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Where the backlash against Flock Safety is having the biggest impact

More than 90 cities ended Flock Safety contracts in August as Texas and Florida restrict license plate reader use amid privacy protests.

Over 90 cities and counties terminated Flock Safety contracts in August, per Secure Justice, which has tracked more than 200 municipal terminations since 2021. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott barred state agencies from funding Flock cameras on Aug. 28 after a report that a state agency secretly diverted $30 million; Florida's transportation department banned ALPRs on state highways and Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the technology. Los Angeles chose not to renew its LAPD contract over data-ownership terms, and Atlanta's mayor ordered a 30-day review of the roughly 5,000 ALPR cameras in the metro area. Several Flock-related police abuse cases, including a Texas officer indicted on 100 felony counts, have fueled the backlash.

The Record · 8d agoPolicy & legal

Flock camera use by internal affairs unit puts DC police at odds with officers’ union

DC's Metropolitan Police Department used Flock license plate cameras to track officers under internal affairs investigation, prompting a union grievance and council scrutiny.

The DC Police Union learned in July 2026 that MPD Internal Affairs used Flock ALPR cameras to monitor officers under investigation without their knowledge, filing a grievance that management denied. Secure Justice found more than 90 US cities and counties ended Flock contracts in August 2026 alone, with over 200 terminations since 2021, while Texas and Florida announced new usage restrictions. On September 14, DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto asked Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll ten questions about the department's use of Flock data.

The Record · 1d agoPolicy & legal

Risky Bulletin: Russia tells data centers to deploy drone defenses

Russia ordered data center operators to deploy drone strike defenses under a Putin decree allowing temporary state takeover of unprotected critical infrastructure.

The Russian government instructed data center operators to deploy protections against drone strikes under a presidential decree signed by Putin that allows temporary state administration of critical infrastructure operators failing to defend against Ukrainian hacks and drone strikes. Although data centers are not formally critical infrastructure in Russia, the decree applies to them because other sectors depend heavily on cloud services; Russia has more than 180 data centers, over 80% in the European region within range of Ukrainian strikes. The digest also reports a Dropbox breach affecting nearly 5,000 accounts via the Lenovo ID integration, spyware attacks on at least 14 Serbians using NoviSpy or Pegasus, and a password recovery attack targeting hundreds of thousands of X accounts tied to the new X Money service. Other items include a 14-hour compromise of Coder's Cloudflare infrastructure delivering malicious Terraform modules, donor data breaches at Davayte and You Are Not Alone via the Stripe/WooCommerce integration, a $2.5M Aquifer crypto heist, and a TVING breach exposing data of almost 40 million accounts.

Risky Business News · 13d agoPolicy & legal

Trump taps cyber firms to go on offensive against criminals

Presidential memorandum allows vetted private companies to conduct offensive cyber operations against transnational cybercrime with advance DOJ and DHS approval.

A presidential memorandum released Wednesday lets vetted US companies partner with the Justice and Homeland Security departments on offensive operations and surveillance targeting transnational cybercrime, fraud and predatory schemes, with written pre-approval required for every operation. Operations may not cause loss of life or rise to the level of use of force or armed attack under international law. Participating firms face penalties of at least $1 million for contract violations, must disclose all contractual relationships, and face annual evaluation, while agencies have two months to develop participation standards. The move builds on a March executive order; the White House says Americans reported $20.8 billion in cyber-related losses last year.

The Record · Aug 13, 2026Policy & legal

Srsly Risky Biz: Trump's Private Hacker Memo Is the Right Idea

A Trump presidential memo directs DHS to authorize vetted private-sector hackers to conduct cyber operations against foreign cybercriminal groups (CE-TCOs).

A presidential memorandum directs the Department of Homeland Security to establish a program authorizing private companies to conduct cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations against Cyber-Enabled Transnational Crime Organisations (CE-TCOs). Participating companies must pass vetting, obtain government approval before operations, and post a USD $1 million bond. The accompanying fact sheet cites more than USD $20.8 billion in US losses to cyber-enabled crime in 2025. Critics worry about accidental escalation if operations touch foreign government systems.

Risky Business News · 28d agoPolicy & legal1

You don’t have to join the hack-back program to inherit its risk

A new US presidential memorandum creates a vetted private hack-back program, leaving participating vendors and their customers with untested legal liability and collateral risks.

The August 12 National Security Presidential Memorandum directs the National Coordination Center, run jointly by DOJ and DHS, to approve covert surveillance and disruptive Cyber Effects Operations by vetted private companies, with a forfeitable bond of at least $1 million required as a contract condition. The analysis argues the criminal shield rests on an untested reading of the CFAA exemption at 18 U.S.C. 1030(f), with no civil safe harbor, no state-law preemption and no foreign-law protection. Non-participating organizations can still inherit risk through shared infrastructure collateral damage, lack of customer disclosure, Lloyd's bulletin Y5381 state-backed attack exclusions, and threat-intelligence pipelines feeding offensive proposals.

CSO Online · 1d agoPolicy & legal

New York Seizes 12 Celebrity Deepfake Websites

Manhattan DA seized 12 deepfake sites that turned ~1,200 people's photos into non-consensual intimate imagery, the largest such seizure.

The New York District Attorney seized 12 websites hosting AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery of roughly 1,200 people, including politicians, actors, athletes, and influencers, calling it the largest seizure of such sites in history. DA Alvin Bragg cited New York's 2023 law criminalizing sexually explicit deepfakes. The action follows federal seizures of two deepfake domains in June and the 2025 shutdown of MrDeepfakes, and precedes a 15-year sentence in the first Take It Down Act conviction.

404 Media · 2d agoPolicy & legal 2 sources