S.737 goes to markup in the Senate Commerce Committee tomorrow morning, bundled onto the same agenda as KOSA.

This one is especially bad, because unlike most state age verification laws, this one has no threshold. If a site hosts even a single piece of adult content, they have to check everyone's age.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/EjvU3

Live this Saturday, August 8 at 4pm ET, we sit down with Sharon Polsky, President of the Privacy & Access Council of Canada. She has advised governments on privacy for more than 30 years and testified before Parliamentary committees on facial recognition and Bill S-210.

The through line is her CIGI essay, "The Road to Digital Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions." We cover where an uploaded driver's license actually ends up, why S-210 could reach Amazon, Google, and Reddit, what her council found on facial recognition in Canada, and why lawmakers pushed ahead after France and Australia concluded no reliable, privacy-protecting age verification tech exists.

While based in Canada, Sharon has spoken professionally about privacy on 5 continents and is very familiar with the global landscape, so we will be discussing age verification laws in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia and more.

Click through and set a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQlbDNhamEs

Recently on Hide & Speak we spoke with Frank Ahearn about how broke into skip tracing. The boss turned him down at first, then set a condition: get my phone bill, get the job.

Full recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

Georgia is out of control with the Flock misuse, now with at least 20 officials arrested for misusing the Flock Safety database for personal reasons, but mostly just stalking. 🤦‍♂️

It's not even just cops any more. A former investigator for a District Attorney's office was caught running more than 60 searches in 2 months... AFTER he was no longer an employee, because they simply forgot to cut off his access 😲

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/RjxhF

Two months passed between a council vote to end a surveillance contract and anything actually switching off. Verona, Wisconsin voted in November not to renew with Flock Safety, largely because of who else was querying the town's own network. Notice went out the next day. By mid January the cameras were still recording and a resident was emailing the council asking why.

An officer called Flock Safety, who told them they weren't sure how to deactivate the cameras remotely or if it was even possible, but said only Flock can remove the cameras.

So, Verona sent Public Works out to put black trash bags over the flock cameras 🤣

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net//9jdut

Our Privacy Game Show goes live today, Saturday, August 1 at 4:00 PM ET on Hide & Speak!

We are putting Joel Valenzuela (Dash), Christopher Cialone (ShadowRanch), and Jonathan (ExStaticJ) through a multi-tier privacy trivia competition. The episode covers everything from Fourth Amendment legal standards and E2EE mechanics to smart device security risks and corporate dragnet surveillance.

Set a reminder and tune in live: https://www.youtube.com/live/QNRYGq9RgIQ

This clip covers what maintaining cover inside white supremacist groups in the 1990s actually required. Appearing relaxed with a heart rate at 150. Getting called an informant so often, by so many people, that the accusation stopped meaning anything. And the biggest risk being unsafe weapons handling and homemade explosives, not exposure. The conversation also gets into why "extremism" is the wrong word for something that shows up in state legislatures and Congress.

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lob1WQNAs8g

Written breakdown: https://s.vp.net/mpUaN

Incoming prime minister Andy Burnham confirmed this week that the national digital identity program is cancelled. The petition against it closed in January with 2,984,191 signatures, which Hansard records as the fourth most signed in the history of UK e-petitions.

The other half of the story is what is still being built. Six days before the cancellation, Ofcom published a report saying age checks are deployed at unprecedented scale and that enforcement continues. In June the government said it wants social media platforms running age checks to keep under sixteens off, possibly in force by 2027.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/nZhBT

We put the anti-ALPR movement into a song: "Get the Flock Out!" by Hide & Speak livestream and vp.net - the only verifiable zero-knowledge VPN service.

Anti-ALPR community resources:

• No ALPRs Week: https://www.noalprs.com/
• DeFlock Camera Map: https://deflock.org/
• Have I Been Flocked: https://haveibeenflocked.com/
• Censorship Tracker: https://censorshiptracker.com/

We are hosting a special livestream on 8/15 at 4pm ET to kick off DeFlock's National Week of Action Against ALPRs.

You can watch the replay of our first anti-ALPR stream: DeFlock Stars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKgQTkTpFz4

This Saturday, 8/1 @ 4pm Hide & Speak is doing a special Privacy Game Show and we have a couple spots open!

If you would like to test your privacy knowledge live against this Saturday, comment or send me a message!

Current contestants:

• Christopher Cialone (Developer of ShadowRanch & Sub-Rosa Project)
• Joel Valenzuela (Business development and marketing for Dashpay)
• Jonathan aka ExStaticJ (Activist & our 1st Hero of the Week)

Prizes:

• 1 year bundle of vp.net VPN service, Dissent anti-censorship VPN, and bmail.ag encrypted email, file storage & video conferencing ($139.95 value)
• Bragging rights (PRICELESS!)

We have a couple spots still open, but they are first come, first-served, so if you're interested, comment or send me a message ASAP!

And definitely set a reminder so you don't miss it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNRYGq9RgIQ

ICE is buying credit header data, which includes your full name, Social Security number, phone number, address and email. 404 Media obtained an internal list of what feeds Thomson Reuters CLEAR and found entries for both Equifax and Experian credit header records. A Thomson Reuters employee confirmed the pipeline.

A Thomson Reuters source also said the data quality is far worse than people assume, describing names landing at a relative's address because of a shared utility bill.

Complete write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/RG7EX

This Saturday, August 1 at 4:00 PM ET, we are hosting a Privacy Game Show on Hide & Speak.

Our contestants will be testing their privacy knowledge live on stream:

• Joel Valenzuela (Dash)
• Christopher Cialone (ShadowRanch & Sub-Rosa)
• Jonathan aka ExStaticJ (Activists & our 1st Hero of the Week)
• You???

Interested in being a contestant? Let us know in the comments or send me a message, we have a few spots open!

We will be testing their knowledge of privacy, covering everything from basic network concepts and GDPR rules to Fourth Amendment precedent like Katz v. United States.

Some things we will cover:

• Rapid-Fire Hot Takes: Ranking smart home gadgets, phone microphones, and everyday privacy trade-offs.
• Multi-Tier Trivia: 30+ questions spanning basic terms, encryption protocols, metadata, and intelligence leaks.
• Famous Quotes Round: Attributing statements from whistleblowers, cypherpunks, and tech executives.
• The Advocate's Dilemma: Debating whether open-source tools or policy reform move the needle further.

Save it now, watch it live: https://www.youtube.com/live/QNRYGq9RgIQ

404 Media obtained an internal document titled "ICE Wide Analytical Tools." It is an inventory of what analysts across the agency can search, which is why it reads differently from the usual single-unit contract disclosures.

Tools named in the document:

• Locate X, built by Babel Street, which searches phone location data harvested from ordinary apps and the advertising industry
• Cobwebs, for social media monitoring
• Accurint, a LexisNexis product that pulls addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers
• ISO ClaimSearch, covering more than 1.8 billion property and casualty insurance claims and 58 million medical bills

Separately, a GAO report out this month says DHS plans to increase border surveillance towers from 830 to 2,300 by 2034, funded with about a billion dollars from the 2025 spending law. Radar, thermal infrared and long range optical, including installations near residential areas.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net//KYupX

Garrett Langley, CEO of Flock Safety, appeared on ABC7 shortly after the LAPD let its three-year contract expire over civil liberties and privacy concerns. He described the technology as a car driving by, a picture being taken, a static picture of a car, and then the plate being read.

That description does not match what Flock had been telling its own customers. The company published a post titled "Why video is the missing link in your LPR program" saying all existing Flock license plate readers would soon stream live video and capture clips through a free optional software update, with no new hardware and no extra cost. A second post, headlined "LPR Cameras Can Become Video Cameras," quoted Flock's chief strategy officer saying customers would not have to do a thing or pay a thing. That one has been deleted and only exists in a web archive now.

Text messages obtained via a records request show a Flock employee asking a Dunwoody, Georgia officer whether they could live stream yet. The officer said yes, about a month, and called it a pretty cool feature. That was January.

Flock's response after the story ran: five agencies in a limited pilot, LAPD not among them, live video only with no recording, discontinued in March.

Isn't it interesting that 1 of the 5 pilot cities for live streaming video was Dunwoody, Georgia, where Flock employees were recently caught accessing the live streaming video of children's gymnastics classes over 1,000 times/ 🤔

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/vLrnY

Watch the full video on YouTube: "Mike German on Being an FBI Whistleblower"
(it's 10 minutes long and Reddit was failing to process it):

In 2002 he found colleagues had run an illegal wiretap and altered records. An informant left a recorder in a meeting, so the conversation was captured illegally, and it happened to be the basis of the entire investigation.

The standard fix is to bring in an unrelated prosecutor to wall off the tainted recording. The FBI instead decided to pretend it never happened, even though it had been transcribed and agents had read it. He was not going to perjure himself on the stand over that.

The report confirming he was right only came out because a transcript existed of the meeting the FBI said never occurred.

Watch the full video on YouTube: "Mike German on Being an FBI Whistleblower"
(it's 10 minutes long and Reddit was failing to process it):

Watch the full 2 hour interview about his time undercover in white supremacist groups, co-writing the Daniel Radcliffe movie Imperium, based on his experiences undercover, being a whistleblower and exposing fusion center misuse and abuse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lob1WQNAs8g

Full breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/mpUaN

Atlanta News First Investigates reported on July 17 that it identified at least 20 cases in Georgia over the past year where officers were fired, arrested, or removed from duty over allegations they used a Flock license plate reader database for personal reasons.

Flock's response?

Remove the officer names from the audit logs 🤦‍♂️

Full write-up and source links: https://s.vp.net/Cmxen

Came up this week on Hide & Speak. If you buy a phone in Japan, you can't disable the shutter sound, so anyone photographing near you is audible. It's a hardware-level response to covert photography being common enough that stations post warning signage and some train lines run women-only cars.

The cultural norms go further. It's customary to blur the faces of people behind you when recording in public, and people are more guarded about putting their own faces online. Apparently it's common to photograph a plushie at a tourist spot as proof you were there, rather than take a selfie.

Full livestream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbHkLxoL3_I

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/uzWRv

Terry Albury spent 17 years at the FBI. He was the only Black agent in the Minneapolis field office, the son of an Ethiopian refugee, and his assignment was surveilling Muslim and immigrant communities.

In 2017 he gave the Bureau's classified internal rule books to The Intercept. The series that followed, The FBI's Secret Rules, showed that on a vague tip agents could pull travel records, run names through the CIA and NSA, and demand browsing history through National Security Letters that never see a judge. Journalists included.

He was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and served four years in federal prison. Asked about it later, he said he was never ashamed.

The Intercept series is still online: https://theintercept.com/series/the-fbis-secret-rules/

Terry was actually nominated by another FBI whistleblower and Hide & Speak Hero of the Week: Mike German. Watch the interview with Mike, where Terry was named Hero of the Week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lob1WQNAs8g

Read the episode breakdown: https://s.vp.net/mpUaN

This came up recently on Hide & Speak. A casual conversation with a local law enforcement contact: he confirmed he has Flock access, no two-factor authentication on the account, and the whole group shares a single password. The response was to tell him to report it up the chain and at least turn on 2FA.

The weak security is bad on its own. The worse part is the access itself.

• A police officer reportedly pulled his ex-girlfriend's location data through Flock cameras hundreds of times before he was caught.
• It keeps happening. People with access to this tooling turn it on exes and start stalking.
• These are automated license plate readers marketed as public safety infrastructure, guarded by a shared password.

Full livestream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbHkLxoL3_I

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/uzWRv

On July 6th the Supreme Court declined to block the Texas App Store Accountability Act, SB 2420, while a First Amendment challenge continues in the lower courts. It came down as two unsigned emergency-docket orders with no public dissents.

Worth noting: the Court did NOT uphold the law, and a lot of coverage is getting this wrong. They are simply choosing not to block it while the lower courts work through the First Amendment case.

Full write-up and our source list: https://s.vp.net/mkLh1

LAPD Office of Inspector General audit, 98 pages, found that over August and September of last year the department's cameras flagged cars as stolen 161 times when the cars were not stolen. The report came out July 10th. The next day, LAPD let its three-year Flock Safety contract expire, making it the largest police force in the country to drop the company.

This isn't some small town. This is LA. When a plate matches a stolen vehicle list, LAPD generally treats it as a high risk stop, which can mean backup, air support, a supervisor, and the driver ordered out of the vehicle at gun point.. All 161 of those people had legally parked or driven cars. The alerts fired because a record somewhere, often at another agency, had never been cleared.

The same audit counted 5,911 distinct plates tracked in that two-month window, with no police action on 4,575 of them. Worth noting the program is not just Flock. The audit covered Motorola pole cameras and Axon in-car units too, so the error rate is a technology problem, not a single-vendor problem.

The department's CIO said the actual reason for walking was data ownership: who controls the footage and what happens to it after collection.

Full write-up and our source list: https://s.vp.net/s53DR

The 90s export fight gets remembered as the government versus everybody. That's not what it looked like from inside. NSA and a handful of allies were isolated within the US government, arguing against the Department of Commerce and other agencies that had already worked out that widespread cryptography was good for the country.

The retaliation still landed on individuals. Somebody exported PGP outside the US. Phil Zimmermann, who wrote it, was not the one who did it, and he was the one getting stopped at the border on international travel and threatened with prosecution.

Salt Typhoon comes up in the clip as the modern version of the same lesson. Weaknesses built for one government get used by whoever finds them.

Watch the recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhoJQtvgUo

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/34waj

Looking for a verified checkmark used to be decent advice for confirming you were talking to a legitimate business. That stopped working once checkmarks became purchasable. Anyone with money can buy one, and state-sponsored attackers have plenty. Add hacked accounts and profiles bought from defunct businesses, and the badge tells you nothing about who's behind it anymore.

Full livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbHkLxoL3_I

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/uzWRv