"Both Operation LASER and PredPol are sponsored by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance’s SMART Policing Initiative, which aims to use 'evidence-based, data-driven' policing strategies to try and pre-empt and prevent crime."
"What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater."
"The combination of automated plate readers every 10 yards or so with always-on cameras that feed into an always-watching (and recording) nexus of 'private-public' surveillance is bleak, depressing and scary. Worse, it’s real."
"Police admitted to using a photo sent through WhatsApp to cull fingerprints for evidence that successfully led to the conviction of 11 individuals for drug crimes. The story further revealed that this was not just a special-use case."
"China said this week it will begin applying its so-called social credit system to flights and trains and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year."
"As long as I'm carrying my Black Opal, there's that little shred of liberty. If this the hill I die on, at least you'll never know how I got here."
"The prohibition 'makes outlaws out of perhaps thousands of Nashvillians who…are simply trying to earn an honest living,' according to the suit. There are at least 1,600 home-based enterprises in operation in the city, and since many such companies are forced to operate illegally, the true count is most likely even higher."
"Uber, Lyft, and several other firms critically involved in self-driving cars have their own ideas about how to improve personal transport — and one of the biggest involves you not being allowed to drive your car at all."
"This final exit scan had a different feel. It was not about the airline. It was not about stopping terrorism and other mischief. It is purely about the possibility that the right of a person to exit could be denied for any reason the government happens to dream up."
"In a secret deal, a French company purchased code from a Kremlin-connected firm, incorporated it into its own software, and hid its existence from the FBI, according to documents and two whistleblowers. The allegations raise concerns that Russian hackers could compromise law enforcement computer systems."