trump 2 has shown that the bulk of federal, state, and local "law enforcement" don't perform any useful functions at all. If they did, it would not be so easy to re-task them to brainless gestapo work like rounding up whole neighborhoods and waiting outside public buildings.

Melissa Gira Grant@melissagiragrant.com · 6d ago

I wrote about how immigration arrests are at all-time highs, even as ICE is trying to assume a lower public profile. How are they doing this? Look to your local police.

This clearly demonstrates the extremely competent people working for the current administration. 🙄

PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d ago

The State Department said ​it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.

it's too bad Florida officials are too stupid to realize that crashing out over an Ottessa Moshfegh story is the highest compliment you can pay Ottessa Moshfegh.

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

A college professors is fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story that causes "mild discomfort" for one student. Implication is that DeSantis government was involved in the firing. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

"The number one group of people being surveilled by this technology are people who live at the border," EFF’s @maassive.bsky.social told @reason.com. "It's not migrants, it's not the cartels, it's people who live there."

Homeland Security is spending $1 billion on 'autonomous' border surveillance towers

The department plans to triple the number of surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border over the next decade.

reason.com

"Chico PD signed MOUs granting access to its #ALPR data as early as Feb. 23, 2023. Twelve sharing agreements were approved in 2023 with federal agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and a branch of the U.S. #BorderPatrol.". Totally against state law. chicosol.org/2026/07/28/c...

City launches internal investigation into data sharing with federal agencies - ChicoSol News

The Chico Police Department, alongside the city attorney and city manager’s office, are conducting an internal investigation into the sharing of data produced by the automated license plate reader (AL...

chicosol.org

COME WORK at the ACLU! @aclu-norcal.bsky.social is hiring attorneys to work on tech and civil rights (my team) and the criminal legal/immigration system. These folks will work at the cutting edge of legal and policy efforts in California and beyond. Apply here: www.aclunorcal.org/jobs/staff-a...

Staff Attorney / Senior Staff Attorney - ACLU of Northern California

Develop and carry out litigation and policy advocacy to advance to protect and defend civil rights and civil liberties for all Californians.

aclunorcal.org

My latest op-ed. This one is about two recent victories against the mass surveillance tool known as "reverse warrants" and the growing, non-partisan national movement against mass surveillance. thehill.com/opinion/crim...

‘Reverse warrants’ should worry all Americans who value their liberties

Recent judicial and legislative actions, including a Supreme Court ruling and a Delaware law, have significantly restricted the use of mass surveillance technologies known as reverse warrants to pr…

thehill.com

Hopeful and inspirational event with the authors of “On Courage” @juliaangwin.com and @fieldsmeyer.com in San Francisco this evening along with some pretty awesome audience members.

An Azerbaijani court has sentenced nine journalists, media workers, and civil society activists to between 12 and 15 years in prison. It's the harshest verdict since the government began its ongoing crackdown on independent journalism.

Azerbaijan Jails Prominent TV Journalists, Media Workers

An Azerbaijani court on July 27 sentenced nine journalists, media workers, and civil society activists to between 12 and 15 years in prison.

hrw.org

Approximately 1 out of 3 women will experience sexual and/or physical abuse in their lifetime and you still have men claiming that allegations must be false because there are too many of them. It’s actually the opposite. The vast majority allegations will never become public

"As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants — Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle — are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. futurism.com/artificial-i...

AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt

AI companies are pouring tens of billions of dollars into enormous data centers. They're being built on top of a mountain of hidden debt.

futurism.com

David Barton is a fake historian who wrote a book on Thomas Jefferson that was so inaccurate his publisher was forced to pull it from the shelves. Now Barton, and his son Tim, are advising Trump on his anti-Smithsonian crusade.

Great work by the @brennancenter.org who compiled this resource of DHS surveillance tools and vendors with categorized charts that make it easier to see 2.9 billion in contracts www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

DHS’s Domestic Surveillance, Data Collection, and Analytics Tools

Fueled by a budget boom, the Department of Homeland Security is expanding its technological arsenal, with little oversight or transparency around how these tools are used.

brennancenter.org