@theblufnews@mastodon.social

theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1w ago

Boosted by @MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social

Replying to

@MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social Court-watch presence matters — but the Supreme Court's Sept. 28 conference decides whether those bond hearings continue to exist at all. Nine of 11 federal circuit courts have ruled the 'no bond hearing ever' policy illegal; the justices decide Monday whether to take up the challenge. We covered the stakes: https://www.thebluf.news/p/ice-mandatory-detention-scotus-conference

The BL:UF

The Supreme Court Decides This Week Whether to Hear a Case That Could Let ICE Detain Millions Without a Bond Hearing

Ricardo Barbosa da Cunha lived in Massachusetts for two decades, married, had two kids, and ran a small construction business -- then immigration agents arrested him and said he wasn't entitled to a bond hearing, ever, under a new reading of a 30-year-old law. Nine of 11 federal appeals courts say that reading is wrong. On September 28, the Supreme Court decides whether to even hear the government's appeal of his case -- a decision that could reach as many as 6 million people.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social The 29,000 alibis make sense when you know: the Institute for Justice has documented over two dozen cases of police officers using Flock cameras to track romantic interests. In Milwaukee, one of the detectives assigned to investigate the first officer caught doing it was later charged with the same thing. https://www.thebluf.news/p/flock-camera-misuse

The BL:UF

Police Used License-Plate Cameras to Stalk Their Exes. One of the Officers Who Investigated the First Case Was Caught Doing the Same Thing.

Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala used the department's Flock license-plate-reader system to look up his romantic partner's location 124 times and her ex's location 55 times. He resigned and pleaded guilty. One of the two detectives assigned to investigate him, Tehrangi Chapman, was later charged with the same kind of misuse — tracking two people himself and secretly planting a GPS tracker on one of their cars. Georgia's state investigators have arrested five more officers

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

Your voice assistant can wake and record without the wake word.

A peer-reviewed study from Northeastern and Imperial College London measured it: smart speakers falsely wake about 1.43 times per 10,000 words spoken nearby.

In March 2025 Amazon told owners of three Echo models it was ending "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" — the last option to keep your audio off its cloud.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/alexa-siri-google-assistant-voice-surveillance

#Privacy #Surveillance

The BL:UF

Your Voice Assistant Doesn't Just Mishear You Sometimes. It's Listening Even When It Shouldn't Be.

In March 2025, Amazon quietly removed the one setting that kept some Echo recordings off its servers entirely — because its new AI needs the cloud to work. A peer-reviewed study found smart speakers wake up and start recording by accident 1.43 times per 10,000 words spoken near them, some clips running past 10 seconds, and which device falsely wakes often can't be predicted in advance. Amazon and Apple have both paid settlements or penalties over what their devices recorded and who heard it

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

An 11-year-old girl was stopped and searched because Rite Aid's facial recognition falsely matched her. The FTC banned the company from using it for five years.

From 2012 to 2020 Rite Aid ran the system in roughly 200 stores, concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods and ones that were majority Black, Latino or Asian.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/rite-aid-retail-facial-recognition-loyalty-data-surveillance

#Privacy #Surveillance

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@Nonilex@masto.ai The pattern goes further: Patel has also tied career agents' jobs to purging colleagues who worked Trump investigations — the Mar-a-Lago search, January 6. Brian Driscoll, the former acting FBI Director, named it on the record. We documented who got removed and why: https://www.thebluf.news/p/patel-the-payback-squad

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@AZAdvocacyHub@mastodon.social The IJ attorney in the piece makes this exact point — the audit tool only catches misuse after it's already happened. The deeper problem is that the data was collected on everyone, without cause, and just sits there accessible. The design is what enables it; the officers just acted on what was already possible.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@AZAdvocacyHub@mastodon.social Two cases from the same Wisconsin investigation: an officer ran a woman's plate 124 times and her ex-boyfriend's 55 times — each logged as 'investigation.' The detective later assigned to look into him was charged with identical misuse, plus secretly installing a GPS tracker on a woman's car. https://www.thebluf.news/p/flock-camera-misuse

The BL:UF

Police Used License-Plate Cameras to Stalk Their Exes. One of the Officers Who Investigated the First Case Was Caught Doing the Same Thing.

Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala used the department's Flock license-plate-reader system to look up his romantic partner's location 124 times and her ex's location 55 times. He resigned and pleaded guilty. One of the two detectives assigned to investigate him, Tehrangi Chapman, was later charged with the same kind of misuse — tracking two people himself and secretly planting a GPS tracker on one of their cars. Georgia's state investigators have arrested five more officers

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

The nervousness is warranted — in April 2025, Meta rewrote the defaults: Ray-Ban glasses now record-by-default and store voice for a year (opt-out removed). If you already own them, there are settings that stop it — Meta just doesn't walk you through them. thebluf.news/p/smart-glasses-record-by-default

The BL:UF

My Smart Glasses Record for Meta by Default. I Found the Switches That Make Them Stop.

I almost stopped wearing my Ray-Ban Meta glasses — all I'd heard was that footage gets reviewed by some company to train an AI, with no real oversight. The fear isn't a myth: in April 2025 Meta turned the AI on by default, made your photos and voice usable for training, and removed the opt-out for storing your voice. But you can't fix it by installing anything — the glasses are locked. You fix it in three settings, one network block, and how you wear them. Here's exactly where the switches are.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

Ask a Democrat what their party stands for and watch the pause. The party HAS a platform — 92 pages, formally adopted in Chicago in 2024. So why can't the people who vote for it name a single plank? Three documented reasons: it's orphaned, it has no voice, and it can't deliver. Part 2 of The Realignment: https://www.thebluf.news/p/name-one-plank #Politics #Democrats

The BL:UF

The Democrats Have a Platform. Almost No One Can Name a Plank.

The Democratic Party has a 92-page platform — so why can't the people who vote for it name a single thing it stands for? Not because the party believes in nothing, but because the platform is orphaned, no one is left to say it, and out of power it can't deliver.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 3w ago

They're warning you AI could be catastrophic. Anthropic tightened its rules because it couldn't rule out helping build a bioweapon. A hacking group used it to run a real attack. Nobody's slowed down — Anthropic's own revenue just topped $65B. So who's actually being warned? New York already forced a real answer once. Watch: https://www.thebluf.news/p/ai-pocalypse-now #AI #TechPolicy

The BL:UF

AᵢPOCALYPSE NOW?

The warnings are reaching the public. The power to slow AI down sits with the labs, Congress, and investors — and almost all of them are still speeding up. Here's what's actually being warned about, who actually has to act, and the one time it's already worked.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

Walmart's privacy policy says the company may collect your FACE GEOMETRY, your VOICEPRINT, your IRIS, and your FINGERPRINTS. It says LICENSE PLATE READERS may be in use on its lots.

That is not a leak. That is not a lawsuit. That is the policy, published and in effect.

What the company actually did is in court: two active suits, over voiceprints taken by an AI phone system and over fingerprint time clocks.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/walmart-biometric-privacy-policy-update

#Privacy

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

Correction. On Sept 1 we posted that ShotSpotter is "wrong on 85–89% of alerts." That was wrong twice over.

Nobody found 85%. We widened the range ourselves. The real figures: the MacArthur Justice Center found 89% of Chicago alerts turned up no evidence of a gun crime; NYC's Comptroller found 87% saw no confirmed shooting.

"No evidence found" is not the same as "wrong." We've deleted that post.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/street-surveillance-shotspotter-stingray-fusion-centers

#Surveillance

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

CBP can keep a non-citizen's face data for up to 75 years. A U.S. citizen's photo, from the same camera at the same checkpoint, is discarded within 12 hours.

TSA's domestic face scan is optional by policy. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal body, found that right is communicated inconsistently at the checkpoint.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/tsa-cbp-airport-facial-recognition-biometrics

#Privacy #Surveillance

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

Uber ran secret tools to dodge cops and spy on Lyft's own drivers. Today it's the only one of the four -- Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart -- telling you how long it keeps your location data.

Read all four companies' privacy policies: only Uber gives a specific number. No federal law requires one -- two bills died in Congress. California residents do have a real, enforceable fix.

https://www.thebluf.news/p/rideshare-delivery-app-secret-tools-data-retention

#Privacy #Surveillance

The BL:UF

Uber Built Secret Tools to Track Cops and Rivals. Now It's the Only One of the Four Telling You How Long It Keeps Your Data.

For years, Uber ran secret software that identified undercover police and served them a fake app so they could never catch a ride. A separate Uber tool tracked Lyft's own drivers. A third remotely wiped company laptops the second police raided a foreign office. All three were built to control what outsiders could see. Uber says the tool for tracking regulators is retired — it pledged in March 2017 to stop using it against law enforcement — but no independent audit has confirmed that nine years l

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@Nonilex@masto.ai Context for this thread: Trump's July 16 address called for ending mail voting (outside illness/disability/military), but that ban appeared on the White House website — not in the SAVE Act bill text. The bill's actual provisions differ from what was announced. thebluf.news/p/trump-save-america-election-fearmongering

The BL:UF

Trump Released the Evidence for an Election Crisis. It Doesn’t Prove One.

The biggest number is redacted. Two separate counts became 278,000. Machine vulnerabilities were never shown to have been exploited. And the bill he demanded does not ban mail voting.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@heidilifeldman@mastodon.social Good to flag — worth adding the nuance behind the AG's warning: the July 1 date is real, but it isn't a universal deadline. It mainly forces action for SAVE borrowers (~7.5M), who now have a 90-day window from their servicer's notice before auto-enrollment into a flat-rate plan not based on income. If you're not on SAVE and not taking a new loan, your options hold through mid-2028.

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theblufnews @theblufnews@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@jeneralist@mstdn.science The Lancet study behind this (Sasieni et al., June 2026) puts it at ~200 cervical cancer deaths already prevented — and the researchers call that "the tip of the iceberg" as vaccinated cohorts age. Two caveats worth adding: UK coverage is still ~76%, short of the 90% WHO says elimination needs, and it's not just for girls — HPV also causes throat, anal and penile cancers. We wrote it up plainly: https://www.thebluf.news/p/hpv-vaccine-cervical-cancer

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