We’ll see how long US Attorney (and, of course, former Fox News personality) Jeanine Pirro gets to keep her job. I would guess the exit door is only inches away from hitting her ass since she refused to carry out Donald Trump’s plan to punish Reflecting Pool visitors for highlighting the failures of his no-bid contract buddies.

Former Olympian David Hearn got rung up first on federal vandalism charges. Then he got un-rung, once the DOJ told the court Doug Burgum’s Interior Department had basically lied to it about the most likely causes of the peeling sealant and algae swarms that embarrassed the president into pressing criminal charges and threatening journalists.

The crux of dismissal motion by the DOJ was this:

[I]t was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn…

Despite the insult of being lied to by a fellow member of the federal government, the DOJ could only bring itself to move for a dismissal without prejudice, which means the administration can always take another swing at Hearn and the other Reflecting Pool defendants.

The good news is that everyone facing criminal charges for supposedly “vandalizing” the botched, hasty pool repair job is now off the hook… at least for now.

Court records now show that prosecutors are dropping the charges against the three other defendants – Justin Carreno, Cameron Thiers and Sophie Dennison-Gibby – who were all accused of destruction of property with a value of less than $1,000.

The bad news is everything else. Ever since the first dismissal, both Donald Trump and DOI Secretary have done little more than bash Pirro for actually doing her damn job and claiming (again, without evidence) that the Reflecting Pool was vandalized, rather than just mishandled by a.) one of Trump’s donors/pool guys and b.) a company that had never been awarded a federal contract before.

For what it’s worth, it seems Pirro did confront Trump and Burgum about their wild antifa-vandalism-whatever-the-fuck assertions. Pirro did the right thing and — according to this report — did it well.

Mr. Trump raged against Ms. Pirro in private on Monday. Then he raged a little to reporters. Rumors she would be fired burbled through West Wing. Then he raged a little bit more before hosting a high-drama, face-to-face meeting with Ms. Pirro at the White House worthy of two decorated veterans of confrontational reality TV.

Mr. Burgum had been invited too, so Ms. Pirro came prepared. She entered the White House from the West Executive driveway in a bright red blazer that matched her fight-back mood, schlepping a white box containing evidence, plus a black box with documents, on wheels.

This confrontation seemed to have gone as well as it possibly could. According to NYT sources, Pirro made a solid case that Burgum had concocted a vandalism cover story to conceal his contribution to the Reflecting Pool embarrassment. This is as good as it gets when it comes to Trump:

Mr. Trump seemed considerably less angry by day’s end, the person said.

It didn’t last long. In addition to the insults he handed out immediately following the Hearn dismissal, Trump had this to say in the days following the White House meeting with Pirro:

“U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro should re-visit her hastily made decision,” ​Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

[…]

Trump, who has ​repeatedly alleged that vandals damaged the pool, has sharply ​criticized Pirro for dropping the case, saying this week that she had “choked” under pressure from a judge and “folded like an ​umbrella.”

And, as is par for the course for Trump, he’s also attacked the judge handling the case (who did nothing more than respect the government’s dismissal motion) and disparage the work done by the pool crews he so recently defended as so far above reproach that any issues with the pool whatsoever could only be due to malicious acts of vandalism.

If this were a normal presidency and a normal timeline, I’d say something pithy like “it’s all over but the desperate flailing.” But it isn’t, so any pithiness is immediately undercut by the realization that “desperate flailing” is MAGA GOP SOP, and with this party in power, it can always be converted into actual punishment of Trump’s perceived enemies.

Trump can never be wrong, so he’s back on his vandalism bullshit.

President Trump on Saturday posted photos of alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool amid a push for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to revisit a recent decision to drop charges related to the pool.

Late Saturday, the president posted two photos of what appeared to be graffiti and some peeling of the coating of the pool. Both photos were labeled with the word “Vandalism.”

Just imagine the dumbest, weakest, vaguest, conspiracy theory-ist shit you’ve ever seen. Now, lower your expectations.

These are pictures taken of something somewhere. One is labeled “RIP,” which is hardly instructive since we can’t tell what this is or what relevance this peeling has to do with anything. Even if we are to immediately believe (or even recognize) these to be photos of the Reflecting Pool and its lining, there’s nothing in here that immediately suggests malicious damage, rather than what’s already on the record: a hasty application job done by under-qualified people working under severe time constraints and somehow still managing to go millions of dollars over budget.

These are the sort of things you bring to the attention of the contractor performing the work, not the sort of thing you use to support criminal charges. It’s one thing to see a shattered window and a heavy object nearby. It’s quite another to see some peeling weather stripping around the sill and claiming your house has been vandalized.

This government is nearly as dangerous as it is stupid. But that’s only because its stupidity is unparalleled. The most venal president in history is seeing the end results of his willingness to allow his loyalty to be purchased. It’s the worst form of kleptocracy: one that’s fully bought into the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Earlier this year, following the initial verdict in the state of New Mexico’s case against Meta (arguing that Meta caused harm to children by doing things like encrypting messages), we noted that even if you believe that Meta is a terrible company (as I do), that Mark Zuckerberg cannot be trusted (ditto), and that the company has prioritized profits over safety (yup), we should be seriously concerned about the verdict. Among the many problems with the verdict is that it’s a judge and jury taking on the role of determining what they feel is how internet apps can and should work, despite having no knowledge or expertise regarding how internet products can and should work — or how trust and safety tradeoffs actually work.

The second part of that trial, focused on remedies beyond the monetary judgment the jury already awarded the state, concluded last week. Almost all of the headlines are talking about the additional $567 million the judge ordered the company to pay above and beyond the $375 million in civil penalties the jury already awarded. Those funds are supposed to be used to help pay for the supposed “harms” of Meta’s properties to New Mexico kids. But that is probably the least interesting part of the ruling.

What’s way scarier is that the judge then makes a bunch of design decisions, telling Meta how its products need to work. Admittedly, many of the changes are ones Meta itself suggested (some of which it has already made). But this is exactly the kind of thing that I was worried about when the first verdict came down. Once we’re in a world where a judge gets to make product decisions, bad things are going to happen. Judges are not product designers. Judges are not trust & safety experts. Judges are not child safety experts. They do not understand how all these things work together. They do not understand the tradeoffs of their decisions.

Judges simply shouldn’t be in the business of determining the proper user interface for software. Indeed, I’d deem it to be an example of compelled speech and (in cases of banning certain features) suppression of speech.

In the ruling, the judge now says that Meta will need to limit the amount of time children can spend on the app (which means mandating age verification of every user), that the number of “likes” on photos on kids’ accounts must be hidden, and then some compelled “warnings” about the supposed harms of social media. All of this is problematic.

Again, even if you hate Facebook and think it’s harmful and you trust this judge, do you trust all judges out there to get this right? Do you think that some of the Trump appointed judges should be able to decide what features certain apps should have? We’ve already seen some judges who think that any trust & safety/content moderation operation is harmful. And we’ve seen judges on the flip side who think that not taking down certain speech is equally harmful. Letting individual judges determine how products are designed is a disaster waiting to happen.

As we’ve discussed for years, there is scant evidence that social media (and Facebook’s apps in particular, as they’re the most studied) are inherently harmful to kids. Many, many, many researchers have tried to find such evidence and tend to come up empty. It would be one thing for the judge in this case, Bryan Biedscheid, to just ignore all of that, but he doesn’t. He more or less admits it, highlighting the various claims from both sides in the case… and then just declares which side he thinks is more credible. But a different judge might find otherwise. Which is a big part of the problem here.

If all the science agreed, this would, perhaps, be an easier call. But the vast majority of the science disagrees with Biedscheid’s feelings here.

He starts out by citing the Surgeon General’s report from 2023, but reads it to say a lot more than it actually does:

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a public advisory titled “Social Media and Youth Mental Health” (“2023 Advisory”) which “calls attention to the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health.” [Pl. Ex. 03193 at 3] As the 2023 Advisory notes, “[a] Surgeon General’s Advisory is a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue,” and such advisories “are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.” [Pl. Ex. 03193 at 3] The 2023 Advisory states that “[u]p to 95% of youth ages 13-17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media ‘almost constantly.’” [Pl. Ex. 03193 at 4] The 2023 Advisory also notes that “nearly 40% of children ages 8-12 use social media.” [Pl. Ex. 03193 at 4]

Importantly, the 2023 Advisory reports that features designed to maximize engagement can harm children by encouraging problematic use and behaviors. The 2023 Advisory provides that:

[e]xcessive and problematic use of social media can harm children and adolescents by disrupting important healthy behaviors. Social media platforms are often designed to maximize user engagement, which has the potential to encourage excessive use and behavioral dysregulation. Push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, quantifying and displaying popularity (i.e., “likes”), and algorithms that leverage user data to serve content recommendations are some examples of these features that maximize engagement.

But that proves nothing. Note even the hedging language here. It says that excessive or problematic use can harm children… but doesn’t say how often that occurs. It says that those features have “the potential to encourage excessive use” but makes no findings on whether they actually do or how frequently they do.

Indeed, as we keep pointing out, where the evidence actually takes us is that a very small percentage of kids cannot handle unsupervised, unlimited social media. Most of the studies appear to put it at less than 5%. And, much of the research seems to suggest that any causal connection is in the other direction. That kids who are not getting the mental health support they need then turn to social media and use it excessively, rather than the social media causing the problems.

Also, the judge completely leaves out that the same Surgeon General report talks about how incredibly helpful social media is for many kids. He does mention elsewhere other studies showing that social media has benefits… but then forgets all about it.

The evidence in this case demonstrates that social media has many benefits, such as helping people connect with friends and family. [See, e.g., 2-27-26 Tr. 7225:11-14 (Cain); 2-19-26 Tr. 4904:1-11 (Coyle); Def. Ex. 01045 at 93] It also helps members of marginalized communities form and build online communities based on connections and shared interests, especially when members of those communities might not have access to supportive or even safe communities offline. [2-12-26 Tr. 2452:22-25 (Boyle); 3-11-26 Tr. 10882:22-10883:16 (Otaru)] It is also a source of news, educational content, and entertainment. [Def. Ex. 01045 at 93] Meta’s services in particular help small businesses grow by allowing them to reach more customers.

In other words, the issue is not about social media inherently. And any solution across the board is a terrible idea. Instead, we should be making efforts to identify which kids are actually at risk and helping them. Not just universally declaring which features are good and which are bad.

Unfortunately, that’s what the judge does here, effectively appointing himself the product manager for Meta’s social media products and saying that despite the conflicting evidence, he’s convinced that Meta’s products are designed to be harmful to children:

Based on the evidence in the record, the Court finds that Meta implemented platform features that were designed to optimize engagement, and that these features were and are harmful to teenagers. [See, e.g. 2-17-26 Tr. 3573:15-17, 3581:15-3582:16 (Narayanan) (outlining how Meta’s algorithm uses engagement-maximizing recommendation algorithms); 2-23-26 Tr. 5468:22-5470:15 (Lembke) (describing how children are “uniquely vulnerable” to harm on social media because their brains are still developing)]

But… optimizing engagement is what every cultural product does. Many novels I read end each chapter on a cliffhanger, and sometimes that gets me to stay up late at night as I need to know what happens next. That’s harmful to my sleep. And it’s a design decision from the author/publisher to end chapters like that. But I think we all recognize that it would be a massive First Amendment problem if we told publishers that they couldn’t end chapters on cliffhangers, saying that they “optimize engagement” and therefore are “harmful.”

Basically, the court decides that the experts the state put on the stand were more credible than the experts Meta put on the stand. But just the fact that there’s so little agreement about what the science actually says here, and no study that has shown causality, should give the judge pause. Instead, because one witness claimed a causal relationship, he accepts that as fact.

It would be nice if the judge showed a bit of humility here, but instead seems to assume that based on a few witnesses at the trial he can redesign Facebook and Instagram.

The judge, who had previously rejected Meta’s Section 230 defense, admits that he can’t do anything regarding actual content on the app, because that would likely violate both 230 and the First Amendment:

This decision does not seek to close or demolish Meta’s platforms, enjoin specific advertising or content (which the Court is also mindful is protected by the First Amendment and 47 U.S.C. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA)), or require Meta to cure causally disconnected harms. Rather, this decision seeks to address existing harms created by Meta’s platforms and to prevent future harm to children and future burdens on New Mexico, in general, that would otherwise be caused by Meta’s platforms. It is this Court’s conclusion that Meta is a cause of and has substantially contributed to a public nuisance in New Mexico, and is required to abate that public nuisance to the extent of its contributions.

But Judge Biedscheid still appoints himself the new product manager for safety for Meta’s products for other features. He establishes that Meta’s social media product features represent a “public nuisance” to kids in New Mexico, and they must abate the harm of that public nuisance. First, it tells Meta that it needs to implement age verification, though it admits that it’s somewhat limited by federal law (COPPA) in how much it can require:

Age verification is the key to making Meta’s platforms safe for adolescents because there must be substantial certainty about whether a user is: (a) over 13 years of age, thus old enough to use the platforms; and, (b) over 18 years of age, so that adolescent protective restrictions on use should be removed and restrictions on the ability to connect with adolescents must be put in place. Without substantial certainty, there will be adults communicating with adolescents by claiming a false younger age and tweens communicating with teens and adults by claiming a false older age.

But… most experts don’t think that’s true. Indeed, many experts have made it clear that age verification introduces all sorts of new risks and dangers. The letter linked there (from 438 experts) was even brought up during this phase of the trial, but was dismissed as being by experts who were out of touch by New Mexico’s experts (and, apparently, the judge).

And it’s this kind of thing that feels so problematic about this. The science isn’t even remotely settled here, and there are credible experts warning that these solutions will actually do way more harm than good for children’s safety. Shouldn’t that be important too?

What if these changes demanded by the judge actually do more harm?

Then what? Do we get to sue the state of New Mexico for being a public nuisance? Or sue Judge Biedscheid? Nowhere in this order is any sort of humility or acknowledgement that he has no idea the actual impact of these changes. There is no plan to go back and look and check to see if they are working. Or if they’re causing more harm. If Meta makes these changes and the rate of youth depression or suicide increases next year, then what? Whom do we get to sue? Who “abates” that public nuisance?

And then there are other features that Product Manager Biedscheid decides Meta can no longer offer to kids (as determined by the age verification tools he’s requiring them to use):

Meta shall eliminate push notifications on its platforms for known or estimated accounts belonging to users under 18 years of age: (a) from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM (i.e., hours when the vast majority of children are sleeping or should be asleep) on all days; and, (b) from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM (i.e., typical school hours) during the academic year, excluding weekends. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Meta may make exclusions to this rule for messaging from connected users and for urgent, targeted messages, such as for security or hazard alerts

Meta shall hide, as a default setting for all accounts where the user is under 18 years of age, all “like counts” that Meta appends to content. Meta may only allow an override of the default setting when a parent or guardian gives the user under 18 years of age their permission to change the default setting.

Meta shall implement a mandatory usage time limit for accounts belonging to users under 18 years of age. Meta shall restrict the usage of all such users to not more than 90 hours of use per month cumulatively across Facebook and Instagram.

Do we know if any of this will help kids? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Will the court go back and revisit this if this magically doesn’t help kids mental health struggles? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The court also mandates a bunch of compelled speech that the Zauderer standard says it has no business compelling. But the judge doesn’t seem to much care:

Meta shall provide information screens on Facebook and Instagram to be displayed to all new users under 18 years of age once a day that explain one or more of the following: (a) an aspect of safe platform use best practices; (b) available tools to address inappropriate content and behavior; (c) the concept of rabbit holing and ways to reset the algorithm to address the issue; and, (d) tools to avoid problematic use, such as nudges, self-imposed limits and other tools. These screens shall be displayed for the first 30 days that a new user under 18 years of age joins a platform, similar to Meta’s presentation of new users under 18 years of age with Pristine Pool content. The screens shall be submitted to the State for its review, possible edits, and approval.

Meta shall fund, design, and implement an educational campaign in New Mexico, prepared in collaboration with and with the approval of the State, that publicizes: (a) risks associated with platform use; (b) safety tools and best practices to address those risks; (c) parental controls; (d) problematic content and behavior reporting tools; (d) risks associated with online bullying and features that help victims address it; and, (e) reporting mechanisms for accounts belonging to users under 13 years of age. This campaign shall also provide schools with ready-made materials, also prepared in collaboration with and with the approval of the State, that set forth information on these topics to be distributed as desired by the State.

It’s entirely possible that those are good ideas. But we should all be worried about judges ordering internet companies what they must tell their users. Remember, we’ve seen other attempts to do this — such as the law in Texas that tried to force adult content sites to warn people that porn was dangerous. And those were thrown out as unconstitutional.

But how do you distinguish these warnings from the anti-porn disclosure warnings pushed by the far right? The point is that the state isn’t supposed to be in the business of requiring warnings on inherently speech related products. Especially when there is no agreed upon scientific basis for the claims.

About the only good thing in the ruling is that the judge neglects to take the state up on its worst suggestion: banning end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp or Facebook. But even that is only partially good, because he orders Meta not to turn end-to-end encryption back on for Instagram. As you’ll recall, back in May, Instagram turned off end-to-end encryption, claiming that no one was using it. Privacy advocates have asked the company to turn it back on, but if this ruling stands, that won’t be allowed. The judge’s rationale is basically that (1) WhatsApp doesn’t have the other “addictive” features he dislikes and (2) kids don’t use Facebook anyway, so only Instagram is the problem:

The Court does not adopt Plaintiff’s requests for a prohibition on end-to-end encryption (“E2EE”) for the following reasons. Meta has already ceased offering E2EE on its Instagram platform, and the Court orders that such cessation of E2EE on Instagram remain in place during the Abatement Period. Regarding Facebook, the Court does not agree with ending E2EE on this platform. Facebook has few adolescent users in New Mexico, and the Court only has jurisdiction over New Mexico accounts. Therefore, in light of the benefits E2EE may offer in many other markets outside of New Mexico, and the limited use of E2EE by adolescents on Facebook in New Mexico, the Court does not impose a prohibition on E2EE in relation to Facebook.

But, again, on what scientific basis is this decision made? It all feels like vibes.

It’s also weird because a few paragraphs later, the judge admits that the benefits of end-to-end encryption outweigh the harms… but only on WhatsApp? On Instagram it’s the opposite? Why?

To the extent that WhatsApp’s E2EE poses a risk to adolescents, that risk is outweighed by the benefits that E2EE offers to address privacy concerns of New Mexicans and other populations.

He also admits that while he might like to force Meta to turn off autoplay, infinite scroll, and content recommendations, he (correctly) worries that those (since they’re so directly tied to third party content and editorial decision making) could implicate both Section 230 and the First Amendment:

Of the above-mentioned design features, autoplay, infinite scroll and algorithmic content recommendations are most closely tied to content presentation because they directly impact the manner in which users are presented with third-party postings and advertising. As a result, autoplay, infinite scroll, and algorithmic content are features with clear Section 230 and First Amendment implications.

The evidence and argument at trial also showed that autoplay, infinite scroll, and algorithmic content recommendations are used widely in the industry. Therefore, in light of the broader market in which Meta operates and given the absence of Meta’s competitors in this litigation, restrictions imposed on Meta’s offering of the aforementioned features could harm the viability of Meta and its platforms.

In contrast, push notifications and “like counts” are least connected with platform content. Indeed, push notifications occur in many instances even when the user is not directly interacting with the “pushing” application on their device. Additionally, “like counts” are merely a feature created and offered by Meta to principally track and motivate user feedback, all without altering the underlying published content.

As with Age Assurance, while the Court agrees with the State that autoplay, infinite scroll, “like counts,” and algorithmic recommendations combine to facilitate addictive or problematic behaviors in adolescent users, the Court does not see an equitable abatement method: (a) that impacts only Meta, rather than imposing restrictions industry-wide; and, (b) that respects the protections of the First Amendment and Section 230.

The simple fact is that all of this is one judge issuing orders regarding how a massive company with billions of users needs to be designed. And, yes, he’s trying to keep the platform safe but he’s making these decisions based on his feelings about what will work, and he’s no expert. And there’s nothing in there considering what happens if these changes actually make things worse, as they absolutely could do.

Within Meta, I’m quite sure they measure every little change. They check to see what works and what doesn’t. And when things don’t work, they adjust. Frequently. They have KPIs to meet and regular reviews. If something goes wrong they roll stuff back re-evaluate. They run A/B tests. They explore each decision, and they have to continually justify the decisions they make.

As their new product manager, Judge Biedscheid has none of that. He gets to declare from on high what changes Meta must make to their product, and… that’s it. The design decisions are his. But the responsibility isn’t. If teen mental health in New Mexico doesn’t improve — or if it gets worse — there’s no plan to review. There’s no rolling it back. There’s no A/B testing. Judge Biedscheid is off on another case.

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Flock Safety is happy it’s the go-to choice for tons of law enforcement agencies. While it does suffer some occasional bleeding, its supercharged automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) — ones that not only capture plates, but pictures of drivers/passengers and full vehicle images to capture any other distinctive features — are so widely deployed they’re now capturing 20 billion images per month across the nation.

Not bad for a company that started out pitching its spy wares to HOAs and gated communities. Most cops in America now have access to Flock’s databases, either directly or by asking those with access to run searches for them. Just ask federal law enforcement officers, who have asked for help so often its gotten them (and their enablers) in legal trouble.

Whether the cameras are being used to solve crimes, pull over innocent drivers, or help vengeful boyfriends attempt to thwart out-of-state abortions, Flock is there to… um… help?

The problem with 20 billion plates a month is this: cops have access to these records. It’s not that Flock has somehow made cops worse. They’ve been abusing access to databases like these for years to stalk exes, pursue sexual conquests, and harass protesters and critics.

So, this isn’t a Flock problem, per se. It’s definitely a cop problem, though. Millions of employed people have access to sensitive or proprietary information. Very few of them misuse their access. But there’s something about law enforcement that draws in people willing to abuse access for extremely personal reasons.

Some of that is the lack of accountability that plagues US law enforcement as a whole. Some of that is due to a dearth of guardrails or rigorous oversight. But I would argue the largest contributor to the ongoing, serial abuse of Flock’s databases by officers is the culture of law enforcement itself. There’s little in the job that would attract the best people needed to fill these positions. Instead, the promise of power and nearly nonexistent accountability attracts abusers, bullies, thugs, and random people who think the world owes them an elevated place in society.

In other words, if cops were really honest about why they became cops, it would go something like this:

It’s been a steady stream of THIS for a few months now. In May, the Institute of Justice released a report detailing abusive access to Flock databases by cops, dating back to 2021. Dozens of criminal cases against cops were detailed, but nearly every one of them had this in common: officers were using Flock ALPRs to track ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, ex-fiancees — in other words, women — along with their new partners, friends, and acquaintances.

A few weeks later, even more details in ongoing cases were revealed via public records and court proceedings obtained by 404 Media.

This is what stalking looks like when cops have access to Flock ALPR records:

For months during the summer of 2024, Jarmarus Brown, an Orange City, Florida police officer, ran his ex-girlfriend’s license plate through the Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) system lookup database at least 69 times. He searched for the license plate belonging to her mom at least 24 times, and searched for the license plate belonging to her dad at least 15 times. Brown’s searches were happening so often, and were so commonplace, that even one of his colleagues noticed Brown researching his ex-girlfriend’s whereabouts while the law enforcement officers sat in their police cruisers…

Pretty fucked up. What’s even more fucked up is the end result of Brown’s prosecution, which is only going to encourage more cops to abuse their access to ALPR databases:

Brown was arrested last year and pleaded no contest to a charge of unauthorized use of computers. He was sentenced this month to five years of probation and a $618 fine.

This story isn’t going away. A new report from the Washington Post shows Flock has a cop problem, mainly because cop shops have a cop problem. Cops cannot be trusted to not use millions of easily available records to stalk their ex-wives, girlfriends, etc.

Braselton, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta) was once home to Police Chief Michael Steffman. Steffman apparently couldn’t handle not knowing what his ex-girlfriend, Marci Bakely, was up to. Here’s how it started:

Flock had sold its system as a police officer’s dream crime-fighting tool. But the tool had also given the chief, Michael Steffman, the power to silently monitor Bakely’s life. By the time she understood what was happening, Steffman had looked up the tags for her and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times, according to Have I Been Flocked, a website that aggregates police search logs made available through public records.

This wasn’t spread out over the course of several years. (And not that a longer spread would make it any more acceptable.) These 600 searches occurred over the span of eight months. Roughly twice a day, the police chief was running searches targeting his ex-girlfriend and her daughter. Even the police chief gets days off, so the searches were definitely happening more than twice per (work) day.

Steffman was arrested last November and charged with stalking, harassment, and misuse of the Flock database. Steffman chose to escape justice.

In April, before a trial could take place, he was found dead in his home from what officials said was a suicide.

Steffman is not an outlier. He’s just another symptom of a law enforcement-specific disease:

In Wisconsin, a police officer allegedly used Flock to check whether his ex-girlfriend had gone to an abortion clinic, according to a police affidavit for a case set for trial this month.

In Kansas, a police chief who tracked his ex through Flock sneaked up on her while she was intimate with another man, a state police certification body alleged, leading to his firing.

In Florida, a deputy speeding to stop a young actress he’d added to a watch list for a license-plate tool called Guardian nearly caused a head-on crash, according to a police report and video from his dashboard camera. The deputy was arrested in March, and his attorney declined to comment.

And in California, prosecutors said a former deputy, Alexander Vanny, used Flock as part of a months-long campaign of “stalking” and “humiliating” his former fiancée that also involved following her around town and installing a hidden camera in her roommate’s bathroom, according to a sentencing brief.

This data just keeps coming in. Public records are being compiled at scale to allow people (you know, non-cops) to see how often their plate records have been accessed by law enforcement officers. There’s no PR win on the horizon for Flock, which has been largely (and belatedly) reactive to exposures of abuse by officers and further abuse by agencies who use other agencies to run searches they can’t legally perform themselves.

The comment offered in response to the Post’s reporting is par for the course:

After The Post relayed its findings to Flock, the company said in a statement it “will soon be announcing better filters and tools to stop abuse before it happens.”

Oh. OK. Since records of this abuse date back at least a half-decade, you would think Flock would already be on top of this. Instead, it appears to be tossing out a bit more lip service because this story just isn’t going away.

What has been implemented by Flock to date has almost exclusively been tools and guardrails law enforcement agencies can opt in to. None of this is on by default. Training guides and search logs are useless if law enforcement officers and officials aren’t going to read either of them. Voluntary “audit assistance” algorithms that scan for possibly suspicious searches by officers are similarly useless, since they’re entirely optional. If these were applied by default and statements/actions from police oversight groups was needed to remove them, they might actually have an effect. And I find it hard to believe any Flock sales rep is highlighting this optional feature when trying to talk cops into signing a contract.

Everything seen here is just going to keep getting worse. Flock offloads all professional responsibility to its end users. Its end users are rarely interested in accountability, much less proactive measures that might deter police misconduct. The company keeps adding cameras daily, which just gives abusers drawn to the opportunities for abuse that the law enforcement profession provides even more to work with. The victims aren’t the people buying or using these cameras, so they don’t matter and whatever happens to them will just be waved away with bland statements about “bad apples” and Flock spokespeople who abbreviate “we take these concerns seriously” as IDGAF.

There are so many shitty U.S. companies across tech, energy, and AI that criticism of our massively-unpopular telecom monopolies has fallen out of fashion. It’s easy to forget, for example, that Comcast routinely used to make headlines for setting peoples homes on fire, torturing pets, or at times killing people (most of the stories I used to write about this at DSLReports.com have been deleted after the owner abruptly and unceremoniously shut the website down).

So it feels like a bit of a throwback for Comcast to be under fire once again, this time for hitting low-performing employees in the face with pies. The company is facing a new lawsuit by employees who say one store manager made pies-to-the-face a tradition at a local company store. And encouraged everybody to videotape it:

“A lawsuit against Comcast’s cable division alleges that a store manager humiliated the lowest performing salesperson each month with a strange ritual in which a cream pie was smashed into the employee’s face. The lawsuit claims the store manager took videos of the assaults and ordered employees to participate in the assaults and record their own videos.”

Good times! Very on brand!

The full complaint makes for interesting reading, and includes paragraphs like this one:

“Specifically, for the entire time Plaintiff was employed by the Defendant, Defendant had a policy that the highest-ranked Retail Sales Consultant for the prior month was instructed by his or her supervisor-Ms. Peterson, the Comcast Store manager-to tie the lowest ranked sales consultant for the prior month to a chair in the back office and thereafter assault that person by violently smashing a cream pie in their face.”

In addition to wisely having employees videotape the harassment, the store manager also made sure to document the pies-to-the-face employees received on a store whiteboard.

This is, as somebody who spent decades writing about Comcast for various websites, child’s play when it comes to the width and breadth of poor judgement that can be found at this particular company.

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with a comment about Capital One’s stated reasons for shutting down Trump accounts:

Would be nice to have some disclosure laws so that if a presidential candidate’s had his bank accounts closed for money laundering, we don’t learn about it years later in a lawsuit.

In second place, it’s MrWilson with a reply on that same post to someone claiming Trump was targeted for political reasons:

“for political reasons” = Trump violating his oath of office, multiple laws, the Constitution, human and civil rights, et al.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the Paramount merger:

Given that Oracle laid off around 25,000 employees (of 162,000) last May just to keep inflating the AI hype, I won’t be surprised if Paramount has already planned layoffs to offset the giant debt of the deal.

Next, it’s Commenter #5759 with a comment about Buc-ee’s shying away from their John Oliver challenge and suing a tiny convenience store instead:

I wonder if John Oliver can convince HBO to fund this store’s legal defense.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment about the Trump/Capital One dispute:

A Republican: Tell me how I can be like you.
Trump: You have to start an insurrection, and launder money.
Republican: Why launder money?
Trump: See, nobody cares about the insurrection.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about requests to post proof of the claim that there are “numerous videos” of people cutting into the reflecting pool:

He can’t. They go to school in Canada.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got an exchange about RFK Jr.’s latest embarrassing display. First, it’s Heart of Dawn with an initial reaction:

If only the worms had finished what they started.

Next, it’s WTF over with a reply:

Unfortunately, the worms died of starvation.

That’s all for this week, folks!

This Week in 2016

• Manhattan DA Continues To Claim ‘We Don’t Want Crypto Backdoors…’ By Which He Means He Wants Crypto Backdoors
• No Matter Who Our Next President Is, They Won’t Understand Technology
• Broadband Industry Formally Tries, Once Again, To Kill Net Neutrality
• Comcast Tells The FCC It Should Be Able To Charge Broadband Users A Premium For Privacy
• Getty Sued Again Over Abusing Copyright Law, Licensing Images It Has No Rights To
• DOJ Makes Smart Decision On Music Licensing… Music Publishers Completely Lose Their Shit

This Week in 2011

• Court Finds Megaupload Could Be Guilty Of Direct Infringement In Perfect 10 Case
• Is Google Antitrust Investigation Simply A Repeat Of Wasteful Microsoft Antitrust Effort?
• Ron Wyden Puts Hold On FISA Amendments Act; Wants Answers To How Many Americans Have Been Spied On
• Huge Ruling: Court Says Proving Copyright Infringement Does Not Automatically Mean Irreperable Harm
• Righthaven Fails To Pay Sanctions; Complains A Day Late
• Mattel’s Lawsuit To Claim Ownership Of Bratz Comes Back To Bite Big Time: Told To Pay $309 Million

This Week in 2006

• Instant Messaging Still Not Ruining Kids’ Grammar
• Earth-Shattering Study Confirms Young People Dig New Technology
• Death Of Old Media Still Greatly Exaggerated
• Fake Bill Gates Quotes More Boring Than The Real Thing
• Now The Internet Makes You Neglect Family And Chores?
• Germany Says You Can’t Resell Software