As East Bay communities raise concerns about civil liberties and immigration enforcement, the license plate camera company is seeking support from its customers -- law enforcement officers. [...]
Brian Hofer, executive director of Secure Justice, a privacy and civil liberties group, said Flock's training reminds him of public relations strategies used by other surveillance technology vendors. [...]
"You wine and dine them, take them on golf trips, teach them how to write grants, and then you give them a job after they retire," he said. "Then, they go and sell contracts to other police departments, and who are they going to listen to? Other police who have used this technology." [...]
Hofer said he thinks Flock, like ShotSpotter, is seeking support from law enforcement officers in reaction to the dozens of jurisdictions that have canceled their contracts with the company. Since August 2021, 88 of Flock's contracts have been terminated, according to Secure Justice's most recent tally. As of publication time, that includes 45 since the beginning of the year. (Terminations also include non-renewals and non-awards, if there was a competitive bidding process.)
"At the rate that they're losing contracts, this is a big piece of evidence that they're panicking," Hofer said.
To date, Flock has contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide.
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Richard will give a talk in Ben, Switzerland on June 12 titled Freie/Libre/Libero/Liber Software, for Sovereignty and Freedom.
US citizens: call on on major news organizations to cover the wrecker's foreign aid cuts with urgency and moral clarity.
US citizens: call on news organizations to cover the persecutor's attacks on the media as threats to press freedom.
US citizens: call on Congress to refuse to fund implementation of the bully's plan that could label millions of Americans as "domestic terrorists".
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the wrecker's attacks on housing and homeless assistance programs.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: support the cops who fought the coup-leader's Jan 6 riot at the Capitol, as they sue him to block his self-settlement meant to give him lots of money to give the rioters as "compensation" for the punishment of their crimes.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the Paramount - Warner Bros merger.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
I am once again seeking a contact inside the Yahoo DNS team. Early this morning the "home" record vanished from the "mcom.com" domain. I need it put back. Oddly, the "mosaic" record is still there.
My last contact there was Paul Frieden, in 2023, but the only email address I have bounces. Ideally I would ask Paul, "Hey, can you introduce me to your replacement?" Failing that, I'd like to find anyone currently on the team responsible for Yahoo's DNS records.
- Lying on his background check forms;
- Time-card fraud;
- Oh yeah, and also stealing $40M worth of gold bars.
Rush, a former senior executive service-level CIA employee in Virginia, was arrested on May 19:
FBI agents searching his home seized more than 300 1-kilogram gold bars valued at more than $40 million. [...]
The CIA says it informed the FBI of its suspicions about Rush, who apparently fell under scrutiny after he began asking for gold bars last November. That's when he began making "several requests ... to obtain a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses," according to the affidavit. [...]
A review of a storage space Rush used at the CIA found that only part of the cash was there. The agency's inquiry into the matter is ongoing, but it has not yet found any record of why Rush said he needed the massive amount of money.
The FBI affidavit accuses Rush of taking gold bars and currency, making false statements to the agency and on national security background forms, and filing fraudulent timecards.
It is journalistic malpractice that there are no photos of the gold bars in question. Stock photos are insufficient here.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Mark Zuckerberg's mega yacht docks in Seattle in the wake of Meta layoffs:
As of Wednesday afternoon, the $300 million, 387-foot Launchpad was stationed on Westlake, just a few blocks up Lake Union from Meta's offices. The yacht arrived as news broke that Meta's mass layoffs hit about 1,400 employees across the Seattle region.
Ryan Hill: Last Emissions of the Launchpad, 9"×12" oil on panel
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Rockbox does not support RLE-compressed BMP files, nor does it support progressive and multi-scan JPEG files. JPEG files must consist of a single scan with interleaved components, as progressive and multi-scan images require much more memory to decode.
And yes, this is still true in the nightly build.
Also, while you can finally have a playlist with up to 32,000 songs, "shuffle all tracks" is still hardcoded to 2,000.
I'm starting to think that their heart just isn't in this any more.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to stop the Pentagon's warfare-powering supposed-intelligence data centers.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to vote NO on the $70B blank check for the deportation thugs.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to put a windfall profits tax on fossil fuels, and spend the money building renewable generation.
To do this, you can use this campaign and modify the text to add that suggestion for spending.
I did this because my congresscritter and senators are notably progressive. If yours are Republicans, it might be better strategy to in your case to support campaign's own suggestion -- to use the tax money as a rebate to ease Americans' immediate suffering.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
The California Governor primary is particularly vexing this year because, being an open primary, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, so it's possible for the mediocre batch of Democrats to split the vote and we end up having to pick between two Republican ghouls in the general. So this year's primary is more game-theoretic than I'd prefer.
You only have one week left (June 2).
Some highlights from the guide:
Governor: Tom Steyer:The primary for Governor is a clown car filled with seven mediocre Democrats and two scary Republicans. Because there's a real chance both slots for the November election could go to Republicans, we urge you to vote strategically. We skipped over some long-shot progressive candidates in favor of a progressive-enough candidate who has the best shot at beating the corporate Democrats now, and winning in November.
We're going with Tom Steyer: the straight, white billionaire boomer who's juuuuust progressive enough.
At one point we thought about just flipping a coin and choosing between Tom Steyer and Katie Porter. Porter's whiteboard sessions were on point, but we doubt her ability to win: she ran statewide for the U.S. Senate in 2024 and came in third, with only 15% of the vote. As of late April, she's polling at 9%. Porter was progressive but has moved to the right. While she's gone back and forth on supporting the minimum wage increase, we need someone who will stand firm with workers and everyday Californians. And weirdly enough that's billionaire Tom Steyer. [...]
US Congress, District 11: Connie Chan:
[...] it's unclear that Saikat's millions will buy him a victory in the primary, and it's even less clear that he would win in November without the support of the labor unions and community groups that are backing Chan (and may not throw down for a wealthy tech bro). If Saikat ends up being on the ballot in November we'll reassess. But for now, It's a no-brainer: Connie Chan is the only candidate who can beat Scott Wiener in November and bring San Francisco values to Congress. Let's send Connie Chan to DC!
Curious why Scott Wiener is terrible? Click through to read our previous voter guide writeups, but basically: he's madly pro-cop, pro-developer, pro-YIMBY (trickle-down housing) with a gloss of pro-LGBTQ pinkwashing. Oh, and Weiner lost the California SEIU endorsement because he opposes Prop D, the Overpaid CEO tax.
Prop B: Weird Do-Nothing Tweak to Term Limits: No! Why??
[...] So why do we have Prop B? Because the moderates are so scared of Aaron Peskin running again, they think this is the only way to stop him. 🙄
Prop D: Overpaid CEO Salary Tax: Hell Yes!
Between Props C and D, only one can pass. Each has a poison pill that negates the other, so the one that gets the most votes over 50% will go into effect.
Unions and community organizations put Prop D, the Overpaid CEO Salary Tax, on the ballot to fill the gaping hole Trump's Big Bullshit Bill ripped in the City budget. Downtown businesses put Prop C on the ballot as a smokescreen to confuse voters and defeat Prop D.
Prop D is not gonna hurt regular people. It's not gonna drive companies out of the city. It only applies to companies with (a) top executives who earn 100 times their median workers' salary, (b) over 1000 employees, and (c) over $1 billion in revenue. Prop D would generate an extra $300 million in revenue a year to pay for vital neighborhood services, like medical clinics and in-home health care for seniors, that are on the chopping block this year in yet another of Mayor Lurie's "austerity budgets." [...]
If Prop C gets more votes than Prop D, big businesses will have torpedoed a truly progressive "tax the rich" opportunity, losing the City $260 -- 270 million a year. Make sure you vote on both: Vote No on C and Hell Yes!!! on D.
Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim:
Jane Kim is proposing to create a public insurer for natural disasters, much like the system in New Zealand, and she promises to use the office to rein in the powerful industry and develop new, functional alternatives.
(Jane Kim was the only good supervisor we ever had in District 6 / SOMA -- she's the reason The Oasis still exists -- and so if she thinks Insurance Commissioner is a good use of her skills, I'm gonna take her word for it.)
See also Mission Local's extensive election coverage.
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This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding "anti-American," "anti-Christian," and "anti-capitalism" beliefs. [...]
"The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City," the report reads. [...]
"These intelligence reports are part of a long tradition of agencies identifying protest or even simply having strong opinions as precursors to violence," Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, tells WIRED. "Suspicious activity reports are incredibly unreliable, often about vague or innocent behavior, issued under permissive standards. These reports, often received in large volumes, allow officers to inject their own biases and see what they want to see in the facts."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Planet Debian upstream is hosted by Branchable.